Part 7
Amanda happily munched on her chocolate glaze donut while Lee sipped his coffee and stared out the window at the brownstone building across the street. It was just past noon and pedestrian traffic was light in front of the three story walk up. Only four people had entered the building—a mother with a toddler and an elderly couple. No one had exited. Most of the windows had the shades pulled down, though a few sported pots of sickly geraniums on their sills. It was an unassuming building which may or may not house the man they were after. All they could do was wait here, at the last known address listed in their quarry's criminal file.
They'd learned about Mr. Young and his possible location due to the skills of a raven haired Forensics specialist named Zoe Smithers. After leaving Lee's apartment, they had headed for the Agency and made their way to the Forensics unit in search of Zoe, the Agency's foremost fingerprinting expert. As Amanda had predicted, the woman spent some time cooing and fussing over Lee and his injuries. Mind you, the woman was in her mid-fifties and all but patted Lee on the head as if he was a 'good little boy' but fawning was fawning. Once the woman had assured herself Lee would survive, she'd turned into the professional she was, and began checking the envelope and the pages within for prints. Just as Lee had surmised, there were two sets in addition to their own. The one set had had no match in the Agency computer but the other belonged to a Mr. Jeffrey Young, a small time criminal of debatable skills.
Zoe stared at the unknown set of prints thoughtfully. "I don't know Lee...There's something about these that makes me think I've seen them before. See this mark? This person had a severe injury to their third finger at one point. I'm sure we have a record of prints like this. I don't understand why the computer couldn't make a match."
Amanda stared at the enlargement of the finger prints. To her, it was just a swirl of lines. "Zoe, how can you possibly tell if you've seen a set of prints before? It's just a bunch of wavy lines."
"Zoe's special." Lee explained. "She has an amazing gift for analysing finger prints and recalling patterns."
"You see Amanda, fingerprints are analysed based on a system—we use one called the Henry Classification System. First you look for the three basic patterns: loops, whorls and arches. Each of these is broken into subcategories. For example there are ulnar and radial loops. Now the ulna is the lower arm bone and an ulnar loop starts on the pinky-side of the finger, which is closer to that bone, hence the name. Of course the ulnar loop is just one of eight common patterns..." She paused and then laughed. "Sorry I tend to get carried away."
Amanda smiled at the woman. "That's all right, Zoe. It's good to be interested in your work and it does sound fascinating. Maybe someday, when I'm not busy helping Lee, I can come back and you can explain this to me. "
"Sure Amanda. Anytime."
Lee gave Zoe a one armed hug. "Thanks for your help. You keep thinking about these mystery prints. If you remember where you've run across them before, let me know."
"That I will, Handsome. And, of course, this is all off the record. But remember..." She'd trailed her fingers down Lee's arm and winked at him teasingly. "I'm available anytime for another lesson in basic car maintenance."
Lee had laughed but Amanda had stood smugly watching. It didn't matter what age they were, women always fussed over Lee.
As they headed for the elevator, she'd reminded him that she liked chocolate glaze donuts and wanted a large coffee. Lee had glowered at her and started to protest. "Ah, ah, ah!" Amanda all but waved her finger at him. "Fawning is fawning even if she is old enough to be your mother." Lee had sighed and agreed they'd stop at the donut shop on their way to Mr. Young's house.
Amanda had been slightly surprised that Mr. Melrose hadn't sought them out while they were in the Agency and expressed this to Lee. Their boss was sure to know that they'd entered the building and she thought he would have found them and inquired after Lee's injuries. Maybe he was busy, she'd speculated. Lee had said he was just thankful that they hadn't had to explain why they were there in the first place when he was supposed to be home recuperating from his accident.
Just to be on the safe side, they'd stopped by the compound to check out Lee's car. It was a good alibi as to why they were out and about. Lee had morosely viewed the damage to his 'baby' and discussed repairs and cost with the mechanic. The windshield was shattered, the front bumper and hood crumpled and the engine needed several replacement parts as well as a good overhaul. When the mechanic suggested scrapping the car, Amanda thought Lee might have a stroke. The man assured Lee he'd just been joking, but from the glower on Lee's face, everyone present could see that the humour of the remark had escaped him.
Now they were waiting for the mysterious Mr. Young to show himself. Amanda filled in the time by speculating. "Do you think this person could actually be your informant and is just too scared to admit it? I mean, his success rate as a criminal doesn't seem to be too good so he's probably really skittish and could have just pretended he'd been paid to give you the package, though I wonder how he could have even gotten his hands on sensitive information about Mr. Melrose."
"He's small time so I really doubt he's the person we want. Most likely he was just paid to make the drop. The stuff in the envelope came from someone associated with the intelligence community."
"Well, maybe he was robbing someone, took the file on a whim and then when he saw what it was—"
"No. I thought of that but how would he have known to contact Harry?"
"Good point." Amanda lapsed into silence. Time passed. People came and went from the brownstone but no Jeff Young. It was typical surveillance duty; lots of waiting and very little happening.
Around one thirty Lee sighed and looked at Amanda. "I think we should give it up for right now. Take a break, maybe come back later."
"But--"
"You can just drop me off at my place. I call you later." Lee was staring out the window as he spoke and something about his manner made her suspicious. The Scarecrow didn't give up this easily.
"Lee, you're planning something, aren't you?"
"Me? No, of course not. I'm just tired. That pain killer is wearing off. I want to go home, take another one and rest for awhile." He used his most innocent, reasonable tone which really set Amanda's radar off. Lee was never that calm and reasonable, and the idea of him admitting he needed to rest—even though he probably should be doing just that—was foreign to everything she'd learned about the man in the past two years. She decided to operate in 'mom' mode and folder her arms, giving him the look that always made her sons cave in and spill the beans.
Lee glanced at her, looked away and shifted in his seat. She said nothing, just staring at him impassively. A minute ticked by before he finally sighed loudly and cracked. "All right, but you're not going with me, understand? There was another piece of paper in with the pictures. I palmed it when you weren't looking. I'm supposed to meet this fellow at the Washington Monument at two thirty. The note said if the pictures interested me, he had more evidence to go with them."
Amanda looked at him disapprovingly. She'd known something was up and somehow she wasn't surprised that he was attempting to go solo and leave her behind again. Would he ever learn? Inhaling deeply, she began to talk, knowing a combination of logic and sheer verbosity would eventually wear him down and have him seeing things her way.
"Another meeting? Lee, that doesn't make any sense. Why is he setting up all these meetings and only giving you pieces of the information? Why not everything all at once? Do you think he's even going to be there this time or will it be another 'no show?' And, there's no question about it, I am going with you. Both times someone's been waiting for you at the meet. They've tried to shoot you and beat you up and don't forget the 'vette. Now, of course the tree coming down was caused by the storm but if they hadn't been chasing you in the first place, you wouldn't have had that accident! Who knows what they have planned for you next? I'm your partner. We watch each other's backs. I'm going along." She started the car, giving Lee no time to respond and began to pull out into traffic, only to slam on the breaks.
Lee's body jerked forward against the shoulder strap of the seatbelt and he grunted in pain. "Amanda—you've made your point. You don't need to break the rest of my ribs. Why'd you stop?"
"Lee—look. It's the man from the warehouse—Jeff Young. He's leaving the building!"
"Yeah, it is. Let's follow him."
"What about your meeting at the Washington Monument?"
"It's still an hour away. We can follow this guy for awhile and still make the meet. Unless, that's where this fellow is going."
"He isn't carrying anything."
"No, he isn't, but maybe he's on his way to pick up another package to give me or maybe it's just a small piece of paper, folded up in his pocket."
Amanda nodded in agreement as she slowly manoeuvred the car through traffic, keeping their quarry in sight. After walking several blocks, he entered a corner store. Through the window, they could just make out that he was talking to someone. "Lee, can you see who he's talking to?"
"No- too much glare and too many things in the window. All I can tell is that the guy is of average height, has grey hair and is wearing a suit. Damn I wish I'd thought to bring binoculars."
"He's leaving now and he has a package. Do we follow him or check out who's in the store?"
