33
Elton John’s “Rocket Man” blasted out of Savich’s pocket as they crossed the parking lot to the Range Rover. Savich pulled out his cell and listened as they walked, asked questions, and punched off. He motioned them to the car, turned, and made a call, this one longer. When he got into the Range Rover, he said, “Hold off starting the engine, Griffin. You guys need to hear this. That was Detective Ben Raven, Metro, in Washington. Sherlock, the man who struck your windshield and disappeared—they had no luck with the local ERs, no matches with missing persons, you know the drill. But we got lucky. They put a rush on DNA testing and the results just came back. Now, the disturbing part—the man’s DNA was in the database because he’s a CIA analyst, thus a federal employee. His name is Justice Cummings. Ben went to Cummings’s house, found it empty. One neighbor told Ben he saw the wife and two kids get in the car and leave Monday morning. He said they sometimes head to a cabin in the Poconos for a vacation, sometimes to her mother’s, he couldn’t be sure, didn’t know where in the Poconos, maybe one of the neighbors knew. Without the husband? Ben asked him. The neighbor shrugged, said he’d heard the guy was a spook and no one would know what the dude was up to.”
Griffin held up his hand. “Whoa, a CIA analyst running into a car in the street and disappearing? If that had anything to do with CIA covert activity, especially here in the States, it’d take a presidential order to get anything out of them. Even with a personal call from the president himself, given the CIA culture, getting them to tell us what this analyst was up to would be like prying open a tuna can with a Q-tip.”
Carson stared at him. “I understand they’re secretive, they have to be, but with you guys? The FBI?”
“To give you an idea of how the CIA operates, Ben Raven called Mr. Maitland at the Hoover, who called Cummings’s supervisor—group chief at Langley. All he got out of the group chief, a Mr. Alan Besserman, was stone-cold silence, then an ‘I’ll look into it’ and a curt thank-you. Since Cummings hit an FBI agent’s windshield, namely yours, Sherlock, Mr. Maitland is ready to crack the whip, although where exactly he’d crack it is a question. He spoke of going over Besserman’s head to his boss, Claire Farriger is her name, the assistant director of the CIA for Europe and Eurasia analysis. He told me he’d get back to me if she deigned to see him, so he wants us to be ready to come back to Washington.” He added to Sherlock, “Mr. Maitland wants the CAU to lead up the investigation. I told him we needed another day here in Gaffer’s Ridge. He has Agent Lucy McKnight in charge for now. She already tracked Cummings taking an Uber from several blocks from the accident to Alexandria, where he destroyed his cell.”
Griffin said, “I’ll bet the CIA is working as hard as we are to find Cummings before his disappearance hits the media, and it will, too juicy not to, particularly since he struck your windshield, Sherlock.”
Sherlock was thinking her world was awfully strange, being FBI, hitting a CIA analyst who had, oddly, simply disappeared. How often did something like this happen?
Griffin said, “We don’t have much time, so we need to move fast. What about Rafer Bodine? Sherlock, you’re a fresh eye. What did you think of him?”
Sherlock said thoughtfully, “He’s scared, he’s angry, but here’s the thing—I didn’t see evil in him. I know that’s an odd thing to say, but being that scared and angry isn’t what you’d expect from a serial kidnapper. Is it, Dillon?”
“No,” Savich said. “I don’t think Rafer is alone in the girls’ disappearance. Carson, you said he seemed really sorry Amy died?”
She nodded. “Yes. And he seemed really frightened yesterday at his house, too, frightened of what I could do, or might do. Then today he spoke of his mother fixing us—‘shining’ us.”
Griffin said, “Jenny never spoke of anyone being afraid of Mrs. Bodine. Maybe they keep it a secret and it was the only threat Rafer could think of. So who’s involved? Rafer’s mother? His father? For that matter, is Sheriff Bodine part of this? And that’s why he behaved as he did? To try to contain the damage?”
Savich said, “I know one thing. We don’t have time to put together a task force. We have to find those girls fast. If they’re still alive, what we’ve done has already put them in more danger. I think we should go speak to Mrs. Bodine right now. Take it right to her face, see what she says.”
Griffin nodded and revved up the Range Rover.