Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 50820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
“Perhaps you have me mistaken with your prior director.”
“I have a lot of thoughts on how the two of you compare, but you wouldn’t like any of them. Jack is staying,” I say, letting him know that I’m well aware that he’s not calling the shots. Pocher is, and Pocher wants me to keep my badge, because my badge looks good for my father. And in some demented way, Pocher fears me as much as he hopes to turn me. “I need him to be put on a dual task force with me,” I add. “Name it what you want. Pay him fairly.”
He studies me a moment. “You want to hire him?”
“No one wins me over that easily. I’m testing him and deciding if I can tolerate how much he talks. The words that come out of a person’s mouth matter, but not nearly as much as actions.” I leave it at that and start walking down the stairs. I find Jay and Augustin leaning on the rear of the car.
“Are either of you answering your phones?”
“I knew she was going to be pissed,” Jay says to Augustin. “I should have gone in and told her.”
“Yes, Jay,” he says, “interrupt her while she’s standing over a dead body”, and then to me. “Service is in and out. I’d think as much money as this place has dumped in it, it would be weird for it to have a crappy internet setup.”
“What does the house internet have to do with the cellphones?”
“Our phones were trying to connect to the house internet. Once we got them off Wi-Fi they should have worked, but my experience has been illogically the phone still has a ghost attachment to the shitty internet. The internet just plain needs to be fixed.”
“There’s no way the governor was operating with this kind of service,” I say.
“It might have just happened,” he says. “The router is likely damaged. Or maybe as the governor’s team moved they accidentally unplugged it.”
Or someone intentionally turned it off, I think. The damn cameras are going to be worthless.
Our killer isn’t good at killing. But he’s not dumb either.
Chapter Thirty
Once we’re on the road, I try to call Kane, who does not answer, which must mean he’s in the middle of babysitting two children with big titles. I dial Tic Tac and he answers on the first ring. “I’ve been trying to call you.”
“Yeah, that’s a thing. Cellphones aren’t working at the governor’s mansion. Have Lucas try to figure out why, but right now I need stuff.”
“Nothing at the restaurant. All I know about the governor’s mansion is there’s satellite imagery that shows an excess of activity and vehicles.”
“Are the security cameras working?”
“Not in the past twenty-four hours. Why? What happened?”
“My father worked it out with the governor to take possession of the mansion early. When he and his team arrived on location, they found a dead man hanging from the ceiling, with the hands missing. No ID. I need you to check the database and open records for cases resembling this one. Thirtysomething white male. No hands, and they were removed postmortem. Teeth intact, blood on the floor, a soaked carpet we believe was created by a water hose. The body has passed maximum rigor and is softening up again, therefore the victim has been deceased more than twelve hours. There’s no blood on the body. It appears to have been cleaned up with great care. And that’s it, I think. At least for now.”
“Could it be a mob hit? No hands seems like something the mob would do.”
“Says everyone, which I believe is what this killer wanted us to believe. The mob would not leave the teeth or the body. It would be in the Hudson with concrete shoes. It reads like a copycat killer, like he’s imitating the mob, but for safe keeping added in the Umbrella Man, even if executed poorly.”
“Pig’s blood?”
“Maybe I don’t see any other signs of someone bleeding out from an injury, but I’m not ruling out the killer’s blood. The corpse didn’t beat the killer up while laying stiff in his arms but he could have fought back and lost the battle. Or the killer could have injured himself getting the body displayed for us to find.”
“I really did not need that imagery.”
“Suck it up, buttercup. Jack would like it.”
“Jack is weird,” he says, “and sometimes scary because of it. My only comfort is so are you, and you haven’t killed me yet.”
“Lucas is the crazy one,” I say, “so be warned. Life with him will be life without sanity.” I move on. “If he’s a copycat, the Umbrella Man is everywhere. It would be logical.”
“Yes, but the press is obsessed with the FBI agent daughter of the future governor who hunted the Umbrella Man. It might have helped him get elected.”