Sharp Force, page 18
“You think you’re smart, dontcha?”
I don’t answer.
“Why did you pull us over?” Benton asks him.
“Why do you think?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well guess what, Special Agent Benton Wesley? You didn’t come to a complete stop at the last intersection.”
“What intersection?”
“At Bashford Lane,” Trooper Whalen says, his duty belt dangerously close to Benton’s door.
“The light was green.” Benton is unflappable. “And how about stepping back a little before you scratch the paint.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to do that to your fancy Tesla, would we?”
As he says this, something metal on his belt touches the door, making a quiet scraping sound.
“If you damage my car, you’re going to hear about it,” Benton warns, and Trad Whalen smiles.
CHAPTER 22
“You decided to blow through the intersection because rules don’t apply to you. Isn’t that right?” The trooper raises his voice as if mindful he has an audience, his body camera recording. “Now I realize you folks with the Secret Service think you’re pretty special. But you don’t get to ignore traffic laws.”
“I didn’t,” Benton says.
“I know what I observed, and right now you’re on my turf.”
“This is the U.S. Park Police’s turf, not yours. The parkway is federal property, as you’re well aware,” Benton answers.
“This your vehicle?”
“Yes. As you know from running my plate.” Benton’s tone is colder.
“Proof of ownership, please,” Whalen demands, as if we might be thieves.
“This is bullshit and blatant harassment. I didn’t run a stop sign or anything else.” Benton opens the console, handing him the registration. “The car’s cameras will prove it. But what a waste of time. Showing up at traffic court. Both of us.”
“Make that the three of us,” I promise, staring at my reflection in the trooper’s sunglasses as he fumbles with one of my wallets.
It plops to the soggy ground, and he stoops to retrieve it, taking his time. Wiping it dry on his pants as he straightens up, he begins to look through it.
“Well, well, Doctor Scarpetta,” he sneers. “A peace officer, isn’t that something? I’m impressed.”
Instantly, I regret bringing the wallet that displays my ID and police shield. I wish I hadn’t let Benton talk me into it. Cops don’t respect professionals like me who are civilian law enforcement. Worse than rookies, we’re considered wannabes.
“I understand you took care of Rowdy O’Leary,” the trooper says as he returns my credentials. “He wasn’t well, as you probably know.” Whalen twirls his gloved index finger at his temple. “Getting drunk and firing his gun at something before ending up in the river. I assume he drowned?”
I don’t answer. I’m not telling him a damn thing.
“Rumor has it you stopped by his house last night.” Whalen’s mirrored glasses flash at me.
“We’re not at liberty to discuss what we’re working on. Now, if you’ll excuse us,” Benton says, shifting the Tesla into drive.
“I’ll let you go this time.” Whalen backs away from the car. “But I’ll be watching.”
We pull back onto the parkway, the trooper staring after us as he climbs into his SUV.
“He knew we were coming before deciding to pull us over,” I say to Benton.
“No question.” He continues scanning the mirrors.
Waiting for other cars to pass, the trooper follows us from a distance. Slowly dropping back.
Turning off on an access road.
Then gone.
Benton picks up his phone, holding it close to his lips, dictating a voice-to-text message to Lucy.
“See what you can find out about Virginia State Police Trooper Trad Whalen,” he says. “He just pulled us for no reason while we’re headed to the scene. It’s obvious he was waiting for us. I don’t know what the hell he’s up to except interfering with an investigation. You and Tron need to be aware.”
I continue watching in my side mirror, making sure the trooper doesn’t reappear, and moments later a text lands on Benton’s phone. He hands it to me as we drive in traffic, and I read Lucy’s answer out loud.
She says that Trad Alvin Whalen is forty years old and born in Richmond. A criminal justice major at Virginia Commonwealth University, he barely graduated with a 2.0 GPA. For three years he was a campus police dispatcher, then a VCU uniformed officer.
“He received numerous complaints from students.” I pass on what Lucy reports. “For harassment, and inappropriate behavior toward several women who claimed in sworn statements that he was following them while they were driving. He was doing this in his campus police cruiser.”
“How did he end up a state trooper? I don’t see how he passed the background check,” Benton wonders. “Makes no sense.”
“He signed on with the Capitol Police in two-thousand-thirteen, then the state police several years after that.” I relay the rest of Lucy’s information.
“He must know somebody,” Benton says. “Or someone owes him a favor because he has dirt on them. You don’t go from a campus cop who gets fired to becoming a Capitol Police officer and next a state trooper.”
“He sounds like a real character disorder,” I comment. “And I’m sure he resents the hell out of federal agents like you. He probably dislikes any authority figure.”
“Including a woman chief medical examiner, and that’s not why he stopped us. But it made it more fun.” Benton scans his mirrors. “Still no sign of him?”
“He’s definitely not following us anymore, hasn’t been for the past five minutes,” I answer as we slow down, Benton turning on his flashers.
He pulls off onto the median, melting snow drumming the undercarriage as he bumps over a wide swath of grass, parking between clusters of trees. He opens the console, lifting out a spectrum analyzer the size of a walkie-talkie, a birthday present from Lucy.
Powering it on, Benton watches as it begins scanning the car and area immediately around us. Electronic transmissions show on the display in vivid green peaks and dips that remind me of an electrocardiogram.
I can see that a signal is spiking more strongly than the others in the 2.4 MHz bandwidth range, and that could be a lot of devices. Anything from a microwave oven to a garage door opener, Benton informs me.
“I know the car’s electronic signature,” he’s saying. “And I confirmed it with a quick scan before pulling out of the carriage house just like I always do. The signal spiking right now wasn’t there earlier. I think we have a stowaway.”
“Trad Whalen was leaning against the car. He sanitized his hands, putting on gloves. Maybe we know why.” I replay what he did. “He was up to something.”
“He dropped one of your wallets.” Benton digs in the console for a flashlight. “He stooped down and futzed around, picking it up. Took him a good minute, and it wasn’t possible for either of us to see what he was doing.”
“And he planted something?”
“That’s when he would have done it,” Benton says.
“For what purpose?”
“Surveillance is the first thing that comes to mind. Possibly a GPS tracker.”
“The state police are spying on the Secret Service? Well, I hope you’re wrong,” I reply.
“I need gloves if you have any handy.” Benton takes off his seat belt.
“I never leave home without them.” Inside my briefcase is a sealed plastic bag of purple exam gloves. “Here you go.”
He takes a pair, opening his door, the sound of traffic loud and relentless on the parkway. I keep up my scan for Trad Whalen, hoping he doesn’t reappear, perhaps catching us in the act of discovering his dirty work.
“What about an evidence envelope?” Benton asks.
“Coming up.” I give that to him next.
It doesn’t take long to find what the trooper attached to the undercarriage. Benton stands up in the wind, the sun seeping through breaks in the overcast, the noise of cars and big trucks pervasive.
He shows me the small device in his gloved hand, what appears to be a transmitter about the size of a credit card. It looks like a miniature circuit board, blue and wafer-thin with a magnetic connector.
“Do you know what this is?” I ask.
“I know it’s something that shouldn’t be attached to my damn car,” Benton says with a flare of anger.
He climbs back into the driver’s seat, and I take a photograph of what he found. Texting the image to Lucy, I explain the circumstances while Benton places the device inside the evidence envelope. I dig into our breakfast bag, pulling out crumpled aluminum foil, smoothing it open.
Cleaning it as best I can with a napkin, I wrap the foil around the evidence envelope, creating a Faraday cage of sorts. It will shield all electronic signals incoming and outgoing, rendering the device useless if it isn’t already.
“I don’t want this going to the Secret Service labs. Not to your labs either,” Benton says as I tuck the foil-wrapped package into my briefcase. “Can you have it handled discreetly with Lucy?”
“Will do. And I have a feeling Trooper Whalen doesn’t believe we can prove he planted it. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but he’s not worried for some reason. Maybe he assumes we just fell off the potato truck and are clueless about what he did.”
“If we don’t say anything, he’s not going to know we’re onto him and his little Christmas gift. That’s how we handle this.” Benton takes off his gloves, stuffing them into the console.
“Wouldn’t he be aware that the device isn’t connected any longer?” I question. “That suddenly it’s not transmitting or receiving?”
“I don’t know what he’ll personally be aware of but doubt it’s much when it comes to technology. What’s most important is figuring out whose bidding he’s doing.”
“And is it connected to where we’re headed or to Rowdy O’Leary, who was calling Whalen about the Slasher murders?” I suggest.
“We can’t be sure what O’Leary was involved in, and now he’s mysteriously dead,” Benton replies as Lucy answers about the device in question.
What the trooper attached to the underside of the Tesla is an off-the-shelf wireless Controller Area Network (CAN-bus) reader modified with three extra antennas.
“Likely connected to a TPARTS game controller.” I’m reading Lucy’s text out loud. “All of this you can buy from Amazon. Obviously, an attempt to hack into your car by someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“Okay. Worse than I thought,” Benton says in a flinty tone.
“Much worse,” I reply. “Someone could have remotely taken control of the steering, the brakes, the navigation, anything. Causing a terrible accident, possibly a fatal one. And Trad Whalen would be the first to respond, making sure the device he planted disappears.”
I keep up my scan of the mirrors, watching for him as Benton drives back onto the parkway, turning off the flashers as scenarios mushroom in my mind. Should a hacker take over our SUV, we could find ourselves suddenly accelerating and veering into oncoming cars.
Or slamming on the brakes and getting rear-ended. Maybe rocketing through an intersection where pedestrians are crossing. Or ending up in the Potomac River, unable to open the electronic locks.
“We’re talking about more than illegal surveillance. What Trad Whalen did is attempted murder,” I add with a surge of anger.
“I don’t believe planting such a thing was his idea,” Benton says. “He’s not smart enough. But he thinks he is, and that makes him easy to manipulate.”
Quietly outraged, I put on my sunglasses as the haze continues to thin.
“He might not even know what the device is for. And doesn’t care.” Benton reasons through what’s happened. “He’s doing as instructed by someone far more sophisticated than he’ll ever be.”
“Whoever is involved should face criminal charges. You should make sure of that.”
“Not smart to show our cards quite yet. Plus, we’d have to prove it,” Benton says.
“Since he dug his gloves out of a pocket, there’s no way they weren’t contaminated,” I point out. “A good chance we’ll find his DNA.”
“Maybe someone wanted to sabotage our car in hopes we’d be injured or killed, but I rather doubt it.” Benton continues pondering the possible motive. “More likely, we were intended to find the device.”
“Except we aren’t supposed to be on the way to Mercy Island right now and not many people know we are,” I remind him. “Technically, we’re on vacation, getting ready to leave the country. That was the plan.”
“Someone gave Whalen a heads-up. An assignment,” Benton says.
CHAPTER 23
We’re nearing Daingerfield Island’s picnic areas, parking lots and marina off to our right at the river’s edge. The Mount Vernon Trail cuts through the wooded spit of land, snow showing in shadows between trees, and now Marino is texting again.
Have notified officers at the entrance of Mercy Island & will meet you at 13 Shore Lane. Wi-Fi’s back up, lights on, phones working again, he writes.
I think of the signal jammer found outside the wall around the hospital grounds, the same small black box with eight stubby antennas that’s turned up in the earlier murders. The homemade device interferes with the signals between cell towers, rather much like background noise in a crowd drowning out a conversation.
“You don’t believe they’re related, do you?” I ask Benton. “The signal jammer at the crime scene, and what the trooper attached to our car?”
“Unfortunately, plenty of people out there are well versed in electronic devices, modification kits, and all that goes with them,” he answers. “The components are readily available, and you can google for instructions. But it wouldn’t make sense to think the Slasher has something to do with an attempt at hacking into our car.”
“Let’s hope not. It would suggest he knows a lot about us. But then he probably does if he’s spying on our property.”
I look up at the clearing sky as if I might spot the serial killer’s orb-shaped drone threading in and out of clouds.
“I suspect Whalen was passing along a message,” Benton says. “A threat from someone powerful. We’re being warned.”
“I find that very disturbing since there’s White House involvement,” I reply. “Are you considering what he did might be related to that?”
“Yes.”
“Should we be worried about Calvin Willard? Is he being protective of his nephew and warning us to be careful?” I ask.
“The publicity about Zain won’t be a good thing. No doubt already isn’t,” Benton says. “And if it turns out he’s the killer, that’s enough to tank Calvin Willard’s bid for president.”
I’m alerted of another incoming call. As I see who it is, I can’t help but think of the irony.
“Speaking of someone powerful,” I say to Benton.
“Doctor Scarpetta.” I answer my phone, pairing it with the SUV’s speakers.
“Please hold for the governor,” her chief of staff, Laverne, tells me.
I hope she won’t be listening in on the conversation. I have little doubt she’ll pass on anything useful to her pal Maggie Cutbush, who won’t hesitate to use the information against me somehow.
“Kay? What on earth is going on?” Governor Roxane Dare’s unhappy voice sounds inside the Tesla. “I wake up Christmas morning to news of another Phantom Slasher attack? This time on Mercy Island?”
“I’m on my way there—” I start to reply before she interrupts.
“Not even two months since the last murder, and now again. On Christmas morning of all times. Two victims slashed to pieces, the woman dead. I understand she was attacked in bed like the others.”
“As I’ve said, I haven’t reached the scene yet.” I’m not going to share what I know at this stage. “I’m not in a position to discuss—”
“Kay, we’re supposed to be partners in keeping the public safe.” The governor cuts me off. “Or at least this was my understanding when I brought you back to Virginia, appointing you chief again. Two powerful women working in tandem. I thought we’d have each other’s back.”
She’s making sure I’ve not forgotten why I’m here, and that I should be grateful. Eternally grateful. Most of all I’d better show it.
“I’m assuming it’s correct that one of the victims is Zain Willard.” Roxane gets to the real reason she’s calling. “Calvin Willard’s nephew, a lovely young man I met not so long ago at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree.”
“I won’t be releasing the names of the victims yet,” I tell her. “Not until their identities have been confirmed, the next of kin notified.”
“The news is everywhere, Kay. The next of kin must already know.”
“That would be a shame. No one should find out that way.”
“Listen, let’s not pretend.” The governor is getting testier. “I happen to know for a fact that Zain Willard is in the hospital with serious injuries. Already there are conspiracy theories questioning his innocence. We need to stop the vicious rumors, and that’s what Calvin Willard wants. The whole thing is unfortunately messy.”
“Murder always is, Roxane,” I reply.
“The less messy we can make this, the better.” The way she says it is meant to be intimidating. “Which brings me to another case all over the news. Rowdy O’Leary, such a heartbreak for his family. I assume he drowned after drinking too much while fishing at night?”
“He’s pending right now. There are a lot of questions.”
“Well, my sincere hope is you’ll finalize his case ASAP so his poor distraught family can have some peace of mind.”
It’s not a hope. Roxane is giving me a directive, and I think of Maggie appearing at my office as I was leaving yesterday. I have no doubt that she passed on everything I said to Laverne, who then relayed it to the governor.
“I don’t have enough information—” I’m saying, when Roxane interrupts again.
