SMK Chapter 7 (Day 2)
So, they were lovers, were they? Huh. It didn't actually surprise him. Even when they'd denied it at Nedlindger's several years ago, he'd thought they'd protested too much. He wondered how long they'd been romantically involved. Well, no matter.
What really surprised him was that the recording seemed to have zero effect. He really thought the Agency would at least pretend to dissolve their working relationship. But no. As usual, Scarecrow did the unexpected.
He slapped his hand against the bare concrete wall. Now what was he going to do? Clinching his hair in both hands, he paced back and forth down the length of his cell. It wasn't like he couldn't think of other ways to get revenge, but this had seemed a perfect way to get someone else to take the fall. He ran his hand over his hair and scratched his head. No, there still had to be a way to make this work. He just needed to get creative. Yeah, that was it. He paused to process his thoughts. Yeah…just make some adjustments to the plan.
He sat on his bed and leaned his elbows onto his knees. First, he supposed he'd still need to get rid of Amanda King, since it didn't look like the Agency was going to do that dirty work for him. Hmmm. There was an interesting thought. He sat straight up as inspiration struck. Yeah! Since she and Scarecrow were lovers, getting rid of her in a more...disturbing...manner might make things quite entertaining. He should be able to work out the details in the next day or two and pass them on to his contact. A smile slid slowly across his face; he was feeling better already.
"It feels terrible going through all these documents and reports on our co-workers." Amanda sat on the floor of their office with her back up against the brown, leather sofa. A computer console sat on the coffee table in front of her, and files were spread out around it.
Scanning a file in his hands, Lee sat on the sofa to her right. "Yeah, I hear you." He let out a sigh and dropped the file rather forcefully onto the coffee table. "Reminds me of that time three years ago when we had to do an internal investigation and found David Benson was leaking everything we did to the Bulgarians." He reached up to rub the back of his neck. "I hated it then; I hate it now." He leaned over her shoulder. "What are you going through right now?"
Amanda closed her eyes and rolled her head in a circle trying to loosen up her neck muscles. "Well, I thought I'd start by going through the personnel files to to look for any background information that might connect someone to one of our old case." She sighed and dropped her file. "But it's like looking for the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack."
"Yep." Distracted by the scent of her shampoo, he gently moved her hair aside and leaned in to kiss the nape of her neck. "Well, I've…" He sprinkled kisses up her neck. "…been going through our back casefiles to make a list of people who've either been thrown in jail or who've died during an investigation. We can get a list of surviving relatives to cross-reference later."
"After four years, that's going to be a lot of names." Smiling, she turned her head just enough to allow him to kiss the corner of her mouth. "Because you are not bad at what you do."
"What?" Lee sounded offended. "Not bad?" He sat back and held his hand to his heart as if wounded. "I seem to recall a time you told a kid I was one of the top agents in the country."
"Did I say that?" She raised an eyebrow and pointed to herself. "Nooo, I didn't say that."
"Did, too."
"Really?" Pushing herself up from the floor, she sat on the sofa and leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Okay, yes. Now that you mention it, I do seem to recall that."
Fire lit behind his eyes. His hand went to the back of her head to guide her lips toward his. "You do realize," he whispered against her lips, "that there's a private and very comfortable looking bed in the other room..."
A double beep sounded from the monitor. Eyes wide, they stared at each other. Springing apart, they frantically grabbed files and looked for a place to hide them. "I guess we should have had this thought out," Amanda whispered.
"Yeah." They looked at each other. At the same moment, almost as if they had read each other's minds, they shoved their stacks of files under the sofa and stood just as the door opened.
"Knock, knock." June poked her head around the door. "I've got some mail for you, Mr. Stetson."
Being the gentleman he was, Lee walked toward the door to hold it open for her, but Amanda got there first; she didn't like the way the lady had been looking at him over the past several days. Lee sat behind his desk as she held the door so June could bring the mail cart in.
"Good morning, June," Amanda greeted her trying to sound casual.
June offered her a cursory glance, then turned to Lee and smiled. "Good morning."
Pretending to focus on the file in his hand, Lee gave her a brief nod. She didn't seem to pick up on subtle hints, and he didn't want to leave room for any misunderstandings.
"What do you have for us this morning," Amanda smiled and walked toward the mail cart.
"Just this stack here," June picked up a bundle of mail and walk toward his desk, but Amanda stealthily slipped into her path, short-circuiting her intended destination.
"I'll take those," Amanda smiled at June again and reached for the stack.
June pulled her hand out of Amanda's reach. "No, Mrs. King. They're for Mr. Stetson."
"Aw, that's alright. I take all his mail for him." She chuckled. "Part of the job description of being his partner is being a glorified secretary."
"Mr. Stetson?"
Barely glancing up at her, he waved his hand to dismiss her concerns. "It's fine, June. She's right. She takes all the mail."
"It'll be safe with me, June. I promise." She took the mail from June's slightly clenched fingers, laid it on her own desk, then unobtrusively began to guide their guest back toward the door.
June's head swiveled toward Lee, but he didn't look up. "Well, okay then..."
"Bye, now. And thanks for the mail! Have a great day!" Amanda ushered her out of the office and closed the door behind her.
Lee looked up at Amanda and gave a slight shudder. "She gives me the creeps."
"Aw, I kind of feel sorry for her. I know what it's like to be the peon and have a bit of a crush on the legendary Scarecrow." She turned, leaned against the door, and watched the surveillance monitor. "Uh, Lee?"
"Yeah, Honey?"
"Come here and check this out," she said softly.
Intrigued, Lee got up to get a closer look. June was still at the end of the hallway. As they watched, she tucked a piece of paper into a picture frame on the wall, looked around, and left.
"What the…?" Lee turned and looked at Amanda.
"Should we go see what it is?"
"No, not yet," Lee patted her arm. "Let's wait a bit and make sure she's really gone." He wandered over to Amanda's desk. "Listen. I'm going to go through this mail. Why don't you dig through those files and find..."
"June's?"
Lee looked up and smiled warmly at her. "Great minds..."
As Lee sat at her desk and thumbed through the mail, Amanda dragged the files out from under the sofa. It didn't take long to find June's. She picked it up and sighed. It was notably not very thick which meant there wasn't much information on her – probably just the requisite stuff.
Amanda sat on the sofa and began glancing through the file to see if there was anything glaringly obvious that raised red flags. Seeing nothing, she started back at the beginning and read more thoroughly. "Hmm."
Lee looked up from the mail he was reading. "What'dya find, Sweetheart?"
Amanda continued reading even as she answered. "Well, nothing really, it's just...I don't know. It's kind of strange." She paused as she continued flipping through the reports and forms. "There's nothing wrong here, but..." She looked up at Lee. "…I know there's something wrong here."
"Amanda." Lee's sigh ended on a snicker. "Translation?"
"Well, if I knew, I would tell you, but I don't really know, you know?" She looked back down and missed seeing her husband look up at the ceiling and shake his head. "I just know there's, I don't know...something."
Lee dropped the stack of mail, stood, and walked over to sit beside her. One of the things he'd learned about her in the past four years was that she was usually right about these things – even when she wasn't making any sense. "Let me see." He reached for the file Amanda held in her hand and began to glance through it. "I'm not sure what you're sensing; everything looks in order..."
"I know, right? But it's just so...basic." She paused, trying to put words to what her brain was picking up on. "Perfunctory, almost."
"You mean, sloppy?"
"Well," Amanda reached over and slowly flipped through some pages he held in his hands. "Not sloppy so as you'd notice, just...well...basic."
"Yes," Lee nodded, amused. "I think we established that."
"Okay, well..." Amanda thumbed through the pages again and then stopped. "Look at this intake form, for example." He glanced at it and waited for her to explain. "Look at the section that asks about references."
"Yes?"
"Well, references are listed, but I don't see reports on the follow-ups anywhere in this file." She looked up at him again. "Isn't that strange?"
Lee lifted his eyes from the forms and looked at his wife. "Yes, actually. It is." He looked back at the file and began thumbing through the various pages looking to see if the follow-ups were hidden somewhere in the small stack. "Where are the follow up reports?"
"I have no idea. And look here," Amanda pointed to a section on family history. "You remember when I first started working here?"
"Uh, yes. Clearly."
"Do you remember when I came in with these same forms and told you I couldn't remember my great-great grandmother's name?"
He scratched the back of his head. "I can't say I remember that particular detail."
"That's okay." She elbowed him in the ribs. "You weren't really interested in listening to me, anyway. Only in getting rid of me."
He rolled his eyes. "Yes, I think my arrogance early on has been reasonably established. Are we really going to go there?"
"Of course not." She looked up at him and smiled. "But I'm pretty sure the Agency did some research that far back into my family history, and they weren't just looking for names and birthdates. Didn't you tell me you did field tests and checked out a bunch of things about me when I first started working here?"
"Sure," He nodded his head slowly. "Sure. We look for associations, clubs, hobbies, known hang-out places, medical history..."
"Exactly. They really go pretty deep." She tapped the file. "This doesn't look very deep to me. Does it to you?"
Lee slowly scanned the document. "No, now that you mention it, it doesn't."
Amanda nodded her head. "It's one of those situations where it's not what is in the file that's the issue; it's what's not."
Lee turned his head to gaze at her. "You might have something there, Mrs. Stetson."
"I love it when you call me that..."
"I love calling you that." He gave her a quick peck on the cheek, smiled at her, then returned his focus to the task at hand. "Okay. I'll look over this and take note of the areas where the reports only seem to skim the surface. You go get that piece of paper June left in the hallway."
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