CHAPTER THREE
It was well after dark by the time Faith and Jessica left the scene.
CSI unofficially confirmed Jessica's deduction that Entwhistle had been killed by a thick, pointed object, such as a screwdriver, and had further confirmed that the body had been placed carefully on the couch and the bomb placed carefully in his hands postmortem.
Time of death was roughly one hour before the phone call was made to Baltimore PD, indicating the killer had murdered Entwhistle, staged the body, then driven straight to Annapolis to place the call.
That fit with Faith's hypothesis that the message was critical to the killer.
She just had no idea what the message was supposed to be.
The crowd outside had thinned by the time the agents left, but Bridgette was still there waiting next to Faith’s car. Faith sighed and met the persistent reporter with an upraised hand. “No comment.”
“Oh, come on, Faith, play nice,” Bridgette pouted.
Faith met her eyes, and her expression made it clear she wasn’t in the mood. Bridgette lifted her hands and said, “Okay, fair enough. Can you at least share your thoughts on whether you believe the murder was racially motivated?”
“Get away from my car.”
“Okay, okay, Jesus. I have a job to do too, you know.”
She backed away from the car, at least. Faith let Turk inside, then dropped into the driver’s seat next to Jessica, who had jumped into the car the moment she realized Bridgette was more interested in Faith than her.
Jessica sighed. “Lovely. Now we’ve got her stuck on our ass like a leech.”
Faith grimaced. “I didn’t need that image.”
“It’s there anyway.”
They drove in silence for the next ten minutes. Baltimore wasn’t a particularly large city, but its metropolitan area abutted the Washington metropolitan area, and both areas combined formed the third-largest urban agglomeration in the nation.
Which meant traffic was constant. Ten minutes of driving brought them only four miles from Entwhistle’s residence.
Jessica looked at the sea of red taillights and observed, “A lot of these people could disappear, and no one would ever notice. One second, they’re alive, the next gone.
Wouldn’t be a drop in the bucket to a place like this. ”
“People always notice,” Faith said. “That’s how we catch bad guys. The river keeps flowing, but the ripples spread far and don’t stop for a long time.”
“Poetic.”
“Also true.”
Faith pulled into the parking lot of the Sunrise Inn, which looked to be a slightly nicer version of every chain motel on Earth.
She liked places like this, even when they weren’t so nice.
There was no pretense, no facade to distract from the messiness and exhaustion of life and the grit and resilience it took to live it.
Maybe Faith just romanticized the lives of the invisible. Either way, she preferred a creaky bed and a swamp cooler to a gel foam mattress and a hot tub.
“I figure we grab a quick nap, then go talk to the TSA at Thurgood Marshall,” Jessica said. “The checkpoints open at four a.m. We should be there at least an hour before.”
“I agree,” Faith said. “We’ll get a room, grab a bite to eat, shower, and then we’ll see about the nap.”
Jessica chuckled. The two of them rarely slept while working on a case. Not the healthiest habit to have, but when innocent people were being murdered, it was hard to justify beauty rest.
And sure enough, when Faith finally lay in bed for a two-hour refresher, she spent the first thirty minutes of those two hours staring at the ceiling trying to figure out why their killer had left a bomb in the hands of a dead man.
Yes, Entwhistle was supervisor of the TSA’s K9 unit at Thurgood Marshall and would be called upon to investigate any bomb threats, but that seemed too obvious.
What was Faith supposed to read in between the lines?
She tried to find the answer among the fireflies of thought flickering across her mind, but none of them alighted long enough for Faith to piece the puzzle together.
Eventually, she gave up and allowed her body the brief rest that would likely be all she would get until the message revealed itself and she knew why their killer had murdered Jackson Entwhistle in his home.
***
“I mean, he was a hardass, but he wasn’t a prick.”
“That’s an important distinction,” Faith said.
“It really is, though. He ran a tight ship, but it wasn’t like he was rude to anyone.”
Harry Grisham folded skinny arms across an equally skinny chest and shook his head.
The young agent seemed to be taking his supervisor’s death to heart.
Faith felt a touch of sympathy for the kid.
Her own boss, SAC Grant Monroe, had been murdered by a serial killer trying to get Faith’s attention.
She looked up to him a lot, and his death had been devastating to her.
She held onto that thought. The Messenger had killed Grant to get Faith’s attention. Whose attention did this killer hope to gain by killing Entwhistle?
Jessica entered the small TSA office they were using to conduct interviews. She handed Faith and Harry cups of coffee. Harry looked at Jessica the way a lot of young men looked at her, and she gave him a smile that would no doubt fuel Harry’s fantasies for years to come.
“Can you think of a time when Entwhistle’s actions might have been interpreted as unnecessarily strict or harsh?” Faith asked. That didn’t quite answer the attention question, but Faith still wasn’t sure how to pursue that yet.
Harry sucked in a breath and tilted his head. “I guess, maybe one time.”
Faith raised an eyebrow. “All ears.”
“I’ve been with TSA two years,” Harry said.
“When I started, there was a guy named Craig. He was a senior agent. Not a supervisor, but he had ten years of experience with the TSA. He was a K9 handler, so he reported directly to Entwhistle. His K9 failed to detect a bomb during a training exercise, and Craig was fired.”
Jessica whistled. “Harsh.”
Harry shrugged. “I mean… If you miss a bomb, it’s really bad.”
Yeah, but the dog missed the bomb. I mean, it’s not like the handler’s using his nose.”
“True,” Harry agreed, “but the handler’s supposed to know their dog. The dog is the tool. You don’t blame a hammer if it slips out of a carpenter’s hand and beans someone in the head.”
“I’m guessing Craig Daniels didn’t feel that way,” Faith said.
“No, he didn’t. He was pissed. When he found out he was being fired, he found Entwhistle and started screaming at him, telling him it was his fault, and he should have supported Craig during the HR investigation.
Said it was bullshit, and Entwhistle was just a bitter prick who was threatened by him. ”
“Was there an altercation?” Faith asked.
Harry chuckled. “No, no one messed with Entwhistle.”
“Why’s that?” Jessica asked.
“He just had a presence,” Harry said. “Like yesterday, there was this passenger who gave him shit about missing his flight, and he just stood there and looked at him, and the guy backed down. He wasn’t an especially big guy, Entwhistle, but there was something in his eyes that made it clear that if you messed with him, you were going to regret it. ”
Faith and Jessica shared a look. “Do you remember this passenger’s name?”
“I do, but he’s not the killer. He ended up taking a later flight to Dallas. I know because we watched him the entire time he was here after he got into it with Entwhistle.”
Faith nodded. “Fair enough. So who do I talk to to find out where Craig Daniels lives?”
“That’s probably our big boss, Chief Rosenberg. She’s not usually here until seven or so. You can try calling her if you want, but she usually turns her cell phone off. She’s… Well, don’t tell her I said this, but she kind of is a prick.”
“Fair enough,” Faith said. “We’ll wait. In the meantime, we’ll talk to the K9 agents and hear what they have to say.”
“Sure thing,” Harry said. He looked at Jessica, flushed beet red, then looked quickly away and practically ran out of the office.
Jessica laughed. “He was cute.”
Faith raised an eyebrow. “I thought you and Jon were dating.”
Jon was a construction worker the two of them had met during their previous investigation. Jessica was instantly smitten with the sculpted, handsome laborer and had given him her number in a not entirely professional capacity. Jon, of course, leaped at that opportunity.
“We’ve had one date,” Jessica said. “And I’m not saying I would go out with Harry. I just thought he was cute.” Her smile dropped in favor of a professional look. “So, do we like this as a revenge story?”
“Maybe,” Faith said, rubbing her lower lip.
“But?”
Faith took a deep breath and shook her head. “No but. It could be a revenge story. We’ll see what the others have to say, then talk to Rosenberg. If they all bring Craig up, then we’ll know we’re on the right track.”
“And if not?”
“Then we’ll get a better understanding of exactly who Jackson Entwhistle was and why our killer chose him to deliver his message.”
And maybe they’d find out what that message was and whether any more messages were intended.