chain of custody if it is a tape, which you believe it may be.”
“The ring—”
“Also issues with chain of custody.”
“The information provided by Delilah Rose—”
“Saddest excuse for a three-oh-two I’ve ever read in my life,” Baima intoned. “Strike three, you’re out.”
Kimberly scowled. “Come on, you
heard
that call. We can’t walk away. A woman died begging for her life. How can you—”
“We’re not.”
Kimberly eyed her supervisor skeptically. “We’re not?”
“No, we’re kicking it to GBI, where a case like this belongs. You said Special Agent Martignetti started things. Let Martignetti work missing persons and track down hookers. Better yet, maybe he can come up with a crime scene, or, heaven forbid, a body. One way or another, this is more GBI’s jurisdiction than ours.”
“But Delilah won’t talk to Martignetti—”
“Maybe no one has asked her nicely enough. Until we have evidence of crossing state lines, this isn’t an FBI case. Period. You have eighteen open files on your desk right now. Here’s a thought: Pick one and close it.”
Kimberly scowled, chewing her lower lip. “And if GBI wants to set up a tap on my cell phone?”
Baima gave her a look. “Think hard about all the calls you get and from what sources. You’re opening the door on each and every one. I’d find a better way to cooperate.”
“Point taken.”
Kimberly rose briskly, careful not to let the triumph show on her face.
At the last minute, her supervisor stopped her. “How you feelin’?”
“Fine.”
“Your workload is pretty high, Kimberly. While you’re still feeling so well, it might be the time to start planning ahead.”
“Is that an order?”
“Call it a friendly suggestion.”
“Once again, I live to serve.”
Now Baima did roll his eyes. Kimberly took that as her cue to leave. Her supervisor had granted her permission to find a better way to cooperate with the state. Surely that included delivering Tommy Mark Evans.
Kimberly’s father had entered the Bureau after a brief stint with the Chicago PD. He’d been old-school FBI, in the days when G-men wore dark suits, obeyed all things Hoover, and lived by the mandate Never Embarrass the Bureau.
Truthfully, Kimberly had been too young to remember her father’s time in the field, but she liked to picture him in a somber black suit, his dark eyes unreadable as he stood across from some petty gangster, breaking the suspect’s alibi with a mere arch of his eyebrow.
After his workaholic ways imploded his marriage, Quincy had gotten into profiling, transferring to what was then called the Behavorial Science Unit at Quantico. In theory, he’d moved into the field of research in order to spend more time with his daughters. In reality, he had traveled more than ever, working over a hundred cases a year, each one more shockingly violent and twisted than the last.
He never talked about his work. Not when he’d been with a field office and certainly not once he started profiling. Instead, Kimberly had taken it upon herself to become immersed in her father’s world, sneaking into his study late at night, flipping through his homicide textbooks, glancing at manila folders filled with crime scene photographs, diagrams of blood spatter, reports from coroners’ offices filled with phrases like “petechial hemorrhages,” “defensive wounds,” and “postmortem mutilation.”
Kimberly had been an FBI agent for only four years, but in many ways she had been studying violent crime her whole life. First, under the mistaken impression that if she could understand her father’s work, then she could understand the man. Second, as a victim herself, trying to wade through the emotional morass that came with knowing her mother died a long, brutal death, fighting for her life inch by inch, as she crawled across the hardwood floors of her elegant Philadelphia town house.
Had Bethie died in a state of terror,
“The ring—”
“Also issues with chain of custody.”
“The information provided by Delilah Rose—”
“Saddest excuse for a three-oh-two I’ve ever read in my life,” Baima intoned. “Strike three, you’re out.”
Kimberly scowled. “Come on, you
heard
that call. We can’t walk away. A woman died begging for her life. How can you—”
“We’re not.”
Kimberly eyed her supervisor skeptically. “We’re not?”
“No, we’re kicking it to GBI, where a case like this belongs. You said Special Agent Martignetti started things. Let Martignetti work missing persons and track down hookers. Better yet, maybe he can come up with a crime scene, or, heaven forbid, a body. One way or another, this is more GBI’s jurisdiction than ours.”
“But Delilah won’t talk to Martignetti—”
“Maybe no one has asked her nicely enough. Until we have evidence of crossing state lines, this isn’t an FBI case. Period. You have eighteen open files on your desk right now. Here’s a thought: Pick one and close it.”
Kimberly scowled, chewing her lower lip. “And if GBI wants to set up a tap on my cell phone?”
Baima gave her a look. “Think hard about all the calls you get and from what sources. You’re opening the door on each and every one. I’d find a better way to cooperate.”
“Point taken.”
Kimberly rose briskly, careful not to let the triumph show on her face.
At the last minute, her supervisor stopped her. “How you feelin’?”
“Fine.”
“Your workload is pretty high, Kimberly. While you’re still feeling so well, it might be the time to start planning ahead.”
“Is that an order?”
“Call it a friendly suggestion.”
“Once again, I live to serve.”
Now Baima did roll his eyes. Kimberly took that as her cue to leave. Her supervisor had granted her permission to find a better way to cooperate with the state. Surely that included delivering Tommy Mark Evans.
Kimberly’s father had entered the Bureau after a brief stint with the Chicago PD. He’d been old-school FBI, in the days when G-men wore dark suits, obeyed all things Hoover, and lived by the mandate Never Embarrass the Bureau.
Truthfully, Kimberly had been too young to remember her father’s time in the field, but she liked to picture him in a somber black suit, his dark eyes unreadable as he stood across from some petty gangster, breaking the suspect’s alibi with a mere arch of his eyebrow.
After his workaholic ways imploded his marriage, Quincy had gotten into profiling, transferring to what was then called the Behavorial Science Unit at Quantico. In theory, he’d moved into the field of research in order to spend more time with his daughters. In reality, he had traveled more than ever, working over a hundred cases a year, each one more shockingly violent and twisted than the last.
He never talked about his work. Not when he’d been with a field office and certainly not once he started profiling. Instead, Kimberly had taken it upon herself to become immersed in her father’s world, sneaking into his study late at night, flipping through his homicide textbooks, glancing at manila folders filled with crime scene photographs, diagrams of blood spatter, reports from coroners’ offices filled with phrases like “petechial hemorrhages,” “defensive wounds,” and “postmortem mutilation.”
Kimberly had been an FBI agent for only four years, but in many ways she had been studying violent crime her whole life. First, under the mistaken impression that if she could understand her father’s work, then she could understand the man. Second, as a victim herself, trying to wade through the emotional morass that came with knowing her mother died a long, brutal death, fighting for her life inch by inch, as she crawled across the hardwood floors of her elegant Philadelphia town house.
Had Bethie died in a state of terror,
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