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Manipulation part 3
By Ecri
Charlie stared at the table, unsure what was going on. He hadn't heard what that other agent had said to upset Agent Pierce so much, but he was glad when they both left. He hadn't had a minute alone since they had arrested him, and Charlie hoped he could use the time to calm himself.
He still didn't understand what was going on, and he had tried in the beginning to be a bit more cooperative, even waiving the right to call a lawyer. He didn't have one, he didn't know one, and he knew he was innocent. Now he was beginning to think that was a naïve thing to do. He had a sinking feeling Don would be upset with him. He could just hear Don telling him he had no clue how 'the real world' worked.
He wanted to go home. He wanted to call his father. He wanted to see Don, but no matter how many times he asked, they told him Don wasn't available. Did that mean Don couldn't come, or was being prevented from coming? He refused to consider the notion that Don wouldn't come. He would. He repeated it over and over in his mind.
The bottom line was that he hadn't killed anyone. He understood how the FBI might assume he'd committed these crimes, after all he'd just determined that there was a high probability that someone with his background and his experiences might be the killer, but surely they couldn't believe it was actually him. Someone like him, certainly
"Charlie?"
Charlie's head snapped up as he saw his brother enter the room and carefully close the door behind him. He leaped from his chair and, in an unusual display for either of them, threw himself at his brother. "Don! I kept askingI'm so glad to see you!"
Don held him tight and that in itself both comforted and frightened Charlie. If it had been a mistake, wouldn't Don have just laughed it off and led him out of the interrogation room?
"It's for real, isn't it?" Realization had hit him hard, but his voice was softer than a whisper.
Don pulled back slightly. "Yeah, Charlie. It is. Sit down. Let me know what's happened."
The brothers sat down, and Charlie gathered his thoughts so he could tell Don precisely when things had gone wrong. He didn't notice Don's gaze taking in every inch of him as if searching for some injury.
"I wasI was working on the equation. I found something! Statistically" Excitedly, his eyes shone as he began to outline what he had discovered.
Don didn't let him continue. "Math later, Charlie. For now, tell me what they've told you."
Charlie shrugged. "I'm under arrest. They think I did it. They think I'm the serial killer. I meanI get why they think that, but there can't be any hard evidence! The equations bear out the logic of it, but I wasn't at any of the crime scenes! I didn't kill anyone! Donny, I couldn't kill anyone!"
Charlie knew his voice had taken on a frantic edge, but rarely in his life had he been so terrified. No, that wasn't entirely true. The other fear he'd learned to live with. He'd just found that this was a different sort of fear. The fear that a six-year-old felt in attending junior highthe fear of a ten-year-old in high schoolthe fear of a sixteen year old trying to teach a college level course in mathematics to students older than he wasthe fear of losing his brother in a firefight
This fear, the one that had gripped his heart as soon as the handcuffs had touched his wrists, this fear was different. It swelled in his belly, squeezed his heart, and lodged in his throat. Perhaps if he'd had numbers on it, statistics on the number of wrongful imprisonments, false arrests, overturned convictions
He swallowed hard and tried to focus on his brotherhis lifelineknow you didn't. Charlie, why don't you have a lawyer in here? If they arrested you, they should have found a lawyer for you."
"I waived" Charlie cut off the rest of the words and blinked at the rage that overtook Don's features. "I'm sorry."
"No, Charlie, don't." Don insisted as he obviously struggled to control his frustration. "I'm going to get you a lawyer. You refuse to answer any questions without one, okay?"
Charlie nodded, but that wasn't good enough for Don. "Charlie? Did you hear me? You won't answer any questions without a lawyer present?"
"Okay."
"Good, now" Don paused in mid-question and grabbed roughly for Charlie's arm. Charlie, confused, followed his gaze, and realized what had drawn his brother's attention. A purple bruise, several inches across—about the width of a man's hand—had begun to appear on his forearm. He pulled his arm away from Don's grip and crossed his arms in front of his chest, effectively hiding it, but Don just reached for it again.
"What happened?"
"It's nothing, Don."
"What happened?" Don's voice had taken on an edge, a growl, a viciousness that Charlie had rarely heard. The first time was in high school. Don, a junior, had come across him in the back of the library being tormented by a senior, who had hit him twice. The bruises were already spectacular when Charlie heard his brother's voice—but not his brother's voice—demanding that the big guy let him go. He did, and Charlie had watched in amazement as Don had immediately pulverized the bigger boy.
"What happened?" Don demanded again.
"Iit was nothing really. When Agent Pierce arrested me, he sort of spun me aroundthat's where he grabbed me"
Don's eyes were wide with rage, and Charlie was infinitely relieved that Agent Pierce was not in the room.
He spoke quietly. "Don, I'm okay."
Don's eyes stared deeply into Charlie's and, finding something there, though Charlie couldn't guess what, he nodded.
"Why do they think you did this?" Don asked.
Charlie explained all he had learned from the equation. "So you see, it's all probability. The victims all resemble—statistically speaking—people I know or have known. It looks like a psychotic genius did this."
"You may be a genius, Charlie, but you're not psychotic."
Charlie nodded, and ducked his head looking down at the table. He didn't want Don to see how scared he was.
Don was quiet for a moment and then Charlie heard a sigh.
"Look at me." Don said. It wasn't a request. When Charlie didn't look up, Don said it again. "Look at me."
Charlie did.
"I'm going to get you out of this. SomehowI'll find out who's really doing it. I promise."
Charlie nodded again. "How are you gonna tell Dad?"
Don shrugged, then smiled. "Maybe I'll let Terry do it."
Charlie laughed. "Listen, if you need a mathematician, you know, to go over anything for you, Larry's really good."
"He doesn't have clearance."
"So get it for him."
Don placed a hand on Charlie's. "If you need anything, you demand to see me, okay. I'll stop by as often as I can, which may not be too often if I'm going to find out who really did this."
"That equation, the next victim will be exactly like the third victim. The one after that will be like the fourth. If I had more data maybe I could narrow things down a bit. I think the killer is probably fixated on somethingactually, I think the killer may be fixated on someone specific."
"Who?"
Charlie hesitated. "You, me, Dad, Mom, Terry, Amita, or Larry."
"Specifically? We're not talking similarities here?"
"No, no similarities. Specifically. This case is much more personal than we thought. I mean, the murders are so preciselyit's scary, Don. The victims could so easily be Dad or youany of us. When I saw the pictures of the first and eighth victims, I thought I was looking at Dad. It shook me up."
"Me, too, Charlie."
The door opened then and Charlie's gaze flew to that side of the room. Agent Pierce stepped inside with AD Kraft. "Your five minutes are up, Agent Eppes. Have you learned anything?"
"Oh, yeah. I've learned a few things. First, he's not speaking to anyone without a lawyer. Second, only an idiot would think he actually did any of this. Third," he gestured to Charlie with one hand, but his eyes never left Pierce as he took several steps toward the other agent until his proximity forced the other man to take a step back. "You ever touch him again, even just to brush a piece of lint off his shirt, and I will take you apart."
Don turned to Charlie, locking eyes with his brother, and didn't move until Charlie nodded to indicate that he was okay. Only then did Don nod in return and step out of the room. That nod, Charlie knew, was a promise that Don would keep him safe.
Looking up at Agent Pierce, Charlie could only hope that Don could keep that promise for both their sakes.
March 30 (8 days later)
Alan Eppes loosened his tie as he walked into his house. Charlie's house, he reminded himself. Charlie had bought the house from him just a short time ago, and owning it had suited him. Alan recalled how happy his son had been when they'd signed the papers. Charlie had been trying ever since to make up for all the years he'd spent living free of the worries of room and board, of rent and mortgages, of the usual problems and chores of day to day life. He managed to keep them in groceries, though Alan suspected he just had a standing order at the grocery to be delivered once a week. He had managed to hire a landscaper to come to mow the lawn and keep up the gardens, and he handled the never-ending battle with the recalcitrant furnace.
He still couldn't cook, though he had tried. The chili he'd prepared one evening had Alan and Don choking on water, and Charlie himself throwing it all away and picking up the tab for the takeout to which they'd had to resort. Alan, out of a sense of self-preservation, had reacquired the cooking duties, though Charlie insisted on doing the dishes himself.
Alan threw himself into his favorite chair. Tears threatened, and he wiped them away angrily with the back of his hand. How had things gotten so bad so quickly? When Don had driven over last week to tell him that Charlie had been arrested, Alan's heart had leapt to his throat. It had seemed so surreal. Charliehis babya sweeter, kinder, less violent man you'd be hard pressed to find. Oh, sure, Charlie was no saint, but the sins of being easily drawn into a world of equations and applied mathematics, of being sometimes unable to relate to real life problems because of a fascination with numbers, these things could not compare with murder. How was it possible that the FBI truly believed that his Charlie was a serial killer?
He'd pleaded with Don to find an answer, to shed some light on the problem, and Don had assured his father that sooner or later, the killer would kill again. With Charlie in custody at the time, their case would evaporate. When, after a time, no one was killed, Alan felt his hope turn to something else. He'd watched the news religiously, scanned headlines whenever possible waiting for someone to die. When he realized what he was doing, that he was expecting, almost hoping, that someone else would be murdered, he started to avoid news all together.
The physical evidence had been the clincher.
Somehow, strands of Charlie's hair, a few fingerprints, a few threads of carpet fibers, all had been found at one or another crime scene. Charlie had been stunned.
Alan could still see Charlie's face, the disbelief, as he had been told about that evidence. He'd snorted, halfway believing this had to be a joke, but the reality of it all, the ominous threat of life in prison hanging over him, had robbed him even of that momentary comfort.
Don had assured Charlie, as well as his father, that he would get to the bottom of this. Alan believed his son, but he worried for Don as well. Don was driving himself insane with lack of sleep, with a search for clues that were not there, with a second, third, and fourth look at leads that had dried up weeks ago. Don was slipping away from him just as Charlie was being taken.
Today, at the courthouse, Alan had told Don to behave himself. Don, fury in his eyes when he'd seen Charlie brought to the courtroom in handcuffs, hadn't even acknowledged the request.
The Judge had denied Charlie's bail, and, afterwards, Don had accosted the defense attorney.
"You couldn't get him bail? He's never even had a ticket for jaywalking!"
"Agent Eppes, we're talking about multiple counts of murder, and a connection to the FBI, as well as the history of prodigies being unstable"
"Bullshit!" Don had declared, and Alan had to admit, the same word had been on the tip of his tongue. "Charlie is no more unstable than the judge is!"
Charlie had leaned across the desk then, just as the bailiff came over to lead him away. "Don, please, don't worry about bail. I need you to get the real killer." He'd been dragged away then, and Alan, forced to watch, had felt his heart breaking as he'd only felt it breaking once beforeon the day his wife had died.
Now, he knew only that Don was obsessed. He wanted to catch the real killer, but the FBI resources were closed to him. The FBI, officially, had their killer. A fact they considered well borne out by the fact that the killing had stopped.
The trial was set for a month from now. It was as speedy as the law allowed, and, in truth, was speedier than the defense attorney had wanted. A month was a long time to be sitting in prison for a crime—crimes—you hadn't committed. It was a short time to prepare a case to defend a man who hadn't committed a crime, but against whom the evidence was staggering.
A month. That was all the time his boys had.
Alan's biggest fear back when Charlie and Don had begun to work together was that they would be unable to forge a compatible working relationship. Now, his biggest fear was that in losing one son, he would lose the other.
Agent Terry Lake turned expectantly in the direction of the door as Don entered the office. Once again, scowl firmly in place, he listened with half an ear to the updates on the cases his team was working on and gave a few half-hearted instructions before taking his seat.
He was staring at a photo on the corner of his desk, and, though Terry couldn't see it from this angle, she knew the photo. It was a picture of Don and Charlie. The two brothers hadn't always gotten along, hadn't always seen eye to eye, but in this photo, they were laughing. They were laughing so hard they had to hold on to each other to keep upright. Even thinking about that picture, about the day it was taken made her smile.
It hadn't been that long ago, but now it seemed a lifetime away. It was the day after one of their first cases together, when Don and Charlie were still learning how to work together but had discovered that they did indeed have some sort of rapport. The relief of having caught a killer, the relief—and Terry had seen this clearly—of having rekindled a relationship with each other had led to a sort of giddy release. As can only happen with family or with close friends, Don and Charlie had begun to laugh at everything and nothing.
Before long, they could barely breathe through the laughter.
Terry, who didn't usually have a camera with her, happened to have one that day. She'd snapped several shots and had given one copy of the best one—framed—to each brother. She had hoped it would help them see all the potential in their relationship.
She had been with Don at Quantico, and she had learned about his family from him, from what he didn't say to her as much as from what he did say. She had seen in his eyes, on the rare occasions when he'd let his guard down, how much he wanted to understand his brother, how much he wished he and Charlie could enjoy a closer, more affectionate and less competitive relationship. Terry had told him to be patient back then, on that date in the laundromat over pizza. She could see so much in Don back then. She still did, but the recent pain of losing his mother, of not understanding his brother's reaction to the illness, it had taken a toll.
When they had first met, he'd been on guard all the time. After awhile, perhaps because there was some distance between him and the problems of dealing with a genius in the family, perhaps because of something else—something he had found briefly with Terry—Don had begun to laugh easier, smile quicker. Now, the reticence was back. The brooding, introspection, and silence were back.
She stood and moved around to perch on the corner of his desk. "Don?"
It took a moment, but he looked up at her. She wanted to tell him they would work it out, but she knew that he could see that much in her eyes. She laid a hand across the back of his where it rested on the desk.
He moved his hand just enough so that he could take hold of hers and give it a squeeze and offered her a melancholy sort of half-smile.
"I'm not on the case. There is no case. As far as the Bureau is concerned Charlie" he choked on the name. "Charlie is their killer."
Terry nodded. "I know, but we've been working on that."
He looked up at her, his confusion plain. "What?"
She smiled and slid off the desk. "Come by my place tonight. Pizza."
She knew that he could see there was more behind that innocuous offer, and she gave him the slightest of nods to confirm it.
"I'll be there."
She returned to her desk knowing that when he did come by he'd either be overjoyed at what she had done or mad as hell. Or maybe he'd be both.
Terry hadn't been this nervous about Don coming to her apartment since they had first dated. It was, most likely, she was sure, Don's reaction to what she intended to show him that had her crawling the walls.
She had already ordered the pizza, with Don's favorite toppings, and now was wondering if it would arrive before he would. She had it in the back of her head that he would decide at the last minute to stay with Alan. Not that she could fault him for that. She really couldn't. She was just about to call him, when the doorbell rang.
She opened the door, money in hand to pay the pizza man, but was greeted instead by Don. "Oh." She couldn't keep her surprise from that small sound.
Don grinned. "A tip? I didn't even come in yet."
She gave him a crooked grin and drew back her hand before he could snatch the cash from her. "Nice try. I thought you were the pizza."
They stepped back into the room, and Don hung his coat on the coat rack.
"Can I get you something to drink? Soda, coffee, beer?"
"Beer."
She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with two opened bottles.
He took the one she offered and than took a long drag nodding in appreciation. "Nothing like a cold one."
Terry nodded, though such talk was not something Don usually indulged in.
"I'm glad you could come."
"I'm glad you asked me."
She gestured to the sofa and they sat. "Don," She began only to be interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. She laughed. "That must be the pizza."
In moments, they were again sitting on the sofa, this time with the open pizza box spread out on the coffee table and a paper plate with a cooling slice in front of each of them.
"Don," she began again.
He smiled. "Whatever it is, just get it out."
"We're behind you. Me, David, the rest of the team" She inhaled hoping a deep calming breath would make this next part easier. "We've got something to show you." She stood and moved around behind the sofa bringing forward a large cardboard box of the kind usually used to archive old cases. She slid it across the floor in his direction.
"What is this?"
She stood there before him, a little jittery. "It's everything." She threw her arms out from her sides presumable encompassing 'everything' in the gesture. "Interviews, transcripts of phone calls, lists of contacts, every possible leadit's Charlie's case." She shook her head at the insensitivity of calling it that, but plunged ahead. "It's everything we had before Pierce arrested Charlie, and it's everything Pierce had that led him to Charlie. There's also about a dozen leads David and I have been following up since Charlie's arrest" She stopped babbling, needing now to know how he was taking this.
He stared at the box, then began to rifle through it randomly reading whatever struck him. "It ishow did you"
She smiled. "Xerox, tiny little spy cameraswhatever we needednone of us believe it was Charlie. We're all willing to keep looking. We've got a schedule. Everyone is volunteering during their off hours. We're gonna find out who really did this. We'll get Charlie exonerated."
Don stared at Terry for a moment, and Terry, unable to take it anymore, finally asked him. "Sowhat do you think?"
"What do I" He stood and crossed the small space that separated them. "Thank you." He whispered in her ear. "I never could have done this much alone. Thank you." The second time he said it, she felt hot tears on her neck. She rubbed soothing circles on his back and held on as tightly as she could. "You're not alone." She told him. "Never alone."
"Charlie is."
His whisper was full of heartache, and Terry, having no way to deny that Charlie, sweet, unprepared, trusting, Charlie was now alone in a prison cell facing who knew what.
March 31
Larry stared at the contents of Charlie's office. The Dean had insisted that he clean it out, and Larry, though he'd argued that Charlie had been wrongfully accused, had had to agree. He preferred to do it himself rather than allow Security to handle Charlie's work. At least Larry would be able to sort out the projects so things would be relatively easy to put back in order when Charlie returned.
It had been heartbreaking in the courthouse. He'd been sure that Charlie would be out on bail based on the testimonials and the character witnesses—of which he had been one. He recalled the look on Charlie's face when the judge had denied bail. It had been an odd sort of resignation mingled with a fear of what he might face. For all that people thought Charlie was sheltered, unaware of life outside of the walls of Academia, Larry knew something they did not. Charlie understood life outside of the University all too well. He'd been consulting with law enforcement agencies for years. He'd seen things only Federal Agents or local law enforcement should see. He knew the odds for every hardship that might befall him while he was incarcerated, and Larry had seen that knowledge, carefully buried behind the resignation he'd preferred his family to see.
"Oh, Charles," Larry whispered as he continued to box up his friends belongings. Amita was grading the outstanding papers and Larry himself had insisted on taking on Charlie's classes. With Amita grading papers, and Larry giving lectures, they might be able to keep the classes from disintegrating before Charlie returned.
"You'll be back, my friend." He whispered these words, which had become like a mantra for him, and he vowed that he would do everything he could to insure that Charlie had a job to come back to.
Amita finished grading the last of Charlie's students' tests and capped her pen. Technically speaking, Charlie was now supposed to record the grades and return them to the students. She'd have to talk to Larry about that.
She was furious with the FBI for what she could only call their stupidity. How they could think that Charlie had done it was baffling. Baffling was also a good word to describe how the physical evidence had gotten to the crime scenes, not to mention why there appeared to have been a second investigation going on concurrently with Don's. It smelled like a setup to her.
Charlie had been imprisoned for a short time, but it seemed like forever to her. She had become accustomed to seeing him every day. She had enjoyed sharing time with him that no one else shared. She knew she wasn't supposed to get so close to him. She knew it was against the rules. He was, after all, her thesis advisor.
Of course, Charlie had never asked her out. She could be wrong about him. Maybe he wasn't attracted to her. She considered the aftermath of the train wreck case and realized that she really couldn't believe that anymore. Charlie was at least mildly interested. Most likely he wasn't sure about how she felt. Perhaps she had to give him a clearer signal.
Amita almost laughed at herself. Bad timing all around. She hadn't seen him in so long, and she had to assume he wouldn't want to see her while he was in prison. There was also the likelihood that she would be assigned another thesis advisor if he weren't released soon.
She would have no opportunity to give him a signal of any kind.
She'd thought they had all the time in the world, and now, it looked like they didn't have any at all.
To Be Continued