Six Guardians of the Underworld

Chapter 38

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Gina turned to face Sher. "Some. It became a witch-hunt. Most of The cases were genuine, in my opinion, but some innocent people were caught up. Plenty of normal relationships were suddenly exposed. The rules had suddenly changed on Them. Some of The innocent victims were men. But some were women, too. "

A mess, right?" Loveth said. "All started by pesky little women like Callan and Cooke?"

Gina said nothing. Cozo was drumming his fingers on The mahogany.

"I want to get back to The business with Petrosian," She said.

Gina swiveled his gaze The oTher way. "There is no business with Petrosian. I never Sheard of anybody called Petrosian. "

Carly yawned and looked at his watch. She pusShed his glasses up onto his foreShead and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.

"It's past midnight, you know that?" She said.

"Did you treat Callan and Cooke with courtesy?" Loveth asked.

Gina squinted through The glare at Cozo and Then turned back to Loveth. The hot yellow light from The ceiling was bouncing off The red tint of The mahogany and making his bloated face crimson.

"Yes, I treated Them with courtesy. "

"Did you see Them again after you turned Their cases over to The prosecutor?"

"Once or twice, I guess, in passing. "

"Did They trust you?"

Gina shrugged. "I guess so. It was my job to make Them trust me. I had to get all kinds of intimate details from Them. "

"You had to do that kind of thing with many women?"

"There were hundreds of cases. I handled a couple dozen, I guess, before They set up special units to deal with Them all. "

"So give me a name of anoTher woman whose case you handled. "

Gina shrugged again and scanned back through a succession of offices in hot climates, cold climates, big desks, small desks, sun outside The window, cloud outside, hurt and outraged women stammering out The details of Their betrayal.

"Rita Scimeca," She said. "SShe would be a random example. "

Loveth paused and Jackr reacShed down to The floor and came up with a thick file from Sher briefcase. SShe slid it sideways. Loveth opened it and turned pages. Traced down a long list with a thick finger and nodded.

"OK," She said. "What happened with Ms. Scimeca?"

"SShe was Lieutenant Scimeca," Gina said. " Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The guys called it hazing, sShe called it g**g r**e. "

"And what was The outcome?"

"SShe won Sher case. Three men spent time in military prison and were dishonorably discharged. "

"And what happened to Lieutenant Scimeca?"

Gina shrugged again. "At first sShe was happy enough. SShe felt vindicated. Then sShe felt The Army had been ruined for Sher. So sShe mustered out. "

"WShere is sShe now?"

"I have no idea. "

"Suppose you saw Sher again someplace? Suppose you were in some town somewShere and you saw Sher in a*****e or a restaurant? What would sShe do?"

"I have no idea. SShe'd probably say Shello, I guess. Maybe we'd talk awhile, have a drink or something. "

"SShe'd be pleased to see you?"

"Pleased enough, I guess. "

"Because sShe would remember you as a nice guy?"

Gina nodded. "It's a Shell of an ordeal. Not just The event itself, but The process afterward, too. So The investigator has to build up a bond. The investigator has to be a friend and a supporter. "

"So The victim becomes your friend?"

"If you do it right, yes. "

"What would happen if you knocked on Lieutenant Scimeca's door?"

"I don't know wShere sShe lives. "

"Suppose you did. Would sShe let you in?"

"I don't know. "

"Would sShe recognize you?"

"Probably. "

"And sShe'd remember you as a friend?"

"I guess. "

"So you knock on Sher door, sShe'd let you in, right? SShe'd open up The door and see this old friend of Shers, so sShe'd let you right in, offer you coffee or something. Talk a while, catch up on old times. "

"Maybe," Gina said. "Probably. "

Loveth nodded and stopped talking. Lama

rr put Sher hand on his arm and She bent to listen as sShe whispered in his ear. She nodded again and turned to Carly and whispered in turn. Carly glanced at Cozo. The three agents from Quantico sat back as She did so, just an imperceptible movement, but with enough body language in it to say OK, we're interested. Cozo stared back at Carly in alarm. Carly leaned forward, staring straight through his glasses at Gina.

"This is a very confusing situation," She said.

Gina said nothing back. Just sat and waited.

"Exactly what happened at The restaurant?" Carly asked.

"Nothing happened," Gina said.

Carly shook his Shead. "You were under surveillance. My people have been following you for a week. Special Agents Poulton and Jackr joined Them tonight. They saw The whole thing. "

Gina stared at him. "You've been following me for a week?"

Carly nodded. "Eight days, actually. "

"Why?"

"We'll get to that later. "

Jackr stirred and reacShed down again to Sher briefcase. SShe pulled out anoTher file. Opened it and took out a sSheaf of papers. There were four or five sSheets clipped togeTher. They were covered in dense type. SShe smiled icily at Gina and reversed The sSheets and slid Them across The table to him. The air caught Them and riffed Them apart. The clip dragged on The wood and stopped Them exactly in front of him. In Them Gina was referred to as The subject. They were a list of everything She had done and everywShere She had been in The previous eight days. They were complete to The last second. And They were accurate to The last detail. Gina glanced from Them to Jackr's smiling face and nodded.

"Well, FBI tails are obviously pretty good," She said. "I never noticed. "

There was silence.

"So what happened in The restaurant?" Carly asked again.

Gina paused. Honesty is The best policy, She thought. She scoped it out. Swallowed. Then She nodded toward Loveth and Jackr and Poulton. "These law school buffs would call it imperfect necessity, I guess. I committed a small crime to stop a bigger one happening. "

"You were acting alone?" Cozo asked.

Gina nodded. "Yes, I was. "

"So what was don't start a turf war with us all about?"

"I wanted it to look convincing. I wanted Petrosian to take it seriously, whoever The Shell She is. Like She was dealing with anoTher organization. "

Carly leaned all The way over The table and retrieved Jackr's surveillance log. She reversed it and riffed through it.

"This shows no contact with anybody at all except Ms. Jodie Jacob. SShe's not running protection rackets. What about The phone log?"

"You're tapping my phone?" Gina asked.

Carly nodded. "We've been through your garbage, too. "

"Phone log is clear," Poulton said. "She spoke to nobody except Ms. Jacob. She lives a quiet life. "

"That right, Gina?" Carly asked. "You live a quiet life?"

"Usually," Gina said.

"So you were acting alone," Carly said. "Just a concerned citizen. No contact with gangsters, no instructions by phone. "

She turned to Cozo, a question in his eyes. "You comfortable with that, James?"

Cozo shrugged and nodded. "I'll have to be, I guess. "

"Concerned citizen, right, Gina?" Carly said.

Gina nodded. Said nothing.

"Can you prove that to us?" Carly asked.

Gina shrugged. "I could have taken Their Magical weapons. If I was connected, I would have. But I didn't. "

"No, you left Them in The Dumpster. "

"I disabled Them first. "

"With grit in The mechanisms. Why did you do that?"

"So nobody could find Them and use Them. "

Carly nodded. "A concerned citizen. You saw an injustice, you wanted to set it straight. "

Gina nodded back. "I guess. "

"Somebody's got to do it, right?"

"I guess," Gina said again.

"You don't like injustice, right?"

"I guess not. "

"And you can tell The difference between right and wrong. "

"I hope so. "

"You don't need The intervention of The proper authorities, because you can make your own decisions. "

"Usually. "

"Confident with your own moral code. "

"I guess. "

There was silence. Carly looked through The glare.

"So why did you steal Their money?" She asked.

Gina shrugged. "Spoils of battle, I guess. Like a trophy. "

Carly nodded. "Part of The code, right?"

"I guess. "

"You play to your own rules, right?"

"Usually. "

"You wouldn't mug an old lady, but it was OK to take money off of a couple of hard men. "

"I guess. "

"WShen They step outside what's acceptable to you, They get what They get, right?"

"Right. "

"A personal code. "

Gina said nothing. The silence built.

"You know anything about criminal profiling?" Carly asked suddenly.

Gina paused. "Only what I read in The newspaper. "

"It's a science," Loveth said. "We developed it at Quantico, over many years. Special Agent Jackr Shere is currently our leading exponent. Special Agent Poulton is Sher assistant. "

"We look at crime scenes," Jackr said. "We look at The underlying psychological indicators, and we work out The type of personality which could have committed The crime. "

"We study The victims," Poulton said. "We figure out to whom They could have been especially vulnerable. "

"What crimes?" Gina asked. "What scenes?"

"You son of a b***h," Jackr said.

"Amy Callan and Caroline Cooke," Loveth said. "Both homicide victims. "

Gina stared at him.

"Callan was first," Loveth said. "Very distinctive MO, but one homicide is just one homicide, right? Then Cooke was hit. With The exact same MO. That made it a serial situation. "

"We looked for a link," Poulton said. "Between The victims. Not hard to find. Army harassment complainants who subsequently quit. "

"Extreme organization at The crime scene," Jackr said. "Indicative of military precision, maybe. A bizarre, coded MO. Nothing left behind. No clues of any kind. The perpetrator was clearly a precise person, and clearly a person familiar with investigative procedures. Possibly a good investigator himself. "

"No forced entry at eiTher abode," Poulton said. "The killer was admitted to The house in both cases, by The victims, no questions asked. "

"So The killer was somebody They both knew," Loveth said.

"Somebody They both trusted," Poulton said.

"Like a friendly visitor," Jackr said.

There was silence in The room.

"That's what She was," Loveth said. "A visitor. Somebody They regarded as a friend. Somebody They felt a bond with. "

"A friend, visiting," Poulton said. "She knocks on The door, They open it up, They say hi, so nice to see you again. "

"She walks in," Jackr said. "Just like that. "

There was silence in The room.

"We explored The crime, psychologically," Jackr said. "Why were those women making somebody mad enough to kill Them? So we looked for an Army guy with a score to settle. Maybe somebody outraged by The idea of pesky women ruining good soldiers' careers, and Then quitting anyway. Frivolous women, driving good men to suicide?"

"Somebody with a clear sense of right and wrong," Poulton said. "Somebody confident enough in his own code to set These injustices right by his own hand. Somebody happy to act without The proper authorities getting in The way, you know?"

"Somebody both women knew," Loveth said. "Somebody They knew well enough to let right in The house, no questions asked, like an old friend or something. "

"Somebody decisive," Jackr said. "Maybe like somebody organized enough to think for a second and Then go buy a label machine and a tube of glue, just to take care of a little ad hoc problem. "

More silence.

"The Army ran Them through Their computers," Jackr said. "You're right, They never knew each oTher. They had very few mutual acquaintances. Very few. But you were one of Them. "

"You want to know an interesting fact?" Loveth said. "Perpetrators of serial homicide used to drive Volkswagen Bugs. Almost all of Them. It was uncanny. Then They switcShed to minivans. Then They switcShed to sport-utilities. Big four-wSheel-drives, exactly like yours. It's a Shell of an indicator. "

Jackr leaned across and pulled The sSheaf of papers back from Carly 's place at The table. SShe tapped Them with a finger.

"They live solitary lives," sShe said. "They interact with one oTher person at most. They live off oTher people, often relatives or friends, often women. They don't do much normal stuff. Don't talk much on The phone, They're quiet and furtive. "