Page 67 of Sharp Force

I don’t answer. I’m not telling him a damn thing.

“Rumor has it you stopped by his house last night.” Whalen’s mirrored glasses flash at me.

“We’re not at liberty to discuss what we’re working on. Now, if you’ll excuse us,” Benton says, shifting the Tesla into drive.

“I’ll let you go this time.” Whalen backs away from the car. “But I’ll be watching.”

We pull back onto the parkway, the trooper staring after us as he climbs into his SUV.

“He knew we were coming before deciding to pull us over,” I say to Benton.

“No question.” He continues scanning the mirrors.

Waiting for other cars to pass, the trooper follows us from a distance. Slowly dropping back.

Turning off on an access road.

Then gone.

Benton picks up his phone, holding it close to his lips, dictating a voice-to-text message to Lucy.

“See what you can find out about Virginia State Police Trooper Trad Whalen,” he says. “He just pulled us for no reason while we’re headed to the scene. It’s obvious he was waiting for us. I don’t know what the hell he’s up to except interfering with an investigation. You and Tron need to be aware.”

I continue watching in my side mirror, making sure the trooper doesn’t reappear, and moments later a text lands on Benton’s phone. He hands it to me as we drive in traffic, and I read Lucy’s answer out loud.

She says that Trad Alvin Whalen is forty years old and born in Richmond. A criminal justice major at Virginia Commonwealth University, he barely graduated with a 2.0 GPA. For three years he was a campus police dispatcher, then a VCU uniformed officer.

“He received numerous complaints from students.” I pass on what Lucy reports. “For harassment, and inappropriate behavior toward several women who claimed in sworn statements that he was following them while they were driving. He was doing this in his campus police cruiser.”

“How did he end up a state trooper? I don’t see how he passed the background check,” Benton wonders. “Makes no sense.”

“He signed on with the Capitol Police in two-thousand-thirteen, then the state police several years after that.” I relay the rest of Lucy’s information.

“He must know somebody,” Benton says. “Or someone owes him a favor because he has dirt on them. You don’t go from a campus cop who gets fired to becoming a Capitol Police officer and next a state trooper.”

“He sounds like a real character disorder,” I comment. “And I’msure he resents the hell out of federal agents like you. He probably dislikes any authority figure.”

“Including a woman chief medical examiner, and that’s not why he stopped us. But it made it more fun.” Benton scans his mirrors. “Still no sign of him?”

“He’s definitely not following us anymore, hasn’t been for the past five minutes,” I answer as we slow down, Benton turning on his flashers.

He pulls off onto the median, melting snow drumming the undercarriage as he bumps over a wide swath of grass, parking between clusters of trees. He opens the console, lifting out a spectrum analyzer the size of a walkie-talkie, a birthday present from Lucy.

Powering it on, Benton watches as it begins scanning the car and area immediately around us. Electronic transmissions show on the display in vivid green peaks and dips that remind me of an electrocardiogram.

I can see that a signal is spiking more strongly than the others in the 2.4 MHz bandwidth range, and that could be a lot of devices. Anything from a microwave oven to a garage door opener, Benton informs me.

“I know the car’s electronic signature,” he’s saying. “And I confirmed it with a quick scan before pulling out of the carriage house just like I always do. The signal spiking right now wasn’t there earlier. I think we have a stowaway.”

“Trad Whalen was leaning against the car. He sanitized his hands, putting on gloves. Maybe we know why.” I replay what he did. “He was up to something.”

“He dropped one of your wallets.” Benton digs in the console for a flashlight. “He stooped down and futzed around, picking it up.Took him a good minute, and it wasn’t possible for either of us to see what he was doing.”

“And he planted something?”

“That’s when he would have done it,” Benton says.

“For what purpose?”