Cole continued to stare unseeing out the window, as unsettled by his ex-wife’s call as her interview with Michele. He wanted to call Michele and see how she was handling things but didn’t know if she’d speak with him. He hadn’t even had a chance to sort out his own feelings. His phone rang again and the screen lit up. Against his iPhone’s original clown fish wallpaper, “Gene Olson,” appeared at the top of the screen in clear, white letters.
Cole sighed as he picked up. “Hello, Gene.”
“Hey, Cole. How’s the investigation coming along on your end?”
Cole let his guard down. Maybe Olson hadn’t heard about the Fox interview yet. He’d rather face that in the morning. Or never. “We’re on to something in Prairie du Chien. There are too many connections to be random. I think we’ll find the answer to the abortion murders here.
“From the early reports I saw, your analysts in DC don’t think the Wisconsin murders are related to the Louisiana firebombing,” Cole continued. “I agree. There’s nothing that really ties them together and a lot that’s different. Our guy up here is a true believer doing what he thinks is God’s work. The bayou boys down in Creole country seem like losers…haters. Our guy up here is smart. I know the three in Baton Rouge killed a number of people, but it wasn’t thought out.”
“Bayou boys? Creole country? When did you develop this love of alliteration?” Olson chided. He paused a moment and a seriousness that Cole recognized immediately entered Olson’s voice when he continued.
“I’m not only calling to catch up on your take on the case. I’m also calling to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m not sure how to answer that. I’m getting along with Jeffers as well as I can, mostly by staying out of his way and pursuing leads he hasn’t. I’m sure he let me poke around Prairie du Chien today because he and the yes men and women he’s surrounded himself with don’t see much of an interest here. Jeffers thinks nothing exciting could ever happen outside the lights of a big city.”
“You really believe that’s how everyone on his team feels?” Olson asked.
“I don’t know. I do know Jeffers took at least seven agents down to Baton Rouge on a Lear with him. Those are seven pretty good minds distracted from a complex case. You’ve already got an army of law enforcement officers down there led by FBI leaders we both know are top-notch. And they’re all tied up now, looking over crime scenes where the perps are already out of business forever.
“The firebombing in Baton Rouge was a drunken stunt,” Cole said. “Those hicks were maybe inspired by our shooter and the widespread coverage he’s gotten, but just as likely they were set off by cheap whiskey and pills. They can’t hurt anybody or anything from here on out, unless you count the land pollution when their charred remains are interred.”
“How do you really feel?” Olson asked.
Cole smiled to himself. “I guess that’s Olson-speak telling me I’m being too blunt in my assessments as I get older.”
But Olson was neither amused nor deterred. “You didn’t answer my question, Cole. How do you really feel…about the reporter?”
Olson had deliberately caught Cole off guard and he fumbled his reply, “What?”
“How do you feel about the reporter? The woman you’re working with? Michele Fields? How do you feel about her? It’s a simple question,” he pressed.
Cole switched gears. “I feel she’s been helpful. Incredibly helpful. She made a connection that a thousand professionals in DC, Chicago, and other places with access to a lot more tools and information never did. That’s how I feel about the reporter.” He stiffened, waiting for Olson’s response. He didn’t have to wait long.
“Well, after the catfight on national television tonight, that’s all anyone seems to be talking about in New York, DC, LA and everywhere in between. There are a lot of people interested in the topic here at the J. Edgar Hoover building and over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You know that place, right? It’s where that big white house sits.”
“It caught my attention, too,” Cole said, softening. He realized the pressure Olson was under to get these crimes solved. “I was sitting on my hotel bed here, eating pizza and drinking a beer. When Janet popped the question to Michele, well, let’s just say Jeffers is going to have an extra cleaning bill from this hotel stay. When you drop a big slice of pie that’s halfway to your mouth and it lands upside down on a white bedspread, it makes a mess. I know that now from first-hand experience.”
“Does Janet have anything with her line of questioning?” Olson probed. “As I recall, she’s more than a pretty face with a smooth voice. A lot more. She’s a damn good reporter with better instincts for reading people than ninety percent of our agents.”
“She does have good instincts,” Cole said, his speech accelerating and getting louder, a locomotive picking up steam. “But a reporter’ s only as good as her sources. In this case, her source was rotten. It’s the same bullshit I’ve had to deal with while trying day-in and day-out to catch this killer. Collin Jeffers dropped the juicy bombshell on Janet right before she went on the air tonight.”
An uncomfortable silence separated them, and Cole felt himself deflating. “Ah, crap,” he said. “First, you know you can believe me when I tell you that the reporter and I haven’t been physically intimate. It’s been, to answer Janet’s question directly, ‘strictly professional.’ I haven’t so much as kissed her cheek. You want to hook me up to a lie detector, that’s what you’ll get. But between you and me, two friends who’ve had each other’s back a long time; I’ll tell you that I’m drawn to Michele somehow. She’s bright and she’s good at what she does. But she’s also got a vulnerable side.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“I’m telling you that I will not cross the line from working relationship to something more…at least not until this case is behind us.”
“You’re saying you won’t take the reporter to bed until after the case is put to bed. Do I have that right?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Cole answered. “Jeffers could assign someone else to liaise with Michele, but we’ve developed a relationship that works. I said before, she helped draw the connection to Prairie du Chien with access to nothing more than Google, when the analysts at J. Edgar with all their supercomputers didn’t.”
“Maybe because there isn’t a connection to be made,” Olson mused.
Cole smirked. “You betting on your machines and the robots who work with them over your own boy now, Gene?”
“No, I’m not,” Olson admitted, letting Cole know he still had faith in him before he cut the connection.
Cole set his phone on the desk and got up from the chair. He paced and thought about Michele. He looked at the phone in the dim light. Half of him wanted to hear the familiar ringtone and see her name pop up on the screen. The other half was afraid he wouldn’t find the right words if she did. He picked up the phone again and walked to the window, looking out into the dark night…trying to see what couldn’t be seen.
His phone rang, and he answered. “Hello?”
“Cole! This is Frau Newhouse. I saw on the TV. Is it true that you’ve found a girl?”
Cole shook his head and couldn’t help but laugh as he evaded the question. “You can’t believe everything you hear on TV. But I do know I’m coming home tonight. If you hear me sneaking up the stairs in a couple hours don’t be alarmed.” He had made the decision in the moment. They talked a bit about their day and he said goodbye and ended the call. He didn’t know if either Uber or Lyft drivers were available in the small town, so he chanced a call to Deputy Hubbard.
“Evening, Deputy. Any chance you’d give me a ride out to the airport? I’m at the Dousman Hotel,” he said. When Hubbard told him he had nothing better to do, Cole thanked him and called the airport. Then he reached his pilot on his cell and told him to get back to the plane and warm it up. They were heading back to Milwaukee.