The Scarecrow

DATA- They call them bunkers and farms. They sit in pastures and deserts. They are as nondescript as the nameless warehouses that line industrial streets in every city in the country. Data storage centers are billed as economical, dependable and secure. They store vital digital files that remain just a fingertip away no matter where your business is located. But this week’s investigation into how two men used stored files to choose, stalk and prey on women is raising questions about the industry that has seen explosive growth in recent years. Authorities say the bottom-line question is not where or how you should store your digital information. The question is, who is minding it? The Times learns that many storage facilities hire the best and the brightest to safeguard their data. The problem is, sometimes the best and the brightest are former criminals. Suspect Marc Courier is a case in point. 25 inches w/art GOMEZ-GONZMART

They were going all-out again. The story package would lead the paper and be the authoritative report on the case. All other media outlets would have to credit the Times or scramble to match it. It would be a good day for the Times. The editors could already smell a Pulitzer.

I closed the screen and thought about the sidebar story Larry was going to write. He was right. There were more questions than answers.

I opened a new document on the screen and wrote my best recollection of the exact exchange I’d had with Courier. It took me only five minutes because the truth was that not a lot was said.

ME: Where’s McGinnis? Did he send you to do the dirty work? Just like in Nevada?

HIM: No response.

ME: Does he tell you what to do? He’s your mentor on murder and tonight the master won’t be happy with the student. You went oh for two.

HIM: McGinnis is dead, you dumb fuck! I buried him in the desert. Just like I was going to bury your bitch when I was through with her. Me: Why didn’t you just run? Why risk everything to go for her?

HIM: No answer.

When I was finished I read it a couple of times and made a few fixes and additions. Larry was right. It came down to that last question. Courier had been about to respond but I’d used the distraction to catch him off guard. I didn’t regret that. The distraction may have saved my life. But I sure wished I had an answer to the question I had asked.

The next morning the Times basked in the glow of national news exposure and I was along for the ride. I had written none of the stories causing the nationwide media stir but I was the subject of two of them. My phone never stopped buzzing and my e-mail box over-flowed early.

But I didn’t answer my calls or e-mails. I wasn’t basking. I was brooding. I had spent the night with the unanswered question I had posed to Marc Courier, and no matter which way I considered it, things didn’t add up. What was Courier doing there? What was the great reward for such a large risk? Was it Rachel? The abduction and murder of a federal agent would certainly place McGinnis and Courier in the upper pantheon of killers whose deadly lore made them household names. But was that what they wanted? There had been no indication that these two were interested in harnessing public attention. They had carefully planned and camouflaged their murders. The attempt to abduct Rachel did not fit with the history leading up to it. And so there had to be another reason.

I started to look at it from another angle. I thought about what would have happened if I had gone to Los Angeles and Courier had been successful in grabbing Rachel and getting her out of the hotel.

It seemed likely to me that the abduction would have been discovered shortly after it occurred, when the room service waiter did not report back to the kitchen. I estimated that within an hour the hotel would have been a hive of activity. The FBI would have swarmed the hotel and the area, knocked on every door and turned over every rock in an attempt to find and rescue one of their own. But by then Courier would have been long gone.

It was clear the abduction would have drawn the bureau in and caused a massive distraction from its investigation of McGinnis and Courier. But it was also clear that this would be only a temporary shift. My guess was that before noon the next day, agents would be coming in by the planeload in a federal show of might and determination. This would allow them to overcome any distraction and put even more pressure on the investigation, all the while maintaining a suffocating effort to find Rachel.

The more I thought about it, the more I wished I’d given Courier the chance to answer that last question: Why didn’t you run?

I didn’t have the answer and it was too late to get it directly from the source. So I kept working it around in my head until it was all there was to think about.

“Jack?”

I looked over the wall of my cubicle and saw Molly Robards, the secretary to the assistant managing editor.

“Yes?”

“You’re not answering your phone and your e-mail box is full.”