Chapter 23 - Ancillary Connections

This is another shortish chapter, so I'm posting it in clear text. I'll include it in the next PDF as well, but I've got two shows this weekend so I'm not sure how soon that will be. This is kind of a connecter chapter, it won't mean much if you haven't read the book to date - go below and get The Story So Far, then download chapters 21-22. Then come back here.

Chapter 23 - Ancillary Connections
The search of Williams' home hadn't turned up much. It was a tasteful home, sparsely furnished with a striking absence of personal touches. Allen's small office contained a desk, printer, monitor and small file cabinet, but no computer. Blake guessed from the disconnected cables that he'd used a laptop, which he'd either taken with him or disposed of to keep the authorities from dissecting his hard drive. The trip had not, however, been a total waste.

They'd known he was married, of course, and that he had a child. That information was in his employment records and health insurance policy. The state police had tried calling repeatedly and sent troopers to the house after the shootings, but the wife hadn't answered the door or phone. Vicki had been prepared to find a scene similar to what they'd found at the Owens home, and was relieved to discover an alternative explanation. Mrs. Williams' clothes were gone, as where most of her personal effects. The girl's toy box was half empty, and the kitchen pantry looked like it had been stocked for only one. Neighbors were canvassed, and none of them could remember seeing anyone but Mr. Williams around the house for weeks. It appeared that the rest of the Williams family had cleared out sometime before Allen had snapped – or at least, before he'd taken any action. The agents had confiscated a couple of family photos, and Laramie had put out an APB on her car.

Beyond that, they found a little of the type of evidence needed for a trial once Williams was brought in – ammunition matching the type used in the shootings, receipts for gun purchases, papers for the Porsche. None of this excited them too much; Blake and Williams where not looking for who done it, they needed to know where he had gone. Vicki was certain that step one would be finding out where Mrs. Williams had fled, and it would be Monday before she could trace that down. So they dutifully bagged and filed whatever the lawyers might find helpful and spent Sunday working the widening search for Allen Williams himself, hoping for a lucky break that never came.

By Monday morning they had located the Williams' daycare center; Rob Laramie phoned and learned that Mrs. Williams had permanently removed the girl about six weeks earlier. She'd told the director that she was moving, but when asked had been vague as to where. She hadn't seemed upset or said anything unusual – in fact, she'd said very little at all which the director found typical. The little girl had seemed like a normal, happy child and there had never been any worries of neglect or abuse.

While Laramie was agreeing with the daycare director that it was indeed a tragedy what had happened to Tali's father, and what a poor child she was, Blake was becoming increasingly frustrated on another line with Mrs. Williams' employer. In her experience, people with ancillary connections to spectacular crimes like the WebbieComm shootings were eager to talk with the FBI. Often pathologically so. Coworkers wanted to pour out excessive grief for so tenuous a link, neighbors were voyeurs of the gruesome details, acquaintances got almost a celebrity rush from being attached to the media circus. But the people at the Delphi Institute were uniformly disinterested in the case and suspicious of Vicki Blake's motives in contacting them. None of them had apparently even heard about the shootings, which didn't seem possible. They were somehow simultaneously protective of and detached from Maya Williams herself. Blake was put on hold, forgotten, transferred and suspiciously disconnected more than once. One person had insisted on calling her back at a published FBI phone number to verify Blake's identity, and then never made the call.

“Jesus Christ,” she slammed down the phone after the hold music changed abruptly to a dial tone once more. “What the fuck is wrong with these people?” She picked up the receiver again and started punching buttons to try again.

Rob stopped her by putting his finger on the cradle and asking, “Why don't we just go over there?”

“Good idea,” she growled, slamming the phone down again. Laramie's reflexes where quick, but he suspected that his partner had intentionally hesitated for a couple of nanoseconds or she'd have broken his trigger finger. He really hoped that he would not be needing it before this case was over. “And they better not try and leave us in some god damned waiting room. I'm not in the mood.”