Chapter 58: Detective Work

Rebecca and I had gotten into a pretty good routine. I would monitor and record any unusual dreams that came my way, then once a week, usually Friday or Saturday night depending on whom had a date on which night, we would get together and go over the highlights of the week. I would run the 'footage' I had acquired over the past week, she would compare the images to the girls she had been monitoring for the past several months. So far we had three very likely candidates. I had received many more images originally but now the field was beginning to narrow. I had begun to have recurring visions of a select group. It was immediately obvious that he had found what he was looking for. It was also very frustrating. Here I was a key player in a major investigation and she couldn't tell me squat. I was getting pretty pissed about the whole thing. The situation was getting tenser as our deadline approached. Once more I found myself covering familiar territory as our weekly shouting match got into full swing.

"We've been over this, Jimmy, I can't tell you their names, they're minors; it's privileged information. I can't even acknowledge you exist in an official report, how the hell could I justify giving you information? They are part of an ongoing federal investigation, I couldn't even tell their parents. Not that I would if I could, they might do or say something to scare him off and then we'd never catch the son of a bitch."

"It's bullshit, Rebecca, and you know it. You wouldn't even have an investigation without me. You know I could just stop showing you all this stuff."

"Now there's a hollow threat if I ever heard one."

She had point, what really sucked was that we both knew she was right. "Dammit Rebecca, it would be a lot easier if I knew what was going on. I might be able to do more."

"How? What difference would knowing their names make? Would it open up other information?"

"Maybe. With their names and some real photos to work with I might be able to bridge them and find something..."

She cut me off, "Like what?"

"Like why he's picking them out."

"We know why he's picking them out."

"No we don't. We've seen a little hint here or there. We know they're sexually active, so's my sister and she's in seventh grade."

"You know, I could tell her you said that."

I glared at her before continuing, "Dammit Rebecca, he picked them for a reason. He knows something we don't. If we knew what they were involved in we may be able to figure out who his ultimate target might be."

"You think I don't know that? Jimmy, it's not that I don't want you to know. I can't... tell... you. It's an ethical violation, it's morally disrespectful, it's a legal policy and procedure violation, it..."

I cut her off, "could save their lives!"

"I know that, dammit! Here, let me spell it out for you. I, me, Rebecca Hampton, FBI, cannot and will not disclose information regarding this case to you, James Matthews, civilian, a person who does not exist. There are exactly three people besides the killer who knows those names, myself, we covered me, Paul Freeman, my partner because he needs to know to do his job, Samuel Rodriguez, our boss, because I have to justify my involvement in this case and the amount of time I spend on it. There are other cases I could be and probably should be working. I'm not. I take the odd case here and there in the slow times, simple stuff, nothing that will require a long term commitment in time because I've been able, so far, to justify the man hours on this job. Paul does tech work when I don't have something for him. Rod has the unhappy job of kissing the necessary asses to keep the hours free for me to do this job. Everyone understands that it's getting real close to time for this psycho to kill again. Now, I'm not telling you shit. If you want information, you're going to have to get it somewhere else."

A light bulb went on in my head. I don't think one actually appeared over me but she suddenly had an interesting grin on her face. I think she knew that I had finally figured out what she had been trying to tell me.

"Are we done here? I need to go see my girlfriend for a while."

"Sure kid, I can handle it from here. Go ahead, take a hike, I'll call you if anything comes up."

I smiled and walked out the door. I could have just faded or even just disappeared but it tended to bother people. I was especially careful to use doors and knock when I came to see her. I'd walked in on Allison and Shannon several times, but there is difference between walking in on your girlfriends and walking in on others. Rebecca and Bob had become a pretty serious item and the last thing I wanted was to cause them embarrassment by magically interrupting their private fantasies. I'd learned my lesson there. They were my friends; I made it a point not to spy on them. In fact, I tried to not even think of them unless I wanted or needed their immediate assistance.

Not wanting to be guilty of lying to Rebecca I headed over to the beach where I had left Allison and Shannon working on their volleyball games with a select group of assistants. These included the top five men's and women's pairings in Olympic Beach Volleyball from the last summer games. We alternated indoor and outdoor play to round out all of our educations and abilities. We also invited a couple of trainers in to assist in our physical development. Not that it was necessary in dream play; any of us could have had a 20 foot vertical jump if we wanted it. We needed to learn what we could do in real life exercise to improve our conditioning and performance.

Allison and Shannon had been putting in extra time in activities designed to help strengthen their bodies for the rigors of the sport. Shannon could now clear a regulation eight foot net to attack or defend. Allison could get both hands to the wrist over to block but so far that was it. At a casual glance, standing still you would never realize the muscles hidden beneath those soft curves, but as soon as they started to move it became evident. People say that ballet dancers are muscled with wire. In a casual pose you would never know they were there. So were my two little angels. Shannon had apparently hit a growth spurt and shot up three additional inches in the last 4 months. She had filled out nicely in other areas as well. She still had a ways to go before she would be borrowing my Angels' clothes, but it looked like my prediction had been closer than we knew. Oh sorry, 'Angels' was my new private nickname for Angela, I had called her that on our long ago date when I thought she was about to seriously injure me and somehow it had stuck. Not really sure why it came out plural but...

As soon as I appeared I froze all the extras and walked across the sand to hug the girls. They were both hot and sweaty from their exertions. Without a word I sent everyone else away and moved us to a point in the middle of the lagoon and five feet above the water, then let gravity do the rest. Allison shrieked and came up mad as a wet cat.

"That's c-c-cold," she stuttered. It must have been because her nipples suddenly looked like something out of Madonna's wardrobe closet.

"It's not that the water is so cold, Princess," I reached over and tweaked a nipple as I continued; "it's that you're so hot."

She took a playful swipe at my hand. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, you say that now."

Shannon cut in, "He's not just saying it, sweetie, I think he's absolutely right." She moved in close and grabbed a bikini covered cheek. "He could have dropped us into a hot tub and it still would have been cold to you." She grabbed the back of Allison's head and brought her in for a kiss that had the water bubbling around us in no time.

The tent was already going up when I suddenly remembered what had brought me here in the first place. "Damn," I swore softly.

Allison broke the kiss and looked at me. "What? You know you're welcome to join in any time."

"That's not it. I just remember why I dropped by in the first place."

"That's right; you were supposed to be playing with Rebecca tonight. What happened, she sleeping over at Bob's again?"

"Not that I know of and it wouldn't matter if she was; we meet in a conference room."

Shannon kissed my cheek. "My knight in shining armor."

I kissed her back before continuing, which didn't help the tent problem at all.

"Well, we were arguing, again, about her telling me the names of the girls she thinks are targets. She still won't talk but I think she gave me a clue as to where to go to get the information." I explained what Rebecca had told me.

As soon as I mentioned Rod and Paul, Allison started in with the Mission Impossible stuff, "dunt-duh, da-da-dunt-duh, da-da dunt duh."

Shannon picked it up immediately, "Cool! Mission Impossible time! Who's the target? You're not going to try and scam Rebecca are you?"

Allison rolled her eyes. "Oh right, she won't see that coming. Hello! Hey, who's the blonde here anyway?" She looked back at me. "I'm guessing Paul?"

I nodded affirmatively. "I don't think I want to try anything with Mr. Rodriguez just yet."

"So you're picking on Paul?" Shannon asked. "That's not fair."

"You don't have to come if you don't want to. I'm sure Allison and I can handle it, I just thought you might want to join in and I could use an extra person for what I have in mind."

"Just teasing, I wouldn't miss it. I learned my lesson when I passed up the chance to help you screw with Frank Watkins. You guys don't get to have all the fun any more. So what did you have in mind?"

"Well, someone gets to be Rebecca, I'm going to be Rod, and someone gets to be a new person."

"Who?"

"Lindsey Hearne, I made up the name, but she is an FBI profiler who happens to be in the area on the way back from another job and has been volunteered to look at what we have so far."

Shannon's brow furrowed in thought. "I think I'd better be Rebecca, I'm not much of an actress and profiler sounds like a job for our resident intellectual."

Allison giggled. "Frightening to think the blonde is the brains of the outfit. So what's the plan?"

Paul answered the phone on the third ring. He could have gotten it on two but he had to take off the magnifying headset first.

"Freeman."

"It's Rebecca, Paul. I need you to set up conference room 3 for a meeting. Bulletin board, time line, photographs, everything, you need to have it ready in about 30 minutes, 45 tops."

"What's up?"

"Out of town guest. Lindsey Hearne. Ever heard of her?"

"Should I have?"

"She's a profiler from Washington."

"What's she doing here? And why does she want to look at our case. I didn't think we were ready for that yet. They don't usually call in someone like her until the body count gets higher."

"I know. But she just finished up a conference in San Francisco and she just happened to have a layover in LA before she catches her connection back to Washington."

"Yeah right, and that's going to give her time to come all the way into downtown LA?"

"Well, as luck would have it, her connecting flight isn't until tomorrow morning."

"That's convenient."

"Isn't it though? Anyway, better drop whatever you're playing with and get things set up. It's time to play show and tell for the brass."

'Rebecca' led us in. Introductions were made and Paul started the presentation. Since I was playing the supervisor I just sat quietly and let my people do their jobs. I answered questions but otherwise did not get involved. It was pretty impressive. He started with the details of the three dead girls, everything they knew. When he had finished with the factual presentation he went into supposition and where 'our' chief suspicions lay. The common factors of the girls lives, age was an obvious factor, but 'Miss Hearne' challenged it right away.

"Three is very narrow sampling to base an assertion on don't you think?"

To his credit Paul did not back down. A quick glance at Rebecca and he shot right back at her, "Yes ma'am, we know that, we've done a national search for unsolved cases and come up blank. Yes, we're grasping at straws here, but we are hoping that if we catch the right one we can stop this before we have a bigger sample to work from."

She smiled and nodded for him to continue.

"From our interviews we have decided that sexual deviance plays a role."

"Why?" She asked.

"Just another consistency between the three. Diane McKenzie was a party girl, Maria Pena was essentially whoring herself for presents, no disrespect intended."

"I would hope not," she responded. "But you are essentially correct. What about the second girl..." she glanced at her notes, "Amanda Watkins."

Again he glanced at Rebecca. This time she took the lead.

"That's a problem area. At this point we have only suspicions to go on. Her father insists that she was not active but saving herself."

"What about the mother? Or better yet, the sister?" she asked.

"Mr. Watkins answered all of our questions. He refused to let us talk to the others."

"You're kidding."

"I wish to God I was kidding. He stonewalled every attempt we made to bring them into the conversation. But body language alone says he's lying."

"His body language or someone else's?"

"Mainly the oldest surviving daughter, but also the mother. I could tell they wanted to speak up, especially the sister."

"Did you ask for a warrant?"

"I didn't think it would do any good. I've seen the type before; the second I showed up he'd scream religious infringement and lawyer up. I tried to leave a card but the wife was too intimidated to even take it."

"And the sister?"

"She was present during the interview but actually looked like she was terrified we would ask her something."

She nodded and turned back to Paul, "Please continue."

"Athleticism seems like a primary attribute that he searches for so we started our search there. All of the girls we're watching are top athletes in their respective sports and are in line for college scholarships. All of our top ten have multiple offers from competing schools. They are also academically solid students, and have either recently turned eighteen or will within the next two months. They are physically strong and aggressive competitors in their respective sports. The sexual aspect is the biggest challenge."

"I can imagine. You can't exactly just walk up and ask them about their private lives. So how are you rating them?"

Paul actually blushed at this point. "Not all of them are shy about their sex lives. Not all of what we have is confirmed fact. We have had to rely on rumor in some cases. Most we just don't know about."

"Go on."

"All of them?"

"How about just your top five for now and I'll take summaries on the rest. How big is your pool at this point?"

"The total pool is around 50, we've concentrated on California, Arizona, and Nevada, and we're concentrating on the top twenty from that area. For the purposes of this meeting, I'm going to focus on the top ten. Before I start let me explain that our top ten is broken into two groups of five. The top five represent those that we have sexual history on, the next five are unconfirmed rumors, and the rest are just, well, we have no information on that aspect of their... qualifications?"

Rebecca laughed out right at that, Miss Hearne just did her best not to smile too much. Even I had to smile. "Delicately put, Paul. How about if you just start with your top ten? Will that be alright for you, Miss Hearne?"

"Yes, that will be fine; I can take summaries on the rest and call you if I have questions."

"Okay then, starting off with number five, we have Bethany Armstrong, she plays field hockey, total of five strong scholarship offers, the top two are looking at switching her into Lacrosse as well. She's a serious competitor in a rough sport and an acknowledged and very outspoken lesbian."

Miss Hearne interrupted, "You consider her being a lesbian as constituting a deviant sexual lifestyle?"

"No ma'am. But we do not know what the killer considers to be deviant so we have to at least consider the possibility." To his credit he did not wait for her to reply before moving on, pretty much blowing off the question. "At number four; Elizabeth Street. Basketball player, four full-ride scholarship offers, nicknamed 'Easy-Street.' Pretty self explanatory. Number three is Rosa Sanchez, softball player, also four full rides on the table, apparently likes to have sex in public places. She's been caught several times; the worst was in a gingerbread house at a shopping mall last Christmas. At number two; Stephanie Carswell, volleyball and softball, acknowledged lesbian and considers herself a seductress. Particularly likes to seduce other young girls. That takes us to the top of the hill, Miss Alicia Sanderson, She is a competitive swimmer; 400, 800 and 1000 meter individual medley, but her top sport, and what most of the schools want her for is Water Polo. Easily the top female player in the state of California. Seems straight on the surface but there are rumors that she is actually bi-sexual, the main reason she is number one is that she is a martial artist and therefore a physical threat. We think he might consider her a worthy target."