In the Belly of Jonah (15 page)

MY SATURDAY MORNING RUN
was spectacular.

Four colorful hot air balloons were floating low in the sky at sunrise with the Rocky Mountains and clear blue skies as a backdrop. The typical afternoon winds and thunderstorms this time of year were nonexistent in the early morning hours. I ran down to City Park and back, stopping at the corner coffee shop a block from my house to buy a bag of fresh bagels for breakfast.

By the time I’d come home, taken a shower, dressed, and made coffee, it was nearly six thirty. Lisa came padding down the hall, having been awakened by the smell of freshly brewed “breakfast blend.”

“Morning,” I whispered.

“You’re up early,” she mumbled, not quite awake yet.

“I’m going to head up to work this morning for a few hours. Get out of your hair so you guys can work.”

“Is Streeter here?”

“I assume so. His Jeep’s parked outside.”

“Good.”

“I’ve got bagels and cream cheese for you guys whenever you’re hungry.”

“Thanks, Liv. Brandt’s coming by at seven thirty, so I’m sure Streeter will be up soon.”

“Did you get your report for him done?”

She nodded and yawned. “Everything but what’s motivating this guy.”

“Lisa,” I began, “I was thinking.” Suddenly I found myself feeling a bit silly. The idea had sounded so brilliant at two o’clock in the morning, particularly to Shaggy, but it seemed to have cooled in the warmth of my sunrise jog. “Like I told you before, after finishing at UW, I worked for Boeing for awhile.”

She looked at me as I poured a cup of coffee and handed it to her, putting my empty cup in the dishwasher.

“In Everett, at the 747/767 plant. Because I was with the Industrial Engineering group I was able to see a lot of the plant, unlike so many of the tens of thousands who work there. I mean, you wouldn’t believe how big this plant is. I don’t know how many city blocks it consumes, but I’d heard that at one time it was the biggest building in the world.”

“Big enough to hold a 747,”Lisa quipped. She sat down at the kitchen table and sipped her coffee, never taking her eyes off of me as I paced.

“Or two or three,” I countered.

I swallowed hard and hoped that my idea wouldn’t sound as stupid as it was starting to sound to me. “One time I came upon the department responsible for cutting the carpet for all the planes. I had been following up on a concern that management had about some planes seemingly being expedited through the system at a faster rate than scheduled, and they wanted to know why. So, it gave me a chance to follow up on every aspect of building the planes. Long story, but my point is, I was fascinated to learn about how the guys in the carpet department worked so quickly with minimal waste.”

Lisa put her coffee cup down and was leaning forward, intent on where I was headed.

“Those pictures you showed me last night got me to thinking about Boeing and how those guys cut the carpets there.” I pulled out the chair next to her and sat down at the table. “I know it sounds silly, but maybe it could help you somehow. You’re the expert, not me. And I hate when someone tells me how to reclaim after mining when I do it every day of my life, so it won’t hurt my feelings if—”

“How did they cut the carpets?”Lisa interrupted, placing a hand firmly on my forearm.

“With water,” I said. “They used a super-high-powered stream of water. You know, like an air compressor hose and nozzle? Only smaller and more powerful.”

“So the stream of water cut through carpet?”

“And wallboard and plastic and just about anything. They had to design the room with really tough alloys or something because when they hung the carpet from the ceilings so the patterns could be cut from them, the water would shoot right through the carpet and hit the walls. At least that’s what I remember. But it’s been a while.”

“Water,” she said, looking out the kitchen window.

“And the cutting was in one direction. Like your victims’ skin and tissue,” I continued. The room was quiet. I could hear the morning birds chirping in the trees out front and in the backyard. I stood up. “Look, maybe that’s impossible, but I just thought I’d throw it out there as a possibility that might help you guys brainstorm.”

Lisa nodded. “Water. Interesting.”

I grabbed my keys and headed for the garage. “Good luck.”

Lisa stood and said, “Liv?”

I poked my head around the garage door.

“Thanks. For everything. You’re a good friend.”

“So are you, Lisa. And by the way, for what it’s worth, I could have sworn I saw someone outside my basement window around two o’clock this morning. Maybe it was my imagination, but I don’t think so. Just be careful.”

It was a moment I would think back on often. I wasn’t sure what it was I saw in Lisa’s eyes. Premonition. Resignation. Something.

She smiled. “And
you
have an incredible mind. You should really consider a career with the Bureau.”

“Maybe in my next life.”

Lisa laid the toasted bagels with cream cheese in the middle of the table. Streeter and Brandt both helped themselves. She took the one that looked the healthiest, if there was such a bagel. Tasted like a sun-dried tomato with whole grains or something.

They had been at it for nearly an hour.

Brandt explained what had happened at the station after the two FBI agents had left. The rumors were flying around about Chief Richardson wanting to fire him. Richardson was also protesting the jurisdiction of the FBI.

“He just wants credit for catching this guy, if you do, and someone to blame, if you don’t. It’s an election year. Don’t take it personally,” Brandt said, wrapping his meaty hands and mouth around the gigantic bagel and making it look more like a Cheerio.

“I don’t,”Streeter said simply. Turning to Lisa, he added, “I read your report last night. Great job. And the letter Liv found in Jill Brannigan’s locker. I agree with you about getting it dusted for prints immediately and running the prints through AFIDS. I left a message for my office to send a runner up this morning. They should be here within the next half hour.”

She nodded. “How did that letter strike you?”

“We need to find out who this Jonah character is.”

Streeter was eating his bagel much more delicately than Brandt was, which was to say he needed no backhanded sleeve wipe for trails of cream cheese dribbling down his chin or out the sides of his mouth. She marveled at the differences between the two men and how one mountain of a man was so overshadowed by the other. She resisted a grin, thinking about how Liv had mistakenly thought she and Streeter were an item, then wondered why they couldn’t be. She watched him as he sipped his coffee, studied his eyes. She could have sworn they were green yesterday and now they were blue.

“Jill’s sister and roommate weren’t able to shed light on who Jonah might be?”

“Never heard of him. Neither had the parents,” he added.

“Who’s Jonah and what letter are you talking about?” Brandt said, swiping at his lips with his sleeve again.

Streeter nodded at Lisa and she retreated to the living room, where she donned a pair of latex gloves. She returned with a pair of gloves for Brandt and the letter. After wiping his hands on his shirt, he squeezed his fingers into the gloves, pinched the corner of the letter, and began to read. Lisa offered Streeter another cup of coffee and bagel, but he declined. Brandt, on the other hand, looked up across the letter, nodded, and held his empty cup up to her. She filled it and toasted another bagel for him.

“We’ve definitely got to find out who this Jonah guy is,”he agreed after finishing. “Strongest lead yet on this case.”

“That, and the fact that both Julia Brannigan and Kari Smithson mentioned Jill was dealing with someone she had rejected,” Streeter added.

“A stalker?” Lisa asked.

“Not quite,”Streeter said, “although the roommate said their room had been ransacked the day after Jill was last seen. When pressed, her story changed from her room being ransacked to the room ‘feeling’ like someone had been there and rifled through their belongings.”

“She never told me that,” Detective Brandt argued.

“It took several hours and a lot of tears to get to that point,” Streeter admitted.

“I didn’t have the patience for it,” Brandt admitted.

“If not a stalker, then what did Jill say to her roommate?” Lisa asked Streeter.

“Kari Smithson says that last Friday night Jill went out after work with some friends, and she later complained that someone at the bar where they hang out hit on her. She told the guy she wasn’t interested, but he kept pressuring her and even kissed her. Jill got mad and came home early.”

“Did the roommate get a name?” Lisa asked hopefully.

Streeter shook his head. “Afraid not. Julia Brannigan told me a similar story, same time frame. She mentioned that the guy kept calling Jill’s cell phone for the next day or two and Jill wouldn’t answer his calls.”

“We can get phone records,” Brandt said.

“Already on it. Disposable cell. Whoever this is knows what he’s doing. Anyway, Julia said the guy left a letter inside some book for Jill last Saturday morning right outside her dorm room. Julia says it bothered Jill more than when he’d made a pass at her.”

“But she didn’t file a police report,” Lisa concluded.

“Julia said she told Jill to do that, but Jill didn’t want to. And she didn’t tell her roommate because she would have ‘freaked out’ about it, according to Julia. Apparently, Julia and Kari are not on the best of terms,” Streeter said.

“We’ve
got
to find this Jonah,” Brandt repeated. “It’s the only lead we’ve got.”

“Not the only lead,” Streeter said. “We have a match on the tire tread from Horsetooth with Platteville.”

“And we might have another clue,” Lisa said. Both men looked at her. “Liv had a thought about the weapon. I jumped online this morning and sent a few e-mails. Jack Linwood answered me from Ops. You know him?”

Streeter nodded. “Good, too.”

“He’s working on it now. Then I did a little research of my own.”

She pushed the computer-generated photo across the table toward the men, enjoying their expressions.

“It’s the same as the marks on the victims. What did this?” Streeter asked of the cut marks on the material in the photograph.

“Water,” she told them and explained what Liv had learned at Boeing.

“We’ve got to get this to Berta immediately,” Streeter said. “And I’ve got to meet Liv Bergen.”

To her surprise, Lisa felt a pang of jealousy.