You Can’t Stop Me Read online

  Billy Choi pointed a finger and fired it, gunlike, at Pall saying, “Federal Building—’95. Helped put McVeigh away. Nice job, man.”

  Pall tried not to react, but a smile flickered.

  Next to him sat Chris Anderson, the improbably handsome Beach Boy of a chemist and lab tech from Meridian, Mississippi. He half rose, and introduced himself in his soft southern accent, but when he mentioned the Shaw and Associates lab, the other forensics experts sat up a little.

  Across from Anderson sat Jenny Blake, her blue eyes studying the tabletop as her fingers fiddled with a ballpoint pen.

  “Jenny Blake, computer stuff,” she said, not rising, without really looking at anyone at the table.

  Harrow barely nodded at the next-in-line criminalist when Choi popped up and said, “Billy Choi, crime scene analyst, tool mark and firearms examiner formerly of the Big Apple, now of sunny Los Angeles and…” He turned straight to the nearest camera. “…breakout star of Crime Seen! on You Bee Cee. Book ’em, Danno!”

  This goofy performance cracked up the whole team, even Jenny and Harrow. It was just the tension break they needed, and once again the team leader sent Choi a little appreciative smile and nod.

  As the Book ’em, Danno laughter subsided, Harrow patted the air and said, “All right, all right…let’s get down to it.”

  Anderson sat forward, his intensity undercut by his Southern drawl. “Where do we start, Mr. Harrow?”

  “It’s J.C, Chris.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “And you all know the basics already—so let’s start with our new evidence. Carmen, you found it—care to walk us through?”

  Carmen was ready with a remote. The massive screen behind Harrow came alive and showed the evidence bag that held the single leaf.

  She said, “This corn leaf was found in the driveway of a home in Placida, Florida. Stella Ferguson and her two children were shot in their home in a manner very similar to J.C.’s family.”

  He felt eyes flick toward him, but remained neutral.

  “Stella’s husband, Ray, was town marshal of Placida.”

  This news narrowed the eyes of the other forensics experts, and their attention was rapt as she went on to explain the circumstances—including the severed wedding-ring finger—and how the case had gone cold, until she’d spotted the leaf.

  Laurene asked, “How did you even know to look at that leaf? Even the state investigators missed it.”

  Carmen’s grin was not terribly professional, if very winning. “Hey, I’m a farm kid. You use what you know. And I knew that leaf was wrong…but that was all I had for sure. I took it to J.C., and he was able to hook me up with the right expert—Dr. Brent Caldwell at Settler Seed.”

  Slack-jawed, Choi asked Harrow, “You knew lookin’ at the leaf what seed company made it?”

  Before Harrow could explain, the DNA scientist, Pall, did it for him: “No, but he knew that Settler Seed would have DNA samples from every plant put out by every commercial seed company in the world. Naturally, they have samples from every plant they manufacture; but also samples from every competitor’s plant. They need to make sure that they don’t infringe on someone else’s patent and, likewise, to make sure the competition isn’t infringing on theirs.”

  Choi said, “Chess club, right? Captain?”

  Pall frowned. “Chess club, yes. Captain, yes, but not of chess club—wrestling team.”

  Choi held up his palms in mock surrender.

  Anderson said to Carmen, “Very nice thinkin’, Miz Garcia. But what d’yall find out?”

  “As it happens, this particular leaf came from Settler itself—field corn KS1422, which is sold exclusively in Kansas and is, as I said, field corn not sweet corn, which is the type grown in that part of Florida.”

  Choi said, “I know there’s sweet corn and popcorn, but what the hell is field corn?”

  Everybody gave Choi a look.

  “What?” he asked, injured. “Where I come from, corn’s in a can or frozen or frickin’ microwavable.”

  Harrow held up a palm. “Billy, you’re doing exactly what I expect from you, and everybody on the forensics team.”

  “I am?”

  Harrow’s eyes traveled around the table. “I don’t expect any of you to know everything. God knows, I don’t. And if you don’t know, for God’s sake, say so. Screw your ego—we have a killer to catch.”

  Laurene said, “J.C. is right—we’re all going to have holes in our game that the others of us’ll need to fill.”

  Harrow asked, “How many people saw that corn leaf and saw nothing but a leaf, until Carmen came along and saw something different?”

  Choi opened his hands and said to Carmen, “So? Enlighten the ignorant.”

  “Field corn,” she said, “is grown for uses other than human consumption—animal feed, some plastics, biofuels such as ethanol, although it’s used as fuel in bio-gas plants in Europe, where it generates power.”

  “Thanks,” Choi said. He said to the others, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  Carmen said, “Anyway, the point is, this is a type of field corn sold exclusively in Kansas.”

  “The question that comes to mind is,” Anderson said, “how does a leaf from a corn plant grown in Kansas wind up in a cul-de-sac in Florida…a state where they only grow sweet corn?”

  “That,” Harrow said, “is what we’re to find out.”

  Pall said, “If the killer left that leaf behind—whether accidentally or on purpose—it’s a reasonable assumption that his area of operations extends beyond Florida.”

  “Yes,” Laurene said. “It extends to the Midwest, where we have a similar crime, in another corn-growing state—Iowa.”

  Choi said, “How do we know the Florida victim didn’t have an Uncle Silas from Kansas who walked that leaf in? Helluva leaf of faith, guys. Sure you want to make it?”

  Carmen said, “I’ve already researched the families of the victims, and of the neighbors, and there’s no Kansas tie. Trust me. None.”

  “Okay,” Harrow said, shaken a little by Choi’s valid undermining of their clue. “Anybody think this lead is too thin to be worth taking?”

  No one did. Thank God.

  “All right, then,” Harrow said with a sigh. “Jenny?”

  Jenny looked up quickly, a rabbit who’d heard the bark of a nearby dog.

  “Use those computer skills to find me a link between my case and the Ferguson murders in Florida.”

  She nodded and reached down for the briefcase that held her laptop.

  “Also, check for similar crimes, particularly in the Midwest. The Florida case slipped through our fingers for a while, so maybe there are more.”

  Jenny was already getting out her computer. She gave Harrow another quick nod and turned to her keyboard and monitor, focusing on her task.

  “Laurene,” Harrow said, “as our chief crime scene analyst, I want you on a plane to Placida today. Find out what else they missed.”

  Laurene nodded, asked, “When was this murder?”

  “September,” Carmen said.

  “Not what you’d call a fresh trail.”

  “Billy,” Harrow said, ignoring that, “you and Carmen will go with Laurene—I want you two to interview the cops and any potential witnesses. Treat them right—they worked hard on the case. They’ll look at you as poachers, so play nice.”

  Choi crossed his heart. “My best behavior, boss.”

  “Now I can sleep better, hearing that. Oh, and see what you can get on the guns too.”

  Choi nodded.

  Pall asked, “What about us?”

  “Michael, you and Chris do lab analysis of the evidence from both the Iowa and Florida cases. Make sure nothing else has been missed.”

  Anderson’s expression was lazy, but his eyes were not. “Where is the evidence?”

  “In your lab.”

  “We got a lab?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’
re not talkin’ about a retriever are you?”

  “No, Chris. A fully pimped-out crime lab.”

  “Here at this TV studio?”

  Harrow shook his head. “Outside.”

  Chapter Ten

  The forensics team, the camera crew, and Carmen and her little army all followed Harrow out, paraded down the hall and through double doors into the bright LA morning sunshine. The smog had rolled back to cast a brighter light for the occasion.

  Parked before them were a semi-trailer rig and two tour buses, each vehicle bearing Crime Seen!, Killer TV, and UBC logos.

  “Am I seeing things?” Pall asked, staring wide-eyed, hands on hips, tie flapping a little in the breeze, seeming very Clark Kent to Harrow. Mini Clark Kent….

  “Not a mirage, Michael,” Harrow said to the DNA expert, and led the team to the semi-trailer first. “And there’ll be a makeup/wardrobe motor home, and a satellite uplink truck joining the wagon train, when we head out.”

  Though they stood on the driver’s side of the trailer, their attention was on the drone of a motor, just out of sight.

  “The motors you hear,” Harrow said, “are the air conditioner and refrigeration unit for the crime lab that takes up the trailer’s front three-quarters.”

  The whole team seemed dumbfounded, and were exchanging colorful reactions, the TV crew catching it all.

  Toward the front of the trailer, three metal stairs hung down. Harrow climbed them, pulled open the door, and led the team inside the white-walled world, neat work stations set up on either side: a fingerprint hood, a drying closet, a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer, an AFIS, NIBIN, CODIS station, and a water tank to catch bullets fired for testing also lined the walls. Three long tables ran down the middle, one a regular work table, another a backlit table with bulbs under the surface, a third holding a Kodak MP3 evidence camera in its stand.

  The team looked around in wonder. Most came from state crime labs that weren’t nearly this up to date.

  Anderson asked, “Who the heck’s footin’ the bill for all this?”

  “UBC and our sponsors,” Harrow said. “And much of the equipment here was provided by the manufacturers in exchange for a mention in the end credits.

  Choi said, “The way they squeeze the credits down these days? What good’s that kind of unreadable plug do them?”

  Carmen said, “We provide the companies with footage of you ‘stars’ using the equipment, and it becomes part of their promo package when they go out to state and local crime labs around the country, and the world.”

  Shaking his head, Pall said, “Weird way to stop a killer.”

  “That’s entertainment,” Laurene said. She swivelled to lock eyes with Harrow. “Which brings us to something else, J.C.”

  Harrow felt the camera move in on him as he said, “What?”

  Ignoring Hathaway and his video eye, Laurene asked, “How long is this season supposed to last again?”

  “Twenty-two weeks,” Harrow reminded her.

  “And what happens if we haven’t found the guy?”

  Harrow didn’t duck her gaze. “We keep looking.”

  “Can we be cancelled?”

  “Any TV show can be cancelled. But we’ve got at least twenty-two weeks, guaranteed, and even if we aren’t finished then, we should be able to keep going. As long as, well, we’ve been…”

  “Entertaining?”

  “I was going to say ‘make compelling viewing.’ I believe we’ll be allowed to keep up the search—too much of an embarrassment to the network not to. On the other hand, I don’t figure we’ll need more time than we’ve been given.”

  “Cool,” Choi said. “But what happens if we nail our guy in, oh, two weeks?”

  After all these years of looking for his family’s killer, and now finally having one clue that might be a genuine lead, Harrow had never contemplated the possibility that the case might now come down quickly.

  “That would be great,” he said. “Sooner the better.”

  Laurene asked, “Oh? And how’s the network going to feel about that?”

  “Well, they’d be thrilled, I’d think.”

  “Really? They promote something as a season-long serial only to have it wind up in two weeks? Wouldn’t that cut into their profits?”

  Harrow finally saw where Laurene was headed, and the truth was, he didn’t know the answer. “Maury, turn off the camera.”

  Hathaway’s head peeked around the edge of the camera. “J.C., this is good stuff.”

  “You know the rules, Maury. When I say ‘cut,’ you cut. I won’t abuse the privilege. Shut it down and kill the sound too.”

  Hathaway did as he was told. So did Hughes.

  Choi asked, “You want them out while we talk?”

  “No,” Harrow said. “Anyway, it’s Maury I want to talk to.”

  “Me?” Hathaway asked, setting the camera on a nearby table. “What did I do?”

  “Nothing. I just want an expert opinion.”

  “I’m no expert,” the heavyset cameraman insisted. “I never saw CSI in my life. I don’t even watch television. I make it.”

  That got chuckles all around, but uneasiness was in the air.

  “Maury, do you think the network would ask us to withhold evidence, to…parcel it out, time its release, for dramatic effect? Just to keep the show going?”

  Hathaway’s eyes widened, and his mouth dropped—not a typical reaction from a seasoned vet like him. “Hell, I never thought of that.”

  “Me neither,” Harrow admitted. “And what’s more, I haven’t been here long enough to know the answer. Maury, you’ve been at UBC for ten years. You know everything and everyone—what do you think?”

  The cameraman took a long silent moment, glanced at Hughes, who seemed similarly flummoxed. Finally, he said, “Nicole never would pull anything like that. Not that she’s honest, but I don’t think she’s got the power or the cojones to go that far.”

  The team looked relieved, if somewhat skeptical.

  Harrow asked, “What about Byrnes?”

  “Him I’m not so sure,” Hathaway said. “I mean, the guy is all about the bottom line. But his reputation—and my experience with him? He’s honest, as far as it goes.”

  “What does that mean, Maury?”

  “It means—it’s Hollywood.”

  This did not ease Harrow’s concerns.

  Laurene asked, “So, if we have misgivings about the networks and its priorities—what’s the impact on how we proceed?”

  “We handle all the evidence ourselves,” Harrow said, “or at private labs we trust, like Chris’s employer, Shaw and Associates.”

  Choi was frowning, his expression close to pissed off. “Would these UBC SOB’s tamper with evidence?”

  Harrow shook his head. “I don’t believe they would, Billy. But it will be better if we can keep the situation from arising. I believe we can address any attempt to have us hold back evidence—”

  “Like for sweeps week?” Choi said, only half kidding.

  “Like for sweeps week,” Harrow said. “We can head that off by getting the lawyers involved. Obstruction of justice trumps ratings, every time.”

  Laurene seemed satisfied with Harrow’s take on the network situation. “Okay,” she said. “Then I have another question, J.C.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Harrow said patiently.

  “If…when…we catch this killer—who has jurisdiction?”

  “We’ll see about that when we know more,” Harrow said. “Let’s catch the bastard first, then we’ll worry about who gets to try him. Certainly we’ll be cooperating with state and local, and sharing any glory.”

  Shaking his head, Pall said, “Nobody’s ever attempted anything like this before, J.C. But you know as well as any of us…if you were this asshole’s lawyer? You would say you couldn’t get a fair trial anywhere in the United States.”

  All eyes were on Harrow.

  Pall went on: “A top-rated TV show used its hunt
for him as a ratings boost? Think there’ll be twelve licensed drivers anywhere in the country that won’t be prejudiced against this guy once we do catch him?”

  Harrow put up his hands in surrender. “I’m the first to admit I haven’t thought of everything involved here. Maybe I got blinded by finally seeing a pinpoint of light, after years of darkness.”

  And as far as the network and Dennis Byrnes were concerned, Harrow had known when he signed on that he was inking a deal with the devil. Now, he just hoped he wouldn’t get tripped up by the fine print.

  “First, let’s find the guy,” he told them. “Let’s stop him and expose him, and trust that matters like jurisdiction and fair trials don’t trip us up.”

  Laurene said, “These are dark waters, J.C. Choppy too.”

  “I know. But I couldn’t ask for a better crew to help make the voyage.”

  Choi grunted a laugh. “Good thing I know how to swim.”

  Harrow said, “Just so you don’t jump overboard on me, Billy…. Maury, turn the camera back on, and let’s get down to work.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The motel room was dark, the flimsy, filmy curtains pulled tight against the fading afternoon sun as the Messenger kicked back on the bed, thin pillows piled behind his head as he watched the national news on UBC.

  Outside, what passed for rush hour in Socorro, New Mexico, was under way, which meant maybe ten cars on the street, not five. Still, with only nine thousand souls, Socorro was still way bigger than his own hometown.

  Made him wonder—if the rights of people could be so blatantly trampled on in a little town like his, with no repercussions, how could people’s rights ever be protected in a town twenty-five times the size? Or in a really big city, like New York or Chicago? Possibilities for corruption there were mind-boggling.

  That thought only served to reinforce why his work was so important—why he needed to keep leaving messages around the country, until someone was smart and capable enough to understand their importance.

  Sad that he’d had to go the way he had, but he needed help, and the normal routes for gaining assistance had paid him no heed. The messages he was delivering seemed the only reasonable way to recruit the help he so desperately required.