Marcus pulled their loaner to a halt outside the small, ranch-style single-story. Dakota had spotted more than one swimming pool in backyards—a staple of the Arizona suburbs. Now, as she exited the vehicle, double-checking her phone to make sure they'd arrived at the correct location, her eyes were fixated on the figure standing at the back of the home, with a long pool cleaner in hand.
The man swiped the cleaner through the water and lifted a bunch of old, dead leaves, ladling them onto the side of the pool.
The faint scent of chlorine tinged the hot air. Dakota carefully avoided ants crawling along the ground—she'd heard Marcus yelp on more than one occasion at the last crime scene where the small fire ants had nipped her partner.
She missed Virginia. Missed her orchids and reasonable temperatures.
Even now, having exited the heavily air-conditioned vehicle to step out beneath the blistering sun, she could feel a thin glaze of sweat forming across her forehead.
She waved as she walked up the driveway, raising her badge in the same hand. “Hello!” she called. “Mr. Barrett?”
The man paused, tilting at his forehead with the back of his hand, adjusting his baseball cap. He sighed, and shot a glance back over the iron fence. He watched the two agents approach him up his driveway, his eyes darting between them.
“Hello,” he said slowly.
Dakota studied the man's face. He looked similar to the images she'd found on social media for their suspect, but Tommy Barrett didn't have facial hair, and his features were about twenty years younger.
This, she decided, was the owner of the residence.
“FBI,” Dakota said conversationally. She tried to keep her tone neutral. No sense in alarming the man. Often this only set up obstacles. She said, “Is your son home?”
The figure turned fully now, still gripping the pool cleaner in one hand. It dangled behind him, into the pool like some metal umbilical cord.
He frowned at Dakota. “FBI? What's he done?”
Marcus was joining them now. He came to a halt just a step past Dakota, gesturing with one hand vaguely over his shoulder, as if accepting a baton, but also indicating their car. “Nothing we know yet,” Marcus said with a polite dip of his head. “Just wanted to speak with him. Is he here?”
The older Barrett scowled though. He dropped the pool cleaner. The metal and plastic handle clacked against the side of the pool. The blue water served as a backdrop as he marched towards the agents, his frown creasing his features deeply.
“Don't try that double-talk with me,” he said firmly. “The Good Lord knows my boy ain't perfect. What's the dang kid done this time?”
Marcus hesitated. Dakota didn't speak, allowing the big man to fill in the blanks. For her part, she was studying Mr. Barrett, analyzing his posture, the sag in his shoulders. He'd dropped the pool cleaner, leaving the task unfinished behind him. His hands were both clenched, but it seemed more defensive than anything.
He also spoke with a slight quaver to his voice. A trembling in his tone that came from pain. His eyes were almost pleading as they darted between Dakota and Marcus. “Something I can pay for? Or something I need a lawyer for?”
Marcus shook his head. Dakota said, “We just need to speak with him. Is he here?”
“No ma'am,” he said, shaking his head and removing his baseball cap to fan at his face. “He ain't. Wish he were. Haven't seen him in a couple days now,” Barrett sighed.
Dakota studied the man further. She had always prided herself on reading nonverbal cues. As far as she could tell, the suspect's father was telling the truth. Then again, often, sociopathy was hereditary.
So she said, “Mind if we take a look around inside the house?”
He looked directly into her eyes. He nodded once. “I do mind.”
Marcus shifted uncomfortably. He said, “Sir... Do you have any idea where your boy might be?”
The man hesitated. He began to shake his head, but then paused, biting his lip. He sighed, and murmured. “I won't lie. Not even on behalf of Tommy. He's... probably with those deadbeat friends of his. They spend time by the old sawmill. Place is a trash hole.”
Dakota was moving now, along the house, out of the line of sight from Mr. Barrett. She heard him clear his throat, followed by the sound of a creaking gate. “Hey!” he called out after her. “Hey, you need a warrant!”
But Dakota peered into the garage window. Only a single, old beaten-up truck. The man's son didn't own a car. Or at least, didn't have a driver's license and so wasn't supposed to own a car.
She frowned, moving along the side of the house, and peering through windows. The gate closed with a clang behind her.
She heard the stamp of footsteps, and glanced back, frowning, to see Mr. Barrett walk hastily alongside Marcus, frowning as Dakota approached the front door.
“I said you're not welcome!” he snapped. “This is private property.”
“What are you hiding, sir?” Dakota asked, turning sharply.
He looked her dead in the eyes. “Nothing,” he said. “As the Lord is my witness. But you still haven't told me what Tommy is supposed to have—”
“We're investigating him for the murders of three women,” Dakota said firmly.
Mr. Barrett went still, eyes the size of saucers. A hand darted to his lips, and he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing.
Dakota watched him, then her eyes narrowed. “I can't help but notice,” she said slowly, “That you aren't denying it.”
“W-what?” he said, dazedly. “No... no... I don't think...” he trailed off, shaking his head. His hand, still near his lips, was also trembling horribly. Dakota studied him, her brow etched in deep creases. She shot a look towards Marcus, and he shrugged back at her.
She pointed towards the man's house. “May we see inside? We don't mean to intrude, sir. But we need to speak with your son.”
The older man let out a shaking breath, but then, as if in a trance, he reached slowly towards his pocket. Dakota tensed, but then he withdrew a set of keys, with equally slow motions. With dejected steps, he walked up the stairs towards the small house. He was shaking his head, murmuring as he did.
He pushed through the house, gesturing over his shoulder for the agents to follow.
Dakota was surprised by this. She'd thought that he was intentionally holding back in order to protect his son.
But now, at the mention of the charges, it was as if the wind had been taken from his sails. He pushed the door open and waved down a hall. “His room is on the right. He hasn't been home, like I said, in two days...” he trailed off, his face pale. “Careful...” he said, swallowing, “careful for the glass containers. He told me some of them were corrosive.”
Dakota and Marcus moved slowly into the dingy, small house. Their hands were on their unbuttoned holsters, and they moved slowly down the hall. Dakota's eyes darted along a sofa, towards a small television, into a kitchen with no dishwasher and an old microwave. Marcus glanced through the window in the back of the kitchen, towards the pool. No movement in the backyard. No shed. The garage had been empty when Dakota had checked.
The two of them, then, shoulder to shoulder, moved down the hall, towards the indicated bedroom. Both of them breathed in faint, shallow puffs of air, their eyes wide as they moved. Dakota followed slowly along, also tense.
“Mr. Barrett,” Dakota said suddenly, “Please, if you don't mind, step outside.” She didn't want an unknown quantity lurking behind them.
The man was barely coherent, though. He took a single step back onto the concrete porch, and just gaped after them through the open door.
The air-conditioned house was still quite warm, and the sweat prickling Dakota's forehead now trickled down her temple.
She moved along the doors, glancing in the various rooms. The bathroom was small, empty. No basement by the look of things. The next room a pantry—also empty save some boxes of cereal and some strange cleaning solutions with odd markings on them.
“What are these?” Dakota called over her shoulder.
“Ummm... Supplies. Tommy... Tommy likes making things,” Barrett called back, swallowing as he spoke.
Dakota and Marcus pushed open one door. A bedroom. The bedframe was against the ground. The closet too small to hide in. They moved on to the next room.
“That's his!” the voice called from behind them. “Just... be careful! Don't knock anything off his shelf.
Dakota and Marcus both pulled their weapons now, moving slowly, tense. Marcus tried the door and the handle clicked as it slowly turned.
Dakota pushed against the frame with her shoulder, both of them breathing in silent, huffing gasps. Neither of them backing down. She shot a final look towards the door, but their suspect's father was motionless, dumbfounded, and frozen in place.
The door opened, and she went still.
Marcus peered over her. The two of them found themselves facing a very odd room.
There were a couple of water guns resting against the back wall. A metal shelf covered in glass containers, beakers, and colorful test tubes were arranged near a half-open window. The air-conditioning unit in the room was turned off, and the space was even warmer than outside. The space smelled faintly of sweat and salt. Dakota eyed the beakers and jars along the wall. All of them containing strangely hued or textured liquids or emulsions. The labels were printed clearly with letters and numbers like A2. Or B13. But she wasn't able to identify any of them.
She shot a look towards Marcus and shrugged once.
He nodded back at her, glancing towards the bed in the back of the room. Someone had turned it on its side, the blankets wedged against the wall, the wooden frame having been repurposed, nailed together to create a workbench. On the bench there were burn marks and strange, corrosive stains.
Dakota glanced at a couple of the posters on the wall. One was an elemental chart of geek culture. Replacing elements with magic spells from role-playing games or video games. Another was a picture of an old man with a flat forehead and wide, blinking eyes. She didn't recognize the portrait, but Marcus murmured, “Oppenheimer.”
“Who?”
Marcus was slowly holstering his weapon. “A scientist,” Marcus muttered. “He created the atomic bomb.
Dakota scowled at the words. Marcus said, “He once called himself death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Dakota let out a faint huff of air, turning once again, once she'd scanned the room, to face the open door. A figure appeared there, and she startled. But it was only their suspect’s father. He had a tear trailing along his cheek. “Did Tommy really kill someone?” he whispered, sniffing as he did. “I... I never should have sent him off to school. He wasn't ready...”
Dakota holstered her weapon as well. “This sawmill,” she said, “Where he spends time with his friends... where is it?”
But Mr. Barrett was shaking his head now. “Tommy...” he swallowed, wiping angrily at his cheek. “Tommy wouldn't go there if he... if he did something like this.”
“So where might he go?” Marcus said.
The father hesitated, frowning. Dakota wondered what it might feel like to have an old man who actually cared.
The man was shaking his head, though, rubbing at his eyes and emitting a long sigh. "He could be anywhere. He takes taxis. Or gets rides from his friends."
Dakota glanced around the room. She said, slowly, "Your son was expelled two years ago."
He nodded. "And if I had known Tommy would turn violent, I would have said something myself. I didn't know. I believed him about the water guns.”
Marcus looked troubled as the man spoke. Dakota, though, glanced past the rows of beakers and test tubes, her eyes peering out the window into the side yard. She could just glimpse the top of the metal gate that led to the swimming pool.
"How did he take it—the expulsion?" she said, slowly. She glanced back towards Mr. Barrett.
"Not well," he said slowly. The man looked like he was torn. Clearly, he cared for his son. But up to this point, Dakota was given the impression he was also an honest man. Now, he seemed trapped. The look of pain across his face was all too apparent. He said, though, "It wasn't like he was homicidal," he said suddenly, frowning. "He just really wanted to go to school. He'd been dreaming about it since he was a child. He had big aspirations. Getting expelled really took it out of him."
Dakota shook her head. "According to the report we saw, he took a water gun loaded with an acidic solution to class. He threatened to spray people with it. It sounded like he was causing a disturbance, and he felt as if one of his teachers was treating him unfairly by giving him a lower grade than he deserved."
Mr. Barrett nodded. "Tommy can sometimes be too confident that he is in the right. He has a strong sense of justice and fairness. Especially if he thinks someone is crossing him."
"Strong enough to take revenge?" Dakota said, firmly. Her hand rested above her belt on her hip
Tommy's father ran a hand over his pale, weary face. He gave another small shake. "I don't know," he murmured.
Dakota turned back to glance at the room. Her eyes moved across the desk, with an outlet over the surface. No plugs, no power cords. The desk, though, had a rectangular mark in the dust. A laptop. He must have taken it with him.
"Do you have his number?" Marcus said delicately.
"He doesn't use the phone," said Mr. Barrett. "When he calls for taxis, he uses my phone, or asks his friends."
"What about his computer?" Dakota said.
"He uses it for games. For research. And sometimes he will try to apply to different schools. But the expulsion shows up on his record."
Dakota suddenly went tense. She frowned, considering these words. "He sends emails? You say he was very interested in going to school?"
"It was a dream of his to be a scientist."
"All right, Marcus, let's go." She didn't wait for further comment form the suspect's father. Farewells were not her strong suit.
Briskly, she turned, and marched back out the door. She shot an uncomfortable glance towards the back of Mr. Barrett's head. She thought of her own father, and wondered if he had ever looked like this when she had been making choices as a teenager.
She wondered if her father knew that she had felt as much pain as he did. If her father knew that his choices had affected her.
She shook her head in frustration, and picked up the pace, moving hastily away.
Marcus followed after her, his lips sealed, his footsteps loud against creaking floorboards.
The two of them reached the concrete steps of the porch, and took the cement stairs down to the walkway.
Dakota glanced back. Mr. Barrett was still in his son's room.
She felt a jolt of sadness. Grief. She forced her mind to flit away from her own experience with her father. She said, quietly, "I want to try to send an email to his student address."
"Excuse me?"
The two of them had come to stop by the hood of their car.
Dakota glanced across the glossy surface, reflecting the sunlight. "I want to send an email, and see if we can locate his IP address."
"His student email?"
"Exactly. If school mattered as much to him as his father says, and if he's still applying to schools, there's a chance he still has access to it."
"Did you believe that part about not owning a phone?"
Dakota nodded once. "Also checked before coming. No driver's license, and no phone line. The dad only has one. This is a strange guy, Marcus."
"Strange doesn't mean guilty."
"I never said it did."
Dakota reached for the door handle, using the hem of her sleeve to offset the heat of the metal.
Marcus pulled his door open as well, and slid into the front seat.
Meanwhile, Dakota withdrew her phone, and was already busy typing. The school would likely provide the email address for an expelled student quickly. They had been compliant so far.
And though the sun was still out, when night came, if they didn't hurry, two more women would lose their lives.