As the bus pulled into the Knoxville station, Emory spotted Wayne’s decade-old, garish-green SUV in the parking lot. Stepping onto the pavement, he buttoned his denim jacket and rammed his hands into the pockets. I think it’s colder here than it was in Barter Ridge, even without the snow. Hurrying to the frog mobile, he could see the grin on Wayne’s face before he opened the passenger door, and once he did, he heard the laughter.
“I’m sorry, mister, but the posse’s gathering at the ranch.”
“I blame you for this.” Emory pointed to his clothes with both hands. “You left me there.”
“What, you look fine…partner. I can’t remember ever seeing you without a suit on.” He turned the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, still laughing.
Emory forced a change in subject. “Where’s my car?”
“I parked it at the office last night and had Mandy pick me up.”
“How’d your court date go?”
“It went all right. The defense attorney tried his best to trip me up, but I held my own. So you said you talked to the boyfriend again?”
“I did, and Dad talked to his father.”
“His father? Why?”
Emory filled him in on the conversations with the Claymons, the water theft and the potassium permanganate’s use in bottled water manufacturing, but he kept quiet about his trip to the water factory. Once apprised, Wayne grunted twice. “Looks to me like if we find the thief, we find the killer.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“What? That’s a logical assumption.”
Emory averted his glare by keeping his eyes fixed on the passing buildings. “They could be parallel lines.”
“Okay, you’re saying that like I should immediately understand where you’re going, but I have no idea what you mean.”
“When do parallel lines intersect?” asked Emory.
“Parallel lines? They don’t.”
“That’s all I’m saying. Events that happen simultaneously aren’t necessarily related. I mean, unless you consider time the relation.”
Wayne slapped the steering wheel with each word when he asked, “What in the holy hell are you saying?”
Emory had to look at him now. “Remember the murder of that college football player? We spent most of the time investigating his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend because she had a restraining order on him.”
“It was a reasonable assumption that he had something to do with the murder.”
“It was right to look into him, but our focus on that one possibility obscured the fact that the evidence suggested a female killer. I think we would’ve caught his cuckoo neighbor sooner if we had let ourselves take a three-sixty view of his world.”
Wayne’s voice grew aggressive as he grumbled, “You thought we were on the right track too.”
Emory remembered it another way. The younger agent had been with the TBI for two months when they were assigned the case, and he wasn’t yet confident enough to question Wayne’s investigative process. Instead of arguing right now, Emory decided to ease the building tension in the car. “You’re right.”
The statement seemed to deescalate the tension, as Wayne’s voice softened. “I’m still putting my money on the water thief.”
“That’s fine, but I’m not ready to make that connection yet.”
“What about the butterfly effect?”
Emory frowned at his reflection in the side window. That’s random. “What about it?”
“You know, an event that seems like it’s not related to another turns out to be.”
Emory nodded to appease him. “So what happened with Rick’s wife?”
Wayne chuckled, “She’s a…What do you call those women who date young guys?”
“A cougar.”
“Yeah, she’s a cougar.” He grinned as he said the word. “Get this, her new boyfriend is a former student of her husband’s.”
“A skater?”
“No, he said he had him for science class.” Wayne released a bellowing laugh before delivering his impending joke, “And then she had him for recess.”
Emory half-laughed to be polite, and then it struck him. “Science.”
“What about it?”
“I thought he looked familiar. Rick Roberts was a chemistry teacher in high school when I went there.”
“You mean you’re just now remembering him? High school was like last year for you.” Emory’s age was a wellspring of derision for Wayne, one that never elicited more than a polite smile from his partner.
My god, has he got the giggles? “I wasn’t in his class, so he wasn’t that familiar to me.”
“Now that you mention it, I’m surprised you don’t know everyone involved in this case. You did grow up in that little town.”
“I was an introverted kid, and I wasn’t popular.” The admission stung more than Emory realized it would. “I do remember wishing I were in Rick Roberts’ class. He always took his top students to the state science fair. Mrs. Cooper, my crappy science teacher, taught line-for-line from the textbook and never did anything to encourage her students with scientific ambitions.”
“You wanted to be a scientist?”
Emory pulled away from the conversation when he realized he had shared more about himself in the past few minutes than he had in the previous year. “Just a fleeting interest.”
“I think it was more than that. The pretty boy dreamed of being a nerd.” Wayne laughed yet again.
Wayne’s amusement aggravated Emory, who took a vow of silence for the remaining few minutes to the TBI station. When Wayne pulled up to Emory’s parked car, the younger special agent didn’t wait for the car to come to a complete stop before he opened the door and prepared to step outside.
“Are you going back there this weekend?”
“Probably.”
Wayne frowned as he handed Emory’s keys back. “Well, don’t crack the case without me.”
Emory recognized the contemptuous countenance before him now. Wayne was annoyed over the fact that he didn’t stop working at five o’clock on Fridays when he had an open case to solve. Saturday and Sunday were family days for Wayne, a scheduling conflict his partner didn’t share. “I can’t promise you that.”
“Whatever.” Wayne offered an apathetic wave. “I’ll see you on Monday, but keep me posted on any developments.”
Emory shut the door. Waiting for Wayne to drive away toward the setting sun, he went inside the building instead of getting into his car.
Apart from two other special agents working at their desks, the office was quiet. Once seated in front of his computer, Emory logged in and opened the portal to the Tennessee Fusion Center, an information-sharing program among state and federal law enforcement agencies. He visited the Homeland Security section and searched for Jeffrey Woodard on the TSA no-fly list. Sure enough, he found the name, but when he clicked on it, the reason given for his inclusion was, “[Redacted].”
“That’s odd.” Emory spoke as he typed the words, “Why is this information redacted?”
The computer responded with the text, "Insufficient security clearance."
“Crap.”