Wildfire

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3"He said, 'I accept full responsibility.' He did not say, 'I am fully responsible.' Those are two different things."

Agent Henry reclined in his modest desk chair, tilting his head to address the three agents crowding the entrance to his cubicle.

"Still hung up on conspiracy, huh, Bill?" It was Leslie Chen who spoke, a pretty, brilliant third generation Taiwanese-American, whose insights more than compensated for her lack of physical intimidation.

Henry found himself holding court for his three friends in Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, each of whom pressed him for tidbits of information that the news might have missed. Being the first agent on the scene of the decade's most shocking crime earned its glory.

"You don't accept full responsibility if you are fully responsible. Accepting responsibility implies that you share it with someone else."

Elaine Wolf, a mildly attractive, stocky blonde in her mid-thirties nudged her way into the room. "So maybe he had an accomplice," she said. "Those creeps often travel in pairs."

Fred Jackson waved her off, mildly disdainful. "I don't know. It sounds the same to me. Remember, Bill, when you try to solve your cases all at once, that means it's time for a rest."

Amy Gold appeared behind the three, followed closely by another agent she did not notice carrying a cake box.

"We'll see what photo-scan has to say," Henry remarked, bringing the conversation to an end.

As if on cue, the three agents stepped aside allowing the fourth agent, entry. Carlo Benvenito set the box on Henry's desk, opened it and lifted two cupcakes made of raw hamburger, with a flaming birthday candle inserted in the center. Together, the four agents began to sing to the tune of "People."

"People... people who eat people... are the wackiest people... in the world."

Henry smiled with disbelief. "This has to be the sickest thing I've ever seen."

Leslie Chen patted him on the shoulder. "Just a little levity to brighten your day," she said. "We knew you'd love it."

Gold remarked stone-faced, "I don't think it's funny at all. Those were human beings."

Benvenito extinguished the candles and returned his joke to its enclosure. "Well, anyway," he said with a diminishing grin, "It's the thought that counts."

As the four agents backed out of the cubicle, Chen offered some parting words, "Don't forget, Bill, and you too, Amy, when you get tired of this ugliness, we can always use good people in ATF."

Gold slumped into the chair next to Henry's desk and glared at him. "How can you laugh at something like this?"

Henry sighed and swiveled to face his partner. "Amy, hear now the first rule of Behavioral Sciences: Humor, even sick humor, is your only protection against sleepless night and a long stay at Chesterfield. If you let yourself begin to imagine the pain and the horror. . . As it is, every one of us needs regular counseling, dietary supplements and a prescription for valium. What you saw in Milwaukee was pretty bad, one of the worst I've ever seen, but at least most of the victims were grown men, and not women and children. Then, nothing can protect you from revulsion toward the human race. But you'll find out. Unfortunately."

Gold softened, "How long have you been doing this, Bill?"

Henry stared at the ceiling in deep thought. "Eighteen years, almost four times as long as the average tenure in this department. Most agents can't stand it for more than three. They think most serial killings make the papers, that this is an underworked unit, but they're wrong. Most of the time we face a pile of bodies desecrated in unimaginable ways, but no localized suspect, and therefore nothing to report. I believe more serial and mass killings are linked than the Bureau admits, but that is strictly a personal opinion."

"How can you stand it so long without losing your mind. I mean, if I see too many more like yesterday, I don't think I'm going to last three years."

Henry cleared his throat and paused. "With every new case, you dream of breaking something big and bringing the horror to a stop. I wouldn't admit this to many, but this unit also feeds a morbid fascination, the same kind of thing, I guess, that attracts people to traffic accidents, or super violent movies. You simply have to see how low our species can sink, the vile things an imagination can conceive.

"At any rate, you teach yourself not to feel... anything, which is the second rule of survival in Behavioral Analysis. You develop a clinical detachment, not only to your work, but all too often to the ones you love. Just ask my wife and kids.

"So, Ms. Gold, what brought you to the unit, the idol worship of profilers the world over?"

Suddenly, Gold seemed to age by decades. "I had a cousin," she began hesitantly, "My best friend... Angelique was her name. We did everything together. I knew her better than my own brothers, her secret thoughts, her silly dreams. She was such a sweet and trusting soul.... Well, anyway, one night she trusted the wrong guy. They found her limbs scattered all over a golf course. Some of her parts he kept for souvenirs..." Gold drifted off, unwilling to add another motive that she had not fully accepted in her own heart.

Henry paused out of respect. "I'm sorry, Amy," he said finally, then added in a distant voice, "The divine way to die."

"What?" Amy asked, returning to the present.

Henry leaned forward, rested his arms on his desk and stared at a calendar. "I heard it in a eulogy once. Being innocent and dying at the hands of another human being is the divine way to die. All the prophets died that way, and no one else who does will be forgotten by God... or so the preacher said, if you believe such things. Anyway," he added, "Vengeance is a bad motive for joining BAU."

Gold clasped her hands and spoke with conviction. "It's not vengeance, Bill. It's understanding. If I can begin to understand how and why people do these things to other people, then maybe I'll be able to sleep at night."

Henry gave her a rueful look. "If that day comes, you let me know. Because it never came for me." With that he rose, and was joined immediately by the junior agent. "Know how to run a photo-probe?"

"Of course," she said, "Do you?"

Escorting her gently into the hallway, Henry gave her orders for the afternoon, "I'd like you to compare the scans we took in Milwaukee with all serial and mass murders we've scanned in the last five years, which should keep you busy for a couple of hours. Don't bother saving any matches with a greater than one in one thousand probability."

"Yessir, boss." Gold turned slightly, while she continued walking. "I know you have seniority and everything, but may I ask what you'll be doing while I'm slaving away in front of a computer terminal?"

"I'll be having lunch with a local chapter of the League of Women Voters," Henry answered, "Part of the Bureau's renewed public relations campaign. Care to switch places?"

"One in a thousand, you say?" Gold asked, moving away.

"See you in a couple of hours," Henry waved.