Agent Thomas Sawyer stood by his sitting desk. He'd personally removed the chair, lodging it in the break room in a form of silent protest. Tom was sick of sitting. For days now, he'd been doing just that in the cramped space. The air conditioning in the FBI field office was broken too, not that he minded a little bit of heat. Discomfort bred character. And cops with character caught more killers.
He tapped his fingers against his desk, studying the computer screen and listening to Sergeant Alice Faber shifting patiently from foot to foot behind him. After another few moments, her voice piped up, “Think you can send me that report so I can sign off?”
Tom pushed the brim of his baseball cap back and studied the clean-cut, well-dressed babysitter from the Seattle PD assigned as liaison to the FBI field office north of Seattle.
Banished to the woods.
That's what some of his old co-workers said about this latest posting. Punching one's superior officer didn't exactly curry favor. But Tom didn't mind. He liked working on his own. The quiet, single room office, overlooking a construction zone below didn't bother him either. At least, not when the windows were closed.
Now, though, with the air conditioning broken, he could hear the sound of a jackhammer in the distance.
“Agent Sawyer?” Faber said, quietly. “That report?”
He pointed towards the blank computer screen. “Thing ain't working.”
Faber leaned past him. “Mind if I take a look.”
Tom shrugged.
“I'll take that as a 'yes' and 'thank you,'” Faber replied cheerfully. She moved past Tom and began to fiddle with the keyboard.
This comment received a snort from the second babysitter Seattle PD had sent his way. Detective Robert Lopez, the culprit behind the opened sill, reclined by the window. Tom had requested he close it twice already, and both times Lopez had pretended like he hadn't heard. Maybe, secretly, Lopez enjoyed the sound of the jackhammers and heavy machinery from the construction zone. In Tom's opinion, Lopez had a lot in common with annoying background noise.
While Sergeant Faber was cheerful, with an athletic figure and dyed blonde hair, Lopez was a bit on the surlier side. At least where Tom was concerned. The handsome homicide detective had one of the squarest jaws Sawyer had ever seen, and the impressive enough closure rate it came with gave him a sense of entitlement.
“Ah, there we are,” Faber said, still cheerful. “You forgot to turn your screen on. See, it's this button here.”
Tom watched as she pushed a small, glowing button, then grunted his gratitude.
Alice patted his flannel sleeve. In her case, Faber and her partner wore the usual city fare: suits and fancy shoes. Tom's own shoes were dusty from some of his woodwork earlier that morning. His jeans were worn at the knees from labor and use, and his baseball cap's brim had never known an angle besides straight forward. Once, on a date with his ex-wife, when asked to describe the color of his eyes, she had simply said “stubborn.”
In Tom's opinion, though, stubborn was half of what made a good field agent.
“So,” Lopez called from the table, “do you all still need me here, or can I get going?”
Tom shrugged. “Your call.”
Alice Faber sighed. “No, not your call. If we're supposed to approve the interaction between departments after every case, then I'd like to get that done tonight. I have enough work back at the office tomorrow. Just let me print this out and we can get going, Robert.”
Lopez sighed at the ceiling; then, as an afterthought, he opened the window a bit wider. The man was sweating, perspiration bubbling on his forehead.
Secretly, Tom wondered if all the ladies back at the precinct would find the detective so attractive if they saw him like this: a melting puddle with an attitude.
“What are you smirking at?” Lopez called from his chair, frowning in Tom's direction now.
“Nothing,” Sawyer said. “Print shouldn't take too long. I think.”
Faber clicked the mouse, frowned, then ducked beneath his desk. She puffed out a little sigh. “Tom—you have to plug the printer in for it to work!”
“I did. I think.”
“No, you plugged it into the wall. Not the computer.”
Lopez snickered now. “I'm not an electrician,” Sawyer retorted, still standing next to his desk as Faber rummaged around with the plugs. “I solve cases. Which I did again, I might add.”
“We did,” Lopez replied. “You wouldn't have caught the guy if I hadn't found that footage.”
“I found that footage,” Faber called from beneath the table.
Tom remembered the conversation, distinctly, when he'd requested Faber check all the cameras facing the parking lot with the local businesses. But he liked her enough not to mention it. He didn't need their approval, anyway.
The last case was a boring one. Just manslaughter—a hit and run in some parking lot following a night of drinking and drugs. These weren't the sorts of cases Sawyer had signed up for.
Lopez was now humming along with the jackhammer. Faber let out a triumphant little cry as the printer began to whir and chug. Then, at the same time, amidst the menagerie of noise, Sawyer's phone began to ring.
He frowned; only two people had this number. He often changed digits, sometimes as much as once a month, just to keep his contacts on a need-to-speak basis. Carefully, he pulled the device from his pocket, giving his phone the appropriately suspicious look all technology deserved, before lifting the thing and answering, “Mhmm.”
“Agent Sawyer?” came a staticky voice. “Is that you?”
“Mhmm.”
“Tom, verbal confirmation, please.”
“It's me.”
Lopez and Faber were now both watching him, their respective tasks momentarily abandoned. Tom's face was expressionless.
He waited, listening quietly, the sound of his boss's voice still full of static, but also something else. He detected it beneath the crisp, professional tone. The words came sharp and pointed but almost a bit too clinical. "This new case isn't pretty, Tom," said the voice of Supervising Agent Ramsey. "You cleaned up the loose ends on that last one?”
"Printing the report now. You got another?"
A long pause followed. "You sure?" said the voice. Special Agent Ramsey hesitated; then, in the same, crisp, sanitized tones, he ventured, "I suppose you are. I know we've had our differences over the last, well, Christ, forever. But you do what you do. We have a serial killer. A nasty one."
Tom didn't blink, he barely breathed standing in front of his sitting desk, the computer screen turned on by someone else, the printer turned on and plugged in by someone else. He needed out of this office. Away from the construction noises. He didn't want another manslaughter case and judging by the tone of Ramsey he was going to get his wish. Still, his brow dipped in suspicion. “Why now?” he said. “I was just beginning to enjoy the doghouse.”
Silence stretched between them, and for a moment, Tom glanced down to make sure they hadn't been disconnected. Then Ramsey said, “Things are stretched thin here, Sawyer. Your closure rate was impressive once upon a time.”
Sawyer frowned deeply now. “This political? You pumping your office's closure rates for some promotion or something?”
This time, instead of answering the question, Ramsey simply said, “You want the case or not?”
Sawyer didn't need to think long. Political or not, Ramsey had always put ambition ahead of pride. Still, if this was his chance to get back on some real cases, he wasn't about to miss the opportunity.
“What you got for me?” he said.
His tone less guarded now, the supervising agent spoke as if relieved to no longer be answering questions about himself, rattling off, "Two bodies so far. The killer is brutal. He takes them when they're alone, both times at night.” A faint swallow. “No easy way to say it, but he chopped them up."
"Excuse me?"
"With a combination of an axe and a hacksaw, as far as we can tell."
"Chopped them?"
Lopez and Faber were now both watching with frowns.
"While still alive, Tom. Blood everywhere. The flesh ripped, torn in places. Means they were awake. No sedative agent found either.
"You're telling me he holds these people down while he cuts them to pieces?"
"It's not just that. He uses the pieces to form letters."
At this, Sawyer felt his stomach turn. He'd seen a lot, found monsters before. But somehow, this struck him different. "He's chopping up body parts to spell something?"
"The first victim was an F. Second was an A," said Ramsey. "The flight to Eugene, Oregon, is in one hour. Think you can make it?"
Tom reached out, turning off his monitor, already moving towards the door. "I'll be there in fifty minutes," he said, his long legs rapidly leaving his two babysitters behind, staring after him. He paused long enough to glance back and nod a farewell in Faber's direction. Both her and Lopez, who had only caught half of the conversation, looked queasy staring as he then slipped through the office door and out into the hall.
He reached for his keys, taking the stairs four at a time. In order to reach the airport punctually, he'd have to play fast and loose with a couple of speed limits.