Don found that it helped to think of it as 'the crime scene' and not 'Charlie's office'. The place was still a shambles, but it was a cold shambles. Someone had tacked plywood over the windows of both Charlie's office and that of Langerton's next door, and papers were no longer wafted about every time a gust of wind blew in. A few would rattle occasionally, but stayed decently in place with the exception of one time that a stack overbalanced and half slid to the linoleum. Cracked cinder blocks were everywhere, spreading concrete dust that tickled his nose. Tall bookcases had fallen over and dumped their contents onto the floor beside the blocks. Don compressed his lips into a thin line. There was grim symbolism in the fact that one of the fallen texts had been written by a Dr. Charles Eppes.
"The preliminaries were right," David said quietly from beside him, report in hand. Yellow 'crime scene' tape tacked off the doorway that they had crossed through. "The bomb was planted in Langerton's office; also unlocked, by the way. We're running a background check on him, just to be sure, but so far it looks pretty clear that Charlie was the target. Placement of the bomb was to ensure that it wouldn't be discovered until too late. Langerton's at a conference in Seattle; has been since yesterday. Some computer thing."
Don didn't say a word. David continued, "the bomb was placed against that corner," and he pointed, "to take out the load-bearing posts and ensure as much damage as possible. We haven't found a timer, but we did find remnants of some sort of radio control mechanism. They set off the bomb when they were certain that this office was occupied."
"When Charlie was here, you mean."
David accepted the correction. "We're trying to run down the radio parts right now—Colby's on it—but I'm told that the parts are pretty commonplace. You can get them at any hobby store. It's doubtful that we'll get anywhere with that angle."
"How about that nurse? She pick out anyone from the mug books?"
Heavy sigh. "Yeah, but the guy has an airtight alibi."
"Breakable?"
"Not unless San Quentin has a work furlough program for convicted murderers that we don't know about. No, DeAngelo has been a good little prisoner for the past four years, looking to get out sometime next year. I've put out a call to the other major metropolitan offices to see if there's anyone on the move in this direction but so far nothing's turned up. The drifters don't fit our M.O. Dead end for right now." David trailed off, unsure of what to say next. A paper rustled in a stray breeze.
Don picked it up, stared at it without truly seeing what was written on the page. He looked at the boarded up window, at the office next door that he could see into past the tumbled down bricks. "I'm getting damn tired of this, David. I'm tired of being half a step behind them, every move they make."
"What can—?"
Don cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Help me with this." He picked up one of the white boards with Charlie's scribbling on it. Some had been erased in the fall, more scorched away by the explosion. "Start copying this for Charlie. Get Colby to help you."
"You?"
"I'm going to see Megan. It's time to get a handle on this man. And put him away."
Sherry from Enforcement answered the door at Don's knock, and Don had to look up to meet her eyes. The woman was taller than he was and, Don would swear, more broad in the shoulders. Normally she engendered feelings of inadequacy in him but today he was glad she was on the job. "I appreciate your being here, Sherry. And the overtime."
"You're welcome. My nieces also appreciate my getting this overtime, boss. Couple of birthdays are right around the corner." She let him in.
Megan's home was as warm and welcoming as she was. Western influences dotted the walls, reminding Don of his time in New Mexico, lending a comforting glow to anyone entering. A Mexican shawl graced the back of the sofa that Megan lay upon, and a large and decorative sombrero was tacked to the wall above. An oil showing a lone coyote howling to the distant moon hung beside it.
Megan struggled to sit up at Don's entrance, the sling still hampering her movements, but Don waved her back down. "Sit. Lie down. Whatever. You're still on medical leave."
Megan snorted. "I want this bastard as much as you do, Don. You can tell that to Occupational Health. What have you got?"
"Not a lot more, but I intend to give you what I have. Sit down and listen in, Sherry. All brains are welcome," Don invited. He filled his profiler and her bodyguard in on the bombing, and what they'd found.
"But you say Charlie will be all right," Megan pressed.
"That's what the docs say. He'll be back teaching inside of a week, on crutches. I get to bring him home tomorrow. My father flew back last night and is camped out at the hospital." Don leaned back in the easy chair, feeling frustrated. "Profile?"
Megan shook her head. "Ever since my conversation with Charlie, I've been going over my profile of our mastermind, and it still doesn't fit. Pieces are there, but somewhere I'm making a fundamental error. Charlie was correct; profiling is the statistical probability of personality characteristics, but it relies on the judgment of the user. If there's a ninety percent probability I go with that, but what if our suspect falls into the ten percent category?"
"Megan, don't let Charlie's way with numbers distract you—"
"I'm not, Don," she interrupted. She struggled to sit up, Don automatically reaching over to assist. "Thanks. What I was doing was letting the numbers lull me into a false sense of security. I needed to think about the outliers. I need to challenge all the assumptions I made, because somewhere one of those assumptions is incorrect. And," she added with a glance at Sherry, "I think I may know which one."
Don too glanced at Sherry, trailing after Megan. There was an inference there that he was missing. "What do you mean?"
"Take me into headquarters," Megan requested. "I need my reference books. And the computer."
"You're on medical leave."
"And you're here now because we need to nail this perp. Take me, Don, or I'll have Sherry do it, which will leave me without someone to ride shotgun in the car. Get my coat," she added. "You want me to catch pneumonia? Or this criminal?"
Don hated it when Megan went uncommunicative. It was almost as bad as when Charlie was trying to explain something that Don wasn't understanding. Both ended up with the same results: Don had a severe lack of knowledge. And that he didn't like.
But Megan dove into her books, pausing occasionally to pound a few computer keys. Once she threw him a satisfied look but buried her head back in the text before he could drag the pertinent detail out of her. Another time she asked David for ibuprofen.
And that left Don with nothing to do but watch. David too sat by his side, pretending to search computer records. Colby took refuge in pretending to review the case files.
They watched. And waited.
"You think she's onto something?"
"Of course. She hasn't let us down yet."
"Why isn't she saying anything?"
"She's concentrating. She'll talk when she's ready."
"Oh." Then, "I don't work like that."
"Of course not. You're not a woman, Colby."
"Glad you noticed, Don. I'm really not your type."
More watching. More waiting.
"Did you finish copying Charlie's equation from his office, David?"
"Yes."
"Did you give it to him?"
"I gave it to Colby."
"Colby, did you give it to Charlie?"
"The nurse told me not to. Said he was sleeping, not to disturb him."
"You do what she said?"
"Yup. I didn't disturb him." Big white-toothed grin. "I left it on the table. He can find it when he wakes up."
"Good man."
More waiting. More waiting.
"You think it'll help?"
"What'll help?"
"Charlie's numbers?"
"He's helped before."
"Yeah, but we've had info to feed him. These crimes, the perps haven't left anything behind."
"Charlie keeps saying that there's always a pattern. Trust him," Don said, finding himself hoping that he was right.
They waited.
Megan stretched, and all three men came on point. "You got something?"
Megan nodded, satisfied. "I was right. Or, rather, I was right after Charlie goosed me into re-examining my assumptions," she added.
"New profile?"
"New profile," she confirmed.
"Well? Are we going to sit here playing Twenty Questions?"
"Here I come in from medical leave to help out, and all you can do is pepper me with questions," Megan complained with a grin. "No appreciation at all."
"Megan, you are the most wonderful profiler that the FBI has," Don said obediently if impatiently, "as well as the most beautiful, even with a shiner that beats the one I accidentally gave Charlie as a kid and got grounded for. Now, what did you find out?"
"I started by questioning my assumptions," Megan said. "All of them. My profile didn't fit, so obviously I'd made an incorrect assumption. I thought I knew which one, but it was such a long shot that I had to do more research to justify it. Our criminal mastermind is a clear outlier to the statistics, but the rest of the profile matches. I'm going with it."
"Care to share?"
Megan took pity on Don. "My original profile was for a Caucasian male, between twenty and thirty-five, well-educated, possibly with a degree in science and engineering from a minor league college. Single, keeps to himself, has a strong need to control others. I can move on to a difficult childhood, but that describes a large percentage of our prison population. Got his jollies pulling wings off of flies, that sort of thing."
"Charming," Don grunted. "Obviously you've made a few changes in your profile."
"Yes, I have, but not as many as you'd think," Megan admitted. "All of those characteristics statistically were the highest probability for our guy, but taken as a whole there were several things that didn't satisfy me. The way this guy spoke on the phone didn't fit."
"What do you mean?" Colby wanted to know. "The guy used a computer interface. You couldn't hear his real voice, or any real emotion coming through that thing."
"True," Megan agreed. "At first I thought it was this guy's way of showing off. 'Look at me; I can make a computer sit up and do tricks.' But today I realized that it's something else entirely."
"The suspense is killing me, Megan," Don warned her.
Megan took pity on them. "It was my first assumption. I started to get a clue when I was at home and Sherry was assigned to guard duty."
"And…?"
"My first assumption: ninety six percent of violent serial crimes are committed by men. Not women. But what about the other four percent?" Megan let it hang in the air.
David groaned. "And we all just assumed that it was a man, because most of them are."
"Bingo," Megan agreed. "Our suspect used a computer generated voice to disguise her gender. But violent crime is on the rise among women; there are even all girl gangs out on the street and they're every bit as nasty as their male counterparts. And women can be every bit as controlling as men when it comes to getting what they want." She pointed to the transcript of one of the phone conversations. "That should have been my best clue: she threw a tantrum and hung up the phone when I began to taunt her. She threw another one and escalated when you did the same thing, Don."
"Great. Are you telling me that she wouldn't have gone after Charlie if I hadn't pushed her?"
"No, she would have gotten there anyways, although perhaps a bit slower. We have to remember the basic personality of this woman: she thinks she's better than everyone else, and she's out to prove it. She kept asking to talk to the 'man who solves the crimes.' She meant the 'man who solves her codes', and when you told her that the codes were simple, she was insulted. She wanted revenge. She knew that you weren't doing it, Don, not so quickly. It was Charlie that she wanted to match wits with."
"But, wait a minute," Colby protested. "We're getting three men dressed in black on video cameras at the crimes. They were on the jewelry store hold up. One even waved at the camera. None of the witnesses thought that any of the robbers were female."
"And it's likely that our 'criminal mastermind' keeps her hands clean. She sets up and designs the crime, then the men implement it down to the last detail. That last detail is the timing."
"They always leave the scene about five or ten minutes before we get there," David acknowledged.
"Her calling card," Megan pointed out. "She's rubbing it in our faces, that the crimes are committed and completed just minutes after we solve the riddle but before we can arrive on the scene. She feels superior by leaving us in the dust, literally."
"But how?" Colby was getting frustrated. "I checked out everyone around the building whenever we head out. Everyone checks out. Everyone's clean. Who's watching the building? That's the only way she can time it that close is by knowing just when we solve her stupid riddle and then telling her people to finish the crime."
Megan shrugged at that one. "I profile, Colby. The how's and why's are beyond me. I was hoping that your cell phone idea would pan out."
"Maybe I just haven't hit on the right person," Colby fretted. "Maybe they walk off somewhere to call, and I haven't seen them. Maybe I should review the security tapes again, see if the same person shows up—"
"No."
"Don?" Megan looked up.
"Not a cell phone," Don said thoughtfully, a grim look on his face. "People are too hard to control, and this chick is playing way too many variables. You said she's a control freak, Megan."
"Highest probability," Megan said. "Fits the patterns of behavior and verbalizations."
"She's already controlling three men who do the actual crimes. They'll behave as long as the money is rolling in, but they're probably getting antsy over these latest capers of hers. Your hit and run, Megan; there's no profit in it. That was pure anger, because you wouldn't let her go one on one with Charlie. She thought she could force Charlie to the phone by taking you out."
"How does she know when to get her people away?" Colby brought him back to the original topic.
"You also said she's tech savvy," Don mused. "Still think that?"
"The percentages aren't there—there are still fewer women in the sciences than men—but otherwise it fits. I like it. I can go with it."
"And this is a chick who likes to show off that she knows technology. She wouldn't use a person when there was another way, a way with better control. No independent personality to give her a hard time or back talk."
"I'm not following you, Don," David said, furrowing his brow.
"Yes, you are." Don crooked his finger at his team. "Come with me. Let's go look at my car." A terse grin. "Follow me."
Which is how they found a small black box wired to the bumper.
"I'll call the Bomb Squad." Colby backed off. "Don, you've been driving for how many days with that strapped to your bumper?"
"It's not a bomb," Don said, squatting to look. "It's a radio transmitter. How much you want to bet that our suspect just waits until we hop into my vehicle and roar off, then she calls her team and tells them to boogie?"
"Makes sense," David said. "I've always thought that they sometimes seemed rushed, and other times took all the time in the world."
"Because they had all the time in the world," Don said. "They knew exactly when we'd get there. They could plan, through the miracle of GPS." He turned to David. "This one's yours, David. Get it to Tech and see if you can run down the maker on these parts. They look a little more esoteric. Let's see if it leads us anywhere."
And no one blamed the satisfaction in his voice. Finally: a break.