It took Gene an hour and a half to explain everything they didn't know. The victims didn't correlate at all: old, young, male, female, pretty, ugly, rich, poor. The killer's profile was limited to Male, Caucasian, twenty-four to fifty years old, and a childhood history of arson, bed-wetting, and cruelty to animals, just like almost every other organized serial profiled by the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.
Forensic linguistics on early phone calls indicated the killer grew up in the Plains, 65% probability. All they really had were anonymous fingerprints on murder weapons and cellular phones, black hair, and some skin cells from many of the crime scenes. They knew he was Caucasian and male from DNA, and that was about it.
By the end of the meeting, Gene felt like he needed a shower. Captain Stukly obviously didn't care much about the poor woman blown to pieces only sixteen blocks away, except insofar as it affected his bid for mayor. Gene left the office with Stukly staring holes into the back of his head.
He made it down the hall, past rows of cubicles, barnyard pens for human cattle with crummy jobs, and saw a lean, young man in an LAPD uniform hurrying toward him. He looked familiar. Right. The guy from the crime scene yesterday. Anderson.
The smiling young man had his hand out and an expectant look on his face. Gene took his hand and shook it. Too hard again. He probably wants a job with the FBI. "You here to keep me out of trouble, Officer?" Gene asked, his attempt at levity murdered by his scowl.
Officer Anderson's smile faded to a constipated grimace. "Wasn't very good at it yesterday, Agent Palomini. Not sure what good it'd do today." He looked even more chagrined as the implications of his statement caught up to him. Gene didn't give him the chance to back out.
"It didn't do any 'good' yesterday, and it wouldn't do any 'good' today, because we're the 'good' guys, and getting the 'bad' guys is our job. Why is it your job to get in our way, Officer? Aren't you supposed to be catching the bad guys, too?" He jerked a hand up to stifle a reply and added, "What can I do for you, Officer Anderson?"
Anderson flushed and looked out the window. "Detective Rodriguez told me you were with Stukly. I thought you'd want to know we've got preliminary analysis on the explosive back from the lab. Ammonium nitrate. Fertilizer. We're working on a source now, but that could take weeks."
Gene softened his tone, embarrassed. "Sorry, you didn't deserve that. Thanks for the info. Let me know if…. Let me know when you get the results back." He took out a business card and handed it to the policeman. "My cell's the second number. Call any time, day or night, if something breaks." Officer Anderson took the card, and it disappeared into a pocket.
Inwardly, Gene sighed. Timothy McVeigh used ammonium nitrate to blow up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. It was as common as anything and could have come from anywhere. In a month anyone could buy enough of the stuff from a garden supply store to make a car bomb without tripping a Department of Homeland Security threshold on dangerous substances. That's if you didn't just pay a farmer for a truckload of pig crap and make it yourself.
Anderson's irrepressible smile reappeared. "No problemo. You just let me know if there's anything else we can do. I don't have much pull around here, but I'm well-liked, and Marco—that's Detective Rodriguez, homicide—might be able to help you cut through any bullshit Stukly throws in your face. And call me Jimmy."
Maybe this cop was one of the good guys. "I'll do that, Jimmy. I'll do that." His mood lightened ever so slightly, Gene headed to his car.
Chapter 2
July 17th, 2:25 PM EST; Wegmans Supermarket; Fairfax, Virginia.
Three weeks later, Gene pushed his cart up and down the aisles of the supermarket, trying to stick to his list as much as possible in light of all the temptations offered. He caught a whiff of the in-store Chinese buffet and his stomach growled. Why do I always come here hungry?
Every other weekend he drove to Fairfax to get "the good stuff" from Wegmans grocery store. More like the Taj Mahal of eats. He wandered aisles packed with everything he could ever want for his kitchen, whether he felt like cooking or just wanted something to take out. Even if it wasn't crowded, it took at least an hour to get out of there, and he always spent more than he meant to. Why do I come here, again? By way of reply, his stomach tried to convince his brain that, yes, he did need a two-pound bag of jumbo shrimp to go with the cocktail sauce already in his cart.
His FBI-issued cell phone rang and jolted him out of his reverie. He looked at the caller ID. Unknown name, Unknown number. And on a Saturday. He frowned and hit the green "talk" button.