Chapter 15 – It Takes More Than Two to Tango (Part I)

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When Agent Kathy Toller disembarked the hybrid car she no longer looked like she actually intended to shoot Agent Ellis Warren for interrupting her “me time” with the Tom Clancy spy novel—instead, he’d given her something even better to read: the financial document report for one of the conspirators who’d rented the van that gave them a merry chase around Tempe. He would have asked her to drive the cramped vehicle—and leave his creaking joints out of the equation—but he figured that having her up-to-speed would probably be the lesser of two evils.

“The boys back in the hive really did you a solid on this one,” Toller said as she leafed back through the pages. “They may not have identified two of the four involved in that weird abduction scene, but the guy who rented the van—one Bertrand Whitaker—does have some direct connections to this other guy James Shutters. And, as you guessed, they’re both professors at Arizona State University. Neither of them are in Science and Engineering, though.”

“What are they?”

“Mathematics professors,” Agent Toller said. “Which one are we going to see right now?”

“Whitaker,” Agent Warren said. “He’s the one who actually rented the van, so I figure he’s got to be the best bet to press about the fact. Perhaps we can get him to bend on the other two men in their conspiracy.”

“If there’s any conspiracy here,” Toller said, she tapped the pages back into a stack and shoved them into a folder. “It’s hard to tell what’s going on. Those financials don’t reveal much either. I noticed that all of them have some regular cash going out to another bank, and one website I don’t recognize, but none of this really warrants much suspicion.”

“And the random covert in-van meeting didn’t pique your curiosity?”

“Got a point there.”

Bertrand Whitaker, Professor of Mathematics, lived in an old-neighborhood only a few miles away from ASU in a modest, but affluent looking area. Agent Warren parked the hybrid in front of his house and took a moment to take it in. The lawn looked well cared for, but for the odd sprouts of weeds poking along the untrimmed edges—he probably mowed the lawn himself. The house stood only one story, ranch-style, and to either side, a house with almost exactly the same floor plan sat.

Toller walked around the side of the car and waited as Warren adjusted his suit in the side mirror. He opted not to remove his sunglasses until they walked into the shadow of the house—the Arizona sun really did a number on his eyes and he felt he looked more imposing with the shades on anyway. Intimidation worked wonders of people hiding things, and he doubted he’d have much trouble with a mousy mathematics professor.

When he knocked on the door, however, what met him at the threshold set aside all his notions of both mousy and professor.

A woman, wearing a drab, shapeless-shift and a white apron yanked open the door with surprising enthusiasm. Her hair was covered with a cloth that wrapped around her head much like an African headdress, it spilled over with black beads down her back and draped across her shoulders. She had a cordless phone pinned between her shoulder and her cheek and shouted into it as she almost leaned into Agent Warren to greet him. “Melinda! I didn’t expect that—”

She stopped in her tracks looking a little confused.

Taken aback, Warren removed his sunglasses and gestured with them. “Uh, ma’am, is Professor Whitaker home?”

“Oh wait!” she exclaimed at them in surprise. The phone fell from the crook of her neck and she barely caught it. Her hands looked gaunt, almost skeletal and white against the sleek surface of the phone. In fact, Warren noted, her cheeks appeared a little sunken and her eyes hollow. “You’re not Melinda from next door. Deary, dear me, I thought perhaps she’d come over to gossip more about the tan lad who just moved in down the street… Who are you again?”

“I didn’t say,” Agent Warren said. “I am sorry to disturb you, but we—Special Agent Toller and I, Special Agent Warren—meant to see your…husband today. I checked his work schedule with ASU and he should have been home today…”

“Special Agents? What is this in connection to?” the woman asked, this time she did drop the phone. Agent Toller immediately stooped down to pick it up for her. “Is Bertrand okay?” Her concern melted after a moment and she placed her hand on her hip. “He’s not in trouble is he… I watched this Special on the History Channel about mathematicians who would go to Vegas and count cards or mess up slot machines. He promised me he wouldn’t do that.”

“Ah, no, this doesn’t involve gambling, ma’am,” Agent Warren said. He took a mental break while trying to put his glasses into his coat pocket while the woman took her phone back from Toller. “Actually, this is in regards to his relationship with Richard Harwood, the Dean of Engineering at Arizona State University.”

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