Marshaling Enough Empathy – Chapter Six

Beverly Katz answered the door. "Well, look what the cat dragged in."

"Am I really that late?" Will asked in a whisper.

She took a step to the side, blocking him from the rest of the team seated in the room, sneaked a glance back over her shoulder then pulled a pack of mint gum out of her pocket, shoved it into his hand. "Jesus, Will. You smell like the local lock-up on a Saturday night."

Tim looked at his boots to hide his grin. She caught it though, huffed. "You're the Marshal?"

"Tim Gutterson."

He offered his hand and she took it, smiled.

"I'm Beverly Katz. Nice to meet you. Do you need some gum, too?"

"Nope. I'm good."

They both looked at Will, chewing madly.

"I guess I should thank you for looking after him," she said to Tim. "I doubt anyone else will." Then to Will, "I was wondering when you were going to start reacting."

"Reacting?" Will muttered, pretending not to understand, pretending his stint at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane hadn't left lasting scars. "Reacting to what exactly?"

"Everything. Not that I'd blame you. The whole thing was shitty."

"Shitty." Will rolled the description around on his tongue but decided shitty wasn't quite grand enough to encompass the ordeal he'd been through. "I think 'hellish' is a better word."

He glanced at Tim and Tim obliged him and made the face. Will smiled tentatively in return, the collusion bolstering his feelings of rebellion.

Beverly opened her mouth to say something but Jack Crawford appeared at her shoulder, interrupted.

"Where have you been?" His eyes shifted from one errant boy to the other.

"Walking through the Marshal's investigation into Alex Crespin," Will explained. "The situation that Deputy Gutterson was called out to took a little longer to wrap up than I'd hoped. We were…"

"I took him by the park where Crespin went to play bullet chess some evenings," Tim offered up an alibi. "But apparently they don't play after dark. We asked around again, though I'd already done it – it's in my report – and got the same answer. No one new has joined the group in the last couple of months. It's where my investigation dead-ended until I got the call about the car."

"The park is too public," Will continued the lie smoothly, "for the killer to have taken him without somebody noticing. I still think they had to have arranged through the internet to meet someplace – and not at his condo."

Jack nodded.

"Do you think it was likely a bar here too," Beverly asked, "like the one in Virginia?"

They all looked to Tim.

He cocked his head. "Why are you all looking at me? I'm not familiar with every bar in Lexington." Will snorted his disbelief into the pause. "I'll make you up a list though. If it was me, I'd try the ones up north and east first. I wouldn't want to take the roads across the city with an unwilling driver."

"What makes you think Crespin was driving?" Jack demanded.

Tim leaned himself against the door frame while he drawled out his reasoning. "This is the first time I've had the pleasure of working with you folk and it's the third body, right? Well, you do the math, but I suspect this guy hasn't killed in eastern Kentucky before or I'd've heard. Word gets around when a murder is this spectacular. It was Crespin's car and he knew the area better. If he went willingly, it's a no-brainer. If he didn't, then holding a gun on someone to get compliance is a whole lot easier than trying to subdue them and restrain them and stuff them in a car, especially when it's not your car. This is all in my report."

"One might think you have intimate knowledge of this type of situation."

"Nabbed a few Taliban in my misspent youth. Sometimes they'd be scared shitless and sit meekly in the vehicle but sometimes you had to shoot them in the leg to stop them squirming."

There wasn't a flicker of emotion in the tone but Tim's bravado faltered slightly when he glanced at Will and caught him looking at him again like he understood something behind the words, something Tim hadn't yet been able to work out for himself. It made him uncomfortable. He suddenly wanted to leave.

"If I'm not needed here anymore…"

Jack ignored the request for a dismissal, stood looking intently at the Marshal like he too knew something. But with Jack, Tim was sure he was being misunderstood and that was easy to deal with. He let his gaze meet the General's, unworried, unhurried.

Eventually Will shuffled his feet, embarrassed, said, "Ah…" a quick look at Jack, "…we're fine here, Tim. Thanks for your help though."

"We'll be in touch when we want something," Jack added. "Don't go too far." The threat was clear.

"Why, I'm going straight to the office to book my vacation. Alaska's nice this time of year," Tim said, brushed past Will and strolled down the hallway to the elevators.

"I have never quite appreciated how good you are at being rude," Will said softly when the Marshal had rounded the corner. "Jack, he's been nothing but cooperative."

"He's still a suspect, Will, or have you forgotten."

"Oh, please. Don't waste my time – I have a serial killer to catch."

Jack blocked Will from walking into the room, gave Beverly a look that sent her scurrying. "Really? Are you still interested in catching serial killers?"

"What do you think I've been doing?" Will narrowed his eyes angrily, stared at a spot on Jack's shoulder.

"I'm not sure I know. Are you still with us, Will?"

"I've always been with you, Jack. I'm not certain I can say the opposite is true." Will pushed past, into the spotlight of stares from the rest of the team.


It bounced off, he hardly felt it, and he left it where it landed on the floor of the hotel hallway – Jack's attitude. Tim saw it coming a mile away, anticipated the attack, shields up, any feelings tucked away safely in his mind's panic room. Do your worst, asshole.

He quirked an eyebrow when he recognized the tune muzaking from the speakers in the elevator – Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator" – seriously. He chuckled, feeling alright all things considered, walked out of the hotel lobby to his car and drove to the courthouse.

He was surprised to see the office so busy. It was after 7pm. Art was standing talking to Rachel, nodded a greeting.

"How're the Feds? Treating you alright?"

"The usual." Tim mumbled a reply, walked to his desk.

"I tell you – dicks, every one." Art said it for the room.

No point trying to disavow that statement, Tim thought, being true for the most part.

"Was that really Will Graham in here today?" Rachel asked, plucking the name straight out of Tim's head at that precise moment and he stutter-stepped.

Raylan lifted his head from whatever he was reading. "Who's Will Graham?"

"Only the guy responsible for the arrest of Hannibal Lecter," Rachel explained, always patient, until she wasn't.

"Who?"

"Hannibal the Cannibal?" Rachel clarified, a look of astonishment for Raylan. "Don't tell me you've been so involved in your work that you haven't even skimmed the front page of a newspaper, any newspaper, in the last month."

"I'm pulling your leg. Of course I know who Hannibal is." Raylan stood up for the punch line, stretched. "He's the guy that took the elephants over the Alps." He put on the dumb-hick look. "I paid attention in history class."

Nobody laughed – the joke had already been used so many times that month by countless people that they were immune to it – but Raylan got the reaction he'd hoped for from Rachel, a glare and a huff.

Raylan continued, "So I hear you found our missing WITSEC guy – skinless, bone-in. I can't understand what would be interesting enough in that to catch the notice of the FBI's Psycho Unit."

Art sauntered over to join in the fun. "I got a few other WITSEC assholes I wouldn't mind throwing in the way of their serial killer. Let me give you the list, Tim, and you can go around and teach them all how to play chess."

Raylan feigned surprise to get an insult out. "You play chess?"

"Do I look like I play chess?" Tim deflected, well practiced at it.

"No, that's why I'm asking. I'm all curious now."

Tim turned to Art, said, "Can I teach Raylan how to play?"

"Good luck."

"I already know how to play, thank you. Arlo taught me."

That stopped the conversation cold and they all stared.

"What?" Raylan demanded. "I got pretty good at it."

Tim grinned, not quite friendly. "Then I got a recommendation for an online site for you to try."

Art had a hand to his forehead, worrying it, still wrestling with Raylan's previous statement. "Arlo taught you?"

Rachel walked over to be closer to the boys. "Is that how the killer targeted our WITSEC guy – online chess?"

Tim shrugged. "That's what Graham thinks."

"That's just bizarre." Raylan tucked his chin down, scoffed.

"And skinning him's not?" Tim raised an eyebrow.

"You make a good point. The guy must be a psycho," Raylan quipped.

Tim pulled his keys from a drawer and tucked a file away in it. "What are you all doing here so late anyway?"

"We were waiting on you," said Art. "Wanted to hear all about your day." More sarcasm.

"Aw, shucks." Tim headed for the door. "'Night."

"Hold up," the Chief called. "I'll join you."

"If you're going for a drink, you'd better invite me," Raylan said, a threatening look. "I was in Harlan all day."

"Speaking of psychos," Tim commented under his breath. He turned to Art. "Is that what you were thinking – drink?"

"Well, if you insist. Rachel?"

"I'm in."

Art ushered them out the door and turned off the lights. "You still on their list of suspects?" he asked when they'd crowded onto the elevator.

Tim grimaced. "I don't think Special Agent Crawford likes me very much."

"Do you like him?" Raylan queried.

"He's an asshole."

"There you go then. It all works out nicely. Guess I shouldn't have told them about your collection of scalps when they called though, huh?"

The bar they frequented was a block and half from the courthouse, far enough to be somewhat discreet, close enough to be hard to ignore. The staff knew the Deputies and the Chief Deputy by name and stocked their favorite drinks. Art had commented more than once that he wasn't sure how he felt about being a good customer in this particular establishment, but he always said it with a pleased grin.

The conversation among the Marshals, the insults, complaints, jokes, all wove together into a familiar rhythm that worked as well as a drink for coming down from the day's encounters. Art pestered Tim about his feelings on the shooting that afternoon until the sniper waded heavily into the sarcasm. And that was the point when Art was satisfied that nothing was rattling around loose up in Tim's head that might break the mechanism and he felt it safe to move the conversation on to other things.

Tim, for all of Art's non-too-subtle prying, wasn't thinking about triggers, mechanical or otherwise, he was mulling over the substance behind the looks he'd gotten earlier from Will Graham, the Will Graham, the famous criminal profiler with 'a curious and undefined empathy disorder' to quote his friend at the FBI. The looks of understanding irritated Tim, but only well after the fact. It itched like a scab, burned him with a vague shame, the discomfort of being seen through, uncovered, exposed for a fraud. And it felt like pity and he didn't like it. He didn't want pity or empathy or sympathy or anything even remotely related. He mulled it over then he stewed about it. The entire encounter began to annoy him. It annoyed him too that he couldn't be certain why it annoyed him. There was one thing he was certain of though – that Special Agent Will Graham would understand it. He wasn't comfortable with that. Not at all.

He finished his drink and waved a terse and unapologetically unsociable goodnight and walked to his apartment.


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