The Narrows

integrity. It definitely came from him."
    "What?" Rachel said. "I didn't hear any of that."
    "Brass," Dei said, "start again."
    "I said we got a match from the bite mark database. With the gum. It's got ninety-five percent integrity, which is one of the highest matches I've ever seen."
    "Who?" Rachel asked.
    "Rach, you are going to love this. Ted Bundy. That gum was chewed by Ted Bundy."
    "That's impossible," Dei said. "First of all, Bundy's been dead for years, long before any of these men went missing. And he was never known to have gotten to Nevada or California or to have targeted men. Something's wrong with the data, Brass. It's a bad read or-"
    "We ran it twice. Both times it came up Bundy."
    "No," Rachel said. "It's right."
    Dei turned and looked back at her. Rachel was thinking about Bundy. The ultimate serial killer. Handsome, smart and vicious. He was a biter, too. He had been the only one to really give her the creeps. The others she just felt a loathing and disgust for.
    "How do you know it's right, Rachel?"
    "I just know. Twenty-five years ago Backus helped set up the VICAP database. Brass remembers. Over the next eight years the data was collected. Agents from the unit were sent out to interview every serial killer and rapist who was incarcerated in the country. That was before I was there but even later, when I was there, we kept doing interviews and adding to the base. Bundy was in- terviewed several times, mostly by Bob. Right before his execution he called Bob down to Raiford and Bob took me with him. We spent three days interviewing him. I remember that Ted kept borrowing gum from Bob. It was Juicy Fruit. That's what Bob chewed."
    "Then what, he'd spit it back into Bob's hand?" Zigo asked incredulously.
    "No, he'd throw it in the trash can. We interviewed him in the death house captain's office. There was a trash can. When we were done each day, Bundy was led out. There were many points when Bob was alone in that office. He could have just taken the gum out of the can."
    "So you're saying Bob more or less went Dumpster diving for Ted Bundy's gum and then held on to it so he could put it in a grave all these years later?"
    "I'm saying he took the gum out of that prison, knowing it had Bundy's teeth marks in it. Maybe it was just a souvenir then. But it became something else later. Something maybe to taunt us with."
    "And where'd he.been keeping it, in the fridge?"
    "Maybe. That's where I'd keep it."
    Dei turned back around in her seat.
    "What do you think, Brass?" she asked.
    "I think I should've thought of it myself. I think Rachel is onto something. I think Bob and Ted actually got along. He went down there several times to talk to him. Sometimes alone. He could have gotten the gum any one of those times."
    Rachel watched Dei nod her head in agreement.
    Zigo cleared his throat and spoke.
    "So this was just another way of him coming out and telling us he did this and how smart he was about it. To taunt us. First the GPS with the prints and now the gum."
    "That's what I would say," Doran agreed.
    It wasn't that simple, Rachel knew. She unconsciously shook her head and Zigo, sitting next to her, picked up on it.
    "You disagree, Agent Walling?"
    She noted that Zigo must have attended the Randal Alpert school of building relations among fellow colleagues.
    "I just don't think it is as simple as that. You are looking at it from the wrong angle. Remember, the GPS and his prints came to us first but that gum was in that grave first. He might have intended for the gum to be found first. Before there was any direct connection to him."
    "If that was the case, what was he doing?" Dei asked.
    "I don't know. I don't have the answer. I'm just saying, don't assume at this point we know what the plan or even the sequence was supposed to be."
    "Rachel, you know we always keep an open mind on things. We take things as they come and never stop looking from all angles."
    That sounded like a line taped to the wall in the public information office in Quantico, where agents always had pithy policy and procedure statements to deliver over the phone to reporters. Rachel decided to step back from tangling with Dei on this. She had to be careful not to outstay her welcome and she sensed she was nearing that point with her former student.
    "Yes, I know," she said. "Okay, Brass, anything else new?" Dei asked.
    "That was it. That was enough."
    "Okay. Then we'll talk to you at the next one."
    Meaning the next conference room