"Charlie, I'm not sure that Don wants me giving this to you." Colby's tone was full of doubt. Which made sense, because Colby himself was full of doubt. "I thought that this kidnapping case was closed. Why don't you ask him for this stuff yourself?"
"Too busy," Charlie mumbled, leaving the question of whether he was referring to himself or his brother up in the air. He launched into the lecture, pulling the sheaves of data out of Colby's resisting hands. "I've checked and rechecked the math on the Spatter Effect, and my numbers are correct, but the answer isn't. Therefore one of the assumptions that I've made is incorrect or, at a minimum, incomplete. That means that I need to challenge each of the assumptions, come up with new parameters, and test those against the original hypothesis as well as conjecture a new potential thesis, possibly more, using both the Quantitative Analysis Statement as well as the Morrison Probability Double Curve." He lifted his shoulders with a grin. "We sometimes call the Morrison Probability Double Curve the Pitcher's Fast Ball. That's a pretty quick proof if you're pressed for time." He brightened at the thought. "Want to help with the data entry?"
Colby hadn't understood more than two words in ten of the lecture, but the last line was crystal clear: work. Even worse: work behind a desk. "No thanks," he said hastily. "Got a suspect to talk to. Before he gets away. Like right now. Sorry, gotta run."
Charlie watched the FBI agent hustle off with satisfaction. If he couldn't fend 'em off with math, then a simple request for menial labor worked just fine. Professor Eppes had tested and re-tested that hypothesis on students and found the results to be remarkably consistent over time. His most recent example of Colby demonstrated that it worked rather well on FBI agents, too. It was just icing on the cake that the 'Quantitative Analysis Statement' and that 'Fast Ball' nonsense had been made up on the spot.
Pity that he couldn't have gotten Colby to help with inputting the data. That was real.
But several hours later, the pattern had begun to emerge. As he had suspected—after being goosed by friend and colleague Larry Fleinhardt—the true answer lay not in the data but in the assumptions made about the data. In a fruitless effort to winnow out the extraneous data, he'd spread an artificial shield over part of the data, the part where 'rich' people lived, since it was deemed unlikely that anyone living in those areas would risk their assets by performing such a dangerous stunt such as kidnapping. But what if that assumption was erroneous? What if the assumption was correct but the parameter too narrow? What if Charlie broadened the search just a bit, closed just an edge of the shield over some of the data? What new lines of connection might appear?
'What' indeed. Six new names popped up, all of whom owned dark black or blue sedans with the suspect letters and numbers in the license plates. Six new suspects. Most of the names meant nothing to Charlie, but one stood out like a sore thumb.
And, boy, was that thumb sore: Ralph Maurer. AKA The Great Vervette.
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One really big advantage to cell phones, and actually all phones in general, was that you didn't haven't to look the caller in the eye. Sure, camera phones were out there, but at the moment Don was really glad that they weren't in popular usage because having to tell his little brother—the brother that Don had recently had to squash in favor of a psychic with a nose for lost and kidnapped kids—that the lead he'd worked so hard on wasn't going to go anywhere.
"Charlie, I'm sorry," he said, trying to keep it kind, wondering how long it would be before he dared show up at the house again. He was desperately missing his dad's cooking. Don's own efforts were getting more and more stale and unappealing. How had Don managed to live all those years in New Mexico by himself? Must be that his abused taste buds had finally grown back after being re-exposed to real food. "I know it sounds good"—lie—"but the case is closed. I can't re-open it without another kidnapping."
"But this is another lead, Don. It's sound. It's based on math."
The desperation in Charlie's voice bit deep. Don winced. "I know it is, buddy, but the case is closed. It would take too much manpower to track it down, and for what? There's no guarantee that we'd come up with enough to nail anyone, even assuming that it's Ralph Maurer."
"But—"
"And, think about it, buddy. Ralph was with us when the phone calls came in. There's no way he could have made those phone calls. He's a psychic, not a ventriloquist."
"That's not funny, Don—"
"You're right, it's not," Don agreed, grateful to be able to agree with Charlie on something, anything, even if it was only a bad joke. "But I also have to look at this from a resources point of view. I've got cases that are hot right now, cases where I can take down criminals from drug pushers to gun runners. Those are people who are doing some damage right now, Charlie. If I get some extra time, I'll look into it," he promised with another wince, knowing that the chance of getting that extra time hovered somewhere between slim and none. "I'll keep you posted."
"Don, he's getting away with it! And you're letting him!"
"I'm not 'letting' him do anything," Don snapped back. Dammit, couldn't Charlie take a hint? Grow up, or something? "There isn't enough evidence to do more than smile nicely at the man, and bitching about it about it isn't going to change that. He has rock solid alibis, Charlie. He didn't do it. You need to accept that and stop making this a personal vendetta just because you don't approve of what he does for a living."
"This isn't personal—"
"No? It sure sounds like it to me. In fact, if this case were open and you were a field agent, I'd be yanking it out from underneath you. You're letting your feelings get involved, Charlie. It's closed. Back off. Drop it," Don finished. "Charlie, the case is closed."
"Don—"
"I'm serious, Charlie." So was his gut, squeezing and tightening and knowing that lasagna had just gone off the menu for another month until Charlie forgave him for those words. Maybe two, until Charlie saw the sense of why Don had to do it. "I'm not saying this as your brother but as your FBI team leader. Drop it."
"Right. Drop it. Let him get away with it." Charlie clicked off with an angry abruptness. Don sighed. He knew that tone in Charlie's voice, had been hearing it since they were kids. It was sound of his little brother knowing when Don was putting him off over something, something that Charlie would never get. Once it had been a chance to bat in one of Don's pick up games: it had been a bunch of neighborhood kids after school, and eight year old Charlie had tagged along. Even then, Charlie had adored his older brother, although it was only now that an adult Don could recognize it. Charlie had had that same note in his voice when the game ended and Charlie still hadn't had a chance at bat. The score had been too close, it had always been two outs to the inning, it had always been yada, yada, and a few etc.'s.
Don sighed again. Charlie was an adult now, knew how to take another one of life's little disappointments. Don himself had had plenty of practice. Look at this kidnapping thing: did Charlie think that Don himself was satisfied at leaving it unsolved? Sometimes you had to let things go.
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Charlie glanced at the clock on the wall: almost four o'clock. No more classes, not even to cover that evening course Advanced Concepts in Trigonometry that Langerton's graduate student was having trouble teaching; a couple of the sophomores were proving that they were smarter than the Ph.D. candidate. Normally Charlie could spend the rest of the day working on some of his own proofs, his own research into Cognitive Emergence. Usually he then went home but just as often as not he'd stay late into the night when some data point caught his interest. Missing dinner was a routine occurrence. His father would simply shrug and stick the leftovers into the fridge.
Well, it could be one of those occurrences tonight, too. Don might not have the time to follow up on this lead, but that wouldn't stop Charlie from swinging by Ralph Maurer's neighborhood. Not investigative stuff, no. That was Don's area of expertise, not Charlie's. Charlie wasn't an FBI agent, didn't know the first thing about the details of crime, wasn't anything more than a math consultant. But that didn't mean that he couldn't go where he wanted. And Charlie wanted to walk along the road where Ralph Maurer lived. Just to see it, mind you. Nothing more. Just to get a feel for what his analysis had told him. That was what field work for consultants was. To see things, not to investigate. Investigation could be dangerous, meant for properly trained field agents.
Don wouldn't ever know that Charlie had been there. Ralph Maurer wouldn't ever know, and neither would anyone else. Charlie turned the wheel of the car, seeing the map in his head, the directions laid out as neat as a quadratic equation with two variables. As far as Don and anyone else knew, Charlie had done as he was told. He'd dropped the case. And he really had. He wasn't here because of the case. He was here just to verify for himself what his numbers were telling him. This was to keep himself sharp, so that he could be a better consultant.
The neighborhood was well-to-do, with small but tasteful houses dotting both sides of the street. Brown spots marred several lawns here and there, leftover from the summer drought, but the plants designed for desert regions were thriving. A hummingbird feeder stuck out of a post and Charlie caught a glimpse of a blur of wings and an iridescent sparkle of bright feathers whirring around it. A dog chained to a post lifted a lazy head to watch the car go by.
Not enough. There were several cars parked along the sidewalk, and Charlie put his own in line, crawling out and locking the door. He needed the details, the smell of the environment, the feel of the cement beneath his feet. He needed to be outside, walking the pavement.
The sun beat down on him despite the lateness of the day. Another hour or two and it would disappear completely beneath the horizon, but for now it was content with slapping Charlie with a full dose of warmth augmented by a battery pack of heat rising up from the white concrete sidewalk. Charlie debated leaving his shirt in the car and letting his arms hang out of a tee shirt, but sighed. That would mean retracing his steps and unlocking the vehicle. No, better to simply walk through where he needed to go and then turn up the A.C. once he was back in the car. He wouldn't be long, and the humidity wasn't bad.
It was a pretty neighborhood. He could hear a bunch of kids splashing in someone's backyard pool, although he couldn't see them over the tall fence. A terrier yapped at him, thinking it was chasing him along the sidewalk behind its fence, satisfied once Charlie had ambled beyond the confines of its lawn. The corner rose bush designated the end of the dog's territory, but Charlie declined to sniff at the pink flowers, eager to stop the dog from growling at him. He wasn't afraid of being bitten, but he was concerned that someone might see him, wondering who the dog was barking at. And that the news would get back to brother Don, the same brother in the FBI who had told him firmly and more than once that this case was closed. I'm not here as an FBI consultant, Don. I'm here because I'm curious. Yeah, that reason would do, especially if Don never had the occasion to ask.
The Great Vervette lived in a nice little one story place, not the most expensive in the neighborhood but not the cheapest. A lot of care had been put into the place, freshly painted and the bushes pruned. A wafting of lavender came on the slender breeze—yes, there was the bush, tall purple flower stalks lifting their heads above the silvery green leaves. The back was fenced in for privacy, and Charlie could barely see the tall evergreen hedge all the way in the back which lifted the viewing angle up by several feet. There was a neat and tidy for sale sign by the sidewalk; clearly The Great Vervette had done well over the last week or so with his new 'business' and was planning on trading up for a more spacious abode on the strength of his recent earnings. A few stray coffee cups sat at one corner of the fence, leftovers from the disappointed reporters hoping to follow in Ken Randall's footsteps and interview the psychic who had found the kidnapped children when the FBI—and the math consultant! Grr!—couldn't. The curtains were closed, no way to peek inside the house. Not that Charlie would, of course. That was going beyond what a consultant did on a field trip, unless the consultant was at a crime scene and specifically told to peek inside. Which this wasn't. No crime had been committed here, unless Charlie called Ralph's whole psychic business venture of fleecing the gullible public a crime. Which it was, but not by current legal definitions. Only Charlie's.
And there it was, sitting in the driveway, the car that had led Charlie to this point. Ralph Maurer drove a large black sedan, license plate 2-ADO-424. The sun beat down on this car as well, shining off of the black roof and re-radiating the heat upwards in shimmery waves. There was another car in the drive, a smaller vehicle in silver with a substantial scratch on the rear bumper. Charlie automatically noted its license plate as well in his head for later follow up. A client, perhaps, consulting The Great Vervette professionally? And Charlie used the word 'professionally' in jest. There was nothing 'professional' about The Great Vervette.
All right, Charlie had seen what he'd come to see. He'd seen the neighborhood, he'd identified Ralph Maurer's car as the car belonging to Ralph Maurer sitting in his driveway—just what had Charlie really accomplished? Charlie grimaced. Yes, what had he accomplished besides the waste of a couple of hours? Did this prove that The Great Vervette was involved in the kidnappings of two children? Were there any low life types hanging around Maurer's house, waiting for Charlie to identify them as accomplices? Hardly. Not unless he wanted to call the man getting out of his car at the end of the block, briefcase in hand, a low life. Three piece suit, dark black hair still neatly combed at the end of the business day, showing evidence of working in an air-conditioned office all day, bringing home a bouquet of flowers for his wife/partner/significant other?
Charlie sighed. This really had been a waste of time. Don would have been laughing at him if he knew what Charlie had been up to. At the very least, his brother would be angry and wouldn't hesitate to let Charlie know it. Charlie started to be very grateful that he'd taken all the precautions not to let anyone know where he was going. He just made a fool of himself, coming here. Maybe Don and Larry and all the rest were right: Charlie was going overboard on this psychic powers thing. Not that Charlie was wrong; no, psychic talents had yet to be conclusively proven. That wasn't just Charlie, that was the consensus of the scientists in the field. But to pursue one single example of pseudo-psychic fraud, just because The Great Vervette had gotten Charlie himself thrown off the case… yeah, it was way past time to go home. Go home, drop this psychic nonsense, and go back to working on his Cognitive Emergence theory. With any luck, the only person who would know that Charlie had just made a fool of himself here in this neighborhood was Charlie.
"Dr. Eppes. What a pleasant surprise."
If there was ever a time for cursing, now was it. Charlie knew that voice. Had heard it in his nightmares for the last few days. Had bitten his tongue on at least four different occasions to keep his brother from ordering him out of the room because of it.
He plastered the best smile onto his face that he could muster. "Mr. Maurer? I didn't expect to see you. What are you doing here?"
Ralph waved a hand at his house. "I live here. And you, Dr. Eppes?"
Think fast. "Looking around the neighborhood. I'm thinking of investing in some real estate, and I had heard that there were some houses up for sale," Charlie lied, hoping that his face was cooperating. "You live in this neighborhood? I hadn't realized. How is it? Think I should take a closer look?" You're babbling, Charlie. Shut up.
"Absolutely," Ralph said with a broad and delighted grin. "As a matter of fact, I've just decided to sell my house. There's this little place out in the country that I've fallen in love with, and it would be simply perfect for business. Imagine people coming out into that delightful mountain air, able to project clean thoughts for me to follow. I suspect that I'll be able to do a much better job of helping people with their problems." He took Charlie's arm firmly. "You must come in and look the place over. I'm no real estate agent, you realize, to show the place properly, but you might find something to pique your interest."
"I don't know…" Charlie looked longingly back at his car. Cover blown, you idiot.
"I insist." Ralph hung onto Charlie's arm. There was no way that Charlie could disengage himself without being rude or giving himself away. And then Don would find out, and the rest of the world, and how was Charlie going to squirm out of this one?
All right. Go inside, see the place, make a few light comments, and escape. Maybe he'd never see The Great Vervette ever again. The guy would sell his house, move out of town, and never darken Charlie's doorstep again. Or cross the threshold of FBI headquarters. One could always hope. The probabilities of such an action were…
Ken Randall was standing on the stoop of Ralph Maurer's house. Ken Randall, the reporter, the tall guy with dark black hair and pecs that Don had told him that Megan had commented favorably upon. The guy that looked like he could flatten Charlie with one hand behind his back.
Charlie kept the smile on his face. "Mr. Randall. I hadn't expected to see you here. I thought that you'd finished your articles on The Great Vervette." I can't believe that Ralph Maurer's stage name came out of my mouth without choking. He glanced around the living area, trying to act like a prospective house buyer.
Something jumped out at him: a portrait. A very large picture, done in oils, and very hard to miss. A portrait of Ralph Maurer and Ken Randall, arms entwined around each other, looking deeply into one another's eyes. There was a soft green sofa in the living room and a matching easy chair, and there was a table with green leafy plants on it in the background, but all that faded into obscurity. It was the picture that put it together: Ralph and Ken knew each other. They had known each other for a very long time, and in the Biblical sense. Evidence of Ken also being a resident of this house where Ralph lived was all over, from the extra large jacket hanging from the coat tree to the collage of Ralph and Ken photos tacked along one wall.
"You really shouldn't have come here, Dr. Eppes," Randall said.
Something else jumped out at Charlie: a thick pipe in Randall's hand. That pipe flashed once in the sunlight, just before connecting with Charlie's head.
Hardwood floors, was Charlie's only thought before pain rocketed through him. It was then that he realized that he was lying on that hardwood floor, being dragged further inside. Good selling point for a house, those floors. Those hardwood floors were about the only thing that he could perceive, because the rest of him was responding to every nerve insisting that agony was on the menu for the next several minutes. He tried to curl into a ball, praying for unconsciousness. No such luck. Okay, we'll settle for not losing lunch. Which also had a statistically large probability of occurring at the present time, even if Charlie's ability to calculate that probability had been temporarily put on the back burner.
"Is he dead?"
"No. Of course not." Nervously.
"You hit him too hard."
"Not hard enough, Ralph. Listen to him."
The groan, Charlie realized, belonged to him. Vision was definitely sub-optimal, but hearing was working. His arms and legs, however, could have belonged to someone else. Movement was out of the question. Someone dropped his feet, turning him over, pulling his arms behind his back.
"What are we going to do with him?"
"We have to do something." That grim voice, Charlie realized, belonged to Ken Randall. "How do you think he found out about us?"
"I have no idea. You were there. You know that I didn't give us away."
"Whatever. What's done is done. We have do something with him."
"You don't mean…"
"Kill him? I hope not. If you have any better ideas, Ralph, I'd really like to hear them. This scam we're running is one thing, but murder is out of my league."
Glad to hear that. Another spasm of pain in his head forced out another moan. Down, stomach! Behave.
"Whatever it is, we have to do it fast."
"And that's his car down the block. We have to get it out of sight. Put it into the garage. The keys must be in his pocket." Charlie felt someone rummaging in the pockets to his jeans, helpless to resist.
"That means I have to pull out the lawn furniture. All of it, not just the table. Where do you want me to put it? We just got it taken in."
"I'll finish tying him up, then I'll help. Hurry it up, before someone sees it and questions why it's here. You can put the furniture in the back yard."
"All the way back there? I have to lug it that far? It's heavy!"
"It's not heavy, it's plastic. If someone asks what you're doing, you're taking it out to hose it down later. Clean it. It's white; people are always cleaning white things over and over. Hurry up, before this idiot wakes up."
"What if he starts shouting? Ken, you hit him!"
Ralph, you sound absolutely delighted at the thought of male aggressiveness on the part of your significant other. I, on the other hand, as the recipient of the afore-mentioned aggressiveness—
"I'll gag him, too. We'll figure this out. I'm not giving up on this yet. We've got too much to lose. We just have to come up with a plan for getting him out of the way without killing him."
"You won't kill him, will you? Ken, you can't!"
"Not a chance. Like I said, Ralph, I don't want to go to jail but at this point we have to do something. We've got too much to lose."
Me, too. My life, for one thing. My brains, for another. And let's not mention lunch—
Oops.
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Don looked glumly at the stacks of financial data piled on the table in front of him. "When do you think the bean-counters over in Finance will be able to spare someone to help us figure this out?"
David too didn't look happy. "I ran into Agnes. She said they're backed up over the Enron case. It could be a week or more."
"The Enron case? The CEO guy's dead, the case already finished in court, and they're still not through with it?"
David shrugged. "That's what Agnes said. Something about who owed what to whom, and what was left over for the employees and the stockholders. Then she started to sound like Charlie, chanting numbers and figures until I ran away in self-defense. Speaking of whom, have you been able to contact him yet?"
"Nope." Don frowned. "He's not picking up on his cell, or his office phone, and Dad said that he's probably working late at the office. Whatever it is, it's caught his attention. Dad told me that Charlie didn't come home last night."
"He's not still trying to convince you that Ralph is a fake?"
"Don't think so. I had to squash him yesterday. Told him the case was closed—again, he never listens—and that even if he came up with something on Ralph, chances were pretty good that we wouldn't be able to track it down for a couple of weeks. Not unless there was a pretty compelling reason, such as another kidnapping. No, he's probably just pulling another all-nighter over some math theory or something."
"The usual," David sighed. "We pull all night stake-outs, but he pulls the all nighter's on proving this and that. Better him than me." He brightened. "I could mosey over to his office at CalSci, see if he's there."
"Nope. I get to do that. He's my brother, and I'm leading this team. I'm the one who gets to escape this office and get out into the clean sunshine." Don picked up his jacket. This was the perfect opportunity to seek out Charlie and do some serious groveling. To be honest, Don owed it to him. There was that little scene at the Smithers' house that still hadn't been adequately atoned for, and, to be honest, a mathematician of Charlie's caliber could make a heck of a lot more per hour than Don's Bureau budget paid him. Don had once found a discarded offer letter from some big business types mentioning something in the six figure range. Then Don grinned at David. "But I can invite you to come along. I need to finish up this report, say an hour or so, and then I can grab you and the car. Works for you?"
"Thought you'd never ask!"
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The time passed in a long and drawn out blur. To say that his head ached was a gross understatement. Nuclear explosion came closer. Being stuck in Larry's diatronic cyclotron would be another apt description. His thoughts weren't whirling, but his head was. Even if the pain was gone, Charlie doubted that he'd be able to stand.
Normally Charlie would say that being alive was a good point. That he was pleased that the pair hadn't yet murdered him. But, under the circumstances, that fact was up for debate. His head hurt. His wrists and ankles hurt; the ropes were biting into his flesh, wrenching him into an uncomfortable pretzel. There was a gag in his mouth, and it was hard to breathe past it.
Charlie had no sense of how long it had been. He thought he'd passed out once or twice, but couldn't be sure. Things had happened. They'd carried him, still bound hand and foot, into the garage and tossed him into the trunk of a car. He suspected that it was his own car, but since opening his eyes made him even more dizzy and nauseous, he gave up on that part of figuring out how bad this mess was.
Then the car was driven somewhere. This time Charlie was grateful for the passing out part; every time the car turned a corner he was thrown against the side of the trunk to collect another bruise. Passing out meant bypassing the 'ouch' stage. Waking up meant having to cope with the heat inside the trunk, gasping for breath past the gag stuffed into him. Yeah, thoroughly miserable. Don'd be laughing hysterically by now. See the stupid mathematician not listen to his FBI agent brother. Watch the numbers guy get whumped by the psychic guy and his reporter slash lover. Physically whumped now, not just socially. Charles Eppes, loser on all counts.
Why hadn't he listened to Don when Don told him that the case was closed?
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"Knock, knock."
Don looked up, hoping to see Charlie, realizing half a second later that it wasn't Charlie's voice. And that Charlie never indulged in a verbal 'knock, knock'. He simply barged in, laptop in hand, convinced that the rest of the world was as interested in his research as he was. Right now, Don would have been more than pleased to see his brother, with or without his laptop. It had been a little too long without that mop top skittering around Don's office like an elf on speed.
Instead it was The Great Vervette. What irony; Don wanted Charlie and instead he got the guy that Charlie couldn't stand.
"Ralph," Don said by way of a greeting. "Haven't seen you in a while. How are you?"
"Wonderful, wonderful," The Great Vervette burbled. "I really must thank you for allowing me to participate in my own little way in those kidnapping cases. I have had so many people come to me, asking for help in finding things. It's really quite rewarding."
Emotionally or financially, Don wanted to ask. But he merely said, "that's good to hear. What brings you by my neck of the woods? Not that it isn't nice to see you," he added, lying through his teeth.
"I'm not really certain," Ralph said. Don felt his 'spidey sense' tingling. What was the man up to? Don fought a frown. There was definitely something not right. But Ralph continued, "I simply had the oddest sensation that I had to come see you. You haven't, by any chance, had another kidnapping?"
"Not that's been handed to me," Don said. "Why? Have some parents contacted you, and not us?" His gut tightened. He could see that scenario happening very easily.
"No, no, nothing like that," Ralph hastened to reassure him. "It's just…well…I couldn't help but feel that something was going on. You will call me if you hear of someone missing?" he asked hopefully.
"Certainly," Don lied once again. Charlie'd kill me if he was missing and I called in The Great Vervette. He'd rather be murdered. "You remember that people go missing every day? Maybe LAPD has something for you."
But hustling to finish the report and collect David to go and track down his errant brother took on a greater urgency after Ralph left. Not that Don really believed in this stuff, mind you, not when he needed to talk to Charlie. But that financial case was waiting, and he needed Charlie, and his 'spidey sense' was blaring and—oh, hell. Don was worried.
