Chapter Twenty
Gabriel
Tuesday
When the tap sounded on Gabriel’s door, he pulled his focus from his laptop screen up the wall to his analog clock on the wall. “Right on time,” he said, shifting his gaze to the door.
“Come in,” he called, waiting for Pila Varalia from one of the Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking task Forces to swing into his office. “Lights,” she said.
And Gabriel quickly shut his eyes as she flicked on the overhead.
Gabriel blinked under the fluorescent bulbs.
Pila sat in his guest chair and looked up at the flickering bulb. “They can fix that, you know.”
“It’s rarely on.” Gabriel shifted to the edge of his seat and leaned in. “What have you got for me?”
“I sent you an image before I came down.”
Gabriel took a moment to pull it up. A girl stood on a deck surrounded by adults. “This came from a video?”
“It was. I took the clearest frame that had the most information. If you need the video, I’ll have to get signatures because it becomes quite graphic.” Pila turned Gabriel’s laptop so she could see the image, too. “She’s being auctioned on the socials. Can you do anything with it?”
“There are elements I can start with. Do you know where this is in the world?”
“We believe somewhere nearby. This is showing up in the D.C. western Maryland marketplace,” she said. “But of course we never know. We want to get to her before she’s sold to another location.”
So Gabriel began working on it. He started with the leaves on the trees and compared them to the same species to check the date range and make sure the video and the auction were contemporaneous.
From the bowls of snacks on the table and the tub of ice and beer, this was an evening picture.
That gave him a sense of the house compared to the apartment building.
He surmised that it was an apartment building based on the variety of window dressings, which didn’t repeat in any direction.
And from the position of the sun, looking at the shadow it cast across the deck, he calculated cardinal direction and approximate time.
From there, he checked the shadow cast by the high-rise and decided it had to be at least four stories.
That didn’t help him define where this might be, but it would help him rule out certain locations on his maps.
The deck was too worn, the chairs too mismatched for it to be a typical place of business. This was a mixed residential area.
He couldn’t get the pixels to cooperate in reading any of the license plates in the apartment’s parking lot. It would have been an easy day if he had been able to get three or four with the same registration address.
They were white.
White plates gave him nothing.
In the corner by the loading zone, there was a mechanic’s truck. The words weren’t visible, but the logo was fairly large. He clipped it and asked the AI to adjust it from an angled view to a forward-facing view.
The result wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t bad.
He put that logo into his search and got five different possibilities. Two were in Canada. One in Montana. One in Oklahoma. One in D.C.
Bingo.
Gabriel researched the business. It was a one-door mom-and-pop. They wouldn’t want any trouble with the FBI. They should be cooperative.
Given the time of day and the area traffic, it would be tomorrow before a special agent could stop by the office during operating hours. Gabriel decided to call the office to see if he could get some help over the phone. He’d feel it out.
A young woman answered.
“How do you do? This is Atworth. I was hoping to speak to the person who does your scheduling.”
“That’s me. What kind of project are you working on?”
“I’m calling from the Hoover Building. I’m with the FBI.”
“Oh. I.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll get Bill. He’s the owner.”
“Miss, no one’s in trouble. I need your help figuring out an address from a photograph that happened to include your work truck.”
“An address?” Her voice caught, and she had to cough to clear it.
“Does your company usually work on houses? Businesses? Apartments?”
“We go out to anyone who calls in. But they’re usually people’s houses.”
“Recently, say in the last two weeks, has someone called you from an apartment building? Is there any way to run a search?”
There was a pause.
“I don’t need the list,” Gabriel said. “I need you to glance back at the list and tell me any apartment buildings where you might have sent your box truck.”
“Not a van? Only Bob drives the box truck.” Her voice became muffled. “Bob, have you worked on an apartment building in the last couple of weeks? The FBI wants to know.”
There was a scuffle. “Bob here. Who is this?”
“Special Agent Atworth, I’m an FBI investigator. I’m not investigating you in any way. Your boxed truck is in an image, and we are trying to find that location.”
“I’ll do my best.”
A knock sounded at Gabriel’s door.
“The truck is at a loading dock at a brick apartment building in a mixed residential area.”
Rowan Kennedy stuck his head in, and Gabriel stuck a finger in the air, asking him to hang on for a sec. Then waved him in.
“Yeah. Yeah. Last week? Yeah. You need the address?”
Rowan shut the door and leaned against it.
“I would be very grateful,” Gabriel said.
“Crazy to get a call like this. Let me look it up.”
Gabriel caught Rowan’s eye. “I’m going to be a minute. Is it urgent?”
“Can you come down to Joint Task Force as soon as you’re off the phone?”
“Give me ten.”
“You there?” Bob asked
“I’m here,” Gabriel said.
“Okay, the address is …”
“Can you hold, please?” Gabriel asked as he tapped the address into his computer as Bob read it out.
Rowan left the office and silently closed the door.
Looking down at the satellite map image that came up with that address, boom, there was a corner apartment building, a back parking lot, the curtains, the loading dock, and, to the side, a house with a deck whose wear spots lined up. “Bob, I want to thank you for your assistance.”
“That’s all you need?”
“It is. You’ve been great.”
Gabriel wrote the house address on a piece of paper and walked it to Pila’s desk on his way to find out what Rowan needed from him.
On his way down to the Joint Task Force, Gabriel saw his colleague Bill walking toward him with the sympathy face.
As they approached one another, Bill’s hand stretched out.
The handshake didn’t end after the pump, pump. Instead, Bill sandwiched Gabriel’s hand between his. “I’ve been overseas these last few months. I wasn’t around for Daniel’s funeral. I hope you got my card.”
“I enjoyed the story about Daniel’s helping your wife out.”
“Wanted to check in on you. Rough losing a brother like that. I have a brother. We don’t get along at all, but if he were to die, it would still be a hell of a thing.”
“Yeah.” These condolence conversations were always awkward, and Gabriel appreciated that his colleagues put themselves through it.
And at the same time, a fist to the chest, a grimace, and a “sending you my sympathies” was the easiest way to keep the grief from hitting Gabriel at work, especially when he wasn’t braced for it.
“How are you and Whiskey getting along?” Bill asked, still holding Gabriel’s hand.
“I’m being haunted.” Why did he say that?
“What now?” Bill looked startled; of course he would. But at least Gabriel got his hand back.
“Whiskey walks toward the graveyard where Daniel’s buried, stops at the corner, and sings.” Now that he knew the truth, Gabriel was starting to find humor in his confusion.
Bill rocked back on his heels, crossing his arms over his chest. “Every day?”
“Every day since Daniel died and I brought Whiskey home,” Gabriel said and pulled up the video he took that first night for Cathy.
Bill’s face was priceless. And Gabriel was glad he’d stumbled upon Bill, since he was the kind of friend who enjoyed a good prank. This would give Bill a party topic for years to come. “I had a buddy who inherited his brother’s dog, and that dog was possessed by the brother’s ghost. I kid you not.”
“Jezis, man,” Bill rubbed his hands up and down his arms, “that gives me the chills. That’s creepy as hell.” Bill patted Gabriel’s back and then started down the hall, turning halfway to look back at Gabriel, who watched him go.
Bill shook his head, turned back, and lifted one arm to wave goodbye, then rounded the corner.
Luckily, that was probably the last sad-eyed conversation he’d have.
Three months out, most everyone had gotten around to saying something, and Gabriel was in the clear. Bill was a straggler.
Gabriel stopped outside of the conference room door, took a breath to make sure that there were no late-breaking emotions that wanted to surface in front of his colleagues, then raised his knuckles to tap on the door.