Authors: John Gilstrap
That Tim Burrows, the wonder boy, had been standing in for him all week didn't help matters a bit. At thirty-something, Burrows looked twenty-something and sported that kind of raw enthusiasm and ambition that made Russell nervous. As assistant supervisory agent in charge of a field office that generated precious few national headlines, Tim would sacrifice his left nut to personally command a murder investigation. If things went well, and the bad guys were apprehended with the appropriate flair, a young agent could fatten his personnel file with the right kinds of letters and commendations. All of these things defined the reasons why Russell had busted his butt to make it out here to East Jesus at zero dark early.
Properly restrained, Tim was a genuine asset to the Bureau; not to
be confused with the genuine ass he often made of himself when you didn't sit on him from time to time. Russell didn't fully understand what had happened with the academy graduates of Burrows's era, but somebody had pumped their egos with helium. Never a group known for low self-esteem, the younger agents in the field these days floated somewhere between annoying and insufferable.
Of course, it could just be that Russell was getting old, but he refused to believe that. Outside of the National Football League, forty-three didn't meet anyone's definition of over-the-hill.
As the ground dropped away below them, Russell saw four smoke trails rising from the ground where someone had used road flares to mark out a makeshift landing zone around what appeared to be a narrow fire trail. He took it on faith that the pilot had a good feel for the length of his rotors, but held his breath anyway as the Aerospatiale chopper approached from upwind and then flared gracefully before touching down without so much as a bump.
"On the ground safe and sound, sir," said the pilot.
Russell reached across the center console and shook his hand. "Nice job. Glad it's not mine." He ducked low under the rotor disk as he jogged away from the big machine. Something about a bazillion horsepower guillotine overhead just made you want to be shorter.
Russell headed for a group of rangers gathered around a Park Service vehicle, and as he did, one of the cluster - a mid-thirties blonde with that hearty woman-of-the-earth look that seemed so common
among park rangers - broke off from the pack and walked out to meet him.
Sarah Rodgers," she said, extending her hand. "I'm the shift supervisor."
Russell grasped her hand, noting from her grip that she was no stranger to physical labor. In fact, she could probably take him in two rounds without breaking a sweat. "Russell Coates, FBI. Special agent in charge."
You re the 'SAC I've been hearing so much about. I guess I was expecting something in burlap." Sack. Burlap. Funny. First time he'd ever heard that one. He smiled. "Actually, it's the Secret Service that pronounces the word. We only spell it. It's S period, A period, C period. What kind of resources we got working up here now?"
As she talked, Sarah tried to lead him back toward her fellow rangers, but he stood still, bringing her back in closer to him. It's the little things that let people know who's really in command, and he'd lived through enough jurisdictional wars to know the importance of coming on strong at the beginning.
"Well, there's a few of your people up at the scene with the body along with a few of mine, and a few local and state police thrown in for good measure. If you want specific numbers, I'm afraid I don't have them."
Shit. Too many people. "What about hikers? Is the area closed off to them?"
The question amused her. "This is a national park, Agent Coates. People come and go, and they don't always use the trails. I assume your agents are controlling the scene up on the mountain, but if you're asking if we've shut the gates, the answer is no. And if you're about to ask me to do that, the answer again is no."
Why did he have the feeling that they'd gotten off on the wrong foot? He smiled as best he could. "Look, Ms. Rodgers, I don't mean to offend, okay? I'm just a little disappointed that the whole world might have traipsed through this crime scene before I've even had a chance to see it."
"Ditto about the offense," Sarah countered. "Please understand that my people are trained in all aspects of running a national park, but homicide investigations are a bit out of our league. If we've done something to screw up your case, then I assure you it was done accidentally, and with the best of intentions."
Fair enough, Russell thought. "So, where am I?"
Sarah retrieved a weather-beaten, plastic-laminated map from the back pocket of her green trousers and unfolded it. It had been a long time since Russell had had to translate contour lines into meaningful data, but as she traced the map with her finger, it came back to him pretty quickly.
"Here's the spot where we found the body," she said, pointing to a place on the map next to a meandering blue mark that could only be a river. "That's about a mile up that trail" - she pointed to a worn patch of foliage to his left - "which is right here on the map. We call it Powhite Trail Currently, you're standing right here, on Fire Road Seven. Technically, people aren't supposed to drive up here, but many do, just to get a head start on the Powhite."
"You don't ticket them?"
Sarah shrugged. "Not so long as they stay off to the side and don't block fire equipment access. Frankly, we don't get but maybe five or six parties a month that come up this way. It's not an easy hike."
Russell pictured what she had told him and arched his eyebrows high, suddenly struck with an inspiration. "When people drive in, do they come from the top of the mountain or the bottom?"
She thought about that for a second. "Roth, I guess, but the vast majority probably come from below."
Russell nodded as he let an idea percolate. "Okay, Ms. Rodgers -"
"Call me Sarah, please."
"Okay, Sarah." He recognized this as the opportunity for him to return the favor of informality, but he kind of liked his title. "I need to head up there and see what's happening, but while I'm gone, I'd like you to make sure that none of the vehicles I see here are moved. Not an inch. And I want you to make sure that no other vehicles are permitted to come within a hundred yards of this place."
"For how long?"
"Until I tell you otherwise."
"What am I supposed to tell the police and the media when they come flooding in here?"
Russell laughed. "Tell the media whatever you'd like and send them away. If the cops are halfway professional, they'll understand."
Sarah looked at him as if he were crazy.
Look, if our bad guy parked along the side of the road, his tires likely left an impression. That means we have to make castings of every tire print around here, and I need you to keep your vehicles in place so I can rule out their prints from all the others."
If any of this impressed her, she didn't show it. "How long is that likely to take?"
He shrugged. Frankly, such things didn't matter to him. "I don't know. Probably the better part of the day, by the time we get the technicians organized and mobilized. Welcome to police work, Ms. Rodgers Now, can you spare someone to escort me up to the crime scene?"
Tim Burrows stood with his back to the perimeter barricade tape, arms folded, admiring his work. Two hours ago, this patch of woods had looked just like the thousands of acres that surrounded it, distinguishable only by the presence of a dead human being among the matted leaves and black mulch. Now it teemed with people, fifteen experts, all of whom knew their jobs better than anyone else on earth, and all of whom reported directly to him. After such an expert beginning, it wasn't fair that Russell Coates would be allowed to just step in and steal all the glory.
Simply put, Coates was too old, too cranky, and too burned-out to be doing this stuff anymore. He'd already disgraced himself once, for God's sake. After that snafu in Atlanta, Tim couldn't figure out whose dick Coates must have sucked to keep his job at all, let alone to get himself assigned as a supervisory agent in charge of a field office. But that was the Bureau for you, sometimes brutal and sometimes gentle, but always in defiance of logic.
For Tim's part, the real crisis swirled around what effect working as second fiddle to a confirmed fuckup might have on his own career. This was all that Tim had ever wanted to do - what had driven him to perform in college so he could get into law school. All of it had been training for the Bureau, and now that he was here, he hated like hell to think it could all go away at the hands of a boss who clearly disliked him. Funny how that works. You get assigned to work for a man who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, and then it's the incompetent one who gets to write the performance evaluation.
Tim couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand Coates's folksy ways and his casual dress, and he couldn't stand the way Coates always put him down in front of subordinates. Discipline required a solid chain of command, and the strength of that chain was tested every single day by every other agent who was trying to make something of himself. With his snide little comments, and his refusal to let Tim do his job without interference, Russell Coates tried to poke a hole a day into the rising balloon of Tim's career, and there wasn't a thing in the world that he could do about it.
Somehow, there had to be a way to make the people who counted understand how helpless he was, bathed in Coates's shadow. One way or another, he needed to create an opportunity to shine brighter than that shadow; so brightly that the shadow would disappear, and the powers that be would see him as the future of the Bureau - the FBI as it was supposed to be.
In the meantime, he had to put up the good front; to give the appearance of support for the boss he couldn't stand, even as he created new ways to aim shots below the waterline. With luck, if everything worked out the way it should, everyone would see that Coates just was not up to the task anymore. If only by comparison, then, Tim's light would burn its brightest.
But these things took time. Frankly, he'd hoped that Coates would decide to sleep through this investigation and give him a shot at solving it himself. He'd even considered not notifying him, even though Coates was back in the country, but to do that would have been to invite a fusillade of criticism on himself. The Bureau understood and even supported the fact that everyone's advance came at the expense of someone else, but the rules of engagement punished any combatant whose agenda was too obvious.
That was okay. He'd been out here in hell for eight months so far, leaving only sixteen more before he could move on. He just wanted to make damned sure that his next move was up and over. He'd had enough of this lateral-transfer shit. He wanted the glory and he wanted the power, and he didn't much care if everyone knew it. The ones who claimed lesser ambitions were either useless burnouts like Coates, or they were just plain lying. In any case, it wasn't Tim's style to hide his feelings.
He checked his watch and shifted his feet. Typical of Coates, the half-hour arrival he'd promised was already running ten minutes late, and Tim had yet to see any sign of an approach. It couldn't possibly be much longer, even if the old fart was using a walker to climb the hill. Tim liked that image - a man so hopelessly out of shape and over-the-hill that he needed assistance climbing the trail. Tim smiled at the thought of it, then turned back to the business at hand. He had an investigation to run up here, and no matter how much of the glory Coates ultimately stole this one was going to go down in the books as strictly by-the-numbers And if it got thrown out of court one day because Coates had yet again screwed up the chain of evidence, then Tim would have over dozen witnesses to testify to the fine job he'd done up until the time when incompetence arrived on the scene.
One glance told Russell that Tim Burrows had a good handle on things Judging by the hundreds of feet of barricade tape that had been stretched among the trees, he saw that the crime scene was a big one, roughly defined as the entire mountain. A sheriff's deputy challenged him as he approached, but stepped aside when Russell flashed his credentials.
Tim looked more like a jungle grunt than an FBI agent, dressed in camouflaged BDUs with his H&K nine-millimeter strapped low on his thigh in a Velcro and nylon holster. Russell wondered if there'd ever been a time when he himself could have looked that good in a uniform. As it was, Russell sucked in his gut so it wouldn't bulge over the waistband of his jeans.
"Hey, Tim," Russell opened as he approached his ASAC. "Bring me up to speed."
Burrows imitated a warm smile and led with his hand. "Hey, Russell. How's the golf game?"
"Didn't even bring the clubs. Decided to rip the lips off fish instead." After years of stress at the end of a golf club, Russell had finally determined that it wasn't his game. He'd take a smooth lake or a roaring surf anytime. Just him and the fish.
Tim handed Russell two heavy rubber bands for his shoes - all investigators wore them to differentiate their footprints from the others - and led the way toward a blue paper sheet that they'd anchored against the breeze with a half dozen stout rocks. Russell figured correctly that the star of this investigation lay underneath. As they approached, a potbellied deputy kicked the rocks off one long side of the sheet and let the wind flop it over to reveal the corpse. "I figure time of death at twelve to eighteen hours," Tim said, "He's rigored up tight, and you can see the lividity for yourself."