The Poet (Part 1/2) - Jack McEvoy, Book 1 - Michael Connelly (Audiobook)

[Music] the poet by michael conley copyright 1996 by michael conley and performance copyright 1996 by brilliance corporation all rights reserve this is for phillip spitzer and joel gottler great advisors and agents but most of all great friends the poet one death is my beat i make my living from it i forge my professional reputation on it i treat it with the passion and precision of an undertaker somber and sympathetic about it when i'm with the bereaved a skilled craftsman with it when i'm alone i've always thought the secret to dealing with death was to keep it at arm's length that's the rule don't let it breathe in your face but my rule didn't protect me when the two detectives came for me and told me about sean a cold numbness quickly enveloped me it was like i was on the other side of the aquarium window i moved as if underwater back and forth back and forth and looked out at the rest of the world to the glass from the back seat of their car i could see my eyes in the rear view mirror flashing each time we passed beneath a street light i recognized the thousand-yard stare i had seen in the eyes of fresh widows i had interviewed over the years i only knew one of the two detectives harold wexler i had met him a few months earlier when i stopped into the bullet for a drink with sean they worked caps together on the denver pd i remember sean called him wax cops always use nicknames for each other wexler's is wex sean's was mac it's some kind of tribal bonding thing some of the names aren't complementary but the cops don't complain i know one down in colorado springs named skodo who most other cops call scroto some even go all the way and call him scrotum but my guess is that you have to be a close friend to get away with that wexler was built like a small bull powerful but squat a voice slowly cured over the years by cigarette smoke and whiskey a hatchet face that always seemed red the times i saw him i remember he drank jim beam over ice i'm always interested in what cops drink it tells a lot about them when they're taking us straight like that i always think that maybe they've seen too many things too many times that most people never see even once sean was drinking light beer that night but he was young even though he was the soup of the caps unit he was at least 10 years younger than wexler maybe in 10 years he would have been taking his medicine cold and straight like wechsler i spent most of the drive out from denver thinking about that night at the bullet i'll never know not that anything important had happened it was just drinks with my brother at the cop bar and it was the last good time between us before teresa lofton came up that memory put me back in the aquarium but during the moments that reality was able to punch through the glass and into my heart i was seized by a feeling of failure and grief it was the first real tearing of the soul i had experienced in my 34 years that included the death of my sister i was too young then to properly agree for sarah or even to understand the pain of a life unfulfilled i grieved now because i had not even known sean was so close to the edge he was light beer while all the other cops i knew were whiskey on the rocks of course i also recognized how self-pitying this kind of grief was the truth was that for a long time we hadn't listened much to each other we had taken different paths and each time i acknowledged this truth the cycle of my grief would begin again my brother once told me the theory of the limit he said every homicide cop had a limit but the limit was unknown until it was reached he was talking about dead bodies sean believed that there were just so many that a cop could look at it was a different number for every person some hit it early some put in 20 in homicide never got close but there was a number and when it came up that was it you transferred to records you turned in your badge you did something because you just couldn't look at another one and if you did if you exceeded your limit well then you were in trouble you might end up sucking down a bullet that's what sean had said i realized that the other one ray st louis had said something to me he turned around in his seat to look back at me he was much larger than wexler even in the dim light of the car i could make out the rough texture of his pock marked face i didn't know him but i'd heard him referred to by other cops and i knew they called him big dog i had thought that he and wexler made the perfect mutt and jeff team when i first saw them waiting for me in the lobby at the rocky it was like they had stepped out of a late night movie long dark overcoats hats the whole scene should have been in black and white yeah me jack we'll break it to her that's our job but we just like you to be there to sort of help us out maybe stay with her if it gets rough you know if she needs to be with somebody okay okay good jack we were going to shawn's house in boulder but i knew nobody was going to be breaking anything to his wife riley she'd know what the news was the moment she opened the door and saw the three of us standing there without sean any cop's wife would know they spend their lives dreading and preparing for that day every time there's a knock on the door they expect it to be death's messengers standing there when they open it this time it would be you know she's going to know i told them probably wexler said they always do i realized they were counting on riley knowing the score as soon as she opened the door it would make their job easier i dropped my chin to my chest and brought my fingers up beneath my glasses to pinch the bridge of my nose i realized i'd become a character in one of my own stories exhibiting the details of grief and loss i worked so hard to get so i could make a 30-inch newspaper story seem meaningful now i was one of the details in this story a sense of shame descended on me as i thought of all the calls i had made to a widow or parent of a dead child or brother of a suicide yes i had even made those i don't think there was any kind of death that i hadn't written about that hadn't brought me around as the intruder into somebody's pain how do you feel trusty words for a reporter always the first question if not so direct then carefully camouflaged in words meant to impart sympathy and understanding feelings i didn't actually have i carry a reminder of this callousness a thin white scar running along my left cheek just above the line of my beard it was from the diamond engagement ring of a woman whose fiance had been killed in an avalanche near breckenridge i asked her the old standby and she responded with a backhand across my face at the time i was new to the job and thought i had been wronged now i wear the scar like a badge you better pull over i said i'm going to be sick wexler jerked the car into the freeway's breakdown lane we skidded a little on the black ice but then he got control before the car had completely stopped i tried desperately to open the door but the handle wouldn't work it was a detective car i realized and the passengers who most often rode in the back were suspects and prisoners the back doors had security locks controlled from the front the door i managed to strangle out the car finally jerked to a stop as wexler disengaged the security lock i opened the door leaned out and vomited into the dirty flush three great heaves from the gut for a half a minute i didn't move waiting for more but that was it i was empty i thought about the back seat of the car for prisoners and suspects and i guess that i was both now suspect as a brother a prisoner of my own pride the sentence of course would now be life these thoughts quickly slipped away with the relief the physical exorcism brought i gingerly stepped out of the car and walked to the edge of the asphalt where the light from the passing cars reflected in moving rainbows on the petroleum exhaust glaze on the february snow it looked like we had stopped alongside a grazing meadow but i didn't know where i hadn't been paying attention to how far along to boulder we were i took off my gloves and glasses and put them in the pockets of my coat then i reached down and dug beneath the spoiled surface to where the snow was white and pure i took up two handfuls of the cold clean powder and pressed it to my face rubbing my skin until it stung are you okay st louis asked he had come up behind me with his stupid question it was up there with how do you feel i ignored it let's go i said we got back in and wexler wordlessly pulled the car back onto the freeway i saw a sign for the broomfield exit and knew we were about halfway there growing up in boulder i had made the 30-mile run between there and denver a thousand times but the stretch seemed like alien territory to me now for the first time i thought of my parents and how they would deal with this stoically i decided they handled everything that way they never discussed it they moved on they did it with sarah now they do it with sean why'd he do it i asked after a few minutes wexler and st louis said nothing i'm his brother we're twins for christ's sake you're also a reporter st louis said we picked you up because we want rightly to be with family if she needs it you're the only my brother killed himself i said it too loud it had a quality of hysteria to it that i knew never worked with cops you start yelling and they have a way of shutting down going cold i continued in a subdued voice i think i am entitled to know what happened and why i'm not writing a story jesus you guys are i shook my head and didn't finish if i tried i thought i would lose it again i gazed out the window and could see the lights of boulder coming up so many more than when i was a kid i don't know why wexler finally said after a half minute okay all i can say is that it happens sometimes cops get tired of all the that comes down the pipe mac might have gotten tired that's all who knows but they're working on it and when they know i'll know and i'll tell you that's a promise who's working on it the park service turned it over to our department siu is handling it what do you mean special investigations they don't handle cop suicides normally they don't we do caps but this time is just that they're not going to let us investigate our own conflict of interest you know caps i thought crimes against persons homicide assault rape suicide i wondered who would be listed in the reports as the person against whom this crime had been committed riley me my parents my brother it was because of theresa lofton wasn't it i asked though it wasn't really a question i didn't feel i needed their confirmation or denial i was just saying what i believe to be the obvious out loud we don't know jack st louis said let's leave it at that for now the death of terexa lofton was the kind of murder that gave people pause not just in denver but everywhere it made anybody who heard or read about it stopped for at least a moment to consider the violent images it conjured in the mind the twist it caused in the gut most homicides are little murders that's what we call them in the newspaper business their effect on others is limited their grasp on the imagination is short-lived they get a few paragraphs on the inside pages buried in the paper like the victims are buried in the ground but when an attractive college student is found in two pieces in a there to four peaceful place like washington park there usually isn't enough space in the paper for all the inches of copy it will generate teresa lofton's was no little murder it was a magnet that pulled reporters from across the country theresa lofton was the girl in two pieces that was the catchy thing about this one and so they descended on denver from places like new york and chicago and los angeles television tabloid and newspaper reporters alike for a week they stayed at hotels with good room service roamed the city and the university of denver campus asked meaningless questions and got meaningless answers some staked out the daycare center where lofton had worked part-time or went up to butte where she had come from wherever they went they learned the same thing that theresa lofton fit that most exclusive media image of all the all-american girl the theresa lofton murder was inevitably compared to the black dahlia case of 50 years ago in los angeles in that case not so all-american girl was found severed at the midriff in an empty lot a tabloid television show dubbed theresa lofton the white dahlia playing on the fact that she had been found on a snow-covered field near denver's lake grasmere and so the story fed on itself it burned as hot as a trash can fire for almost two weeks but nobody was arrested and there were other crimes other fires for the national media to warm itself by updates on the lofton case dropped back into the inside pages of the colorado papers they became briefs for the digest pages and theresa lofton finally took her spot among the little murders she was buried all the while the police in general and my brother in particular remained virtually mute refusing even to confirm the detail that the victim had been found in two parts that report had come only by accident from a photographer at the rocky named iggy gomez he had been in the park looking for wild art the feature photos that fill the pages on a slow news day when he happened upon the crime scene ahead of any other reporters or photographers the cops had made the call outs to the corners and crime scene offices by land lines since they knew the rocky and the post monitored their radio frequencies gomez took shots of two stretchers being used to remove two body bags he called the city desk and said the cops were working a tube bagger and from the looks of the sizes of the bags the victims were probably children later a cop shop reporter for the rocky named van jackson got a source in the corner's office to confirm the grim detail that one victim had come into the morgue in two parts the next morning's story in the rocky served as the siren call to the media across the country my brother and his caps team worked as if they felt no obligation to talk to the public at all each day the denver police department media office put out a scant few lines in a press release announcing that the investigation was continuing and that there had been no arrests when cornered the brass vowed that the case would not be investigated in the media though that in itself was a laughable statement left with little information from authorities the media did what it always does in such cases it investigated the case on its own numbing the reading and television watching public with assorted details about the victim's life that actually had nothing to do with anything still almost nothing leaked from the department and little was known outside headquarters on delaware street and after a couple weeks the media onslaught was over strangled by the lack of its lifeblood information i didn't write about theresa lofton but i had wanted to it wasn't the kind of story that comes along often in this place and any reporter would have wanted a piece of it but at first van jackson worked it with laura fitzgibbons the university beat reporter i had to bide my time i knew that as long as the cops didn't clear it i'd get my shot at it so when jackson asked me in the early days of the case if i could get anything from my brother even off the record i told him i would try but i didn't try i wanted the story and i wasn't going to help jackson stay on it by feeding him from my source in late january when the case was a month old and had dropped out of the news i made my move and my mistake one morning i went in to see greg glenn the city editor and told him i'd like to do a take out on the loft in case that was my specialty my beat long takes on the notable murders of the rocky mountain empire to use a newspaper cliche my expertise was going behind the headlines to bring you the real story so i went to glenn and reminded him i had an in it was my brother's case i said and he'd only talk to me about it glenn didn't hesitate to consider the time and effort jackson had already put on the story i knew that he wouldn't all he cared about was getting a story the post didn't have i walked out of the office with the assignment my mistake was that i told glenn i had the inn before i had talked to my brother the next day i walked the two blocks from the rocky to the cop shop and met him for lunch in the cafeteria i told him about my assignment sean told me to turn around go back jack i can't help you what are you talking about it's your case it's my case but i'm not cooperating with you or anybody else who wants to write about it i've given the basic details that's all i'm required to do that's where it stays he looked off across the cafeteria he had an annoying habit of not looking at you when there was disagreement when we were little i would jump on him when he did it and punch him on the back i couldn't do that anymore though many times i wanted to sean this is a good story you have i don't have to do anything and i don't give a what kind of story it is this one is bad jack okay i can't stop thinking about it and i'm not going to help you sell newspapers with it come on man i'm a writer look at me i don't care if it sells papers or not the story is the thing and i give a about the paper you know how i feel about that he finally turned back to me now you know how i feel about this case he said i was silent a moment and took out a cigarette i was down to maybe a half pack a day back then and could have skipped it but i knew it bothered him so i smoked when i wanted to work on him this isn't a smoking section jack then turn me in at least you'll be arresting somebody why are you such an when you don't get what you want why are you you aren't going to clear it are you that's what this is all about you don't want me digging around and writing about your failure you're giving up jack don't try to below the belt you know it's never worked he was right it never had then what you just want to keep this little horror story for yourself that it yeah something like that you could say that in the car with wechsler and st louis i sat with my arms crossed it was comforting almost as if i was holding myself together the more i thought about my brother the more the whole thing made no sense to me i knew the lofton case had weighed on him but not to the point that he'd want to take his own life not sean did he use his gun wexler looked at me in the mirror studied me i thought i wondered if he knew what had come between my brother and me yes it hit me then i just didn't see it all the times that we'd had together coming to that i didn't care about the lofton case what they were saying couldn't be not sean st louis turned around to look at me what's that he wouldn't have done it that's all look jack he he didn't get tired of the coming down the pipe he loved it you asked riley you asked anybody on wex you knew him the best and you know it's he loved the hunt that's what he called it he wouldn't have traded it for anything he probably could have been the assistant chief by now but he didn't want it he wanted to work homicides he stayed in caps wexler didn't reply we were in boulder now on baseline heading toward cascade i was falling through the silence of the car the impact of what they were telling me sean had done was settling on me and leaving me as cold and dirty as the snow back on the side of the freeway what about a note or something i said what there was a note we think it was a note i noticed st louis glance over at wechsler and give him a look that said you're saying too much what what did it say there was a long silence then wexler ignored st louis out of space he said out of time out of space out of time just like that just like that that's all it said the smile on riley's face lasted maybe three seconds then it was instantly replaced by a look of horror out of that painting by munch the brain is an amazing computer three seconds to look at three faces at your door and to know your husband wasn't coming home ibm can never match that her mouth formed into a horrible black hole from which an unintelligible sound came then the inevitable useless word no riley wexler tried let's sit down a minute no oh god no riley she retreated from the door moving like a cornered animal first darting one way and then the opposite as if maybe she thought she could change things if she could elude us she went around the corner into the living room when we followed we found her collapsed on the middle of the couch in an almost catatonic state not too dissimilar from my own the tears were just starting to come into her eyes wexler sat next to her on the couch big dog and i stood by silent as cowards is he dead she asked knowing the answer but realizing she had to get it over with wexler nodded how wechsler looked down and hesitated a moment he looked over at me and then back at riley he did it himself riley i'm sorry she didn't believe it just as i hadn't but wechsler had a way of telling the story and after a while she stopped protesting that was when she looked at me for the first time tears rolling her face had an imploring look as if she was asking me if we were sharing the same nightmare and couldn't i do something about it couldn't i wake her up couldn't i tell these two characters from a black and white how wrong they were i went to the couch then sat next to her and hugged her that's what i was there for i'd seen this scene often enough to know what i was supposed to do i'll stay i whispered as long as you like she didn't answer she turned from my arms to wechsler where did it happen asked this park by the lake no he wouldn't go what was he doing up there he got a call somebody said they might have some information about one of his cases he was going up to meet them for coffee at the stanley and after he he drove out to the lake we don't know why he went there he was found in his car by a ranger who heard the shot what case i asked look jack i don't want to get into what case i yelled this time not caring about the inflection of my voice it was lost and wasn't it wexler gave one short nod and st louis walked away shaking his head who was he meeting that's it jack we're not going to get into that with you i'm his brother this is his wife it's all under investigation but if you're looking for doubts there aren't any we were up there he killed himself he used his own gun he left a note and we got gsr on his hands i wish he didn't do it but he did [Music] two in the winter in colorado the earth comes out in frozen chunks when they open up a grave with the backhoe my brother was buried in green mountain memorial park in boulder a spot not more than a mile from the house where we grew up as kids we were driven by the cemetery every day on our way to summer camp in chautauqua park i don't think we ever once looked at the stones as we passed and thought of the confines of the cemetery as our own final destination but now that was what it was to be for sean boulder mountain stood over the cemetery like a huge altar making the small gathering at his grave seem even smaller riley of course was there along with her parents and mine wexler and st louis a couple dozen or so other cops a few high school friends that neither shawn nor i nor riley had stayed in touch with and me it wasn't the official police burial with all the fanfare and colors the ritual was reserved for those who fall in the line of duty though it could be argued that it was still a line of duty death it wasn't considered won by the department so sean didn't get the show and most of the denver police force stayed away suicide is believed to be contagious by many in the thin blue line i was one of the pallbearers i took the front along with my father two cops i didn't know before that day but who were on sean's caps team took the middle and wexler and st louis were on the back st louis was too tall and wexler too short mutton jeff it gave the coffin an uneven cant at the back as we carried it i think it must have looked odd my mind wandered as we struggled with the weight and i thought of sean's body pitching around inside it i didn't say much to my parents that day though i rode with them in the limousine with riley and her parents we had not talked of anything meaningful in many years and even sean's death could not penetrate the barrier after my sister's death twenty years before something in them changed toward me it seemed that i as the survivor of the accident was suspect for having done just that survived i am also sure that since that time i have continued to disappoint them in the choices i have made i think of these as small disappointments accruing over time like interest in the bank account until it was enough for them to comfortably retire on we are strangers i see them only on the required holidays and so there was nothing that i could say to them that would matter and there was nothing they could say to me aside from the occasional hurt animal sound of riley crying the inside of a limo was as quiet as the inside of sean's casket after the funeral i took two weeks of vacation and the one week of bereavement leave the paper aloud and drove myself up into the rockies the mountains have never lost their glory for me it's mountains where i heal the fastest heading west on the 70 i passed through the loveland paths and over the peaks to grand junction i did it slowly three days i stopped to ski sometimes i just stopped on the turnouts to think after grand junction i diverted south and made it to telluride the next day i kept the cherokee in four-wheel drive the whole way i stayed in silverton because the rooms were cheaper and skied every day for a week i spent the nights drinking jagermeister in my room or near the fireplace of whatever ski lodge i stopped in i tried to exhaust my body with the hope that my mind would follow but i couldn't succeed it was all sean out of space out of time his last message was a riddle my mind could not put aside for some reason my brother's noble calling had betrayed him it had killed him the grief that this simple conclusion brought me would not ebb even when i was gliding down the slopes the wind cutting in behind my sunglasses and pulling tears from my eyes i no longer questioned the official conclusion but it had not been wechsler and st louis who had convinced me i did that on my own it was the erosion of my resolve by time and by facts as each day went by the horror of what he had done was somehow easier to believe and even accept and then there was riley on the day after that first night she had told me something that even wexler and st louis hadn't known yet sean had been going once a week to see a psychologist of course there were counseling services available to him through the department but he had chosen this secret path because he didn't want his position to be undermined by rumors i came to realize he was seeing the therapist at the same time i went to him wanting to write about lofton i thought maybe he was trying to spare me the same anguish that the case had brought him i liked the thought that that was what he was doing and i tried to hold on to that idea during those days up in the mountains in front of the hotel room mirror one night after too many drinks i contemplated shaving my beard off and cutting my hair short like shawn's had been we were identical twins same hazel eyes light brown hair lanky build but not many people realized that we had always gone to great lengths to forge separate identities sean wore contacts and pumped iron to put muscle on his frame i wore glasses had a beard since college and hadn't picked up the weights since high school basketball i also had the scar from that woman's ring in breckenridge my battle scar sean went into the service after high school and then the cops keeping the crew cut as he went he later got a cu degree while going part-time he needed it to get ahead in the department i bummed around for a couple of years lived in new york and paris and then went to full-time college route i wanted to be a writer ended up in the newspaper business in the back of my mind i told myself it was just a temporary stop i'd been telling myself that for 10 years now maybe longer that night in the hotel room i look at myself in the mirror for a long time but i didn't shave my beard or cut my hair i kept thinking about sean under the frozen ground and i had a crushing feeling in my stomach i decided that when my time came i wanted to be burned i didn't want to be down there under the ice what hooked me deepest was the message the official police line was this after my brother left the stanley hotel and drove up through estes park to bear lake he parked his department car and for a while left the engine running the heat on when the heat had fogged the windshield he reached up and wrote his message there with a gloved finger he wrote it backwards so you could read it from outside the car his last words to a world that included two parents a wife and a twin brother out of space out of time i couldn't understand time for what space for what he'd come to some desperate conclusion yet he never tested us on it he had not reached out to me nor to my parents or riley was it up to us to reach for him not even knowing of his secret injuries in my solitude on the road i concluded that it was not he should have reached he should have tried by not doing so he had robbed us of the chance to rescue him and in doing so he had left us unable to be rescued from our own grief and guilt i realized that much of my grief was actually anger i was mad at him my twin for what he had done to me but it's hard to hold a grudge against the dead i couldn't stay angry with sean and the only way to alleviate the anger was to doubt the story and so the cycle would begin again denial acceptance anger denial acceptance anger on my last day in telugu ride i called wexler i could tell he didn't like hearing from me did you find the informant the one from the stanley no jack no luck i told you i'd let you know about that i know i just still have questions don't you let it go jack we'll all be better off when we can put this behind us what about siu they already put it behind case closed pretty much i haven't talked to them this week then why are you still trying to find the informant i've got questions just like you just loose you changed your mind about sean no i just want to put everything in order i'd like to know what he talked about with the informant if they even talked the lofton case is still open you know i wouldn't mind nailing that one for sean i noticed he was no longer calling him mack sean had left the click the following monday i went back to work at the rocky mountain news as i entered the newsroom i felt several eyes upon me but this was not unusual i often thought they watched me when i came in i had a gig every reporter in the newsroom wanted no daily grind no daily deadlines i was free to roam the entire rocky mountain region and write about one thing murder everybody likes a good murder story some weeks i take apart a shooting in the projects telling the tale of the shooter and the victim and their fateful collision some weeks i'd write about a society murder out in cherry hill or a bar shooting in leadville highbrow and lowbrow little murder and big murder my brother was right it's old papers if you told it right and i got to tell it i got to take my time and tell it right stack on my desk next to the computer was a foot high pile of newspapers this was my main source material for stories i subscribed to every daily weekly and monthly newspaper published from pueblo north to bozeman i scoured these for small stories on killings that i could turn into long takeouts there were always a lot to choose from the rocky mountain empire had a violent streak that had been there since the gold rush not as much violence as los angeles or miami or new york not even close but i never was short of source material i was always looking for something new or different about the crime or the investigation an element of g-whiz or a heart-tugging sadness it was my job to exploit those elements but on this morning i wasn't looking for a story idea i began looking through the stack for back issues of the rocky and our competition the post suicides are not normal fair for newspapers unless there are unusual circumstances my brother's death qualified i thought there was a good chance there had been a story i was right though the rocky had not published a story probably in deference to me the post ran a six-inch story on the bottom of one of the local pages the morning after sean had died dpd investigator takes life in national park a veteran denver police detective was in charge of the investigation into the slaying of university of denver student teresa lofton was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound thursday in the rocky mountain national park officials said sean mcavoy 34 was found in his unmarked dpd car which was parked in a lot at bear lake near the estes park entrance to the rugged mountain park the body of the detective was discovered by a park ranger who heard a shot about 5 pm and went to the parking lot to investigate parks service officials have asked the dpd to investigate the death and the department's special investigations unit is handling the matter detective robert scalari who is heading the investigation said preliminary indications were that the death was a suicide scolari said a note was found at the scene but he refused to disclose its contents he said it was believed that mcavoy was despondent over job difficulties but also refused to discuss what problems he was having mcavoy who grew up and still lived in boulder was married but had no children he was a 12-year veteran of the police department who rose quickly through the ranks to an assignment on the crimes against persons unit which handles investigations of all violent crimes in the city mcavoy was currently head of the unit and had most recently directed the investigation into the death of lofton 19 who was found strangled and mutilated three months ago in washington park scalari refused to comment on whether the lawton case which remains unsolved was cited in mcavoy's note or was one of the job difficulties he may have been suffering salary said it wasn't known why mcavoy went to estes park before killing himself he said the investigation of the death is continuing i read the story twice it contained nothing that i didn't already know but it held a strange fascination for me maybe that was because i believed i knew or had the beginnings of an idea why sean had gone to estes park and driven all the way up to bear lake it was a reason i didn't want to think about though i clipped the article put it in a manila file and slid it into a desk drawer my computer beeped and a message printed across the top of the screen it was a summons from the city editor i was back at work greg glenn's office was at the back of the newsroom one wall was glass enabling him to look out across the rows of pods where the reporters worked and threw the windows along the west wall to the mountain line when it wasn't hidden by smog glenn was a good editor who prized a good read more than anything else about a story that's what i liked about him in this business editors are of two schools some like facts and cram more into a story until it is so overburdened that practically no one will read it to the end and some like words never let the facts get in the way glenn liked me because i could write and he pretty much let me choose what i wrote about he never hustled me for copy and never badly dinged up what i turned in i had long realized that should he ever leave the paper or be demoted or promoted out of the newsroom all of this most likely would change city editors made their own nests if he was gone i'd probably find myself back on the daily top beat writing briefs off the police log doing little murders i sat down in the cushioned seat in front of his desk as he finished up a phone call glenn was about five years older than me when i first started at the rocky 10 years earlier he was one of the hot shot writers like i was now but eventually he made the move into management now he wore a suit every day had one of those little statues on his desk of a bronco football player with a bobbing head spent more time on the phone than on any other activity in his life and always paid careful attention to the political winds blowing out of the corporate home office in cincinnati he was a 40 year old guy with a punch a wife two kids and a mortgage he wished he could refinance but the no bank would touch because of the real estate dive he told me all of this once over a beer at the wine coop the only night i'd seen him out in the past four years tacked across one wall of glenn's office for the last seven days of front pages each day the first thing he did was take the seven day old addition down and tack up the latest front page i guess he did this to keep track of the news and the continuity of our coverage or maybe because he never got bylines as a writer anymore putting the pages up was a way of reminding himself that he was in charge glenn hung up and looked at me thanks for coming in he said i just wanted to tell you again that i'm sorry about your brother and if you feel like you once more time it's no problem we'll work something out thanks but i'm back he nodded but made no move to dismiss me i knew there was something more to the summons well it's a business then do you uh have anything going at the moment as far as i remember you were looking for your next project when when it happened i figure if you're back then maybe it would be good for you to get busy with something you know dive back in it was in that moment that i knew what i would do next oh it had been there all right but it hadn't come to the surface not until glenn asked that question and of course it was obvious i'm going to write about my brother i said i don't know if that was what glenn was hoping i would say but i think it i think he had his eyes on a story ever since he'd heard the cops had met me down in the lobby and told me what my brother had done he was probably smart enough to know he didn't have to suggest the story that it would come to me on its own he just had to ask the simple question anyway i took the bait and all things in my life changed after that as clearly as you can chart anyone's life in retrospect mine changed with that one sentence in that one moment when i told glenn what i would do i thought i knew something about death then i thought i knew about evil but i didn't know anything 3. william gladden's eyes scanned the happy faces as they turned past by him [Music] this is the end of side one this program is continued on side two of this cassette three william gladden's eyes scanned the happy faces as they turned past by him it was like a giant vending machine take your pick don't like him here comes another will she do this time none would do besides their parents were too close by you'd have to wait for the one time one of them made a mistake walked out on the pier or over to the snack window for cotton candy leaving precious one all alone gladden loved the carousel on the santa monica pier he didn't love it because it was an original and that according to the story in the display case it took six years to hand paint the galloping horses and restore it to its original condition he didn't love it because it had been featured in lots of movies that he had seen over the years especially while in rayford and he didn't love it because it brought to mind memories of riding with his best pal on the merry-go-round at the sarasota county fair he loved it because of the children who wrote on it innocence and abandonment to pure happiness played on each face as it circled again and again to the accompaniment of the calliope since arriving from phoenix he had been coming here every day he knew it might take some time but one day it would eventually pay off and he would be able to fill his order as he watched the collage of colors his mind jumped backward like it did so often since rayford he remembered his best pal he remembered the black dark closet with only the band of light at the bottom he huddled on the floor near the light near the air he could see his feet coming that way each step he wished he were older taller so that he could reach the top shelf if only he were then he would have a surprise waiting for his best pal gladden came back he looked around the ride had ended and the last of the children were making their way to waiting parents on the other side of the gate there was a line of more children ready to run to the carousel and pick their horse he looked again for a dark-haired girl with smooth brown skin but saw none then he noticed the woman who took the tickets from the children staring at him their eyes met and gladden looked away he adjusted the strap of his duffel bag the weight of the camera and the books inside it had pulled it down on his shoulder he made a note to leave the books in the car next time he took a last look at the carousel and headed for one of the doors that exited onto the pier when he got to the door he casually looked back at the woman the children screamed as they ran to the wooden horses some with parents most alone the woman taking tickets had already forgotten about him he was safe four laurie prine looked up from her terminal and smiled when i walked in i was hoping she'd be there i came around the counter and pulled an extra chair away from an empty desk and sat down next to hers it looked like a slow moment at the rocky library oh no she said cheerfully when you come in and sit down i know it's going to be a long one she was referring to the extensive search requests i usually made in preparation for stories a lot of the crime stories i wrote spiraled into wide-ranging law enforcement issues i always needed to know what else had been written about the subject and where sorry i said a feigned contrition this one might keep you with lex and next the rest of the day you mean if i can get to it what do you need she was attractive in an understated way she had dark hair i had never seen in anything other than a braid brown eyes behind the steel rimmed glasses and full lips that were never painted she pulled a yellow legal pad over in front of her adjusted her glasses and picked up a pen ready to take down the list of things i wanted lexus and nexus were computer databases that carried most major and not so major newspapers in the country as well as court rulings and a whole host of other parking lots on the information highway if you were trying to see how much had been written on a specific subject or particular story the lexus nexus network was the place to start police suicide i said i want to find out everything i can about it her face stiffened i guessed she suspected the search was for personal reasons the computer time is expensive and the company strictly forbids its use for personal reasons don't worry i'm on a story glenn just okayed the assignment she nodded but i wondered if she believed me i assumed she would check with glenn her eyes returned to her yellow pad what i'm looking for are any national statistics on occurrence any stats on the rate of cop suicide compared to other jobs and the population as a whole and any mention of think tanks or government agencies that might have studied this uh let's see what else oh and anything anecdotal anecdotal you know any clips on cops suicides that have run let's go back five years i'm looking for examples like your she realized what she was saying yes like my brother it's a shame she didn't say anything more and i let the silence hang between us for a few moments and then asked her how long she thought the computer search would take my requests often were given a low priority since i was not a deadline writer well it's really a shotgun search nothing specific i'm going to have to spend some time on it and you know i'll get pulled when the dailies start coming in but i'll try how about late this afternoon that'd be okay perfect as i went back into the newsroom i checked the overhead clock and saw it was half past eleven the timing was good for what i needed to do at my desk i made a call to a source at the cop shop hey skipper you going to be there when during lunch i might need something i probably will okay i'm here hey when'd you get back today talk to you i hung up then i put on my long coat and headed out of the newsroom i walked the two blocks over to the denver police department headquarters flipped my press pass at the front counter to a cop that didn't bother to look up from his post and went on up to the siu offices on the fourth floor i've got one question detective robert scalari said after i told him what i wanted you here as a brother or as a reporter both sit down scalari leaned across his desk i guessed so maybe i could appreciate the intricate hair weaving job he had done to hide his bald spot listen jack he said i have a problem with that what problem look if you were coming to me as a brother who wanted to know why that would be one thing and i would probably tell you what i know but if what i tell you is going to end up in the rocky mountain news i'm not interested i've got too much respect for your brother to let what happened to him help sell newspapers even if you don't we were alone in a small office with four desks in it scholarly's words made me angry but i swallowed it back i leaned toward him so he could see my healthy full head of hair let me ask you something detective scalari was my brother murdered no he wasn't you are sure it was a suicide right that is correct and the case is closed right again i leaned back away from him then that really bothers me why is that because you're trying to have it both ways you're telling me the case is closed yet i can't look at the records if it is closed then i should be allowed to look at the case because he was my brother and if it's closed that means that as a reporter i can't compromise an ongoing investigation by looking at the records either i let him digest that for a few moments so i finally continued going by your own logic there is no reason why i shouldn't be able to look at the records scolari looked at me i could see the anger working behind his cheeks now listen to me jack there are things in that file that are left not known and certainly not published i think i'm a better judge of that detective scolari he was my brother my twin i'm not going to hurt him i'm just trying to make sense of something for myself if i then write about it it will be to finally put it in the ground with him okay we sat there staring at each other for a long moment it was his turn and i waited him out i can't help you he finally said even if i wanted to it's closed case is closed file went to records for processing you want it go see them i stood up thanks for telling me that at the beginning of the conversation i walked out without saying another word i knew scolari would blow me off i went to him because i had to go through the motions and because i wanted to see if i could learn the location of the file i went down the stairs that mostly only cops used and into the office of the department's administrative captain it was 15 minutes past 12 so the desk in the reception area was empty i walked past it knocked on the door and heard a voice tell me to enter inside captain forrest grolland sat behind his desk he was such a large man that the standard issue desk looked like child's furniture he was a dark complected black man with a shaven head he stood to shake my hand and i was reminded that he topped out above six and a half feet i figured a scale would have to have three hundred on its dial if it was going to take his full measure i shook his hand and smiled he had been a source of mind since i was on the daily police beat six years earlier and he was patrol sergeant we had both risen through the ranks since then jack how's it going say you're just back yeah i took some time i'm okay he didn't mention my brother he had been one of the few at the funeral and that made it clear how he felt he sat back down and i took one of the chairs in front of his desk roland's job had little to do with policing the city he was in the business end of the department he was in charge of the annual budget hiring and training firing too it had little to do with police work but it was all part of his plan growland wanted to be police chief one day and was gathering a wide variety of experience so when the time came he'd look best for the job part of that plan was also to keep contacts in the local media when the time was right he'd count on me for a positive profile in the rocky and i would come through in the meantime i could count on him for things as well so what am i missing lunch for he said gruffly which was part of the routine we played i knew that growing preferred meeting me at lunch when his adjutant was out and there was less chance that he would be seen with me you're not missing lunch you're just getting it late i want to see the file on my brother scalari said he already sent it to get filmed i thought maybe you could pull it and let me look at it real quick why you want to do that jack won't you let sleeping dogs lie i gotta look captain i'm not quoting from it i just want to look at it you get it now and i'll be done with it before the microfilm folks even get back from lunch nobody will know except you and me and i'll remember it ten minutes later growing handed me the file it was as thin as the year-round residence phone book for aspen i don't know why but i had expected something thicker heavier as if the size of the investigative file bore some resemblance to the significance of the death inside on top was an envelope marked photos which i put to the side of the desk without opening next there was an autopsy report and several standard reports that were paper clipped together i have studied autopsy reports often enough to know to skip the pages of endless description of body glands organs and general condition and go to the last pages where conclusions were written and there were no surprises here cause of death was gunshot wound to the head the word suicide was circled below it blood scans for commonly used drugs showed traces of dextromethorphin hydrobromide following this entry a lab text notes said cough suppressant glovebox it meant that other than a shot or two of cough syrup from a bottle kept in the car my brother was stone cold sober when he put the gun in his mouth a forensic analysis report contained a sub-report labeled gsr which i knew meant gunshot residue it stated that a neutron activation analysis of leather gloves worn by the victim found particles of burned gunpowder on the right glove indicating he had used that hand to fire the weapon gsr and gas burns were also found in the victim's throat the conclusion was that the barrel had been in sean's mouth when the gun discharged next in the packet was an evidence inventory and i saw nothing unusual here after this i found the witness statement the witness was park ranger steven pena who was assigned to a one ranger substation and information booth at bear lake witness stated he did not have a view of the parking area while working in the booth at approximately 4 58 pm witness heard a muffled report he identified from experience as a gunshot he identified the origin as the parking lot and immediately went to investigate the possibility of illegal hunting at this time there was only one vehicle in the lot and through the partially fogged windows he saw the victim slumped back in the driver's seat witness ran to the vehicle but could not open the door because it was locked looking closely through the fogged windows he determined that the victim appeared to be deceased because of the massive damage to the rear of the head witness then returned to the park booth where he immediately notified authorities and his supervisors he then returned to the victim's car to await the arrival of authorities witness states that the victim's vehicle was within his sight no more than five seconds after he heard the shot the car was parked approximately 50 yards from the nearest forest cover or structure it is believed by the witness to have been impossible for someone to have left the victim's car after the shooting and gotten to the cover without the witness seeing him i returned the statement sheet to its place in the packet and glanced through the other reports there was a page titled case report that detailed my brother's last day he reported to work at 7 30 a.m had lunch with wexler at noon and signed out at 2pm to go to the stanley he did not tell wechsler or anyone else who he was going to see attempts by investigators to determine if sean had actually gone to the stanley were unsuccessful all waitresses and busboys in the hotel's restaurant were interviewed and none recalled my brother there was a one-page report in the file summarizing scalari's interview with sean's psychologist somehow maybe through riley he had found out that sean was seeing the denver therapist dr colin dorschner according to scalari's report said sean was suffering from acute depression brought about by job stress in particular his failure to close the lofton case what was not contained in the interview summary was whether scolari ever asked dorshner if he had thought my brother was suicidal i wondered if scolari had even asked that question the last sheaf of papers in the package was the investigating officer's final report the last paragraph was scalari's summary and final conclusion based upon physical evidence and the eyewitness account of the death of detective sean mcavoy i o concludes that the victim died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after writing a message on the inside of the fogged windshield the victim was known by colleagues including i o and his wife and psychologist colin dorschner to be emotionally burdened by his unsuccessful efforts to clear by arrest the december 19 homicide of teresa lofton case number 832 it is believed at this time that this disturbance may have led him to take his own life dpd psychological consultant dr armand griggs said in an interview 222 that the message out of space out of time written on the windshield could be considered a suicide style farewell consistent with a victim's state of mind at this time there is no evidence conflicting with the conclusion of suicide submitted to 24 io rjs d2 clipping the reports back together i realized there was only one thing left that i hadn't looked at roland had decided to go to the cafeteria to pick up a sandwich to go i was left alone probably five minutes passed in stillness while i considered the envelope i knew that if i looked at the photographs they would become the lasting image in my mind of my brother i did not want that but i also knew that i needed to see the photos to know for sure about his death to help disperse any last doubts i opened the envelope quickly so as to not change my mind as i slid the stack of eight by ten color prints out the first image that greeted me was an establishing shot my brother's detective car a white chevy caprice alone at the end of the parking lot i could see the ranger shack up a low hill from it the lot had been freshly plowed and salted a four foot embankment of snow around the edges the next photo was a close-up of the windshield from the outside the message was barely legible as the steam had dissipated from the glass but was there and through the glass i could also see sean his head was snapped back his jaw up i went to the next photo and i was inside the car with him taken from the passenger side front his whole body visible blood had worked its way like a thick necklace around his neck from the back and then down over the sweater his heavy snow coat was open there was spatter on the roof and backside window the gun was on the seat next to his right thigh the rest of the photos were mostly close-ups from various angles but they did not have the effect on me i thought they would the sterile lighting robbed my brother of his humanity he looked like a mannequin but i found nothing about them as upsetting as the fact that i had once more convinced myself that sean had indeed taken his own life i admitted to myself then that i had secretly come with a hope and that it was gone now roland looked up at me with curious eyes when i stood up and placed the file down on his desk he had the debris of an egg salad sandwich on a napkin spread in front of him you okay i'm fine well how do you feel i smiled at the question because i had asked the same thing so many times it must have thrown him off he frowned see this i said pointing to the scar on my face i got that for asking somebody that same thing once sorry don't be i wasn't five after viewing the file on my brother's death i wanted the details of the teresa lofton case if i was going to write about what my brother did i had to know what he knew i had to understand what he had come to understand only this time growling couldn't help me the active homicide files were kept under lock and grollon would see more of a risk than a benefit in attempting to get the loft and file for me after checking the cap's squad room and finding it emptied for lunch packard's grill was the first place i looked for wechsler it was a favored place for cops to eat and drink at lunch i saw him there in one of the rear booths the only problem was he was with st louis they didn't see me and i debated whether it would be better just to withdraw and try later to get to wechsler alone but then wechsler's eyes stopped on me i walked over i could see by their ketchup smeared plates that they were finished eating wechsler had what looked like a gym beam and ice on the table in front of him leggy look at this lexler said good-naturedly i slid into the wide booth next to saint louis i chose his side so i would be looking at wechsler what is this st louis mildly protested it's the press i said how's it going don't answer st louis said quickly to wexler he wants something he can't have of course i do i said what else is new nothing is new jack wexler said is what big dog says true you want something you can't have it was a dance friendly patter designed to ferret out the basic nut of information without specifically asking for it and confronting it it went with the nicknames cops used i had danced like this many times and i was good at it they were finesse moves like practicing the three-man weave in high school basketball keep your eyes open for the ball watch the other two men at once i was always the finesse player sean was the strength he was football i was basketball not exactly i said but i am back on the job again boys oh here we go st louis find hold on to your hats so what's happening on the lofton case i asked wexler ignoring st louis oh there jack are you talking to us as a reporter now wexler asked i'm only talking to you and that's right as the reporter and no comment on lofton so the answer is nothing is happening i said no comment look i want to see what you've got the case is almost three months old now it's going into the dead case file soon if it isn't already there and you know it i just want to see the file i want to know what hooked sean so deep you're forgetting something your brother was ruled a suicide case closed doesn't matter what hooked him about lofton besides it's not known as fact that it had anything to do with what he did it's collateral at best but we'll never know got the crap i just saw the file on sean wechsler's eyebrows raised a subliminal amount i thought it's all there sean was up over this case he was seeing a shrink he was spending all of his time on it so don't tell me you will never know look kid we did you ever call sean that i interrupted what kid did you ever call him kid wexler looked confused nope then don't call me it either wexler raised his arms in a hands-off manner why can't i see the file you're not going anywhere with it who says i do you're afraid of it man you saw what it did to sean and you don't want it to happen to you so the case is stuck in a drawer somewhere it's got dust on it i guarantee it you know jack you're seriously full of and if you weren't your brother's brother i'd throw you out of here on your ass you're getting me pissed i don't like being pissed yeah and imagine how i'm feeling the thing of it is i am his brother and i think that cuts me in st louis gave a smirking type of laugh meant to belittle me hey big dog isn't about time you went out and watered a fire hydrant or something i said wechsler burst out with the start of a laugh but quickly contained it but st louis's face turned red listen you little he said i'll put you all right boys wexler intervened all right listen ray why don't you go outside and have a smoke let me talk to jackie straighten him out and i'll be out i got out of the booth so st louis could slide out he gave me the dead man stare as he went by i slid back in drink up wax no sense acting like there isn't any beam on the table wexler smirked and took a pull from his glass you know twins are not you're a lot like your brother you don't give up on things easy and you can be a smart ass you get rid of that beard in the hippy hair and you could pass for him you'd have to do something about that scar too look what about the file what about it you owe it to him to let me see it i don't follow you jack yes you do i can't put it behind me until i've looked it all over i'm just trying to understand you're also trying to write about it writing does for me what you got in that glass does for you if i can write about it i can understand it and i can put it in the ground that's all i want to do wexler looked away from me and picked up the check the waitress had left then he downed the rest of his drink and slid out of the booth standing he looked down at me and let out a heavy breath redlined with bourbon come back to the office he said i'll give you one hour he held his finger up and repeated himself in case i was confused one hour in the caps squad room i used the desk my brother had used no one had taken it yet maybe it was a bad luck desk now wexler was standing at a wall of file cabinets looking through an open drawer st louis was nowhere to be seen apparently choosing to have nothing to do with this wexler finally stepped away from the drawer with two thick files he placed them down in front of me this everything everything you got an hour come on there's five inches of paper here i tried let me take it home and i'll bring it see just like your brother one hour mcavoy set your watch because those go back in the drawer in one hour make that 59 minutes you're wasting time i stopped laboring the point and opened the top file teresa lofton had been a beautiful young woman who came to the university to study for an education degree she wanted to be a first grade teacher she was in her first year and lived in a campus dorm she carried a full curriculum as well as working part-time in the day care center at the university's married housing dorm loftin was believed to have been abducted on or near the campus on a wednesday the day after classes ended for the christmas break most students had already left for the holiday teresa was still in denver for two reasons she had her job the daycare center didn't close for the holidays until the end of the week and there was also the problem of her car she was waiting for a new clutch to be put into the old beetle so she could make the drive home her abduction was not reported because her roommate and all her friends had already gone home for the holidays no one knew she was missing when she didn't show up for work at the daycare center on thursday morning the manager thought she had simply gone home to montana early not completing the week because she wasn't due to return to the job after the christmas break it would not be the first time a student pulled this kind of stunt especially once finals were over and the holiday break beckoned the manager made no inquiry or report to authorities body was found friday morning in washington park the investigators traced her last known movements back to noon on wednesday when she called the mechanic from the day care center he remembered children's voices in the background and he told her the car was ready she said she would pick it up after work and first stopping at the bank she did neither she said goodbye to the daycare center's manager at noon and went out the door she was not seen alive again except of course by her killer i only had to look at the photos in the file to realize how the case could have grabbed shawn and put a leash around his heart they were before and after photos a portrait shot of her probably for the high school yearbook a fresh-faced young girl with a whole life ahead of her she had dark wavy hair and crystal blue eyes each reflected a small star of light the flash of the camera there was also a candid of her in shorts and a tank top she was smiling carrying a cardboard box away from a car the muscles of her slender ten arms were taught it looked like it was a slight strain for her to stand still with a heavy box for the photographer i turned it over and read and what i guessed was a parents scroll terry's first day on campus denver colorado the other pictures were taken after there were more of these and i was struck by the number why did the cops need so many each one seemed like some kind of a terrible invasion even though the girl was already dead theresa lofton's eyes had lost their brilliance in these photographs they were open but dull webbed in a milky call the photos showed the victim lying in about two feet of brush and snow on a slight incline the news stories had been correct she was in two pieces a scarf was tightly wrapped around her neck and her eyes were sufficiently wide and bugged to suggest this was how she died but the killer apparently had more work to do afterward the body had been hacked apart at the midriff the bottom half then placed over the top half in a horrific tableau suggesting that she was performing a sex act on herself i realized that wexler was at the other desk watching me as i looked at the gallery of ghastly photos i tried not to show my disgust or my fascination i knew now what my brother was protecting me from i had never seen anything so horrible i finally looked at wechsler jesus yeah the stuff the tab said about it being like the black dahlia in la it was close wasn't it yeah mack bought a book about it he called some old horse in the lapd too there were some similarities the chop job but that one was 50 years ago maybe somebody got the idea from that maybe he thought of that i returned the photos to the envelope and looked back at wexler was she a lesbian no not as far as we could tell she had a boyfriend back up in butte good kid we cleared him your brother thought the same thing for a while because of what the killer did you know with the parts of the body you thought maybe somebody was getting back at her for being a lesbian maybe making some kind of sick statement about something he never got anywhere with it i nodded you got 45 minutes left you know that's the first time i've heard you calling mack in a long time don't worry about it make that 44 minutes the autopsy report was pretty much anti-climactic after the photos i noticed that the time of death was set on the first day of her disappearance she had been dead more than 40 hours when her body was found most of the summary reports dealt with dead ends routine investigations of the victim's family boyfriend friends on campus co-workers and even parents of children she cared for turned up nothing almost all were cleared through alibis or other investigative means the conclusions in the reports were that teresa lofton had not known her killer that her path had somehow intersected with his that it had simply been bad luck the unknown killer was always referred to as a male though there was no positive proof of this the victim had not been sexually assaulted but most violent murders and mutilators of women were men and it was believed it would have taken a physically strong person to cut through the body's bone and gristle no cutting weapon was ever found though the body had nearly completely bled out there were indications of post-mortem lividity which meant some time had passed between the victims death and the mutilation possibly according to the report as long as two or three hours another peculiarity was the timing of when the body was left in the park it was discovered approximately 40 hours after investigators believed theresa lofton had been killed yet the park was a popular running and walking spot it was unlikely that the body could have been in place in the open park field for that long without being noticed even though an early snow considerably cut down on the number of people who passed through in fact the report concluded that the body had been in place no more than three hours when it was spotted after dawn by an early morning jogger so where was it all that time the investigators couldn't answer that question but they had a clue the fibers analysis report listed numerous foreign hairs and cotton fibers that had been found on the body and combed out of the hair these would primarily be used to match a suspect to the victim once a suspect became known one particular section of the report had been circled this section dealt with the recovery of a specific fiber k-poc found on the body in large quantity 33 capex seed hairs had been removed from the body the numbers suggested direct contact with the source reports said that while similar to cotton capex fibers were uncommon and primarily found in materials requiring buoyancy such as boat cushions life vests and some sleeping bags i wondered why this section had been circled on the report and asked wechsler sean thought the k-pop fibers were the key to where the body had been during the missing hours you know if we found a spot where we found that fiber which isn't all that common then we'd have the crime scene but we never found it because the reports were in chronological order i could see how theories were considered and discarded and i could sense a growing desperation in the investigation it was going nowhere it was clear my brother believed theresa lofton had crossed paths with a serial killer the toughest criminal to track there was a return report from the fbi's national center for the analysis of violent crime containing a psychological profile of the killer my brother had also kept a copy in the file of a 17-page checklist survey of aspects of the crime he had sent to the bureau's violent criminal apprehension program but the vicap computer's response to the survey was negative the loft and killing did not match any other killings across the country in enough details to warrant further attention from the fbi the profile the bureau had forwarded was produced by an agent listed on the report as rachel walling it contained a host of generalities that were largely worthless to the investigation because while the characterizations were in depth and possibly even on target they did not necessarily help the detectives winnow down the millions of men that might qualify as the profile projected that the killer was likely a white male 20 to 30 years old with unresolved feelings of inadequacy and anger toward women hence the gross mutilation of the victim's body he was probably raised by a domineering mother and his father probably was not present in the household or was absorbed in earning a living and forfeited child rearing and development to the mother the profile classified the killer as organized in his methodology and warned that his seemingly successful completion of the crime and escape from detection could lead him to try further crimes of similar nature the last reports in the first file were investigative summaries of interviews tips that were checked out and other details from the case that might have meant nothing at the moment they were typed up but could be pivotal later through these reports i could charge sean's growing attachment to teresa lofton in the initial pages she was always referred to as the victim sometimes lofton later on he began referring to her as teresa and in the last reports those filed in february before his death he called her terry probably having picked up the diminutive name from her family and friends or maybe from the back of the photo of her first day on campus the happy day with 10 minutes left i closed the file and opened the other one this one was thinner and seemed to be filled with a hodgepodge of investigative loose ends there were several letters from citizens offering theories on the killing one letter was from a medium who said teresa lofton's living spirit was circling somewhere above the ozone layer in a high frequency sound belt she spoke in a voice so fast that it sounded like a chirp to the untrained ear but the medium could decipher the chirping and was willing to ask her questions if shawn wanted to there was no indication from the file that he did a supplemental report noted that teresa's bank and auto repair shop were within walking distance of the campus three times detectives walked the routes between her dorm room the daycare center the bank and the repair shop but came across no witnesses who remembered seeing teresa on the wednesday after classes ended despite this my brother's theory outlined in another supplemental was that lofton had been abducted sometime after calling her mechanic from the daycare center but before she got to the bank to get money to pay him the file also contained a chronological record of the activity of the investigators assigned to the case initially four members of the cap squad worked the case full time but as little headway was made and more cases came up the investigative effort was winnowed down to sean and wexler then just sean he wouldn't let it go last entry in the chronological record was on the day he died it was just one line march 13 rusher at stanley slash r info on terry time i looked up and wexler was pointing to his watch i closed the file without protest what's p slash r mean person reporting that mandy got a call who was rusher we don't know there's a couple people in the phone book for that name we called him they didn't know what the we were talking about i ran something on ncic but with just a last name didn't get anything to work with bottom line is we don't know who it was or is we don't even know if it's a man or woman we don't know if sean actually met anybody or not we found nobody at the stanley who saw him why would he go to meet this person without telling you or leaving some kind of record about who it was why'd he go alone who knows we've gotten so many calls on that case he could spend all day just writing notes then maybe he didn't know maybe all he knew was that someone wanted to talk to him your brother was so caught up on this one he would have gone to meet anybody who said they knew something i'll let you in on a little secret something that's not there because he didn't want people around here thinking he was loony but he went to see that psychic the medium that's mentioned in there what'd he get nothing just some about the killer being out there wanting to do it again i mean it was like yeah no kidding thanks for the tip anyway that's off the record the psychic stuff i don't want people thinking mac was a flake i didn't bother to say anything about the inanity of what he had just said my brother had killed himself and yet wexler was engaged in trying to limit the damage his image might suffer if it was known he had consulted a psychic it doesn't go past his room i said instead after a few moments of silence i said so what's your theory on what happened that day wax off the record i mean i theory my theory is he went out there and whoever it was who'd called him didn't show it was another dead end for him and it tipped the scale he drove up to that lake and he did what he did are you gonna write a story about him i don't know i think so look i don't know how to say this but here goes he was your brother but he was my friend i might have even known him better than you leave it alone just let it go i told him i would think about it but it was only to placate him i had already decided i left then checking my watch to make sure i had enough time to get out to estes park before dark six i didn't get to the parking lot at bear lake until after five i realized it was just as it had been for my brother deserted the lake was frozen and the temperature was dropping quickly the sky was already purple and going dark it wasn't much of a draw for locals or tourists this late in the day as i drove through the lot i thought about why he had picked this place to come as far as i knew it had nothing to do with the lofton case but i thought i knew why i parked where he had parked and just sat there thinking there was a light on in the ceiling of the overhang above the front of the ranger shack i decided to get out and see if pena the witness was there then another thought struck me i slid over to the passenger side of the temple i took a couple deep breaths and opened the door and started running for the woods where they grew closest to the car as i ran i counted by thousands out loud i was at 11 000 by the time i had gotten over the snow bank and reached the cover standing there in the woods a foot deep in snow without boots on i've been over and put my hands on my knees as i caught my breath there was no way a shooter could have gotten into the woods to hide if pena had been out of the shack as quickly as he had reported i finally stopped gulping the air and headed toward the ranger shack debating how to approach him as a reporter or a brother it was pena behind the window i could see the name played on his uniform he was locking a desk when i looked through the window he was calling it a day can i help you sir i'm closing up yes i was wondering if i could ask you a few questions he came out eyeing me suspiciously because i obviously wasn't dressed for a hike in the snow this is the end of this cassette this program is continued on side one of cassette number two this is cassette number two [Music] can i help you sir i'm closing up uh yes i was wondering if i could ask you a few questions he came out eyeing me suspiciously because i obviously wasn't dressed for a hike in the snow i had on jeans and reeboks a corduroy shirt beneath a thick woolen sweater i'd left my long coat in the car and i was very cold my name is jack mcavoy i waited a moment to see if it registered it didn't he had probably only seen the name written in reports he had to sign or in the newspaper its pronunciation mcavoy didn't jibe with its spelling my brother he was the one you found a couple weeks ago i pointed toward the lot oh he said understanding in the car the officer uh i've been with the police all day looking at the reports and stuff i just wanted to come out and take a look it's hard you know to accept it he nodded and tried to hide a quick glance at his watch i just have a few quick questions you were inside there when you heard it the shot i spoke quickly not giving him the chance to stop me yes he said he looked like he was trying to decide something and then he did he continued i was locking up just like tonight about to go home i heard it it was one of those things i kind of knew what it was i don't know why really what i thought was that it might be poachers after the deer i came out pretty quick and the first place i looked was the lot i saw his car could see him in there all the windows were fogged up pretty good but i could see him he was behind the wheel something about the way he was leaning back i knew what happened sorry it was your brother i nodded and studied the ranger shack just a small office and storage room i realized that five seconds was probably a long estimate from the time pena heard the shot until he saw the lot there was no pain pena said right if it's something you want to know there was no physical pain i don't think i ran to the car he was dead it was instant the police report said you couldn't get to him the doors were locked yeah i tried the door but i could tell he was gone i came back up here to make the calls how long do you think he was parked there before he did it i don't know like i told the police i don't have a view of the lot i'd been in the shed i got a heater in there oh i'd say at least a half hour before i heard the shot he could have been parked there the whole time thinking about it i guess i nodded you didn't see him out on the lake did you you know before the shot on the lake no nobody was on the lake i stood there trying to think of something else did they come up with any reason why pena asked like i said i know he was an officer i shook my head no i didn't want to get into it with this stranger i thanked him and started back to the lot while he locked the shack's door the temple was the only car in the plowed lot i thought of something and turned back how often do they plow pena stepped away from the door after every snow i nodded and thought of something else where do you park we've got an equipment yard a half mile down the road i park there and walk up the trail in the morning down it's quitting time you want to ride nah thanks though the trail will get me there quicker the whole way back to boulder i thought of the last time i had been to bear lake it was also winter then but the lake wasn't frozen not all the way and when i left that time i felt just as cold and alone and guilty riley looked like she had aged 10 years since i had seen her at the funeral even so i was immediately struck when she opened the door by what i hadn't realized before theresa lofton looked like a 19 year old riley mcavoy i wondered if scolari or anybody else had asked the shrinks about that she asked me in she knew she looked bad after she opened the door she had casually raised her hand to the side of her face to hide it she tried a feeble smile we went into the kitchen and she asked if i wanted her to make coffee but i said i wasn't staying long i sat down at the kitchen table it seemed that whenever i visited we would gather around the kitchen table even with sean gone that hadn't changed i wanted to tell you that i'm going to write about sean she was silent for a long time and she didn't look at me she got up and started emptying the dishwasher i waited do you have to she finally asked yes i think so she said nothing i'm going to call the psychologist dorshner i don't know if he'll talk to me but now that shawn's gone i don't see why not but uh he might call you for permission don't worry jack i won't try to stop you i nodded my thanks but i noted the edge to her words i was with the cops today and i went up to the lake i don't want to hear about a jack if you have to write about it that's your choice do what you have to do but my choice is that i don't want to hear about it and if you do write about sean i won't read that either i have to do what i have to do i nodded and said i understand there is one thing i need to ask though then i'll leave you out of it what do you mean leave me out of it she asked angrily i wish i could be left out of it but i'm in it for the rest of my life i'm in it you want to write about it you think that's a way to get rid of it what do i do jack i looked down at the floor i wanted to go but didn't know how to exit her pain and anger radiated toward me like heat from a closed oven you want to know about that girl she said in a low calmer voice that's what all the detectives asked about yes why did this one i didn't know how to phrase the question why did it make him forget about everything good in his life the answer is i don't know i don't goddamn no i could see anger and tears welling in her eyes again it was as if her husband had deserted her for another woman and here i was as close a flesh-and-blood approximation of sean she would ever see now no wonder she was venting her anger and pain at me did he talk about the case at home i asked not especially he told me about cases from time to time this one didn't seem that different except for what happened to her he told me what the killer did to her he told me how he had to look at her after i mean i know it bothered him but a lot of things bothered him a lot of cases he didn't want anybody to get away he always said that but this time he went to see that doctor he'd had dreams and i told him he should go i made him go what were the dreams he was there you know when it happened to her he dreamed he saw it but couldn't do anything to stop it her comment made me think of another death a long time ago sarah falling through the ice i remember the helpless feeling of watching and being unable to do anything i looked at riley you know why shawn went up there no was it because of sarah i said i don't know that was before we knew you but that was where she died an accident i know jack but i don't know what it had to do with anything not now i didn't either it was one of many confusing thoughts but i couldn't let it go before heading back to denver i drove over to the cemetery i don't know what i was doing it was dark and there had been two snows since the funeral it took me 15 minutes just to find the spot where sean was in the ground there was no stone yet i found it by finding the one next to it my sisters on sean's there were a couple of pots of frozen flowers and a plastic sign sticking out of the snow with his name on it there were no flowers on sarah's i looked at sean's spot for a while it was a clear night and the moonlight was enough for me to see my breath came out in clouds how come john i asked out loud how come i realized what i was doing and looked around i was the only one in the cemetery the only one alive i thought about what riley had said about sean not wanting anybody to get away and i thought about how i didn't even care about such things as long as it made a good thirty inch story how had we separated so completely my brother and i my twin i didn't know it just made me feel sad made me feel like maybe the wrong one was in the ground i remembered what wexler had said that first night when they came for me and told me about my brother he talked about all the coming down the pipe finally being too much for sean i still didn't believe it but i had to believe something i thought of riley the pictures of teresa lofton and i thought of my sister slipping through the ice i believed then that the girl's murder had infected my brother with the most desperate kind of hopelessness i believed he became haunted by that hopelessness and the crystal blue eyes of the girl who had been cut in half and since he didn't have his brother to turn to he turned to his sister he went to the lake that took her and then he joined her i walked out of the cemetery without looking back seven gladden posted himself at a spot along the railing on the other side from where the woman took the tickets from the children she couldn't see him but once the great carousel began turning he was able to study each child gladden pushed his fingers through his dyed blonde hair and looked around he was pretty sure everybody else regarded him as just another parent the ride was starting again the calliope was grinding out the strains of a song gladden could not identify and the horses began their bobbing counterclockwise turn gladden had never actually ridden on the carousel though he had seen that many of the parents got on with their children he thought that it might be too risky for him to do it he noticed a girl of about five clinging desperately to one of the black stallions she was leaning forward with her tiny arms wrapped around the candy striped pole that came up through the painted horse's neck one side of her little pink shorts had ridden up the inside of her thigh her skin was coffee brown gladden reached into his duffel and brought out the camera he amped up the shutter speed to cut down on movement blurring and pointed the camera at the carousel he focused and waited for the girl to come around again it took him two revolutions of the carousel but he believed he got the shot and brought the camera back down he looked around just to be sure he was cool and he noticed a man leaning on the railing about 20 feet to his right the man hadn't been there before and most alarming he was wearing a sport coat and tie the man was either a pervert or a policeman gladden decided he better leave out on the pier the sun was almost blinding gladden shoved the camera into the duffel and pulled his mirrored shades out he decided to walk out further onto the pier to where it was crowded he could lose this guy if he had to if he was actually being followed he walked about halfway out nice and steady acting cool then he stopped along the railing and turned and leaned back against it as if he wanted to catch a few rays he turned his face up toward the sun but his eyes behind the mirrors took in the area of the pier he had just come from for a few moments there was nothing he didn't see the man in the sport coat and tie he saw him jacket over the arm sunglasses on walking along the front of the arcade concession slowly moving toward gleiden glen said out loud a woman sitting on a nearby bench with a young boy looked at gladden with baleful eyes when she and the boy heard the exclamation sorry gladden said he turned and looked around the rest of the pier he had to think quickly he knew cops usually worked in pairs while in the field where was the other one it took him 30 seconds but he picked her out of the crowd a woman about 30 yards behind the man in the tie she was wearing long pants and a polo shirt not as formal as the man she blended in except for the two-way radio down at her side gladden could see that she was trying to hide it as he watched she turned so that her back was to him and began talking into the two-way she had just called for backup had to be he had to stay cool but come up with a plan the man in the tie was maybe 20 yards away gladden stepped away from the railing and started walking at a slightly faster pace toward the end of the pier he did what the woman cop had done he used his body as a shield and pulled the duffel bag around so it was in front of him he unzipped it and reached in and grabbed the camera without pulling it out he turned it over until he found the clear switch and erased the chip there wasn't much on there the girl on the carousel a few kids the public showers no big loss that done he proceeded further down the pier he took his cigarettes out of the bag and using his body as a shield turned around and huddled against the wind to light one when he had the smoke lit he looked up and saw the two cops were getting closer he knew they thought they had him bottled he was going to the dead end of the pier the woman had caught up to the man and they were talking as they closed in probably deciding whether to wait for the backup gladden thought gladden quickly walked toward the bait shop in the pure offices he knew the layout of the end of the pier well on two occasions during the week he had followed children with their parents from the carousel to the end of the pier he knew that on the other side of the bait shop were stairs that led to the observation deck on the roof as he turned the corner of the shop out of sight of the cops gladden ran down the side to the back and then up the steps he could now look down on the pier in front of the shop the two cops were there below talking again then the man followed gladden's path and the woman stayed back they weren't going to take a chance of letting him slip away the question suddenly occurred to gladden how did they know a cop in a suit just doesn't happen by the pier the cops had gone there for a purpose him but how did they know he broke away from those thoughts to the situation at hand he needed a diversion the man would soon figure out he wasn't with the fisherman at the end of the pier and come up to the observation deck looking for him he saw the trash can in the corner by the wooden railing he ran to it and looked in it was almost empty he put the duffel bag down lifted the trash can over his head and with a running start moved to the railing he threw it out as far as he could then watched it go over the heads of two fishermen below and down into the water it made a large splash and he heard a young boy yell hey man in the water gladden yelled man in the water he then grabbed the duffel bag and quickly moved back to the rear railing of the deck he looked for the woman cop she was still there below him but had clearly heard the splash and his yelling a couple of children ran around the side of the bait shop to see what the yelling and commotion was about after what seemed to be a physical hesitation the woman followed the children around the corner of the building to the source of the splash and ensuing commotion gladden hooked the duffel over his shoulder and quickly climbed over the railing lowered himself down and then dropped the final five feet he started running down the pier toward land about halfway to land glendon saw the two beach cops on bikes they wore shorts and blue polo shirts ridiculous he'd watched them the day before amused that they even considered themselves cops now he ran right toward them waving his hands to make them stop are you the backup he yelled when he got to them they're at the end of the pier the perps in the water he jumped they need your help and they need a boat they sent me to get you go one of the cops yelled to his partner as one started peddling away the other pulled a two-way off his belt and started radioing for a lifeguard boat gladden waved his thanks for their speedy reaction and started walking away after a few seconds he looked back and saw the second cop pedaling toward the end of the pier gladden started his run again on the crest of the bridge from the beach up to ocean avenue gladden looked back and could see the commotion at the end of the pier he lit another cigarette and took his sunglasses off cops are so stupid he thought they get what they deserve he hurried up to the street surface crossed ocean and walked down to the third street promenade where he was sure he could lose himself in the crowds of the popular shopping and dining area those cops he thought they had their one chance and blew it that's all they get on the promenade he walked down a corridor that led to several small fast food restaurants the excitement had left gladden famished and he went into one of these places for a slice of pizza and a soda as he waited for the girl to warm it up in the oven he thought of the girl on the carousel and wished he hadn't cleared the camera but how could he know he'd so easily slip away i should have known he said angrily out loud then he looked around to make sure the girl behind the counter hadn't noticed he studied her for a moment and found her unattractive she was too old she could practically have children herself as he watched she used her fingers to gingerly pull the slice of pizza out of the oven and onto a paper plate she licked her fingers afterward she had burned them and put gladden's meal on the counter he took it back to his table but didn't eat it he didn't like other people touching his food gladden wondered how long he would have to wait until it was safe to go back down to the beach and get his car good thing it was in an overnight lot just in case no matter what they could not get to his car if they got to his car they would open the trunk and get its computer if they got that they would never let him go the more he thought about the episode with the cops the angrier he became the carousel was now lost to him he couldn't go back at least not for a long time he'd have to put out a message to the others on the network he still couldn't figure out how it had happened his mind bounced along the possibilities even considering someone on the net but then the ball stopped on the woman who took the tickets she must have made the complaint she was the only one who saw him each of the days it was her he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall in his mind he was at the carousel approaching the woman who takes the tickets he had his knife he was going to teach her a lesson about minding her own business she thought she could just he sensed someone's presence someone was looking at him gladden opened his eyes the two cops from the pier were standing there the man drenched in sweat raised his hand and signaled gladden to stand up get up the two cops said nothing of value to gladden on the way in they had taken the duffel bag searched him handcuffed him and told him he was under arrest but they refused to say what for they took his cigarettes and wallet and duffle bag the camera was the only thing he cared about luckily he didn't bring his books with him this time gladden considered what was in the wallet none of it mattered he decided the alabama license identified him as harold brisbane he had gotten it through the network trading photos for ids he had another id in the car and he'd kiss harold brisbane goodbye as soon as he got out of custody they didn't get the keys to the car they were hidden in the wheel well gladden had been prepared for the eventuality that he might be popped he knew to keep the cops away from the car he had learned from experience to take such precautions to always plan for the worst case scenario that was what horus had taught him at rayford all those nights together in the detective bureau of the santa monica police department he was roughly but silently ushered into a 6x6 interview room they sat him down on one of the gray steel chairs and took off one of the cuffs which they then locked to an iron ring attached by a bolted clamp to the top center of the table the detective then walked out and he was left alone for more than an hour on the wall he faced there was a mirrored window and gladden knew he was in a viewing room he just couldn't figure out for sure who they would have on the other side of the glass he'd since gotten to los angeles and he saw no way that he could have been tracked from phoenix or denver or anywhere else at one point he thought he could hear voices on the other side of the glass they were in there watching him looking at him whispering he closed his eyes and turned his chin down to his chest so they couldn't see his face then suddenly he raised his face with a leering maniacal grin and he yelled you'll be sorry that ought to put a stutter in the mind of whoever the cops have in there he thought that ticket taker he thought again he went back to his daydream of revenge against her in the 90th minute of his cloistering in the room the door finally opened and the same two cops came in they took chairs the woman directly across from him and the man to his left side the woman put a tape recorder on the table along with the duffel bag this was nothing he told himself over and over like a mantra he'd be kicked loose before the sun was down sorry to make you wait woman said cordially no problem he said i have my cigarettes he nodded toward the duffel bag he didn't really want to smoke he just wanted to see if the camera was still in there you couldn't trust the cops he didn't even need horus to teach him that the detective ignored his request and turned on the tape recorder she then identified herself as detective constance delpy and her partner as detective ron sweetzer both were with the exploited child unit gladden was surprised that she seemed to be taking the lead here she looked to be about five to eight years younger than sweet sir she had blonde hair kept in an easily managed short style she was maybe 15 pounds overweight and that was mostly in her hips and upper arms glad and guessed she worked out on the pipes he also thought she was a lesbian he could tell these things he had a sense switzer had a washed out face and a laconic demeanor he had lost hair in a pattern that left him with a thin strip of growth down the center of his paint gladden decided to concentrate on delphi she was the one delpy took a card from her pocket and read gladden his constitutional rights what do i need those for he asked when she was done i didn't do anything wrong do you understand those rights what i don't understand is why i'm here mr brisbane do you wonder yes good by the way your driver's license is from alabama what are you doing out here that's my business i'd like to contact a lawyer now i'm not answering any questions like i said i do understand those rights you just read he knew that what they wanted was his local address and the location of his car what they had was nothing but the fact that he had run would probably be enough for a local judge to find probable cause and give them a warrant to search his premises and car if they knew where those were he couldn't allow that no matter what we'll talk about your lawyer in just a moment delphi said but i want to give you the chance to clear this up maybe even walk out of here without wasting your money on a lawyer she opened the duffel bag and pulled out the camera and the bag of starburst candy the kids liked so much what is all of this she asked looks pretty evident to me she held the camera up and looked at it like she had never seen one before what is this used for takes pictures of children i'm like a lawyer now what about this candy what do you do with that do you give that to children i'd like to speak to a lawyer the lawyer switzer said angrily we've got your ass brisbane you were taking pictures of kids at the showers little naked kids with their mothers you disgust me glendon cleared his throat and looked a delpy with dead eyes i don't know anything about that but i do have a question i have to ask where is the crime you know i'm not saying i did it but if i did i didn't know taking photos of children at the beach was against the law now gladden shook his head as if confused delphi shook her head as if disgusted detective dialpi i can assure you that there are numerous legal precedents that have held that observation of acceptable public nudity in this case a mother cleaning up a young child at the beach cannot be transcribed as prurient interest you see if the photographer who took such a picture committed a crime then you'd have to prosecute the mother as well for providing the opportunity but you probably know all of this i'm sure one of you spent the last hour and a half consulting the city attorney sweets are leaned close to him across the table gladden noted the smell of cigarettes and barbecued potato chips on his breath he guessed sweets had eaten the chips on purpose just so his breath would be intolerable during the interrogation listen to me we know exactly what you are and what you're doing i've worked rape homicide with you guys you are the lowest form of life there is on the planet you don't want to talk to us fine enough sweat what we're going to do is take you down to biscaloo tonight and put you in with the general population i know some people in there brisbane and i'm going to put out the word and what happens to pedophiles in there gladden turned his head slowly until he was staring calmly into sweets's eyes for the first time detective i'm not sure but i think your breath alone might constitute cruel and unusual punishment if by chance i am ever convicted of taking photographs at the beach i might make it a point of appeal sweetheart swung his arm back ron he froze looked at delphi and slowly lowered his arm gladden had not even flinched at the threat he would have welcomed the blow he knew it would have helped him in court cute sweetzer said what we got here is a jailhouse lawyer think he knows all the angles that's nice well you're going to be filing some briefs tonight if you know what i mean can i call a lawyer now glen said in a bored voice he knew what they were doing they had nothing and they were trying to scare him into making a mistake but he wouldn't accommodate them because he was too smart for them and he suspected that deep down they knew he was look i'm not going to biscale when we all know it what have you got you've got my camera which i don't know if you checked has no pictures in it and you've got some ticket taker or a lifeguard or somebody else who says i took some photos but there is no evidence of that other than their word and if you just had them looking through the mirror at me then that identification is tainted as well it wasn't by any stretch of the imagination an unbiased lineup he waited but they said nothing he was in charge now but the bottom line to this whole matter is that whoever he had behind that glass she or he is a witness to something that wasn't even a crime how about it quakes to a night in the county jail i don't know but maybe you can explain that to me detective sweet sir if it isn't too much of a strain on your intelligence sweetheart stood up knocking his chair back into the wall delpy reached an arm over this time physically restraining him take it easy ron she ordered sit down just sit down switzer did as instructed delpy then looked at gladden if you are going to continue this i'll have to make that call he said where's the phone please you'll get the phone right after you're booked but you can forget the cigarettes the county jail is a smoke-free facility we care about your health booked on what charge you can't hold me pollution of public waterways vandalism of city property evading a police officer gladden's eyebrows went up in the questioning look delpy smiled at him you forgot something she said the trash can you threw into santa monica bay nodded in victory and turned off the tape recorder in the holding cell of the police station gladden was allowed to make his call when he held the receiver to his ear he smelled the industrial strength soap they had given him to wash the ink off his fingers it served as a reminder to him that he had to get out before the prince went through the national computer he dialed a number that he had committed to memory the first night he had made it to the coast krasner was on the network list at first the lawyer's secretary was going to put him off but then he said to tell mr krasner that the caller was referred by mr pedersen the name suggested on the network bulletin board krasner came on the line quickly after that yes this is arthur craftsner what can i do for you mr craster my name is harold brisbane and i have a problem gladden then proceeded to tell krasner in detail what had happened to him he spoke low into the phone because he was not alone there were two other men in the holding cell waiting to be transferred to the county jail at biscaloo center one was lying on floor asleep an addict on the nod the other was sitting on the opposite side of the cell but he was watching gladden and attempting to listen to him because there was nothing else to do gladden thought he might be a plant a cop posing as a prisoner so he could eavesdrop on his call to the lawyer gladden left nothing out save for his real name when he was done krasner was silent for a long time what's that noise he finally asked guys sleeping on the floor in here snoring harold you shouldn't be amongst people like that krasner lamented in a patronizing tone gladden disliked we've got to do something that's why i'm calling my fee for my work on this today and tomorrow will be one thousand dollars that is a generous discount i offer it to those referrals i receive from mr petterson if my involvement goes further than tomorrow then we'll have to discuss it will it be a problem for you to have the money no no problem what about bail after my fee what can you do on bail it sounds like pledging property is out of the question bondsmen need 10 of the bail fixed by the judge that amount is their fee you won't get it back yes forget property after taking care of your exorbitant fee i can probably go up to five more that's immediately i can get more but it might be difficult i want to keep it to five max and i want to get out as soon as possible krasner ignored the remark about his fee is that five thousand he asked yes of course five thousand what can you do with it gladden figured krasner was probably kicking himself over discounting his inflated fee okay that means you can handle 50 000 bail i think we're in good shape it's a felony arrest for now but the fleeing and the pollution are wobblers meaning they can be filed as either felonies or misdemeanors i am sure that they will go low on them it's a case trumped up by the cops we just have to get you into court and not on bail yes i think 50 000 will be high for this matter but it will be part of the horse trading i do with the filing deputy we'll see how it goes i take it you do not want to provide an address that's correct i need a new one then we might have to go the whole 50 but in the meantime i will see about an address there may be additional expenses incurred from that it won't be much i can prob fine just do it gladden looked back at the man on the other side of the cell what about tonight he asked quietly i told you these cops are going to try to get me hurt i think they are bluffing but that's easy for you to but i am not taking any chances hear me out mr brisbein i can't get you out tonight but i am going to make some phone calls you will be okay i'm going to get you in there with a k9 jacket what's that it's keep away status in the jail it's usually reserved for informants or high power cases i'll make a call to the jail and inform them that you are an informant in a federal investigation out of washington won't they check yes but it will be too late today they'll put you in a k-9 jacket and by the time they find out tomorrow it's bogus you'll be in court and then hopefully free after that it's a nice scam krasner yes but i won't be able to use it again i think i may have to raise the fee we just discussed a bit to cover the loss that look this is the deal i have access to six grand max you give me out and whatever's left after the bondsman you get it's an incentive deal that's a deal now one other thing you also mentioned the need to beat the prince i need to have an idea about this so that in clear conscience i will not make any statements before the court that will i have a history if that's what you're asking but i don't think you and i have to go into that i understand when will my arraignment be late morning when i make my calls to the jail after we hang up i'll see to it you are scheduled for the early bus to santa monica it's better to wait in the court hold than biscaylis i wouldn't know my first time here uh mr brisbane i need to bring up my fee and the bail money again i'm afraid i'll need that in my possession before i go into court tomorrow you have a wire account yes give me the number i'll have it wired in the morning will i be able to die a long distance in canine no you'll have to call my office i'll tell judy to expect the call she'll then dial the number you give her on the other line and cross-connect you it'll be no problem i've done it this way before krasner gave him his wire account number and gladden used the memorizing technique horus had taught him to commit it to memory mr krasner would be doing yourself a great favor if you destroy the wire records of this transaction and simply carry the fee as paid in cash on your accounts i understand anything else on your mind yes you better put something on the ptl net tell the others what happened tell them to stay away from that carousel will do after he hung up glenn turned his back to the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the floor he avoided looking at the man across the room he noticed the snoring had stopped and guessed that maybe the man on the floor might be dead oh deed then the man stirred slightly for a moment gladden considered reaching down and pulling the plastic bracelet off the man and replacing it with his own he'd probably be released in the morning without the cost of a lawyer and fifty thousand dollars bail it was too risky he decided the man sitting across the cell might be a cop and besides the one on the floor might be a multiple repeat offender he never knew when a judge was going to say enough is enough gladden decided to take his chances with kraftner after all he'd gotten his name off the network board the lawyer must know what he was doing still the 6000 bothered him he was being extorted by the judicial system six thousand for what what had he done wrong his hand went to his pocket for a cigarette but then he remembered they had been taken away that brought the anger down on him even heavier and the self-pity he was being persecuted by society and for what his instincts and desires were not of his choosing why can't they understand this gladden wished he had his laptop with him he wanted to sign on and talk to those on the network those of his kind he felt lonely in the cell he thought that he might even start to cry except that the man leaning against the other wall was watching him he would not cry in front of him eight i didn't sleep well after my day with the files i kept thinking about the photos first of theresa then of my brother both of them captured forever and horrible poses stored away in envelopes i wanted to go back and steal the photos and burn them i didn't want anyone to ever see them in the morning after i had made coffee i turned on my computer and dialed into the rocky system to check messages i ate handfuls of cheerios from the box as i waited for the connection to be made and my password to be approved i kept my laptop and printer set up on the dining room table because i most often them eating while using them it beats sitting at the table alone and thinking about how i've been eating alone for more years than i care to remember my home is small i've had the same one-bedroom apartment with the same furniture for nine years now it's not a bad place but it's nothing special other than sean i can't remember who the last visitor was when i am with women i don't take them here there haven't been many of them anyway i thought when i first moved in i'd only be staying a couple years that maybe i'd eventually buy a house and get married or have a dog or something but it hasn't happened and i'm not sure why the job i guess at least that's what i tell myself i concentrate my energy on my work in each room of the apartment there are stacks of newspapers with my stories in them i like to reread them and save them if i die at home i know they'll come in here and find me and mistakenly think i was one of those pack rats i've written about who die with newspapers stacked to the ceiling and their cash stuffed into the mattress they won't bother to pick up one of the papers and read my story on the computer i had only a couple of messages most recent from greg glenn asking how it was going it was sent at 6 30 the night before the timing annoyed me the guy okayed the assignment monday morning and on monday night he wanted to know where i was going with it how's it going was editor speak for where's the story you my thought i sent back a brief reply saying i had spent monday with the cops and was convinced of my brother's suicide that out of the way i would begin exploring the causes and frequency of police suicide the previous message on the tube was from lori prine in the library it had been sent at 4 30 monday all it said was interesting stuff on nexus it's on the counter i sent a message back thanking her for the quick search and saying i had unexpectedly been tied up in boulder but would pick up the search package right away i thought she had an interest in me though i had never responded to her on anything other than the professional level you have to be careful and be sure you make a wanted advance and you're cool you make an unwanted advance and you get a personnel complaint my view is that it's better just to avoid the whole thing next i scroll through the ap and upi wires to see if there was anything interesting going on there was a story about a doctor being shot outside a women's clinic in colorado springs an anti-abortion activist was in custody but the doctor had not died yet i made an electronic copy of the story and transferred it to my personal storage basket but i didn't think i'd ever do anything with it unless the doctor died there was a knock on my door and i looked through the peephole before opening it it was jane who lives across the hall and down one she'd been there about a year and i met her when she asked for help moving some furniture around when she was setting up her place she was impressed when i told her i was a newspaper reporter not knowing anything about what it was like we'd gone to the movies twice and dinner once and spent a day skiing at keystone but these outings were spread over the years she'd been in the building and nothing ever seemed to come of it i think it was my hesitation not hers she was attractive in an outdoor sort of way and maybe that was it i was outdoorsy myself at least in my mind and wanted something different from that hello jack i saw your car in the garage last night so i knew you were back how was the trip it was good it was good to get away did you ski a little bit i went out to tell your ride sounds nice you know i was going to tell you but you already left if you're ever going away again i could take care of your plants or pick up the mail or whatever just ask oh thanks but i don't really have any plants i end up traveling a lot overnight for the job so i don't keep any i turned from the door and looked back into the apartment as if to make sure i guess i should have invited her in for coffee but i didn't on your way to work i asked instead yeah me too i better get going but listen once i get settled in let's do something a movie or something we both liked de niro movies that was the one thing we had okay call me i will after closing the door i chastised myself again for not inviting her in in the dining room i shut the computer down and my eyes caught on the inch thick stack of paper next to the printer my unfinished novel i had started it more than a year earlier but it wasn't going anywhere it was supposed to be about a rider who becomes a quadriplegic in a motorcycle accident with the money from the legal settlement he hires a beautiful young woman from the local university to type frame as he orally composes the sentences [Music] this is the end of side one this program is continued on side two of this cassette [Music] it was supposed to be about a rider who becomes a quadriplegic in a motorcycle accident with the money from the legal settlement he hires a beautiful young woman from the local university to type for him as he orally composes the sentences but soon he realizes she is editing and rewriting what he tells her before she even types it in and what dawns on him is that she is the better writer soon he sits mute in the room while she writes he only watches he wants to kill her strangle her with his hands but he can't move his hands to do it he is in hell the stack of pages sat there on the table daring me to try again i don't know why i didn't shove it into a drawer with the other one i had started and never finished years earlier but i didn't i guess i wanted it there where i could see it the rockies newsroom was deserted when i got there the morning editor and the early reporter were at the city desk but i didn't see anybody else most of the staffers didn't start coming in until nine or later my first stop was the cafeteria for more coffee and then i swung by the library where i took a thick computer printout with my name on it off the counter i checked lori prine's desk to thank her in person but she wasn't in yet either back at my desk i could see into greg glenn's office he was there on the phone as usual i began my usual routine of reading both the rocky and the post in tandem i always enjoyed this the daily judging of the denver newspaper war if you were keeping tabs exclusive stories always scored the most points but generally the papers cover the same stories and this was the trench war where the real battle was i would read our story and then i would read theirs seeing who wrote it better who had the best information i didn't always pull for the rocky in fact most times i didn't i worked with some real and didn't mind seeing their butts kicked by the post i would never admit this to anyone though it was the nature of the business and the competition we competed with the other newspaper we competed with each other that was why i was sure some of them watched me whenever i walked through the newsroom to some of the younger reporters i was almost a hero but the kind of story clips talent and beat to shoot for to some of the others i'm sure i was a pathetic hack with an undeservedly cushy beat a dinosaur they wanted to shoot at me but that was okay i understood this i'd think the same thing if i were in their position the denver papers were feeders for the bigger dailies in new york and la and chicago and washington i probably should have moved on long ago and had even turned down an offer with the la times a few years back but not before i used it as leverage with glenn to get my murder beat he thought the offer was for a hot shot job covering the cops i didn't tell him it was a job in a suburban section called the valley edition he offered to create the murder beat for me if i stayed sometimes i thought i had made a mistake taking glenn's offer maybe it would be good to start somewhere fresh we had done all right in the morning competition i put the papers aside and picked up the library printout lori pryne had found several stories in the eastern papers analyzing the pathology of police suicides and a handful of smaller spot news reports on specific suicides from around the country she had the discretion not to print the denver post report on my brother most of the longer reports examined suicide as a job risk that went with police work each started with a particular cop suicide and then steered the story into a discussion among shrinks and police experts on what made cops eat their guns all of the stories concluded that there was a causal relationship between police suicide and job stress and a traumatic event in the lives of the victims the articles were valuable because what experts i would need for my story were named right there and several pieces mentioned an ongoing fbi sponsored study on police suicides at the law enforcement foundation in washington dc i highlighted this figuring that i could get updated statistics from the bureau or foundation to lend my story freshness and credibility phone rang and it was my mother we hadn't spoken since the funeral after a few preliminary questions about my trip and how everybody was doing she got to the point riley told me you were going to write about sean it wasn't a question but i answered as if it was yes i am why john she was the only one who called me john because i have to i just can't go on now like it didn't happen i have to at least try to understand you always took things apart when you were a boy you remember all the toys you ruined what are you talking about mom this is what i am saying is that when you take things apart you can't always put them back together again then what have you got nothing johnny you have nothing mom you're not making sense look i have to do this i did not understand why i was so quick to anger when i talked to her have you thought about anyone else besides yourself do you know how putting this in the paper can hurt people you mean dad it might also help him there was a long silence and i imagined her in her kitchen at the table eyes closed and holding the phone to her ear my father was probably sitting there too afraid to talk to me about it did you have any idea i asked quietly did either of you of course not no one knew more silence and then she made her last plea think about it john it's better to heal in private like with sarah what do you mean you never talked about it you never talk to me i can't talk about that now you never can it's only been 22 years don't be sarcastic about something like that i'm sorry look i'm not trying to be like this just think about what i asked you i will i said i'll let you know she hung up as angry with me as i was with her it bothered me that she didn't want me to write about sean it was almost as if she was still protecting and favoring him he was gone i was still here i straightened up in my seat so i could look over the sound partitions of the pod my desk was in i could see the newsroom was filling up now glenn was out of his office and at the city desk talking with the morning editor about the coverage plan for the abortion doctor shooting i slumped back down in my chair so they wouldn't see me and get the idea of assigning me to rewrite i was always dodging rewrite they'd send out a bunch of reporters to a crime scene or disaster and then these people would call their info back to me i then had to write up the story on deadline and decide which names went on the byline it was the newspaper business at its most fast and furious but i was burned out by it i just wanted to write my stories about murder and be left alone i almost took the print out up to the cafeteria so i'd be out of sight but decided to take my chances i went back to reading the most impressive piece had run in the new york times five months earlier no surprise there the times was the holy grail of journalism the best i started reading the piece and then decided to put it down and save it for last after i had scanned and read through the rest of the material i went up for another cup of coffee then started to reread the times article taking my time with it the newspaper was the seemingly unrelated suicides of three of new york's finest within a six-week period the victims didn't know each other but all succumbed to the police blues as it was called in the article two with their guns at home one hanged himself in a heroin shooting gallery while six stoned hypes watched in dazed horror the article reported at length on the ongoing police suicide study being conducted jointly by the fbi's behavioral science section in quantico virginia and the law enforcement foundation the article quoted the foundation's director nathan ford and i wrote the name down in my notebook before going on ford said the project studied every reported police suicide in the last five years looking for similarities and causes he said the bottom line was that it was impossible to determine who might be susceptible to the police blues but once diagnosed it could be properly treated if a suffering officer sought help ford said the goal of the project was to build a database that could be translated into a protocol that would help police managers spot officers with the police blues before it was too late the times article included a sidebar story about a year old chicago case where the officer had come forward but still was not saved as i read my stomach tightened the article said chicago police detective dan brooks began therapy sessions with a psychiatrist after a particular homicide case he was assigned to began bothering him the case was the kidnapping and murder of a 12 year old boy named bobby smathers the boy was missing for two days before his remains were found in a snow bank near the lincoln park zoo he had been strangled eight of his fingers were missing an autopsy determined that the fingers had been severed before his death that to not being able to identify and catch the killer apparently was too much for brooks to take mr brooks a highly regarded investigator took the death of the precocious blue eyed boy unusually hard after supervisors and colleagues became aware that it was affecting his work he took a four week leave and began intensive therapy sessions with dr ronald cantor whom he was referred to by a chicago police department psychologist at the start of these sessions according to dr cantor brooks openly spoke of his suicidal feelings and said he was haunted by dreams of the young boy screaming in agony after twenty therapy sessions over a four week period dr cantor approved of the detective's return to his assignment in the homicide unit mr brooks by all accounts functioned properly and continued to handle and solve several new homicide cases he told friends that his nightmares were gone known as jumping john because of his frenetic go get him attitude mr brooks even continued his ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of the killer of bobby smathers but sometime during the cold chicago winter something apparently changed on march 13 which would have been the 13th birthday celebrated by the smathers boy mr brooks sat in his favorite chair in the den where he liked to write poems as a distraction from his job as a homicide detective he taken at least two tablets of percocet he had left over from treatment of a back injury the year before he wrote a single line in his poetry notebook then he put the barrel of his 38 special into his mouth and pulled the trigger he was found by his wife when she came home from work the death of mr brooks left family and friends bereaved and full of questions what could they have done what were the signs they had missed cantor shook his head wistfully when asked during an interview if there were answers for these troubling questions the mind is a funny unpredictable and sometimes terrible thing the soft-spoken psychologist said in his office i thought that dan had come very far with me but obviously we did not come far enough mr brooks and whatever it was that haunted him remain an enigma even his last message as a puzzle the line he wrote on the pad offered little in the way of insight into what caused him to turn his gun on himself through the pale door were his last written words the line was not original mr brooks borrowed it from edgar allan poe in his poem the haunted palace which originally appeared in one of poe's best known stories the fall of the house of usher paul wrote while like a ghastly rapid river through the pale door a hideous throng rush out forever and laugh but smile no more the meaning of those words to mr brooks is unclear but they certainly carry the melancholy incumbent in his final act meantime the murder of bobby smathers remains an open case in the homicide unit where mr brooks worked and his colleagues still pursue the case the detectives now say they are seeking justice for two victims far as i'm concerned this is a double murder said lawrence washington a detective who grew up with brooks and was partnered with him in the homicide unit whoever did the boy also did jump in john you can't convince me any different i straightened up and glanced around the newsroom no one was looking at me i looked back down at the printout and read the end of the story again i was stunned almost the same degree as the night wechsler and st louis had come for me i could hear my heart beating my guts being taken in a cold and crushing grip i couldn't read anything else but the name of the story usher i had read it in high school and again in college i knew the story and i knew the character of the title roderick usher i opened my notebook and looked at the few notes i had jotted down after leaving wexler the day before the name was there sean had written it in the chronological log it was his last entry rusher after dialing the editorial library i asked for lori prine it's jack yes i know look i need an emergency search i mean i think it's a search i'm not sure how to get what is it jack edgar allan poe do we have anything on him sure i'm sure we have lots of biographical abstracts i could i mean do we have any of his short stories or works i'm looking for the fall of the house of usher and sorry to interrupt that's okay uh i don't know what we would have right here as far as his written works go like i said it's mostly biographical i can take a look but i mean any bookstore around here is going to sell his stuff if we don't have it okay thanks i'll just go over to the tattered cover i was about to put the phone down when she said my name yes i just thought of something like if you want to quote a line or something we have bartlett's on rom i could just plug it in real quick okay do it she put the phone down for an eternity i reread the end of the time story again what i was thinking seemed like a long shot but the coincidences in the way my brother and brooks had died and in the names of roderick usher and rusher could not be ignored okay jack laurie said after picking back up i just checked our indexes we have no books containing poe's works in whole i've got the bartlett's disc in so let's give it a whirl what do you want there's a poem called the haunted palace that is part of the story the fall of the house of usher can you get that she didn't answer i heard her typing on the computer okay yeah there are selected quotes from the story and the poem three screens okay is there a line that goes out of space out of time out of space out of time right i don't know the punctuation doesn't matter she was typing uh no it's not in damn i don't know why i made such an outburst it immediately bothered me but jack it is a line from another poem what by poe yes it's in a poem called dreamland you want me to read it the whole inclusive stanzas here read it okay i'm not that great at reading poetry but here goes on a route obscure and lonely haunted by ill angels only wherein eidolon named knight on a black throne reigns upright i have reached these lands but newly from an ultimate dim thule from a wild weird climb that lieth sublime out of space out of time that's it but there is an editor's note it says an eidolon means a phantom i didn't say anything i was frozen still jack read it again slower this time i wrote the stanza in my notebook i could have just asked her to print it out and then gone and picked it up but i didn't want to move i wanted for the short moment to be totally alone with this i had to be jack what is it she asked when she was done reading you seem so anxious about this i don't know yet i've gotta go i hung up in an instant i began to feel overly warm claustrophobic as large as the newsroom was i felt like the walls were closing in my heart pounded a vision of my brother in the car flashed through my mind glenn was on the phone when i walked into his office and sat down in front of him he pointed to the door and nodded like he wanted me to wait outside until he was done i didn't move he pointed again and i shook my head uh listen i've got something happening here he said into the phone can i call you back great uh yeah he hung up what i need to go to chicago i said today and then probably to washington then maybe quantico virginia to the fbi glenn didn't buy it out of space out of time i mean come on now jack that has got to be a thought that goes through the minds of many people who contemplate or actually do commit suicide but the fact that it's mentioned in a poem written by some morbid guy 150 years ago who also wrote another poem this other dead cop quartered it's not the stuff conspiracies are made of what about russia and roderick usher you think that's a coincidence too so now we have a triple coincidence and you say it's not worth checking out i didn't say it's not worth checking out his voice rose a notch to a level signaling indignation of course you check it out get on the phones check it out but i'm not sending you off on a national tour on the basis of what you've got now he swiveled in his chair so he could check his computer for pending messages there were none he turned to face me again what's the motive what who'd want to kill your brother and this guy in chicago it doesn't make how come the cops miss this i don't know well you spend the day with them and the case where's the hole in the suicide how could someone have done this and just walked away how come you came away yesterday convinced that it was suicide i got your message you said you were convinced how come the cops are convinced i don't have any answers for that yet that's why i want to go to chicago and then to the bureau look jack you've got a cushy beat here i can't tell you how many times reporters have come in here saying they wanted it you who what who what's my beat never mind it's not what we were talking about the point is you've got it good here and you get to go anywhere in the state you want to go but for this kind of travel i've got to be able to justify it with neff and neighbors i also have a newsroom full of reporters who would like to travel every once in a while on a story i would like them to travel it helps keep them motivated but we're in an economic downturn here and i can't okay every trip that gets proposed i hated these sermons and i wondered if neff and neighbors the managing editor and editor of the paper even cared who he sent where as long as they got good stories this was a good story glenn was full of and he knew it okay i'll just take vacation time and do it myself you used everything you had after the funeral besides you're not going to run around the country saying you're a rocky mountain news reporter if you're not on an assignment for the rocky mountain news what about unpaid leave you said yesterday that if i wanted more time you'd work something out i meant time to grieve not go running across the country anyway you know the rules on unpaid leave i can't protect your position you take a leave and you might not have the beat when you come back i wanted to quit right there but i wasn't brave enough and i knew i needed the paper as my access card to cops researchers everybody involved without my press card i'd be just some suicides brother who could be pushed aside i need more than what you've got now to justify this jack glenn said we can't afford an expensive fishing expedition we need facts if you had more i could maybe see going to chicago but this foundation and the fbi you could definitely do by phone if you can't then maybe i get somebody from the washington news bureau to go over there it's my brother my story you're not giving it to anybody he raised his hands in a calming manner he knew his suggestion was way out of bounds then work the phones and come back to me with something look don't you see what you're saying you're saying don't go without the proof but i need to go to get the proof back at my desk i opened up a new computer file and began typing in everything i knew about the deaths of theresa lofton and my brother i put down every detail i could remember from the files the phone rang but i didn't answer it i only typed i knew i needed to start with a base of information then i would use it to knock apart the case against my brother glenn had finally cut a deal with me if i got the cops to reopen my brother's case i'd go to chicago he said we'd still have to talk about dc but i knew that if i got to chicago that i would get to washington as i typed the picture of my brother kept coming back to me now that sterile lifeless photo bothered me for i had believed the impossible i had let him down and now felt a more keen sense of guilt it was my brother in that car my twin it was me nine i ended up with four pages of notes which i then synthesized after an hour of study and thought to six lines of shorthand questions i had to find the answers to i had found that if i looked at the fact of the case from the opposite perspective believing sean had been murdered and had not taken his own life i saw something the cops had possibly missed their mistake had been their predisposition to believe and therefore accept that sean had killed himself they knew sean and knew he was burdened by the teresa lofton case or maybe it's something every cop could believe about every other cop maybe they'd all seen too many corpses and the only surprise was that they don't kill themselves but when i sifted through the facts with a disbeliever's eye i saw what they did not see i studied the list i had written on a page in my notebook pena his hands after how long buck fleur scolari the car heater lock riley gloves i realized i could handle riley by phone i dialed and was about to hang up after six rings when she picked up riley it's jack are you okay is this a bad time well it's a good time it sounded like she had been drinking you want me to come out riley i'm coming out no don't jack i'm okay just you know one of those blue days i keep thinking about him you know yes i think about him too then how come you hadn't been around for so long before he went in i'm sorry i shouldn't bring things up i was quiet a moment i don't know ryles we sort of had a fight about something i said some things i shouldn't have he did too i guess i think we were kind of in a cooling off period he did it before i could get back with him i realized i hadn't called her riles in a long time i wondered if she had noticed what was the fight about the girl that got cut into why do you say that did he tell you about it no i just guessed she had him wrapped around her finger why not you that's all i was thinking riley you've got look this isn't good for you to be dwelling on try to think about the good things i almost broke down and told her i would have liked to have given her something to ease her pain but it was too early it's hard to do that i know riley i'm sorry i don't know what to tell you there was a long silence on the line between us i heard nothing in the background no music no tv i wondered what she was doing in the house alone mom called me today you told her what i was doing yes i thought you should know i didn't say anything what did you want jack she finally asked just a question it's kind of out of left field but here it is did the cops show you or give you back shawn's gloves his gloves the ones he was wearing that day no i haven't gotten them nobody asked me about them well then what kind of gloves did shawn have lather why just something i'm playing with i'll tell you about it later if it amounts to anything what about the color black yes black leather i think they were fur lined inside her description matched the gloves i had seen in the crime scene photographs it didn't really mean anything one way or the other just a point to check one duck put in a row we talked for a few minutes more and i asked if she wanted to have dinner that night because i was coming out to boulder but she said no after that we hung up i was worried about her and hoped the conversation just the human contact would raise her spirits i contemplated dropping by her place anyway after i was done with everything else as i passed through boulder i could see snow clouds forming along the tops of the flat irons i knew from growing up out there how fast it could come down once the clouds moved in i hope the company temple i was driving had chains in the trunk but knew it was unlikely at bear lake i found pena standing outside the ranger shack talking with a group of cross-country skiers who are passing through while i waited i walked out to the lake i saw a few spots where people had cleared away the snow down to the ice i tentatively walked out on the frozen lake and looked down into one of these blue black portals and imagined the depths below i felt a slight tremor at my center twenty two years earlier my sister had slipped through the ice and died in this lake now my brother had died in his car not 50 yards away looking down at the black ice i remembered hearing somewhere that some of the lakefish get frozen in the winter but when the thaw comes in spring they wake up and just snap out of it i wondered if it was true thought it was too bad people weren't the same way it's you again i turned around and saw pena yes i'm sorry to bother you i have just a few more questions no bother i wish i could have done something before you know maybe he had seen him before when he first pulled in see if he needed help i don't know we had started walking back toward the shack i don't know what anybody could have done i said just to be saying something so what are your questions i took out my notebook uh first off when you ran to the car did you see his hands like where they were he walked without speaking i think he was envisioning the incident in his mind you know he finally said i think i did look at his hands because when i ran up and saw it was just him i immediately figured he had shot himself so i'm pretty sure i looked at his hands to see if he was holding the gun was he no i saw it on the seat next to him it fell on the seat do you remember if he was wearing gloves when you looked in gloves gloves he said as if he was trying to prompt an answer from his memory banks after another long pause he said i don't know i'm not getting a picture in my mind what do the police say well i'm just trying to see if you remember well i'm not getting anything sorry if the police wanted to would you let them hypnotize you to see if they could bring it out that way hypnotize me they do that sort of stuff sometimes if it's important well if it was important i guess i'd do it we were standing in front of a shack now i was looking at the temple parked in the same place my brother had parked the other thing i wanted to ask about was the timing the police reports say that you had the car in sight within five seconds of hearing the shot and with only five seconds there is no way anybody could make it from the car and into the woods without being seen right no way would have seen him okay then what about after after what after you ran to the car and saw the man was shot you told me the other day you ran back to the shack here and made two calls that right yes 9-1-1 in my soup so you were inside the shack here and couldn't see the car right right how long kenya nodded seeing what i was getting at but that doesn't matter because he was alone in the car i know but humor me how long he shrugged his shoulders like he was saying what the hell and fell silent again he walked into the shack and made a motion with his hand like he was lifting up the phone i got through on 9-1-1 right away that was pretty quick they took my name and stuff and that took some time then i called in and asked for doug paquin my that's my boss i said it was an emergency and they put me through right away he got on and i told him what happened and he told me to go out and watch the vehicle until the police came that was it i went back out i considered all of that and figured that he had probably been out of sight of the caprice for at least 30 seconds on the car when you first ran out did you check all the doors to see if any were unlocked just on the driver's side but they were all locked how do you know when the cops got out here they tried them all and they were locked they had to use one of those slim jim things to pop the lock i nodded and said what about the back seat you said yesterday that the windows were fogged did you put your face up to the glass and looked directly into the back seat down at the floor pena understood now what i was asking about he thought for a moment and shook his head in the negative no i didn't look directly into the back i just thought it was the one guys all did the cops ask you these questions no not really i see what you're driving at though i nodded one last thing when you called it in did you say it was a suicide or just that it was a shooting i his eyes searched the snow clouds for the memory yeah i said somebody up here went and shot himself just like that they got a tape i expect probably thanks a lot i started back to my car as the first flurries started floating down pena called after me what about the hypnotizing they'll call you if they want to do it before getting in the car i checked the trunk there were no chains on my way back through boulder i stopped at a bookstore called appropriately enough the room org and picked up a volume containing the complete stories and poems of edgar allan poe my intention was to start reading it that night as i drove back to denver i worked on trying to put penis answers into the theory i was working on and no matter how i moved his answers around there was nothing that derailed my new belief when i got to the dpd i was told up in the siu office that scolari was out of the building so i went to homicide and found wechsler behind his desk i didn't see st louis around wexler said you're here to bust my chops again no i said you going to bust mine that depends on what you're gonna ask me where's my brother's car it back in service yet what is this jack can't you even conceive of the possibility that we know how to run an investigation he threw the pen he was holding angrily into a trash can in the corner of the room then he realized what he had done and went and picked it out look i'm not trying to show you up or cause you any problems i said in an even tone i'm just trying to settle all questions and the more i try more questions i have like what i told him about my visit with pena and i could see him getting angry blood rushed into his face and there was a slight tremor along his left jaw line look you guys closed the case i said there was nothing wrong with me talking to pena besides you or scalari or somebody missed something the car was out of his sight for more than half a minute while he was calling it in so what you guys were only concerned with the time prior to his seeing the car five seconds so nobody could run away case closed suicide but pena told me the windows were fogged they had to have been for someone to have written the note pena didn't look in the back onto the floor then he leaves for at least 30 seconds somebody could have been laying down in the back got out while he was making the calls and ran into the woods it could have happened easily are you in the head what about the note what about the gsr on the glove anybody could have written on the windshield and the glove with the residue could have been worn by the killer then he took it off and put it on sean thirty seconds is a long time it might have been longer it probably was longer he made two calls it's too iffy the killer would be relying too much on pena taking that much time maybe not maybe he figured he'd either have enough time or he'd just take out pena the way you guys handled this thing you would have just said sean killed him and then himself that's jack i loved your brother like he was my own brother you think i want to believe he swallowed the goddamn bullet let me ask you something where were you when you found out about sean right here at the desk why who told you you get a call yeah i got a call was a captain parks called the watch captain he called our captain what did he tell you his exact words lexler hesitated a moment as he remembered i don't remember he just said that mack was dead he said it like that or did he say mack had killed himself i don't know what he said he might have what's the point the ranger out there who called it in said sean shot himself that started the whole thing rolling you all went out there expecting a suicide and that's what you found the parts of the puzzle fit into the picture you brought with you everybody around here knew what the lofton case was doing to him you see what i'm saying you are all predisposed to believe it even got me bleeding it on the ride out to boulder that night that's jack man i don't have the time there's no proof of what you're saying and i don't have time for theories from somebody who can't face the facts i was silent a moment letting him cool down then where's the car wax if you're so sure show me the car i know how i can prove it to you wexler paused himself i guessed he was contemplating whether he should get involved if he showed me the car he was admitting that i had at least put a small doubt in his own mind he's still in the yard he finally said i see it every goddamn day when i come in is it still in the same condition as the day it was found yeah yeah it's still the same it's sealed every day i come in i get to see his blood all over the window let's go look at it wex i think there's a way to convince you one way or the other the snow flurries had made it over from boulder in the police yard wechsler got the key from the fleet manager he also checked an inventory list to see if anyone had taken the keys or been inside the car other than the investigators no one had the car would be in the same condition as it was when it was towed in they've been waiting for a requisition from the chief's office to clean it up they have to send it out you know there are companies that specialize in cleaning houses and cars and stuff after somebody's been killed in them some job i think wexler was talking so much because he was nervous now we approached the car and stood there looking at it the snow was swirling around us in the current the blood sprayed on the inside back window had dried to a dark brown it's going to stink when we open it wexler said christ i can't believe i'm doing this this is going no further until you tell me what is going on i nodded okay there are two things i want to look at i want to see if the heat switch is on high and if the security lock on the rear doors is on or off or four the windows were fogged and it was cold but it wasn't that cold i saw in the pictures that sean was dressed warmly he had his jacket on he wouldn't need the heat on high how else do windows get fogged when you're parked with the engine off i don't think about surveillance's wex what causes fogging my brother once told me about the stakeout youtube blue cuz the windows fogged up and you missed the guy coming out of his house talking it was a week after the super bowl and we were talking about the broncos losing again and the hot air fogged everything up yeah and last i knew my brother didn't talk to himself so if the heat is on low and the windows are fogged enough to ride on them i think it means there was someone with him they were talking that's a long shot that doesn't prove anything either way what about the lock i gave him the theory somebody is with sean somehow he gets sean's gun maybe he comes with his own gun and disarms sean he also tells him to hand over his gloves sean does the guy puts the gloves on and then kills sean with his own gun he then jumps over the seat into the back where he hides down on the floor he waits until pena comes and goes then he leans back over the seat right the note on the windshield and puts the gloves back on sean's hands now you've got the gsr on sean then the doer gets out the back door locks it and splits into the cover of the trees no footprints because the lot's been plowed and salted he's gone by the time pena comes back out to watch the car like he's told to do by his supervisor wexler was silent a long time while catching up okay it's a theory he finally said now prove it you know my brother you worked with him what was the routine with a security lock always keep it on right that way no mistakes with prisoners no slip-ups if you take a non-prisoner you can always disengage it for them like you did on the night you came for me when i got sick the lock was on remember you had to switch it off so i could open the door to puke lex first said nothing but in his face i saw that i'd struck home if the security lock was off in the caprice it wouldn't be rock solid proof of anything but he would know in the way he knew my brother that sean hadn't been alone in the car he finally said you can't tell by looking at it it's just a button somebody will have to get in the back and see if they can get out open it i'll get in wexler unlocked the door flipped the electric locks and i opened the rear passenger side door the sickly sweet smell of dried blood hit me i stepped into the car and closed the door for a long moment i didn't move i had seen the photos but they didn't prepare me for being in the car the sick smell the dried blood sprayed over the window the roof and the driver's head rest my brother's blood i felt the cloying grip of nausea in my throat i quickly looked over the seat to the dashboard in the heater control panel then through the right window i looked out at waxler for a moment our eyes met and i wondered if i really wanted the security lock to be off the thought occurred to me that it might be easier to just let it go but i quickly ran it from my mind i knew if i let this go i would be haunted for the rest of my life i reached over and hit the passenger lock switch for my door i pulled the door handle and the door swung open i stepped out and looked at wexler snow was starting to stick to his hair and shoulders and the heaters off it couldn't have fogged the windows i think sean had somebody in the car with him they were talking then whoever the bastard was killed him wexler looked like he had seen a ghost it was all clicking in his mind it was more than just a theory now and he knew it it looked like he might start to cry god damn it he said look we all missed it no it's different a cop never lets his partner down like that what good are we if we can't watch out for our own a reporter he didn't finish but i think i knew what he was feeling he felt as though he had somehow betrayed sean i knew that was how he felt because it was the same for me it's not done with yet i said we could still make up for believing the wrong thing he still looked forlorn i wasn't the one who could comfort him that would have to come from within all that's lost is a little time wax i said anyway let's go back inside it's getting cold out here my brother's house was dark when i went there to tell riley i paused before knocking wondering at how absurd it was that i believed the news i was bringing might in some way cheer her good news riley sean didn't kill himself like we all thought he was murdered by some nut who has probably done it before and probably will again i knocked anyway it wasn't late i imagined that she was sitting in there in the dark or maybe in one of the back bedrooms from which no light was emitted the lantern light came on above me and she opened up before i had to knock a second time jack riley i was wondering if i could come in and talk to you this is the end of this cassette this program is continued on side one of cassette number three this is cassette number three i imagined that she was sitting in there in the dark or maybe in one of the back bedrooms from which no light was emitted the lantern light came on above me and she opened up before i had to knock a second time jack riley i was wondering if i could come in and talk to you i knew she didn't know yet i had made a deal with wexler i would tell her in person he didn't care he was too busy reopening the investigation drawing up lists of likely suspects getting sean's car inspected for prince and other evidence i hadn't told him anything about chicago i'd kept that to myself and i wasn't sure why was it the story did i want the story just for myself that was the easy answer and i used it to soothe my uneasiness and not telling him everything but in the deeper folds of my mind i believed it was something else something maybe i didn't want to bring out into the light to view come in riley said something wrong not really i walked in behind her and she led to the kitchen where she turned on the light over the table she was wearing blue jeans heavy wool socks and a colorado buffalo sweatshirt there's just been some new developments about sean and i wanted to tell you you know instead of on the phone we both took chairs at the table the circles under her eyes hadn't disappeared and she had done nothing with makeup to hide them i felt her gloom descending on me and i looked away from her face i thought i had escaped but it was impossible here her pain invaded every space in the house and was contagious were you asleep no i was reading what is it jack i told her but unlike wechsler i told her everything about chicago about the poems about what i wanted to do now she nodded occasionally during the story but showed nothing else no tears no questions all of that would come when i was done so that's the story i said i came to tell you i'm going to chicago as soon as i can after a long silence she spoke it's funny i feel so guilty i could see tears in her eyes but they didn't fall she probably didn't have enough left for that guilty about what all of this time i've been so angry at him you know for what he'd done like he had done it to me not himself i started hating him hitting his memory now you now this we were all like that it was the only way to live with it have you told millie and tom my parents she never felt comfortable addressing them any other way not yet i will though why didn't you tell wexler about chicago i don't know i wanted a head start i guess they'll find out about it tomorrow jack if what you're saying is true they should know everything i don't want whoever did this to get away just so you can pursue a story look riley i said trying to keep calm whoever did this had already gotten away until i came along i just want to get to the cops in chicago before him one day you were silent a moment before i spoke again and make no mistake i want the story that's true but it's about more than just the story it's about me and sean she nodded and i let the silence hang between us i didn't know how to explain to her my motives my skill in life was putting words together in a coherent and interesting text but inside i had no words for this not yet i knew she needed to hear more from me and i tried to give her what she needed an explanation i didn't quite understand myself i remember when we graduated high school we both pretty much knew what we wanted to do i was going to write books and be famous or rich or both sean was going to be chief of detectives at dpd and solve all of the mysteries of the city neither of us quite made it sean was closest though she tried to smile at my memory but it didn't quite go with the rest of her face and so she put it aside anyway i continued at the end of that summer i was leaving for paris to go write the great american novel and he was waiting to go into the service we made this deal when we said goodbye it was pretty corny the deal was that when i got rich i would buy him a porsche with ski racks like redford had in downhill racer that's it that's all he wanted he'd get to choose the model but i'd have to pay i told him it was a bad deal for me because he had nothing to trade but then he said he did he said that if anything ever happened to me you know like i got killed or hurt or robbed or anything he'd find out who did it he'd make sure nobody got away with it and you know even back then i believed it i believed he could do it and something about it was a comfort the story didn't seem to make much sense the way i had told it i wasn't sure what the point was but that was his promise not yours riley said yes i know i was quiet for a few moments while she watched me it's just that i don't know i just can't sit back and watch and wait i've got to be out there i've got to there were no words to explain it do something i guess i don't know i can't really talk about it riley i just have to do it i'm going to chicago 10. gladden and five other men were ushered into a glass enclosed seating area in the corner of the huge courtroom there was a foot wide slot that ran the length of the glass enclosure at face height through which the arraignment proceedings in the courtroom could be heard and the defendants could answer questions from their attorneys or the judge gladden was disheveled from a night of no sleep he had been in a single cell but the noise of the jail kept him awake and reminded him too much of rayford he looked around the courtroom and didn't see anyone he recognized this included the cops delpy and sweet sir he also didn't see any television or still cameras he took this as a sign that his true identity had not yet been discovered he was encouraged by this a man with curly red hair and thick glasses made his way around the attorney's table to the glass booth he was short and had to raise his chin as if standing in tall water for his mouth to reach the slot in the glass mr brisbane he asked looking expectantly at the men who had just been ushered in gladden walked over and looked down through the opening krasner yes how are you he beached his hand up and threw the slot gladden shook it reluctantly he didn't like being touched by anyone unless it was a child he didn't answer krasner's question it was the wrong thing to ask someone who had spent the night in county jail you talked to the prosecutor yet he asked instead yes i did we had quite a conversation your bad luck is continuing in that the deputy d.a assigned the case is a woman who i have had some dealing with before she is a ball buster and the arresting officers have informed her of the uh situation as they saw it at the pier so she's going to go balls to the wall against me right however the judge is okay we're all right there he's the only one in the building i think who wasn't a prosecutor before being elected well hooray for me did you get the money yes that happened just as you said so we're set one question do you want to enter a plea today or continue it what is a matter not a great deal in arguing for baal it might just move the judge an inch or so our way if you know psychologically he knows you've already denied the charges and are readying for a fight okay not guilty just get me out of here santa monica municipal judge harold nyberg called the name harold brisbane and gladden went back to the slot krasner came back around the tables and stood by the slot so he could confer if needed with his client krasner announced himself as did deputy district attorney tamara feinstock after krasner waived a lengthy reading of the charges he told the judge that his client pleaded not guilty judge nyberg hesitated a moment it was apparent that entering a police so early in the case was unusual are you sure that mr brisbane wishes to enter a plea today yes your honor he wants to move quickly because he is absolutely 100 not guilty of these allegations i see the judge hesitated while he read something in front of him so far he had not even looked over in gladden's direction well when i take it you do not wish to wave your ten days a moment your honor krasner said then he turned to gladden and whispered you have a right to a preliminary hearing on the charges within ten court days you can wave and he'll schedule a hearing to then set the prelim if you don't wave he'll set the prelim now ten days from now if you don't wave it's another sign that you're going to fight that you aren't looking for a handout from the d.a it might help on the bale don't wave krasner turned back to the judge thank you your honor we don't wave my client does not believe these charges will survive a preliminary hearing and therefore urges the court to schedule it as soon as possible so he can put this mr krasner ms feinstock may not object to your added comments but i do this is an arraignment court you're not arguing your case here yes your honor the judge turned and studied a calendar hanging on the far wall above one of the clerk's desks he chose the date ten court days away and ordered a preliminary hearing in division 110 krasner opened an appointment book and wrote it down gladden saw the prosecutor doing the same she was young but unattractive so far she had said nothing during the three-minute hearing okay the judge said anything on bail yes your honor feinstock said standing for the first time the people urged the court to depart from the bail schedule and set an amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars judge nyberg looked up from his papers at feinstock and then over at gladden for the first time it was as if he was trying to determine upon physical inspection of the defendant why he was worth such a high bail for what seemed like so lowly a set of charges why is that ms feinstock he asked i don't have anything before me that suggests a deviation we believe the defendant is a flight risk your honor he refused to provide the arresting officers with a local address or even a license plate number of a car his driver's license was issued in alabama and we have not verified it as a legitimate issuance so basically we don't know if harold brisbane is even his real name we don't know who he is or where he lives if he has a job or family and until we do he is considered a flight risk your honor krasner jumped in ms findstuck is misstating the facts my client's name is known to police he provided a legitimate alabama driver's license of which there was no mention of a problem mr brisbane has just arrived in the area from mobile seeking work and does not yet have a permanent address when he does he will be glad to provide it to authorities in the meantime he can be contacted if needed through my office and has agreed to check in twice daily with me or any representative of the court the judge chooses as your honor knows a deviation from the bail schedule should be based on a defendant's propensity for flight not having a permanent address is in no way an acknowledgment of flight to the contrary mr brisbane has entered a plea and waived any delays in this case he clearly wishes to attack these charges and clear his name as soon as possible calling your office is fine but what about the address the judge asked where is he going to be you seem to have left out of your dissertation any mention of the apparent fact that this man already fled from police prior to his arrest your honor we challenged that charge these officers were in plain clothes and at no time identified themselves as police officers my client was carrying a rather expensive piece of camera equipment with which by the way he earns his living and feared he was about to become the victim of a robbery that is why he ran from these people that's all very interesting the judge said what about an address mr brisbane has a room at the holiday inn on pico boulevard from there he is endeavoring to find work he is a freelance photographer and graphic arts designer and is confident of his prospects isn't going anywhere as i said before he is going to fight these yes mr krasner as you said before what kind of bail are you looking for here well sir a quarter million dollars for a charge of throwing a trash can into the ocean that's utterly incomprehensible i think a modest bill of five to ten thousand dollars is more in line with the charges my client has limited funds if he uses them all to make bail he will not have the money on which to live or pay council you left out the evading and vandalism your honor as i said he ran from them but he had no earthly idea that they were police officers he thought again mr krasner save your arguments for the proper venue i'm sorry your honor but look at the charges it is clear this is going to be a misdemeanor case and the bail should be said accordingly anything else submitted ms feinstock yes your honor again the people urge the court to consider a departure from the bail schedule the two main charges against mr brisbane are felonies and will remain as such despite mr krasner's assurances the people still are not convinced the defendant is not a flight risk or that his name is even harold brisbane my detectives tell me that the defendant has died here and that it was died at the time the photograph for this driver's license was issued this is consistent with an attempt to hide identity we are hoping to borrow the los angeles police department's fingerprint identification computer today and see if we can get a your honor krasner interjected i have to object here on the basis that mr krasner the judge intoned you had your turn in addition feinstock said mr brisbane's arrest came as a result of other suspicious activities of which he was involved in namely objection the photographing of young children some of them unclothed without their knowledge or the knowledge or consent of their parents the incident for which your honor the charges before you ever risen occurred when mr brisbane attempted to elude the officers investigating a complaint against him your honor krasner said loudly there are no outstanding charges against my client all the district attorney is trying to do is prejudice this man before the court it is highly improper and unethical if mr brisbane did these things then where are the charges silence filled the cavernous courtroom krasner's outburst had even served to make the other attorneys whispering to their clients hold their tongues the gaze of the judge slowly moved from feinstock to krasner to gladden before he finally looked back at the prosecutor and continued ms feinstein are there currently any other charges against this man being considered by your office at this time and i mean right at this time feinstock hesitated and then grudgingly said no other information has been presented for filing but the police as i said are continuing their investigation into the defendant's true identity and activities a judge looked down at the papers in front of him again and began to write krasner opened his mouth to add something but then reconsidered it was clear by the judge's demeanor that he had already made the decision the bail schedule calls for bail to be set at ten thousand dollars judge nyberg said i'm going to make a slight departure and set bail at fifty thousand dollars mr krasner i will be glad to reconsider this at a later date if at that time your client has assuaged the district attorney's concerns about identity and address etcetera yes your honor thank you the judge called the next case feinstack closed the file she had in front of her put it on the stack to her right and took another off the stack to her left and opened it krasner turned to gladden with a slight smile on his face sorry i thought he might go 25 the beauty of it is she's probably happy she asks for a quarter probably hoping for a dime or a nickel she got the nickel never mind that just how long until i'm out of here sit tight i'll have you out in an hour eleven the edge of lake michigan was frozen the ice left jagged and treacherous and beautiful after a storm the upper floors of the sears tower were gone swallowed whole by the grayish white shroud that hung over the city i saw all of this while coming in on the dan ryan expressway it was late morning and i guessed it would be snowing again before day's end i thought it had been cold in denver until i landed at midway it had been three years since i had been back to chicago and despite the cold i missed the place i had gone to j school at madill in the early 80s and learned to truly love the city after i had hoped to stay and get on with one of the local papers but the tribune and sun times both took passes the interview editors telling me to go out and get some experience and then come back with my clips it was a bitter disappointment not the rejection as much as having to leave the city of course i could have stayed on at the city news service where i worked during school but that wasn't the kind of experience those editors were looking for and i didn't like the idea of working for a wire service that paid you like you were a student needing clips more than money so i went home and got the job at the rocky a lot of years went by at first i went to chicago at least twice a year to see friends and visit favorite bars but that tapered off over the years the last time was three years ago my friend larry bernard had just landed at the tribune after going out and getting the same experience they told me to get i went up to see him and i hadn't been back since i guess i had the clips now for a paper like the tribune but i had never gotten around to sending them to chicago the cab dropped me at the hyatt across the river from the tribune i couldn't check in until three so i left my bag with the bellman and went to the pay phones after fumbling with the phone book i called the number for cpd's area 3 detectives and asked for detective lawrence washington when he answered i hung up i just wanted to locate him make sure he was there my experience with cops as a reporter has always been not to make appointments if you did all you were doing was giving them a specific place to avoid and the exact time to avoid it most didn't like talking to reporters the majority didn't like even being seen with reporters and the few that did you had to be cautious of so you had to sneak up on them it was a game i checked my watch after hanging up almost noon i had 20 hours left my flight to dulles left at eight the next morning outside the hotel i grabbed a cab and told the driver to turn up the heat and take me to belmont and western by way of lincoln park on the way i'd take in the spot where the smathers boy had been found it had been a year to the day since his body had been discovered my thought was that the spot if i could find it would look almost exactly as on that day i opened my satchel booted the computer and pulled up the tribune clips i downloaded the night before in the rockies library i scrolled through the stories on the smathers case until i found the paragraph describing the discovery of the body by a zoo docent cutting through the park on the way from his girlfriend's apartment the boy had been found in a snow-covered clearing where the italian american league's bocce tournaments were held in the summer the story said the clearing off of clark near wisconsin was within sight of the red barn which was the city's children's zoo traffic was light and we were in the park within 10 minutes i told the driver to cut over to clark and to pull to the side when we got to wisconsin the snow on the field was fresh and there were only a few tracks across it it also stood about three inches high on the boards of the benches along the walkway this area of the park seemed completely deserted i got out of the cab and walked into the clearing not expecting anything but in a way expecting something i didn't know exactly what maybe just a feeling halfway across i came upon a grouping of tracks in the snow that cut across my intended path from left to right i crossed these and came upon another grouping heading right to left the party having headed back the way it had come kids i thought maybe going to the zoo if it was open i looked toward the red barn and that was when i noticed the flowers at the base of a towering oak twenty yards away i walked toward the tree and instinctively knew what i was seeing a one-year anniversary noted with flowers when i got to the tree i saw that the flowers bright red roses splashed like blood on the snow were fake made of wood shavings in the cleft made by the first branching off of the tree's trunk i saw that someone had propped a small studio photo of a smiling boy his elbows on a table and his hands propped against his cheeks he wore a red jacket and a white shirt with a very small blue bow tie the family had been here i guessed i wondered why they hadn't placed their memorial at the boy's grave i looked around the legumes near the barn were iced over and there were a couple of skaters no one else i looked over to clark street and saw the cab waiting across the street from it a brick tower rose i saw the sign on the awning out front said hemingway house it was the place the zoo docent had come from before finding the small boy's body i looked back at the photo propped in the trees cleft and without any hesitation reached up and took it down it was sealed in plastic like a driver's license to protect it from the elements on the back of it was written the boy's name but nothing else i slid the photo into the pocket of my long coat i knew that someday i might need it to run with the story the cab felt as welcome and warm to me as a living room with a fireplace i began scrolling through the tribune stories while we drove on to area three the major facts of the case were as horrifying as those in the theresa lofton killing the boy had been lured from a fenced recreation center at a division street elementary school he and two others had gone out to make snowballs when the teacher noticed they were missing from the classroom she went out and rounded the boys up but by then bobby smathers was gone the two twelve-year-old witnesses proved unable to tell police investigators what happened according to them bobby smathers simply disappeared they looked up from their work in the snow and didn't see him they suspected he was hiding and waiting to ambush them so they didn't go looking bobby was found a day later in the snow bank near the bocce clearing in lincoln park weeks a full-time investigation headed by detective john brooks who caught the case as lead investigator never got any closer than the explanation of the two twelve-year-olds bobby smathers had simply disappeared that day at the school as i reviewed the stories i looked for similarities to lofton there were few she was a white female adult and he was a black male child as far different in terms of prey as it would seem possible but both were missing for more than 24 hours before being found and the mutilated bodies of both victims were found in city parks lastly both had been at children's centers on their last day the boy at his school the woman at the daycare center where she worked i didn't see the significance of these connections but they were all i had the area 3 headquarters was an orange brick fortress it was a two-story sprawling building that also housed the cook county first municipal district court there was a steady stream of citizens going in and out of the smoked glass doors i pushed through the doors to a lobby where the floor was wet with melted snow the front counter was made of matching brick somebody could drive a car through the glass doors and they still wouldn't get to the cops behind the counter the citizens standing in front of it were another matter i looked at the stairs to my right i knew from memory that they led to the detective bureau and was tempted to ignore procedure and head up but i decided against it you break even the mundane rules with the cops and they can get testy i stepped up to one of the cops behind the counter he eyed the computer bags slung over my shoulder you moving in with a siren no this is just a computer i said detective lawrence washington i'd like to speak with him and you are my name's jack mcavoy he doesn't know me you have an appointment no it's about the smathers case you can tell him that the cops eyebrows climbed an inch up his forehead tell you what open up the bag and let's check the computer while i make the call i did what he asked opening up the computer like they used to make me do at airports i turned it on turned it off and put it away the cop watched with the phone to his ear while talking to someone i assumed was a secretary i figured that mentioning smathers would at least get me through the preliminary round got a citizen down here to see larry legs about the kid he listened a few moments and then hung up second floor up the stairs to your left go down the hall last door says homicide he's the black guy thanks as i headed up the stairs i thought about how the cop had simply referred to smathers as the kid and whoever he had spoken to had understood what he'd meant it told me a lot about the case more than what had been in the newspapers cops try their best to de-personalize their cases they are like serial killers in that way if the victim is not a person who had lived and breathed and hurt he can't haunt you calling a victim the kid is the opposite of that practice it told me that a year later the case still had a strong hold on area three the homicide squadron was about the size of half a tennis court and had dark green industrial carpet there were three work pods consisting of five desks each two pairs of desks facing each other and the fifth the sergeant's desk pushed in at the end along the wall to my left were row after row of file cabinets with locking bars running through the pull handles along the far wall behind the work pods were two offices with glass windows looking out on the squad room one was the lieutenant's office the other looked like an interview room there was a table in there and i could see a man and a woman in the room eating sandwiches off of deli paper unwrapped and used as placemats besides those two there were three others at desks in the room and a secretary sat behind a desk near the door you want to see larry she said to me i nodded and she pointed to the man sitting at a desk on the far side of the room he was alone in the pod i headed over he didn't look up from his paperwork even when i got to him is no one out there yet he asked not yet but it's going to it always does i'm washington what you need i looked at the two other detectives at the other pods nobody even glanced at me well i wanted to talk to you alone if i could it's about the smathett kid i have some information on it i could tell without looking at them that this made the others look over at me washington too finally put down his pen and looked up at me he looked like he was in his thirties but already there was a dusting of gray in his short cropped hair still he was in good shape i could tell that before he even stood up he also looked sharp he wore a dark brown suit with a white shirt and striped tie the suit jacket could barely contain his massive chest you want to talk to me alone what do you got well that's what i want to talk to you alone about you're not one of these guys wants to confess are you i smiled what if i was maybe i'd be the real thing that'd be the day all right let's go in the room but i hope you're not going to waste my time would you say your name was jack mcavoy okay jack if i kick those people out of here and you waste my time they and me aren't going to be too happy about it i don't think it will be a problem he stood up now and i could see that he was shorter than i had thought he had the lower half of another man's body short stubby legs beneath a wide and strong upper torso thus the name the desk cop had used larry legs no matter how sharp he dressed this oddness in his physique would always betray him i walked behind him over to the door of the room where the man and woman were eating their lunch he glanced back once looking down at the satchel i carried what he got in there computer a couple things to show if you're interested he opened the door and the man and woman looked up sorry folks picnic's over washington said can you give us ten legs the man asked before getting up can't do got a customer here they re-wrapped what was left of their sandwiches and left the room without further word the man gave me a stare that i interpreted to be annoyance i didn't care washington signaled me in and i put my computer case down on the table next to a folded cardboard sign with the no smoking symbol on it we sat down on opposite sides of the table the room smells like stale smoke and italian salad dressing now what can i do for you washington asked i gathered my thoughts and tried to appear calm i was never comfortable dealing with cops even though their world fascinated me i always felt that they might suspect something about me something bad some telling flaw in me i'm not sure where to begin i'm from denver i just got in this morning i'm a reporter and i came across wait a minute wait a minute you're a reporter what kind of reporter i could see a slight pulse of anger beneath the dark skin of his upper left jaw i was prepared for this newspaper reporter i work for the rocky mountain news just hear me out and then if you want to throw me out that's fine but i don't think you will look man i've heard about every pitch in the world from guys like you i don't have the time i don't what if dan brooks was murdered i watched his face for any sign that he might already believe this there was nothing he gave nothing away your partner i said i think he might have been murdered washington shook his head now i've heard everything by who who killed him by the same person who killed my brother i stalled a moment and looked at him until i had his full attention he was a homicide cop he worked in denver he was killed about a month ago they thought at first it was a suicide too i started looking into it and i ended up here i'm a reporter but this isn't really about that it's about my brother and it's about your partner washington creased his brow into a dark v and just stared at me for a long moment i waited him out he was at the cliff he either went over with me or he threw me out he broke the stairway and leaned back out of his inside coat pocket he took a pack of cigarettes and lit one he pulled a steel trash can over from the corner so he could use it for ashes i wondered how many times he had heard people tell him that smoking would stunt his growth he cocked his head when he exhaled so that the blue smoke went up and hovered against the ceiling he leaned forward across the table i don't know if you are some nut or not let me see your id we were going over the cliff i took out my wallet and gave him my driver's license press card and dpd police pass he hide them all closely but i knew he had already decided to listen to the story there was something about brooks's death that made washington want to listen to a story from a reporter he didn't even know okay he said as he handed the ids back so you're legit still doesn't mean i have to believe a word you say no but i think you believe it already look you going to tell your story or not don't you think if there was something not right that i'd be on a thing like like what do you know about it anyway not much just what was in the papers washington stubbed cigarette out on the side of the trash can and then dropped the butt in hey jack tell your story otherwise do me a big favor and just get the out of here i didn't need my notes i told the story with every detail because i knew each one of them it took a half hour during which washington smoked two more cigarettes but never asked a question each time he kept the cigarette in his mouth so the smoke curled up and hid his eyes but i knew just like with wexler i was confirming something that inside his guts he had felt all along you want wexler's number i asked at the end he'll tell you everything i just said is legit no i'll get it if i need it you have any questions no not at the moment he just stared at me then what's next i'm going to check this out where you going to be the hyatt down by the river okay i'll call you detective washington that's not good enough how do you mean i mean i came here to get information not just to give it and then go back to my room i'm gonna ask you about brooks look kid we didn't have any kind of deal like that you came here you told the story there was no look don't patronize me by calling me kid like i'm some kind of hick from the sticks i've given you something and i want something back that's why i came i don't have anything for you now jack that's you can sit there and lie larry legs but i know you've got something i need it what to make a big story that'll bring the rest of the jackals like you out i was the one who leaned forward this time i told you this isn't about a story i leaned back and we both looked at each other i wanted a cigarette but didn't have any and i didn't want to ask him for one the silence was punctuated when one of the detectives i had seen in the homicide room opened the door and looked in everything okay he asked get the out of here retzel washington said after the door was closed he said nosy prick you know what they're thinking don't you they're thinking maybe you're in here cop into doing the kid it's the year anniversary you know weird things happen wait till they hear this story i thought of the photo of the boy in my pocket i went by there on the way over i said there's flowers they're always there washington said the family goes by there all the time i nodded and for the first time felt guilty about taking the photo i didn't say anything i just waited for washington he seemed to ease up some his face became softer relaxed look jack i gotta do some checking and some thinking if i tell you i'll call you i'm gonna call you go back to the hotel get a massage whatever i'll call you one way or the other in a couple hours i nodded reluctantly and he stood up he held his arm across the table his right hand out i shook it pretty good work for a reporter i mean i picked up my computer and left the squad room was more crowded now and a lot of them watched me go i guess i had been in there long enough for them to know i wasn't a crackpot outside it was colder and the snow was beginning to come down hard it took me 15 minutes to flag down a cab on the ride back i asked the driver to swing by wisconsin and clark and i jumped out and ran across the snow to the tree i put the photo of bobby smatters back where i'd found it twelve larry legs kept me twisting in the wind the rest of the afternoon at five i tried calling him but couldn't locate him at area 3 or 11 21 as the department's headquarters was known the secretary in the homicide office refused to disclose his whereabouts or to page him at six i was resigned to being blown off when there was a knock on my door it was him hey jack he said without stepping in let's take a ride washington had his car parked in the valet lane in the hotel drive up on the day she had placed a police business card so there was no problem we got in and pulled out he crossed the river and started north on michigan avenue the snow had not abated as far as i could tell and there were drifts along both sides of the road many of the cars on the road had a three inch frosting on their horizontal surfaces i could see my breath in washington's car and the heater was on high yes you got a lot of snow where you come from jack yeah he was just making conversation i was anxious to see what he really had to say but thought it better to wait to let him tell me at his speed i could always pull the reporter act and ask questions later he turned west on division and headed away from the lake sparkle of the miracle mile and the gold coast soon disappeared and the buildings began to get a little more seedy and in need of repair and upkeep i thought maybe we were heading toward the school where bobby smathers had disappeared from but washington didn't say it was completely dark now we went under the l and soon passed the school washington pointed at it that's where the kid went there's the yard just like that he was gone he snapped his fingers i staked it all day yesterday you know a year since the disappearance just in case something happened or the guy the doer came back by anything washington shook his head and dropped into a brooding silence but we didn't stop if washington wanted me to see the school the view had been quick we kept heading west and eventually came upon a series of brick towers that somehow looked abandoned in some way i knew what they were the projects they were dimly lit monoliths against the blue black sky they had assuredly taken on the appearance of those that were housed within they were cold and despairing the have-nots of the city skyline what are we doing i asked you know what this place is yeah i went to school here i mean in chicago everybody knows cabrini green what about it i grew up here so did jumping john brooks immediately i thought of the odds first of just surviving in such a place next of surviving and then becoming a cop vertical ghettos each one of them me and john used to say it was the only time when you had to take the elevator up when you were going to hell i just nodded this was out of my realm completely and that's only if the elevators were working he added i realized that i never considered that brooks might be a black man there was no photo in the computer printouts and no reason to mention race and the stories i had just assumed he was white and it was an assumption i would have to analyze later at the moment i was trying to figure out what washington was trying to tell me by taking me here washington pulled into a lot next to one of the buildings there were a couple of dumpsters coated with decades of graffiti slogans there was a rusted basketball backboard but the rim was long gone he put the car in park but left it running i didn't know if that was to keep the heat flowing or to allow us a quick getaway if needed i saw a small group of teenagers and long coats their faces as dark as the sky scurry from the building closest to us then cross the frozen courtyard and hustle into one of the other buildings at this point you're wondering what the hell you're doing here washington said then that's okay i understand a white boy like you again i said nothing i was letting him run out his line see that one third on the right that was our building i was on 14 with my grand auntie and john lived with his mother on twelve one below us they didn't have no thirteen already enough bad luck around here neither of us had fathers at least ones that showed up i thought he wanted me to say something but i didn't know what i had no earthly idea what kind of struggle the two friends must have had to make it out of the tombstone of a building he had pointed at i remained mute we were friends for life hell he ended up marrying my first girlfriend edna then on the department after we both made homicide and trained with senior detectives for a few years we asked to be partnered and damn it got approved story about us in the sun times once they stuck us in three because it included this place they figured it was part of our expertise a lot of our cases come out of here but it's still on rotation so we just happened to be the ones catching on the day that boy turned up without no fingers call came in right at eight ten minutes before on it would have gone to night shift he was silent for a while probably thinking about what kind of difference it would have made if the call had gone to somebody else sometimes at night when we'd be working a case or on a stake or something me and john would drive out here after shift park right where we are now and just look the place over it occurred to me then what the message was larry leggs knew jumping john hadn't pulled the trigger on himself because he had known the exact struggle brooks had experienced coming out of a place like this brooks had fought his way out of hell and he wasn't about to go back by his own hand that was the message this is how you knew isn't it washington looked across the seat at me and nodded once this is the end of side one this program is continued on side two of this cassette [Music] larry legg's knew jumping john hadn't pulled the trigger on himself because he had known the exact struggle brooks had experienced coming out of a place like this brooks had fought his way out of hell and he wasn't about to go back by his own hand that was the message this is how you knew isn't it washington looked across the seat at me and nodded once it was just one of those things you know that's all he didn't do it i told him that at miu but they just wanted to get it the away from them so all you had was your gut there was nothing out of line anywhere else there was one thing but it wasn't enough for them i mean they had the handwriting his history with the shrink all that in place it fit too nicely for him he was a suicide before they zipped up the bag and took him away cut and dried what was the one thing the two shots what do you mean let's get out of here let's get some food he put the car in drive and made a large circle in the lot and then out onto the street we headed north on streets i had never been on i had an idea where we were going though after five minutes of this i was tired of waiting for the next part of the story what about the two shots he fired two shots right did he it wasn't in the papers they never put out all the details on anything but i was there at the house edna called me after she found him i got there ahead of miu there was one shot in the floor and one shot in the mouth the official explanation was that the first shot was supposed to be him seeing if he could do it or something like a practice getting the courage up then the second time was when he went ahead and did it it didn't make sense not to me why not what did you think the two shots were for i think the first one went in the mouth the second one was for gunshot residue the perp wrapped john's hand around the gun and fired it into the floor john's hand gets gsr on it the case goes suicide in the story but nobody agreed with you not until today not until you turn up with this edgar allen poe thing i went to major investigations to tell them what you got i reminded them of the problems with the suicide my problems they're going to reopen it and take another look tomorrow a.m we've got a startup meeting over at 11 21. the mru chief is going to get me detached and put on the squad that's great i watched out the window and was silent for a while i was excited things were falling into place i now had the presumed self-inflicted deaths of two cops in two different cities being reinvestigated as possible murders and possibly connected that was a story a damn good one and it was something i could use as a wedge in washington to get into the foundation records and even the fbi that is if i got there first if chicago or denver went to the bureau first i'd likely be squeezed out because they wouldn't need me anymore why i said out loud i would why is somebody doing this what exactly are they doing washington didn't answer he just drove through the cold night we had dinner in a booth in the back of the slammer a cop bar near area 3. both of us ordered the special roast turkey and gravy great cold weather food as we ate washington gave me a rundown on the miu plan he told me everything was off the record and that if i wanted to write anything i had to get it from the lieutenant would eventually head up the squad i had no problem with that the squad was going to exist because of me the lieutenant would have to talk to me washington kept both elbows on the table while he ate it looked like he was guarding his food he spoke with his mouth full at times but that was because he was excited so was i i was also wary of protecting my place in the investigation in the story we'll start off with denver washington said we'll work together get our ducks lined up and then see what happens hey did you talk to wexler he was mad at you boy how come well you think you didn't tell him about paul brooks chicago i think you lost the sauce there jack maybe they got anything new there yeah the ranger what about him they did the hypnosis thing took him back to that day he said your brother was wearing only one glove when he looked in the window of the car for the gun then that glove with the gsr somehow gets back on the hand lexla said they've got no doubts about it now i nodded more to myself than to washington you in denver you'll have to go to the fbi won't you you're talking about crimes connected across state lines we'll see you gotta remember the locals here never get much excited about working with the g we go to them and we get big-footed every time right up the ass but you're right it's probably the only way if this is what i think it is and what you think it is the bureau will eventually have to run the show i didn't tell washington i was going to the fbi myself i knew i had to get there first i pushed my plate aside looked at washington and shook my head this story was incredible what's your feeling on this what are we talking about only a few possibilities washington said one we're talking about one guy somebody out there killing people then doubling back and taking out the lead cop working the case i nodded i was with him second the first killings are unrelated and our doer just comes into town waits for a case he likes or sees on the tv and goes after the cop who heads up the investigation yeah and third is we have two killers in both cities one does the first killing and the second comes in and does the second takes out the cop of the three i don't like this one too many questions do they know each other are they working together gets pretty far out there they would have to know each other how else would the second guy know where the first one has been exactly so we are concentrating on possibilities one and two we haven't decided whether denver's coming here and we'll send some people there but we've got to look at the boy and the college kid look for any connection and if we find one we go from there i nodded i was thinking of the first possibility one person one killer doing all of this if it is just one guy who is the real target i asked more to myself than washington is it the first victim or the cop washington put the v back in his brow maybe i said we've got somebody who wants to kill cops that's his objective okay so he uses the first killing smathers lofton to draw out his prey the cop i looked around the table saying it out loud though i had been thinking it since i was on the plane said a chill through me spooky huh washington asked yeah real spooky and you know why because if this is the case there's got to be others every time a cop supposedly kills himself the investigation is quick and quiet no department wants that kind of story so they go through the motions quick and then that's it so there's gotta be more of them out there if the first possibility is the correct one then this guy didn't begin with brooks and end with your brother there's more hot bed on it he pushed his plate away he was finished a half hour later he dropped me at the front of the hyatt the wind off the lake was chilling i didn't want to stand outside but washington said he wasn't coming up to the room he gave me a business card i got my home and beeper on there call me i will okay then jack he put his hand out and i took it thanks man for what for making believers out of them i owe you one for that so does jumping john 13. gladden stared at the bright blue screen for several seconds before starting it was an exercise he routinely followed to help clear his mind of the pressures and the hatred but this time it was hard he was full of rage he shook it off and pulled the computer onto his lap he cleared the screen and rolled at the ball with his thumb until the arrow moved from window to window on the screen and stopped on the terminal icon he clicked the enter button and then chose the program he wanted he clicked on dial and then waited while listening to the harsh screech of the computer's uplink it was like birth he thought every time the horrible screech of the newly born after the connection was complete the welcome template appeared on the screen welcome to the ptl club after a few seconds the screen moved up and there was a coded prompt for gladden's first password he entered the letters waited while they were acknowledged then entered the second password when he got the prompt in a moment his entry was approved and the warning template appeared on the screen praise the lord rules of the road one never ever use a real name two never provide systems numbers to acquaintances three ever agree to meet another user four be aware that other users may be foreign bodies reserves the right to delete any user six message boards may not be used for discussion of any illegal activities this is forbidden seven ptl network is not responsible for content eight press any key to continue gladden pressed enter and the computer informed him he had a private message waiting to be read he lightly touched the appropriate keys and the message from the system's operator filled the top half of the laptop screen thanks for the warning hope all is well and most sorry to hear of you in harm's way all is well on this end if you are reading this then i assume you are out and about bravo good luck and stay in touch with yourself and others ptl gladden typed in an r and hit enter and a reply message template appeared on the screen he typed out a message to the sender of the first message not to worry about me all is taken care of yours truly is now out and about ptl that done gladden typed in commands so that he could move to the main bulletin board directory finally the screen filled with the directory of message boards each board was listed with a number of active messages available to be read one general forum 89 2 b 9 46. 3 b minus 9 23 4 g plus 9 12 5 g minus 9 6 6 all's fair 51 7 musings and windings 76 8 legal beagles 24 9 services by city 56 10 barter barterboard 91. he quickly typed in the necessary commands to move to the musings and whinings board it was one of the most popular boards he'd already read through most of the files and had contributed a few himself they were all rants about how unfair life was to them how maybe in a different time their tastes and instincts would be accepted as normal it was more whining than musing gladden had always thought he called up the file marked i dolan and began reading it again i think they will know about me soon my time in the light of public fascination and fear is near i am ready each one of my kind eventually assumes the mantle anonymity will be lost i will be given a name a designation not reflective of who i am nor of my many skills but simply determined by its ability to fit nicely into a tabloid newspaper headline and stimulate the masses to thoughts of fear we study what we fear fear sells newspapers and television shows soon it will be my turn to sell i will be hunted soon and i will be notorious but they won't find me never that's what they won't realize that i have always been ready for them i have decided it is time to tell my story i want to tell it i will input all that i have all that i am through these windows you will see me live and die my laptop boswell makes no judgments cringes not at a single word who better to hear my confession than laptop boswell who more accurate a biographer than laptop boswell i will begin to tell you all now turn on your flashlights i will live and die here in the dark man is sometimes extraordinarily passionately in love with suffering i didn't write that first but i wish that i had but it doesn't matter because i believe it my suffering is my passion my religion it never leaves me it guides me it is me i can see that now i think what is meant by those words is that our pain is the pathway upon which we make our life's travels and choices it paves the way so to speak for all that we do and become therefore we embrace it we study it and for all its harshness we love it we have no choice i have a great feeling of clarity about this of complete understanding i can turn and look back on my path and see how the pain made all my choices i look forward and can see where it will take me i don't really walk along the path anymore it moves beneath me carrying me like a great ribbon through time it carried me here my pain is the rock upon which i make my stand i am the perpetrator the idolan true identity is pain my pain until death do we part drive safely dear friends he read it again and felt deeply moved by it it touched his true heart he went back to the main menu and switched into the barter board to see if there were any new customers there weren't he typed the g command for goodbye he then turned off the computer and folded it closed gladden wished the cops hadn't taken his camera he couldn't risk going to claim it and he could barely afford to buy another one with the money he had left but he knew without a camera he could not fill the order and there would be no more money the anger building inside him felt like razors moving to his blood cutting him from inside he decided to wire more money out from florida then go shopping for another camera he went to the window and looked out at the cars slowly moving along sunset it was an endless moving parking lot all that smoking steel he thought all that flesh where was it going he wondered how many of them in those cars were like himself how many had the urges and how many felt the razors how many had the courage to follow through again the anger pushed through his thoughts it was something palpable inside him now a black flower spreading its petals in his throat choking him he went to the phone and dialed the number krasner had given him sweet sir picked up after four rings busy sweet sir who's this it's me how are the kids huh who is this his instincts told gladden to hang up right then don't deal with their kind but he was so curious you have my camera he said there was a short moment of silence mr brisbane and how are you fine detective thank you yes we have your camera and you are entitled to have that back since you require it to make a living do you want to make an appointment to pick it up gladden closed his eyes and squeezed the phone until he thought he would crush it they knew if they didn't they would have told him to forget the camera but they knew something and they wanted him to come in the question was how much did they know gladden wanted to scream but a higher thought was to keep cool with sweet sir no false moves he told himself i'll have to think about that well it looks like a nice camera i'm not sure how it works but i wouldn't mind having it it's here if you want you sweet sir the anger overtook him gladden spoke the words through a clenched jaw look brisbane i was doing my job if you got a problem with that come see me and we'll do something about that if you want your camera you can come and get that too but i'm not going to stay on the line while you you got kids sweet sir the line was silent for a long moment but gladden knew the detective was there what did you say you heard me are you threatening my family you son of a now gladden was silent for a moment then a low sound started deep in his throat and grew into a maniacal laugh he let it out uncontrolled until it was all you could hear and think about then suddenly he slammed the receiver down on the phone and cut the laughter off like a knife in the throat he had an ugly grimace across his face and he shouted to the empty room through clenched teeth gladden opened his laptop again and accessed the photo directory the computer screen was state of the art for a laptop model but the graphics chip still wasn't nearly the quality he'd have on a stationary pc still the images were clear enough and he was able to make do he went through the file photo by photo it was a macabre collection of the dead and the living somehow he was able to find solace in the photos a sense that he had control over things in his life still he was saddened by what he saw before him and what he had done these little sacrifices offered up so that he could save his wounds he knew how selfish it was how grotesquely warped it was and the fact that he turned these sacrifices into money tore away his comfort turned it into the self-loathing and disgust that always came sweet sir and the others were right he deserved to be hunted he rolled onto his back and looked at the water-stained ceiling tears filled his eyes he closed them and tried to sleep tried to forget but his best pal was there in the darkness behind his eyelids as always he was there his face set a horrible slash for lips gladden opened his eyes and looked at the door there had been a knock he quickly set up as he heard the metal scrape of a key going into the outside knob he realized his mistake sweeter had had a trace from the line they knew he would call the door to the room swung open a small black woman with a white uniform on stood in the doorway with two towels draped over her arm housekeeping she said i'm sorry i'm so late today but it's been a busy day tomorrow i'll do your room first gladden exhaled and noticed that he had neglected to put the do not disturb sign on the outside knob it's okay he said quickly getting up to stop her entrance into the room just the towels today anyway as he took the towels he noticed embroidered on her uniform was the name evangeline she had a lovely face and he immediately felt sorry that this was her job cleaning up after others thank you evangeline he noticed her eyes go past him into the room and fall down to the bed it was still made he hadn't pulled the covers down the night before then she looked back at him and nodded with what he guessed was a smile that be all you need yes evangeline have a nice day gladden closed the door and turned around there on the bed was the open laptop computer on the screen was one of the photographs he moved to the bed and studied it without moving the computer then he moved back to the door opened it and stood under the frame where she had been he looked at the computer he could tell the boy on the ground and what else could that be against the perfect white canvas of snow but blood he quickly went to the computer and hit the emergency kill button he had programmed himself the door was still open gladden tried to think jesus he thought what a mistake he walked to the door and stepped out evangeline was down the walkway standing next to a housekeeping cart she looked back at him her face revealing nothing but gladden knew he had to be sure he could not risk everything on reading this woman's face evangeline he said i've changed my mind the room could probably use it going over i need toilet paper and soap anyway she put down the clipboard she had been riding on and stooped to get toilet paper and soap out of the cart as gladden watched he put his hands in his pockets he noticed she was chewing gum and clicking it an insulting thing to do in front of someone else it was like he was invisible he was nothing when evangeline approached him with the items from the cart he made no move to take his hands from his pocket he took a step back to allow her to go into the room after she stepped in gladden walked down to the cart and looked at the clipboard she had placed on top after room 112 was the notation just towels gladden looked around as he headed back to the room the motel was a courtyard design with two floors of about 24 rooms each he saw another housekeeping cart on the upper floor across the way it was parked in front of an open door but there was no sign of the maid the pool at the center of the courtyard was empty of guests too cold he saw no one else anywhere he stepped into the room and closed the door as evangeline came out of the bathroom holding the bag from the trash can sir we have to keep the door open when we're walking inside a room those are the rules he blocked her way to the door did you see the photograph what sir i have to open the did you see the photo on the computer on the bed he pointed to the laptop and watched her eyes she looked confused but didn't turn what photo she turned to look at the sagging bed and then back to him with the look of confusion and growing annoyance on her face i didn't take anything you call mr bars right now if you think i took something i'm an honest lady he can have one of the other girls search me i don't got your photo i don't even know what picture you mean gladden looked at her a moment and then smiled you know evangeline i think maybe you are an honest lady but i have to be sure you understand 14. the law enforcement foundation was on ninth avenue in washington dc a few blocks from the justice department and the fbi headquarters it was a large building and i assumed other agencies and foundations funded from the public trough were housed here as well once i was in through the heavy doors i checked the directory took the elevator to the third floor it looked like the laf had the entire third floor from the elevator i was greeted by a large reception desk behind which set a large woman in the news business we call them deception desks because the women they hire to sit behind them rarely let you go where you want to go or see who you want to see i told her i wanted to speak to dr ford the foundation director quoted in the new york times article about police suicides ford was the keeper of the database to which i had to get access he's at lunch do you have an appointment i told her i had no appointment and put one of my cards down in front of her i looked at my watch quarter to one oh well a reporter she said as if the profession was synonymous with convict that's entirely different you have to go to the public affairs office before it is even decided that you may speak to dr ford i see you think there's anybody in public affairs or are they out to lunch too she picked up the phone and made a call michael are you there or are you on lunch i have a man here who says he is from the rocky mountain news in no he first asked to see dr ford she listened a few moments and then said okay and hung up michael warren will see you he says he has a 1 30 appointment so you'd better hurry hurry where room 303 go down the hall behind me take your first right and then it's the first door on the right as i made the track i kept thinking that the name michael warren was familiar but couldn't place it the door to 303 opened as i was reaching for it a man of about 40 was about to step out when he saw me and stopped are you the one from the rocky yes i was beginning to wonder if you took a wrong turn uh come on in i only have a few minutes i'm mike warren michael if you use my name in print though i prefer you don't use it then talk to the staff here instead hopefully i can help you with that once he was behind his cluttered desk i introduced myself and shook hands he told me to take a seat there were newspapers stacked on one side of the desk on the other side were photos of a wife and two children angles so that warren could see them as well as his visitors there was a computer on a low table to his left and a photo of warren shaking the president's hand on the wall above it warren was clean-shaven and wore a white shirt with a maroon tie the collar was frayed a bit where his afternoon whiskers rubbed against it his jacket was draped over the back of his chair his skin was very pale and set off by dark sharp eyes and straight black hair so what's up are you in the scripps dc bureau he was talking about the parent company it maintained a bureau of reporters that fed washington stories to all papers in the chain it was the office greg glenn had suggested i go through earlier in the week no i'm out from denver well what can i do for you i need to talk to nathan ford or maybe whoever is directly handling the police suicide study police suicide as an fbi project olean frederick's the researcher handling that with them yes i know the fbi is involved let's see he picked up the desk phone but then put it back down you know you didn't call a hit on this did you i don't recognize the name no i just got into town it's a breaking story you could say making story police suicide and that doesn't sound like deadline stuff why the hurry then it struck me who he was did you used to work for the la times the washington bureau you that michael warren he smiled that he or his name had been recognized yes how'd you know the post times wire i've been scrolling it for years i recognized the name you covered justice right did good stuff until a year ago i quit and came here i nodded there was always a moment of uneasy silence when i crossed paths with somebody who had left the life and was now on the other side of the line usually they were burnouts reporters who grew tired of the always-on deadline and always need to produce life i once read a book about a reporter written by a reporter who described the life as always running in front of a thresher i thought it was the most accurate description i'd read sometimes people got tired of running in front of the machine sometimes they got pulled in and were left shredded sometimes they managed to get out from in front of it they use their expertise in the business to seek the steadiness of a job as a person who handled the media rather than was part of it this is what warren had done and somehow i felt sorry for him he'd been damned good i hoped he didn't feel the same regret you miss it i had to ask him just to be polite not yet every now and then a good story comes along and i wish i was in there with everybody else looking for the odd angle but it can run you ragged he was lying and i think he knew i knew it he wanted to go back yeah i'm beginning to feel it some myself i returned the lie just to make you feel better if that was possible so what about police suicides what's your angle he looked at his watch well it wasn't a breaking story until a couple days ago now it is i know you only have a few minutes but i can explain it pretty quickly i just i don't want to be insulting but i'd like for you to promise me what i say here is in confidence it's my story and when it's ready i'm going to break it he nodded don't worry i understand completely i won't discuss whatever it is you are going to tell me with any other journalist unless that other journalist specifically asks about the same thing i may have to talk about it with other people here at the foundation or in law enforcement for that matter i can't make any promise in that regard until i know what we are talking about that's fair i felt myself trusting him maybe because it is always easy to trust somebody who has done what you've done i also think i liked telling what i'd learned to somebody who would know its value was a story it was a form of bragging and i wasn't above it i started at the start of this week i began working on a story about police suicide yeah i know it's been done before but i had a new angle my brother was a cop and a month ago he supposedly committed suicide i oh jesus i am sorry thank you but i didn't bring it up for that reason i decided to write about it because i wanted to understand what he had done what the police in denver said he had done i went through the routine pulled clips on a nexus search and naturally i came up with a couple of references to the foundation study he tried to surreptitiously look at his watch and i decided to get his attention to make a long story short and trying to find out why he killed himself i found out he didn't i looked at him i had his attention what do you mean he didn't my investigation is so far determined that my brother's suicide was a carefully disguised murder someone killed him the case has been reopened i have also linked it to a supposed cop suicide last year in chicago that one also has been reopened i just came in from there this morning the cops in chicago and denver and i think that somebody might be moving around the country killing cops and making it look like suicide the key to finding the other cases may be in the information collected for the foundation study don't you have all the records on cop suicides for the whole country over the last five years we sat in silence for a few moments warren just stared at me i think you better tell me the long story he finally said no wait he held up his hand like a crossing guard signaling stop picked up the phone with the other and pushed a speed dial number drax mike uh listen i know this is late but i'm not going to make it something's come up over here uh no we'll have to reschedule i'll talk to you tomorrow thanks bye he put down the phone and looked at me it was just lunch now tell me this story of yours a half hour later after he had made some calls to set up a meeting warren led me through the labyrinth of the foundation's hallways to a room marked 383. it was a conference room and already seated there were dr nathan ford and the suicide project researcher olean frederick the introductions were quick and warren and i sat down frederick looked like she was in her mid-20s with curly blonde hair and a disinterested air about her i immediately paid more attention to ford warren had prepped me he said any decisions would be made by ford the foundation director was a small man in a dark suit but he had a presence that commanded the room he wore glasses with thick black frames and rose tinted lenses he had a full beard of uniform grey that perfectly matched his hair he hadn't moved his head as much as he did his eyes when he followed our movements as we entered and took seats around the large oval table he had his elbows on the table and his hands clasped together in front of him but don't we get started he said once the introductions were over what i'd like to do is just have jack tell you both what he told me a little while ago warren said and then we'll go from there jack you mind going over it again not at all i'm going to take some notes this time i told the story in pretty much the same detail as i had with warren every now and then i would remember something new and not necessarily significant but i would throw that in anyway i knew i needed to impress ford because he would be the one to decide whether or not i got olin frederick's help the only interruption during the telling came from frederick when i spoke of my brother's death she mentioned that the protocol from the dpd on the case had been received the week before i told her she could now toss it in the trash can when i was finished reciting the story i looked at warren and raised my hands anything i missed i don't think so we both looked forward then and waited he hadn't moved much during the telling now he raised his clasped hands and gently bumped them repeatedly against his chin as he thought i wondered what kind of doctor he was what do you have to be to run a foundation more politician than doctor i thought it's a very interesting story he said quietly i can see why you are excited i can see why mr warren is excited he was a reporter for most of his adult life and i think the excitement of the story remains in his blood sometimes possibly to the detriment of his current profession he didn't look at warren as he delivered this blow his eyes stayed on me but i don't understand and therefore the reason i don't seem to share the same excitement as you two is what this has to do with the foundation i'm not clear on that mr mcavoy well dr ford warren began jack has to no ford cut him off let mr mcavoy tell me i tried to think in precise terms ford didn't want a lot of he just wanted to know how he would benefit from this i assume the suicide project is on computer that is correct ford said most of our studies are collated on computer we rely on the great number of police departments out there for our field research reports come in the protocol ms frederick mentioned earlier they are entered on the computer but that means nothing it is the skilled researcher that must digest these facts and tell us what they mean on this study the researcher is joined by fbi experts in reviewing the raw data i understand all of that i said what i'm saying is that you have a huge data bank of incidents of police suicide going back five six years i believe the work was started before olin came on board i need to go into your computer why if we're right and i'm not just talking about me the detectives in chicago and in denver are thinking this way too we've got two cases that are connected the seemingly connected right seemingly connected if they are then the chances are that there are others we're talking about a serial killer maybe there's a lot maybe a few and maybe none but i want to check and you've got the data right here all the reported suicides in the last six years i want to get inside your computer and look for the ones that might be the fakes that might be our guy how do you propose doing that frederick said we've got several hundred cases on file the protocol that police departments fill out and send in does it include the victim's rank and position in the department yes then we first look at all homicide detectives that killed themselves the theory i'm working with is that this person is killing homicide cops maybe it's a haunted turns on the hunter sort of thing i don't know the psychology of it but that's where i start with homicide cops once we have that breakout we look at each case we need the notes the suicide notes from that's not on computer frederick said in each incidence if we even have a copy of the note it is in the hard copy protocols in file storage the notes themselves aren't part of the study unless they have some allusion to the pathology of the victim but you've kept the hard copies yes all of them in file storage then we go to them warren chimed in excitedly his intrusion brought silence eventually everyone's eyes were drawn to ford's one question the director finally said does the fbi know about this at the moment i can't say for sure i said i know it is the intention of the chicago and denver police to retrace my steps and then once they're satisfied that i'm on the right path they are going to call in the bureau it'll go from there ford nodded and said mr mcavoy could you step out and wait in the reception area for me i want to talk to miss frederick and mr warren privately before making any decision on this matter no problem i stood up and headed to the door where i hesitated and looked at ford i hope i mean i hope we can do this anyway thanks michael warren's face told the story before he said anything i was sitting on a lumpy vinyl covered couch in the reception area when he came down the hallway with down cast eyes when he saw me he just shook his head let's go back to my office he said i followed silently behind him and took the same seat i had before he looked as dejected as i felt why i asked because he's an he whispered because the justice department punches our ticket and the fbi is the justice department it's their study they commissioned it he's not going to let you walk through it without telling them first he's not ever going to do anything that might knock the gravy train off the tracks you said the wrong thing in there jack you should have said the fbi was made aware of this and took a pass he wouldn't have believed that the point is he could have said he did if it ever blew up on him that he was helping a reporter to information before the bureau he could have just put it on you and said he thought the bureau passed so what now i can't just drop this i wasn't really asking him i was asking myself you got any sources in the bureau because i guarantee he's in his office calling the bureau right now probably going right to bob backus who's that one of the big shots down there the suicide project belongs to his team i think i know that name well you probably know bob back a senior his father he was some kind of super cop the bureau brought in to help set up the bss and the violent criminal apprehension program i guess bobby jr is trying to fill in his shoes but the point is as soon as ford's off the phone with him backus will shut this thing down your only way in will be through the bureau i couldn't think i was totally backed into a corner i stood up and started pacing in the small office jesus christ i can't believe this this is my story i'm getting pushed out of it by some dopey guy in a beard who thinks he's j edgar hoover nah nat ford doesn't wear dresses it's not really that damn funny i know i'm sorry i sat back down he made no move to dismiss me even though our business was done it finally occurred to me what it was he expected me to do i just wasn't sure about how to ask i never worked in washington and didn't know how it worked i decided to do it the denver way to be blunt you can get into the computer anyway right i nodded at the terminal to his left he looked over at me for a moment before responding no way i'm no deep throat jack this isn't about anything other than a crime story that's the bottom line you just want to get there ahead of the fbi you're a reporter former reporter i work here now and i'm not going to jeopardize my you know it's a story that has to be told if ford's in there on the phone with the fbi they'll be out here by tomorrow and the story will be gone you know how hard it was to get stuck from them you were there this ends completely right here or is published as some half-assed story in a year or maybe longer with more conjecture than facts that's if you don't get me on that computer i said no look you're right all it is is a story that i want the big scoop but i deserve it you know i do the fbi wouldn't be coming around if it wasn't for me but i'm getting shut out think about it think if it was you think if it was your brother that this happened to i have and i just said no i stood up well if you change your i won't look when i leave here i'm going to check in at the hilton one where reagan got shot that's all i said as i left him there and he didn't say another word fifteen passing the time in my room at the hilton i updated my computer files on what little i had learned at the foundation and then called greg glenn to fill him in on everything that had transpired in chicago and washington when i was done he whistled loudly and i pictured him leaning back in the chair thinking of the possibilities it was a fact that i already had a good story but i was unhappy i wanted to stay on the leading edge of it i didn't want to have to rely on the fbi and other investigators to tell me what they felt like telling me i wanted to investigate this is the end of this cassette this program is continued on side one of cassette number four this is cassette number four [Music] it was a fact that i already had a good story but i was unhappy i wanted to stay on the leading edge of it i didn't want to have to rely on the fbi and other investigators to tell me what they felt like telling me i wanted to investigate i had written countless stories about murder investigations but each time i was always an outsider looking in this time i was inside and wanted to stay there i was riding the front of the wave i realized that my excitement must be the same as sean felt when he was on a case in the hunt as he called it are you there jack what uh yeah i was just thinking of something else when can we do the story depends tomorrow's friday give me till tomorrow i have this feeling about the foundation guy but if i don't hear anything by mid morning tomorrow i'll try the fbi i've got a name of a guy if that doesn't get me anywhere i'll come back and write the story saturday for sunday sunday was the biggest circulation day i knew glenn would want to go big with it on a sunday well even if we have to settle for that what you've got is a hell of a lot you've got a nationwide investigation of a serial killer of cops who's been operating with impunity for who knows how long this will it's not that strong nothing is confirmed right now it's a two-state investigation into the possibility of a cop killer it's still damn good and once the fbi is in it's nationwide we'll have the new york times the post all of them following our ass following my ass i felt like saying but didn't glenn's words revealed the real truth behind most journalism there wasn't much that was altruistic about it anymore it wasn't about public service and the people's right to know it was about competition kicking ass and taking names what paper has the story and which one is left behind and which one gets the pulitzer at the end of the year it was a dim view but after as many years as i had been at it my view pretty much wasn't anything else but cynical still i'd be lying if i said i didn't savor the idea of busting out a national story and watching everybody follow i just didn't like talking about it out loud like glenn and there was sean too i was not losing sight of that i wanted the man who did this to him i wanted that more than anything i promised glenn i'd call if anything developed and hung up i pieced around the room for a while and i have to admit i was thinking about the possibilities too i was thinking about the profile this story could give me it could definitely get me out of denver if i wanted it to maybe to one of the big three la new york washington to chicago or miami at the least then beyond that i even began to think about a publishing deal true crime was a major market i shook it off embarrassed it's lucky no one else knows what our most secret thoughts are we'd all be seen for the cunning self-aggrandizing fools we are i needed to get out of the room but couldn't leave because of the phone i turned on the tv and it was just a bunch of competing talk shows serving up the usual daily selection of white trash stories children of strippers on one channel porno stars whose spouses are jealous one another and men who think women should be kept in line with occasional beatings on the other i turned it off and thought of an idea all i had to do was leave the room i decided it would guarantee that warren would call because i wouldn't be there to take the call it worked every time i just hoped he would leave a message the hotel was on connecticut avenue near dupont circle i walked toward the circle and stopped into a mystery bookstore to buy a book called multiple wounds by alan russell i'd read a good review of it somewhere and figured reading it would take my mind off of things before going back into the hilton i spent a few minutes walking around the outside of the hotel looking for the spot where hinckley had waited with a gun for reagan i remembered the pictures of the chaos vividly but i couldn't find the spot it made me think the hotel had made some renovations maybe so that the spot didn't become a tourist destination as a police reporter i was a tourist of the macabre i moved from murder to murder horror to horror without licking an eye supposedly as i walked back in through the lobby toward the bank of elevators i thought about what this said about me maybe something was wrong with me why was the spot where hinckley waited important to me jack i turned around at the elevators it was michael warren hey i called your room i thought you might be around i was just taking a walk i was beginning to give up on you i said it with a smile and a lot of hope this moment would determine a lot of things for me he was no longer in the suit he had on at his office it was blue jeans and a sweater he had a long tweed coat over his arm he was following the pattern of a confidential source coming in person rather than leaving a possible phone record you want to go up to the room or talk down here he moved toward the elevator saying your room we didn't speak in the elevator of anything of consequence i looked at his clothes again and said you've already been home i live off of connecticut on the other side of the beltway maryland it wasn't that far i knew that was a toll call and that was why he hadn't called first i also figured that the hotel was on the way from his house to the foundation i was beginning to feel the small tick of excitement in my chest warren was going to turn there was a damp smell in the hallway that seemed to be the same in every hotel i had ever been in i got out my card key and let him into my room my computer was still open on the little desk and my long jacket and the one tie i brought with me were thrown across the bed otherwise the room was neat he threw his coat on the bed and we took the only chairs in the room so what's going on i asked i did a search he started to take a folded paper out of his back pocket before i left for the day he said i have access to main computer files i went in and searched the field reports for victims who were homicide detectives there were only 13 i have names departments and dates of death here on a printout he offered me the unfolded page and i took it from him as gently as if it were a sheet of gold thank you i said will there be a record of your search i don't really know but i don't think so it's a pretty wide open system i don't know if there's a security trace option or not thank you i said again i didn't know what else to say anyway that was the easy part he said going through the protocols and file storage that's going to take some time i wanted to know if you'd want to help you probably know better than me which ones are important when tonight it's the only time the place will be closed up but i had a key to file storage because sometimes i have to dig out old things for media requests if we don't do it tonight the hard copy files may be gone tomorrow i have a feeling the fbi isn't going to like them sitting up here especially knowing you asked for them they'll come and grab them first thing tomorrow is that what ford said not exactly i heard it through oleen he talked to rachel walling not bacchus he said she's wait a minute rachel walling i knew the name took a moment but then i remembered she was the behavioral sciences section profiler who had signed the bicap survey sean had submitted on teresa lofton yes rachel walling she's a profiler down there why nothing the name's familiar she works for bacchus sort of the liaison between the center and the foundation on the suicide project anyway olean says she told ford she's going to take a look at all of this she might even want to talk to you if i don't talk to her first i stood up let's go listen one thing he stood up i didn't do this okay you use these files as an investigative tool only you never publish a story that says you had access to foundation files you'd never admit that you even saw a file it could be my job do you agree absolutely then say it i agree to all of it we headed toward the door it's funny he said all those years procuring sources i never really realized what they were risking for me now i do it's kind of scary i just looked at him and nodded i was afraid if i said anything he'd change his mind and go home on the way to the foundation in his car he added a few more ground rules i am not to be named a source in your story okay okay and any information from me cannot be attributed to a foundation source either just a source familiar with the investigation okay that gives me some cover okay what you're looking for here are names that might be connected to your guy if you find them fine but later on you don't have to report on how you got them do you understand yeah we've been over this you're safe mike i don't give up sources ever all i'll do is use what we get here to get other confirmation it'll be the blueprint it's no problem he was quiet for a few moments before doubts must have crept into his mind he's going to know it's me anyway and why don't we stop i don't want to jeopardize your job i'll just wait on the bureau i didn't want to do that but i had to give him the option i wasn't that far gone yet that i'd talk a guy into losing his job just to get information for a story i didn't want that on my conscience there was enough there already you can forget the fbi as long as it's walling's case you know her is she tough yeah one of those as hard as nails with fingernail polish on i tried shooting the with her once she just shut me down from what i hear from all lean she got divorced or something a while back i guess she's still in her men or pigs mode and it's looking permanent to me i held up saying anything warren had to make a decision and i couldn't help don't worry about ford he said finally he may think it's me but he won't be able to do anything about it i'll deny so unless you break the agreement he'll have nothing but his suspicions you've got nothing to worry about with me he found a spot on half blocked from the foundation and parked our breath was coming out in thick clouds when we got out i was nervous whether or not he thought his job was in danger i think we both were there was no guard to be fooled no staff members working overtime to surprise us we got in the front door with warren's key and he knew right where we were going the file storage room was about the size of a double wide garage and was taken up by rows of eight foot steel shelves stacked with manila files with different colored tabs how are we going to do this i whispered he took the folded print out from his pocket there's a section on the suicide study we look up these names take the protocols to my office and copy the pages we need i left the copier on when i left would even have to warm it up and you don't have to whisper there's nobody here i noticed he said we one too many times but i didn't say anything about it he led me down one of the aisles his finger out and pointing as he read the program headings printed on the shelves eventually he found the heading for the suicide study the files had red tabs on them these here warren said raising his hand to point the files were thin yet they completely took up three shelves olding frederick had been right there were hundreds each red tag protruding from a file was a death there was a lot of misery on the shelves now i had to hope that a few of them didn't belong there warren handed me the printout and i scanned the 13 names out of all these files only 13 were homicide cops yeah the project has accumulated data on over 1600 suicides about 300 a year but most are street cops homicide dicks see the bodies but i guess for them the misery is over by the time they get there they're usually the best and the brightest and the toughest seems like less of them eat the gun than the cops out on the beat so i only came up with 13. your brother and brooks in chicago also came up but i figured you have that stuff i just nodded they should be alphabetical he said read me the names on the list and i'll pull the files and give me your notebook it took less than five minutes to pull the files warren tore blank pages from my notebook and marked the spots in the stacks so they could be slipped back in quickly when we were done it was intense work it wasn't meeting a source like deep throat in a parking garage to help take down a president but my adrenaline was flowing anyway still the same rules applied a source no matter what his information is has a reason a motive for putting themselves on the line for you i looked at warren and couldn't see the true motive it was a good story but it wasn't his story he got nothing from helping other than knowing he had helped was that enough i didn't know but i decided that at the same time that we were entering this sacred bond of reporter and secret source i had to keep him at arm's length until i knew the true motive files in hand we walked quickly down two hallways until we got to room 303 warren suddenly stopped and i almost rammed into him from behind the door to his office was open two inches he pointed to it and shook his head signaling that he hadn't left it that way i raised and dropped my shoulders signaling back that it was his call he leaned an ear toward the crack and listened i heard something too it sounded like the crunching of papers then a swishing sound i felt a cold finger moving over my scalp warren turned back to me with a curious look on his face when suddenly the door swung inward and open it was like dominoes warren made a startled move followed by me and then the small asian man who stood there in the doorway with a feather duster in one hand in a trash bag with the other we all took a moment to get our normal breathing going again sorry mister the asian man said i clean your office oh yeah warren said smiling that's fine that's good you left cubby machine on with that he carried his goods down the hallway and used a key attached by a chain to his belt to get into the next office down i looked it worn and smiled you're right you're no deep throat you're no robert redford let's go he told me to close the door then turn the compact photocopy machine back on and moved around behind his desk files in hand i sat in the same chair i had been in earlier in the day okay he said let's start going through them there should be a synopsis section in each protocol any kind of note or other significant detail should be there if you think it fits copy it we started going through the files as much as i liked him i didn't like the idea of letting him decide in half of the cases if they fit into my theory i wanted to look at all of the cases remember i said we're looking for any kind of flowery language that might sound like literature or a poem or whatever he closed the file he was looking at and dropped it on the stack what you don't trust me to do this no i just i want to make sure we're both on the same wavelength about this that's all look this is ridiculous he said let's just copy them all and get out of here you can take them to your hotel and go through them there it's quicker and safer you don't need me i nodded and realized it was the way we should have done it all along the next 15 minutes he operated the copier while i took the protocols from the files and replaced them after they were copied it was a slow machine not made for heavy use when we were done he turned off the machine and told me to wait in the office i forgot about the cleaners it might be better if i just take these back to storage then come get you okay i started looking through the copied protocols while he was gone but was too nervous to concentrate on them i felt like running out of the door with the copies and getting away before anything could go wrong i looked around his office to try to pass the time i picked up the photo of warren's family a pretty petite wife and two kids a boy and a girl both of preschool age in the photo the door opened while the frame was still on my hand it was warren and i felt embarrassed he paid no notice okay we're ready and like two spies we snuck out under the cover of darkness warren was silent almost all the way back to the hotel i think it was because his involvement was over and he knew it i was the reporter he was the source it was my story i felt his jealousy and desire for the story for the job for what he'd once been and had why'd you really quit man i asked this time he dropped the my wife family i was never home one crisis after another you know i had to cover them all finally i had to make a choice some days i think i made the right one some days i don't this is one of those that i don't this is a hell of a story jack now i was silent for a while warren drove into the hotel's main entrance and headed around the circle to the doors he pointed through the windshield to the right side of the hotel see down there that's where reagan got it i was there five feet from hinckley while we were waiting he even asked me what time it was almost no other reporters were out there back then most of them didn't bother staking his exits but they did after that wow yeah that was a highlight i looked over at him and nodded seriously and then we both laughed we both knew the secret only in a reporter's world would it be a highlight you both knew that probably the only thing better than witnessing a presidential assassination attempt as a reporter was witnessing a successful assassination just as long as you didn't catch a bullet in the crossfire he pulled over at the door and i got out and leaned my head back into the car you're showing your true identity there pal he smiled maybe 16. each of the 13 files was thin containing the five-page protocol questionnaire supplied by the fbi and the foundation and usually just a few more pages of ancillary notes or testimonials to the pressures of the job from colleagues of the deceased most of the stories were the same job stress alcohol marital difficulty depression a basic formula for the police blues but depression was the key ingredient in almost all of the files depression of one sort or another was reported as attacking the victim from inside the job however only a handful mentioned that the victims were troubled by any specific case unsolved or otherwise that they had been assigned to investigate i did a quick of the conclusion segment of each of the protocols and quickly eliminated several of the cases from my investigation because of varying factors ranging from the suicides being witnessed by others or taking place under circumstances precluding a setup the remaining eight cases were going to be more difficult to whittle down because each at least in the summary remarks seemed to fit in each of these cases there was some mention of specific cases burdening the victim the burden of an unsolved case and the quotes from poe were really all i had as far as a pattern went so i stayed with it and made it the standard by which i judged whether these eight remaining cases could be part of a series of false suicides following this as my own protocol led to the dropping of two more cases when i found references to the suicide notes in each the victim wrote to a specific person a mother and one a wife and the other and asked for forgiveness and understanding the notes contained nothing resembling a line of poetry or actually any kind of literature i dropped them and then i had six reading one of the remaining files i came across the victim's suicide note one line like those left by my brother in brooks in an addendum containing the investigators report reading the words sent a chilling electric surge through me for i knew them i am haunted by ill angels i quickly opened my notebook to the page where i had written the stanza from dreamland that lori prine had read to me from the bartlett cd-rom by a root obscure and lonely haunted by ill angels only where an eidolon named night on a black throne reigns upright i have reached these lands newly from an ultimate dim thule from a wild weird climb that lieth sublime outer space out of time i had it cold my brother and morris kotite an albuquerque detective who supposedly killed himself with a shot to the chest and another to the temple had suicide notes that quartered the same stanza of poetry it was a lock but these feelings of vindication and excitement quickly gave way to a deep growing rage i was angry at what had happened to my brother and to these other men i was angry at the living cops for not seeing this sooner and my mind flashed what wexler had said when i had convinced him a reporter he had said now i knew his anger but most of all i realized my anger was for the one who had done this for how little i knew about him in his own words the killer was an idolan i was chasing the phantom it took me an hour to get through the remaining five cases i took notes on three of them and dropped the other two one was rejected when i noticed the death occurred on the same day john brooks was killed in chicago it seemed unlikely given the planning each of the killings must have involved that two could be carried out on one day the other case was rejected because the victim's suicide had been attributed among other things to his despair over a heinous kidnapped murder of a young girl on long island new york it initially appeared though the victim had left no note that the suicide would generally fit my pattern and require further scrutiny but i learned when i read the report to the end that this detective had actually cleared the kidnap murder with the arrest of a suspect this was outside the pattern and of course didn't fit with the theory that larry washington had floated in chicago and that i subscribed to that the same person was killing both the first victim and the homicide cop the final three that held my interest in addition to the kotek case included garland petrie a dallas detective who put one shot into his chest and then another into his face he left a note that read sadly i know i am shorn of my strength of course i hadn't known petrie but i had never heard a cop use the word shorn before the line he had supposedly written had a literary feel to it i just didn't think it would have come from the hand and mind of a suicidal cop the second of the cases was also a one-liner clifford beltran a detective with the sarasota county sheriff's department in florida has supposedly killed himself three years earlier it was the oldest of the cases leaving behind a note that said simply lord help my poor soul again it was a conglomeration of words that sounded odd to me in the mouth of a cop any cop it was just a hunch but i included beltran on my list lastly the third case was included on my list even though there was no mention of a note in the suicide of john p mccafferty homicide detective with the baltimore police i put mccafferty on the list because his death eerily resembled the death of john brooks mccafferty had supposedly fired one shot into the floor of his apartment before firing the second and fatal shot into his throat i remembered lawrence washington's belief that this was a way of getting gunshot residue on the victim's hands four names i studied them and the rest of the notes i had taken for a while and then pulled the book on poe i had bought in boulder out of my flight bag it was a thick book with everything that poe had supposedly ever written i checked the contents page and noted there were 76 pages containing his poetry i realized that my long night was going to get longer i ordered an 8 cup pot of coffee from room service and asked them to bring some aspirin as well for the headache i felt sure i would get from the caffeine binge i then started reading i'm not one who has ever been afraid of aloneness or the dark i've lived by myself for ten years i've even camped alone in the national park and i've walked through deserted burned-out buildings to get to a story i've sat in dark cars on darker streets waiting to confront candidates and mobsters or to meet timid sources while the mobsters certainly put fear in me the fact that i was out there by myself in the dark never did but i have to say that pose words put the chill in me that night maybe it was being alone in a hotel room in a city i didn't know maybe it was being surrounded by the documents of death and murder or that i felt the presence of my dead brother somehow near and maybe also it was just the knowledge of how some of the words i was reading were now being used whatever it was i put a scare on myself that didn't lift as i read even when i turned the television on to provide the comforting hum of background noise propped against the pillows on the bed i read with the lights on either side of me turned on and bright but still i bolted upright when a sudden sharp sound of laughter shot down the hallway outside my room i had just settled back into the comfort of the shell my body had formed in the pillows and was reading a poem entitled an enigma when the phone rang and jolted me again with its double ring so foreign to the sound of my phone at home it was half past midnight and i assumed it was greg glenn in denver two hours behind but as i reached for the phone i knew i was wrong i hadn't told glenn where i had checked in the caller was michael warren just wanted to check in i figured you'd be up and see what you came up with again i felt uneasy about his self-involvement his many questions it was unlike any other source that had ever provided me with information on the sly but still i couldn't just get rid of him given the risk he had taken i'm still going through it all i said sitting here reading the poetry of edgar allan poe i'm scaring myself shitless he laughed politely but does any of it look good as far as the suicides go just then i realized something hey where are you calling from home why didn't you say you live up in maryland yeah why then this is a cold call right it'll be a record on your bill that you called me here man didn't you think about that i couldn't believe his carelessness especially in light of his own warnings about the fbi and agent walling oh i i don't really think i care nobody's going to pull my records it's not like i passed on defense secrets for crying out loud i don't know you know him better than me so never mind that what have you got i told you i'm still looking i've got a couple names that might be good a few names well then good i'm glad it was worth the risk i nodded but realized he couldn't see me do this uh yeah well like i said before thanks i gotta get back to it now i'm fading and i want to get it done then i'll leave you to it maybe tomorrow when you get a chance give me a call to let me know what's going on i don't know if that'll be a good idea michael i think we better lay low well whatever you think i guess i'll be reading all about it eventually anyway you have a deadline yet nope haven't even talked about it nice editor anyway go back to it happy hunting soon i was back in the embrace of the words of the poet dead a hundred and fifty years but reaching from the grave to grip me poe was a master of mood and pace the mood was gloom and the pace often frenetic i found myself identifying the words and phrases of those of my own life i dwelt alone in a world of moan paul wrote and my soul was a stagnant tide cutting words that seemed at least at that moment to fit me i read on and soon felt myself gripped by an empathic hold of the poet's own melancholy when i read the stanzas of the lake but when the night had thrown her pawl upon that spot as upon all and the mystic wind went by murmuring in melody then ah then i would awake to the terror of the lone lake poe had captured my own dread and fitful memory my nightmare he had reached across a century and a half to me and put a cold finger on my chest death was in that poisonous wave and in its gulf a fitting grave i finished reading the last poem at three o'clock in the morning i had only found one more correlation between the poetry and the suicide notes the line attributed in the reports to being dallas detective garland petrie's last sadly i know i am shorn of my strength was taken from a poem entitled for annie but i found no match of the last words attributed to beltran the sarasota detective with any poem that edgar allan poe had written began to wonder if through my fatigue i had simply missed it but knew that i had read too carefully despite the lateness of the hour there simply wasn't a match lord help my poor soul that was the line i now thought that it had been the last true prayer of a suicidal man i scratched beltran from the list thinking that his words of misery were truly his i studied my notes while fending off sleep and decided that the mccafferty case of baltimore and the brooks case of chicago were too similar to be ignored i knew then what i would do in the morning i would go to baltimore to find out more that night my dream came back the only reoccurring nightmare of my entire life as always i dreamed i was walking across a vast frozen lake the ice blew black beneath my feet in all directions i was equal distances from nowhere all horizons were a blinding burning white i put my head down and walked i hesitated when i heard a girl's voice a call for help i looked around but she was not there i turned and headed on a step two then the hand came up through the ice and gripped me it pulled me toward the growing hole was it pulling me down or trying to pull its way out i never knew in all the times i'd had the dream i never knew all i saw was the hand and slender arm reaching up from the black water i knew the hand was death i woke up the lights and the television were still on i sat up and looked around not comprehending at first and then remembering where i was and what i was doing i waited for the chill to pass and then got up i flicked the tv off and went to the minibar broke the seal and opened the door i selected a small bottle of amaretto and sipped it without a glass i checked it off on the little list they give you six dollars i studied the list and the exorbitant prices just to give me something to do eventually i felt the liquor start to warm me i sat on the bed and checked the clock it was quarter to five i needed to go back i needed sleep i got under the covers and pulled the book off the bed table i turned to the poem and read it again my eyes kept returning to the two lines death was in that poisonous wave and in its gulf a fitting grave eventually troubled thoughts gave way to exhaustion i put the book down and collapsed back into my bed's shell i slept the sleep of the dead after that seventeen it was against gladden's instincts to stay in the city but he couldn't leave just yet there were things he had to do the wired funds transfer would land at the wells fargo branch in a few hours and he had to get a replacement camera that was a priority and that couldn't be done if he was on the road running to fresno or someplace so he had to stay in la he looked up at the mirror over the bed and studied his image he had black hair now he hadn't shaved since wednesday and already the whiskers were coming in thick he reached to the bed table for the glasses and put them on he had dumped the colored contacts in the trash can at the in and out where he'd eaten dinner the night before he looked back up at the mirror and smiled at his new image he was a new man he glanced over at the television a woman was performing fellatio on one man while another was having sex with her in the position instinctively favored by dogs the sound was turned down but he knew what the sound would be if it wasn't the tv had been on all night the porno movies that came with the price of the room did little in the way of arousing him because the performers were all too old and looked world weary they were disgusting but he kept the tv on it helped him remember that everyone had unholy desires he looked back to his book and began to read the poem by poe again he knew it by heart after so many years and so many readings but still he liked to see the words on the page and hold the book in his hands he somehow found it comforting in visions of the dark knight i have dreamed of joy departed but a waking dream of life and light hath left me broken-hearted gladden set up and put the book down when he heard a car pulled to a stop outside his room he walked to the curtains and peeked through at the parking lot the sun hurt his eyes the car was just somebody checking in a man and a woman they both looked drunk already and it wasn't yet noon glenn knew it was time to go out he first needed to get a newspaper to see if there was a story about evangeline about himself then to the bank then to find the camera maybe if there was time he'd go searching after that he knew that the more he stayed inside the better his chances were of avoiding detection but he also felt confident that he had covered his tracks sufficiently he changed motels twice since leaving the hollywood star motel the first room in culver city he used only to dye his hair he then cleaned up wiped the place down and left he then drove to the valley and checked into the dump in which he sat now the bonsoir motel on ventura boulevard in studio city 40 bucks a night three channels of adult films included he was registered under the name richard kidwell it was the name on his last id he'd have to get on the net and trade for a few more and he realized that would require him to set up a mail drop to receive the ids and that was another reason to stay in l.a at least for a while he added the mail drop to his list of things to do as he pulled on his pants he glanced at the television a woman with a rubber penis held to her abdomen with straps that went around her pelvis was having sex with another woman gladden tied his shoes turned the tv off and left the room gladden cringed at the sight of the sun he stood across the parking lot to the motel office he wore a white t-shirt with a picture of pluto on it the dog was his favorite cartoon animal in the past wearing the shirt had helped soothe the fears of the children it always seemed to work behind the glass window of the office said a frumpy looking woman with a tattoo on what had been at one time the upper curve of her left breast her skin was sagging now and the tattoo was so old and misshapen it was hard to tell it wasn't a bruise she had on a large blonde wig bright pink lipstick and enough makeup on her cheeks to frost a cupcake or pass for a tv evangelist she had been the one who checked him in the day before he put a dollar bill in the pass-through slot and asked for three-quarters two dimes and a nickel he didn't know how much the papers cost in la in the other cities they had ranged from a quarter to 50 cents sorry babe i don't have change she said in the voice that begged for another cigarette ah gladden said angrily he shook his head there was no service in this world anymore what about in your purse i don't want to have to walk down the street for a paper let me check and watch that mouth you don't have to get so testy you watched her get up she wore a short black tube skirt that embarrassingly displayed a network of varicose veins running down the back of her thighs he realized he had no idea how old she was a used up 30 or an over the hill 45 it seemed that when she bent over to get her purse out of a lower file drawer she was intentionally giving him the view she came up with the purse and dug around in it for change while the large black bag swallowed her hand like an animal she looked at him through the glass with a praising eyes see anything you like she asked no not really gladden replied you got the change she pulled her hand out of the maw of the bag and looked at the change you don't have to be so rude besides i only got 71 cents i'll take it he shoved the dollar through you sure six of it is pennies yes i'm sure there's the money she dropped the change into the slot and he had a difficult time getting it all up because his fingernails were bitten away to nothing you're in row six right she said looking at her occupancy list checked in a single still by yourself what now is this 20 questions just checking what are you doing in there alone anyhow i hope you're not jerking off on the bed spread she smirked she had gotten him back his anger boiled up and he lost it he knew he should keep calm not leave an impression but he couldn't hold back now who's being rude you know what you are you are disgusting those veins running up your ass look like the roadmap the hell lady hey you watch your or what you kicking me out just watch what you say gladden got the last coin up a dime and turned to walk away without replying out on the street he went to the newspaper box and bought the morning edition safely back inside the dark confines of his room gladden dug through the newspaper until he found the metro section the story would be here in you he quickly scanned through the eight pages of the section and found nothing about the motel murder case disappointed he guessed that maybe the death of a black maid wasn't news in this town he tossed the paper down on the bed but as soon as it landed a photograph on the front page of a section caught his attention it was a shot of a young boy on his way down a sliding board he picked the section back up and read the caption that went with the photo it said that swing sets and other children's amusements had finally been replaced at macarthur park following the long period of their removal while a subway station construction project caused the closure of most of the park gladden looked at the photo again the boy in the slide was identified as seven-year-old miguel arrex gladden wasn't familiar with the area where the new park was located but he assumed that a subway station would only be approved for a low income area that meant most of the children would be poor and with dark brown skin like the boy in the photo he decided that he would go to the park later after taking care of his chores and getting situated it was always easier with the poor ones they needed and wanted so much situated gladden thought he knew then that getting situated was his real priority he couldn't stay in this motel or any other no matter how well he had covered his tracks it wasn't safe the stakes were constantly rising and they would be looking for him soon it was a feeling not based on anything other than his gut instinct they would be looking soon and he needed to find a safe place he put the paper aside and went to the phone the smoke cured voice that answered after he dialed zero was unmistakable this is uh richard in six i just wanted to say i'm sorry about what happened earlier i was rude and i apologize she didn't say anything and he pressed on anyway you were right it's getting pretty lonely in here and i was wondering if that offer you sort of made before still was out there what offer she was going to make it difficult you know you asked if i saw anything i liked well i did actually i don't know you were pretty testy i don't like testy what you got in mind i don't know i've got a hundred bucks to make sure it's a good time she was silent at the moment well i get out of this dump at four then i got the whole weekend i could come over gladden smiled but kept it out of his voice can't wait then i'm sorry too about being rude in the things i said that's nice to hear see you soon ola you still there sure baby what's your name darlene well darlene i can't wait till four she laughed and hung up gladden wasn't laughing 18. in the morning i had to wait until 10 before lori prime was at her desk in denver by then i was anxious to get on with the day but hers was just starting and i had to go through the greeting and questions about where i was and what i was doing before finally getting to the point when you did that run on police suicides for me would that have included the baltimore sun yep i assumed it would have but had to check i also knew that computer searches sometimes missed things okay then can you run a search of the sun using just the name john mccafferty i spelled it for sure how far back i don't know five years would be good when do you need it by last night i guess that means you're going to hold this is the end of side one this program is continued on side two of this cassette [Music] sure how far back i don't know five years would be good when do you need it by last night i guess that means you're going to hold it does i listen to the tapping of keys as she conducted the search i pulled the poll book onto my lap and re-read some of the poems while i waited with daylight coming through the curtains the words do not have the same hold on me as the night before okay whoa we've got a lot of hits here jack 28 anything in particular you're looking for um no what's the most recent i knew that she could scan the hits by having just the headlines print out on her screen okay last one detective fired for part in former partners death that's weird i said this should have come up in the first search you did can you read me some of that i heard her tap a few keys and then wait for the story to be printed on her screen okay here goes a baltimore police detective was fired monday for altering a crime scene and attempting to make it appear that his longtime partner had not killed himself last spring the action was taken by a departmental board of rights panel against detective daniel bledsoe after a two-day closed hearing bledsoe could not be reached for comment but a fellow officer who represented him during the hearing said that the highly decorated detective was being treated with undue harshness by a department he had served well for 22 years according to police officials bledsoe's partner detective john mccafferty died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on may 8. his body was found by his wife susan who first called bledsoe bledsoe official said went to his partner's apartment destroyed a note he found in the dead detective's shirt pocket and altered other aspects of the crime scene to make it appear that mccafferty had been killed by an intruder who had grabbed the detective's gun police said do you want me to keep reading jack yeah go ahead police said bledsoe went so for us to fire an additional shot into mccafferty's body striking him in the upper leg bledsoe then told susan mccafferty to call 9-1-1 and he left the apartment feigning surprise when he was later informed that his partner was dead in killing himself mccafferty had apparently already fired one shot into the floor of his home before placing the gun in his mouth and firing the fatal shot investigators contend that bledsoe attempted to make the death appear to be a murder because susan mccafferty stood to receive a higher amount of death health and pension benefits if it could be proven her husband had not killed himself however the scheme unraveled when suspicious investigators interviewed susan mccafferty at length on the day her husband died she eventually admitted to what she had watched bledsoe do am i reading too fast are you taking notes no it's fine keep going okay bledsoe refused to acknowledge any part in the scheme during the investigation and declined to testify in his behalf during the board of rights hearing jerry liebling bledsoe's fellow detective and defense representative during the hearing said bledsoe did what any loyal partner would do for a fallen comrade all he did was try to make things a little better for the widow liebling said but the department has gone too far he tried to do the good thing and now he's lost his job his career his livelihood what kind of message does this send to the rank and file other officers contacted mundy expressed similar feelings but ranking officials said that bledsoe had been treated fairly and cited the department's decision not to file criminal charges against bledsoe or susan mccafferty as a sign of compassion for the two the cavity and bledsoe had been partners for seven years and handled some of the higher profile murders in the city during that time one of those killings was attributed in part to mccafferty's death police said that mccafferty's depression over the unsolved killing of polly amherst a first grade teacher who was abducted from campus at the private hopkins school sexually mutilated and strangled led him to thoughts of killing himself mccafferty was also struggling with a drinking problem so now the department hasn't lost one fine investigator liebling said after monday's hearing it has lost two they'll never find two guys that were as good as bledsoe and mccafferty the department really blew it today that's it jack okay uh i'm going to need you to send that to my computer basket i have my laptop i can get it okay what about the other stories can you go back to the headlines are any of them about mccafferty's death or are they all stories on cases she took a half minute to scroll through the headlines it looks like they are all about cases there are quite a few on the school teacher nothing else on the suicide and you know what the reason that story i just read didn't come up on my search on monday was because the word suicide was never in it that was the key word i plugged in i'd already figured that out i asked her to ship the stories on the teacher to my computer basket thanked her and hung up i called the main detective bureau of the baltimore police department and asked for jerry liebling liebling autos detective liebling my name is jack mcavoy and i'm wondering if you can help me i'm trying to reach dan bledsoe that would be in regard to what i'd rather talk to him about it i'm sorry i can't help you when i've got another call look i know what he tried to do for mccafferty i want to tell him something that i think will help him that's really all i can say but if you don't help me you are missing a chance to help him i can give you my number why don't you call him and give it to him let him decide it was a long silence and i suddenly thought i had been talking to a dead line hello yeah i'm here look if dan wants to talk to you he'll talk to you you call him he's in the book what the phone book that's right i gotta go he hung up i felt foolish i never even considered the phone book because i never knew a cop who put his name in it i dialed information for baltimore again and gave the former detective's name i have no listing for a daniel bledsoe i have bledsoe insurance and bledsoe investigations okay give me those and uh can i get the addresses please actually they are separate listings and numbers but the same address in fell's point he gave me the information and i called the investigations number a woman answered bledsoe investigations uh yes can i speak to dan i'm sorry he's unavailable do you know if he'll be in later today he's in now he's just on the line this is his service when he's out or on his line it rings through but i know he's there he checked for messages not ten minutes ago but i don't know for how long i don't keep his schedule fell's point is a spit of land east of baltimore's inner harbor the tourist shops and hotels give way to funkier pubs and shops and then old brick factories and little italy on some streets the asphalt is worn off of the underlying brick and when the wind is right there is the damp tang of the sea or the smell of the sugar factory just across the inlet bledsoe investigations and insurance was in a one-story brick building at caroline and fleet it was a few minutes after one on the door of his small street front office was a plastic clock face with adjustable hands and the words be back at the clock was set at one i looked around saw no one making a run for the door to beat the deadline and decided to wait for him anyway i had nowhere else to go i walked down to the market on fleet bought a coke and went back to my car from the driver's seat i could see the door to bledsoe's office i watched it for 20 minutes until i saw a man with jet black hair a middle-aged punch peeking through his jacket and a slight limp walk up unlock the door and go in i got out with my computer satchel and headed for him bledsoe's office looked like it had once been a doctor's office i could not figure out why a doctor would have hung a shingle out in this working district there was a little entry room with a sliding window and counter behind which i imagined the receptionist at one time sat the window glazed like a shower door was closed i had heard a buzz when i had opened the door but no one responded to it i stood there a few moments looking around there was an old couch and a coffee table not much room for anything else a variety of magazines were fanned across the table none of them fresher than six months old i was about to call out a hello or knock on the door to the inner sanctum when i heard a toilet flush somewhere on the other side of the sliding window then i saw a blurred figure move behind the glass and the door to the left opened the man with the black hair stood there i noticed now that he had a mustache as thin as a freeway on a map traveling over his lip asked can i help you daniel bledsoe that's right my name's jack mcavoy i'd like to ask you about john mccafferty i think we both might be able to help each other john the cafeteria was a long time ago he was eyeing the computer satchel it's just a computer i said can we sit down someplace uh sure why not i followed through the door and down a short hallway that had three more doors lined along the right side he opened the first one and we stepped into an office of cheap faux maple paneling his state license was framed on the wall as well as some photos from his days as a cop the whole thing seemed about as cheesy as his mustache i was determined to play it out the thing i know about cops and i guessed that it extended to former cops was that looks were deceiving i knew some in colorado would still be wearing pale blue polyester leisure suits if they made them anymore but nevertheless they were some of the best and brightest and toughest of their departments i suspected it was that way with blood so he took a seat behind a desk with a black formica top it had been a poor choice when he bought it at the second hand office furniture store i could plainly see the dust build up on the shiny surface i set across from bledsoe in the only other chair he accurately registered my impressions place used to be an abortion clinic guy went away for doing third trimester jobs i took it over and don't care about the dust and looks i get a lot of my work over the phone selling policies to cops and i usually go to clients the ones that want an investigation they don't come to me the people that do come here usually just leave flowers out by the door memorials i guess i figured they must be working off of old phone books or something why don't you tell me what you're looking for here i told him about my brother and then about john brooks in chicago i watched his face filled with skepticism as i talked he told me i was maybe 10 seconds from being thrown out the door what is this he said who sent you here nobody but it's my guess that i'm maybe a day or so ahead of the fbi they'll be coming i just thought you'd maybe talk to me first i know what it's like you see my brother and me we were twins i've always heard that long-time partners especially on homicide become like brothers like twins i held up for a few moments i had played everything but my ace and i had to wait for the right moment bledsoe seemed to cool down a little his anger was maybe giving way to confusion so what do you want from me the note i want to know what mccafferty said in the note there was no note i never said there was a note but his wife said there was then go talk to her no i think i'd rather talk to you let me tell you something the doer on these cases somehow gets the victims to write out a line or two as a suicide note i don't know how he does it or why they oblige him but they do and every time the line is from a poem a poem by the same writer edgar allan poe i reached down to my computer satchel and unzipped it i pulled out the thick book of poe's works i put it on the desk so that he could see it i think your partner was murdered you came in and it looked like a suicide because that was how it was supposed to look that note you destroyed i'd bet you your partner's pension that it's a line from a poem that's in that book bledsoe looked from me to the book and then back at me again you apparently thought you owed him enough to risk your job to make his widow's life a little easier yeah look what got me a piece of office with a piece of license on the wall i sit in a room where they used to cut babies out of women it's not very noble look everybody on the force knew there was something noble about what you did else you wouldn't be selling any insurance you did what you did for your partner you should follow through now level turned his head and looked at one of the photos on the wall it was him and another man arms around each other's neck smiling with abandon it looked like it had been taken in a bar somewhere during the good days the fever called living is conquered at last he said without looking away from the photo i slapped my hand down on the book the sound scared us both got it i said and picked up the book i had bent the pages of the poems where the killer's quotes had been taken i found the page with the poem for annie on it scanned until i knew i was right then put the book on the desk and turned it so he could read it first stanza i said bledsoe leaned over to read the poem thank heaven the crisis the danger is passed and the lingering illness is over at last and the fever called living is conquered at last 19. as i hurried through the lobby of the hilton at four i envisioned greg glenn slowly making his way out from behind his desk and heading toward the daily news meeting in the metro conference room i needed to talk to him and i knew that if i didn't snag him first he'd be holed up in that meeting and the weekend meeting that followed for the next two hours as i approached the elevators i saw a woman stepping through the open doors of the one available car and quickly followed her in she had already pushed the 12 button i moved to the rear of the car and checked my watch again i thought i was going to make it the editors meetings never seemed to get off on time the woman had moved to the right side of the car and we had settled into the slightly uncomfortable silence that always comes when strangers are enclosed in an elevator in the polished brass trim on the door i could see her face her eyes watched the lights over the doors that marked our ascent she was very attractive and i found it hard to turn away from the reflection even though i feared she would turn her eyes and catch me i imagine that she knew i was watching her i've always believed that beautiful women know and understand they are always being watched when the elevator opened on 12 i waited for her to step out first she turned to the left and headed down the hall i turned right and headed to my room stopping myself from taking a backward glance at her as i approached my door pulling the card key out of my shirt pocket i heard light steps on the hallway carpet i turned and it was her she smiled wrong way yeah i said and smiled after a while it's all a maze dumb thing to say i thought as i opened the door and she passed behind me as i entered the room i felt a hand suddenly gripped the back of my jacket collar and i was shoved into the room as this happened another hand went up under my jacket and grabbed onto my belt i was slammed face down onto the bed i managed to hold on to the computer bag not wanting to drop a two thousand dollar piece of equipment but then it was roughly yanked out of my grasp fbi you're under arrest don't move while one hand stayed on the back of my neck and held me face down the other then patted my body in a search what the is this i managed to say in a voice muffled by the mattress just as suddenly as they had gripped me the hands were gone okay ah let's go i turned and raised myself until i was seated on the bed i looked up it was the woman from the elevator my mouth dropped open a little something about being handled so easily by her and her alone burned me deeply and anger flushed my cheeks don't worry i've done it to bigger and better men than you you better have an id or you're going to need a lawyer she pulled a wallet out of her coat pocket and flipped it open in front of my face you're the one who needs the lawyer now i want you to take the chair from the desk put it in the corner and sit there while i go through this place it won't take long she had what looked like the legitimate fbi badge and id it said special agent rachel walling once i read that i began to get an idea of what was going on come on chop chop in the corner you go let's see the search warrant you have a choice she said sternly go to the corner or i take you into the bathroom and cuff you to the drain trap under the sink make it i stood up and dragged the chair into the corner and sat down i still want to see the warrant are you aware that your use of coarse language is a rather lame attempt to re-establish your sense of male superiority jesus are you aware that you are full of where is the warrant i don't need a warrant you invited me in and allowed me to search then i arrested you after i found the stolen property she stepped back to the door her eyes on me and closed it i didn't invite you anywhere you try that and you'll crash and burn you believe any judge is going to believe i was stupid enough to invite a search if i had stolen property in here she looked at me and smiled sweetly mr mcavoy i am five foot five and weigh 115 pounds that's with my gun on do you think a judge will believe your version of what happened would you even want to reveal what i just did to you in open court i looked away from her and out the window the maid had opened it the sky was beginning to lose the light i didn't think so she said now you want to save me some time where are the protocols you copied in the computer bag i committed no crime in getting them and just having them is not a crime i had to be careful of what i said i didn't know if michael warren had already been found out or not she was going through the satchel she pulled out the poll book looked at it quickly and threw it on the bed she then pulled out my notebook in the sheaf of copies of the protocols warren had been right she was a beautiful woman a hard shell but beautiful just the same about my age maybe a year or two older her hair was brown and falling to just above her shoulders sharp green eyes and a strong aura of confidence that was what was most attractive about her though at the moment i think i hated her the attraction was not lost on me breaking and entering is a crime she said it came under my jurisdiction when it was determined that the document stolen belonged to the bureau i didn't break into anything and i didn't steal anything what this is is harassment i've always heard that you bureau people get upset when somebody else does your job for you she was leaning over the bed looking through the papers she straightened up reached into her pocket and pulled out a clear plastic evidence bag with a single sheet of paper in it she held it up for me to look at i recognized it as having been torn from a reporter's notebook there were six lines written on it in black ink i also recognized that i had written them pena his hands after how long wexler scolari the car heater lock riley gloves i recognized my own handwriting and then it all tumbled together warren had torn sheets from my notebook to mark the spots of the files we had pulled he had torn a page with old notes on it and somehow had left it behind when he returned the files walling must have seen the recognition in my face sloppy work after we get the handwriting analyzed and compared i think it'll be a slam dunk what do you think i couldn't even manage a you this time i'm seizing your computer this book and your notebooks as possible evidence if you don't need any of it you'll get it back okay we're going to go now my car is right out front the one thing i'm willing to do for you to show i'm not such a mean girl is take you down without the cuffs we've got a long ride down to virginia though we might beat some of the traffic if we get going now are you going to behave one false move as they say and i'll put you in the back with the cuffs on as tight as a wedding ring i just nodded and stood up i was in a daze i couldn't meet her eyes i walked toward the door with my head down hey what do you say she said to me i mumbled my thanks and i heard her soft laughter behind me she was wrong we didn't beat the traffic it was friday evening more people were trying to get out of the city than most nights and we crawled along with them as we crossed the city to get to a freeway for a half hour neither of us spoke except when she cursed at a traffic snarl or a red light i was in the front seat thinking the whole time i had to make a call to glenn as soon as possible they had to get me a lawyer a good one i saw that the only way out was to reveal a source i had promised i would never reveal i considered the possibility that if i called warren that he would come forward and confirm that i hadn't broken into the foundation but i discarded it i had made a covenant with him i had to honor it when we finally made it south of georgetown the traffic opened up a little bit and she seemed to relax or at least remember i was in the car with her i saw her reach into the ashtray and pull out a white card she put the dome light on and held the card on the top of the steering wheel so she could read it while she drove you have a pen what a pen i thought all reporters carried pens yes i have a pen good i'm going to read you your constitutional rights what rights you've already violated most of them she proceeded to read from the card and then asked if i understood them i mumbled that i did and she handed me the card okay good i want you to take your pen and sign and date the back of that i did as instructed and handed the card back she blew on the ink until it dried and then put the card in her pocket there she said now we can talk unless you want to call your lawyer how'd you get into the foundation i didn't break in that's all i can say till i talk to a lawyer you saw the evidence are you going to say that's not yours it can be explained look all i'm saying is i did nothing illegal to get those copies i can't say anything more without revealing i didn't finish i'd said enough that old can't reveal my sources trick where were you all day today mr mcavoy i've been waiting since noon i was in baltimore doing what that's my business you have the originals on those protocols you can figure it out the mccafferty case you know interfering with the federal investigation can get you charged with additional crimes i gave her my best fake laugh yeah right i said sarcastically what federal investigation you'd still be down there in your office counting suicides if i hadn't talked to ford yesterday but that's the bureau's way right if it's a good idea oh that's our idea if it's a good case yeah we made that case meantime it's here no evil see no evil and a lot of goes by unnoticed jesus who died and made you the expert my brother she didn't see that coming and it shut her down for a few minutes it also seemed to have the effect of breaking through the shell she surrounded herself with i'm sorry about that she finally said so am i all the anger about what had happened to sean welled up inside of me but i swallowed it back she was a stranger and i couldn't share something so profoundly personal with her i shove it back and thought of something else to say you know you might have known him you signed the vicap survey and the profile he got from the bureau on his case yes i know but we never spoke how about if you answer a question now maybe go ahead how did you find me i was wondering if warren had somehow put her on to me if i could determine that he had then all bets were off and i wasn't going to go to jail protecting the person who had set me up in the first place that was the easy part she said i had your name and pedigree from dr ford at the foundation he called me after your little meeting yesterday and i came up this morning i thought it might be wise to safeguard those files and sure enough i had been right just a little late you do quick work once i found the page from a reporter's notebook it was pretty easy to figure out you'd been there i didn't break in there well everyone associated with the project denies talking to you in fact dr ford specifically remembers telling you that you could not have access to the files until the bureau signed off on it funny thing here you are with the files and how do you know i was at the hilton was that written on a piece of paper for you too left your city editor like he was a copy boy i told him i had important information for you and he told me where you were i smiled but turned and looked out the window so she wouldn't see it she had just made a mistake that was just as telling as if she had said outright that warren had revealed where i was they don't call them copy boys anymore i said it's politically incorrect copy person close enough with a straight face i looked over at her for the first time while in the car i felt myself making a comeback the confidence she had so expertly stomped into the bed spread in the hotel room was getting a second life now i was playing her i thought you people always work in twos i said we were stopping yet another red light i could see the freeway entrance up ahead i had to make my move usually she said but today was busy a lot of people out and actually when i left quantico i thought i was just going up to the foundation to talk to olin and dr ford and to pull the records i wasn't counting on a custody arrest her show was falling apart quickly i was seeing it now no cuffs no partner me in the front seat and i knew that greg glenn didn't know where i was staying in dc i hadn't told him and i hadn't made the reservation through the rocky's travel office because there hadn't been time my computer satchel was on the seat between us on top of it she had stacked the copies of the protocol files the poll book and my notebook i reached over and pulled it all onto my lap what are you doing she asked i'm getting out of here i toss the protocols onto her lap you can keep those i've got all the information i need i pulled the door handle and opened the door don't you move i looked at her and smiled are you aware that your use of course language is a lame attempt to re-establish your superiority look it was a nice play but you ran out of the right answers i'll just catch a cab back to the hotel i've got a story to write i got out of the car with my things and stepped onto the sidewalk i looked around and saw a convenience store with a phone out front and started walking that way next i saw her car cut into the parking lot and park in my path she jerked it to a stop and jumped out you're making a mistake she said coming quickly toward me what mistake you made the mistake what was that charade all about she just looked at me she was speechless okay i'll tell you what it was i said it was a scam scam why would i scam you information you wanted to know what i had let me guess once you had what you wanted you were going to come in and say oh gee sorry your source just copped never mind you're free to go and sorry about the little misunderstanding well you better go back down to quantico and practice your act i walked around her and headed to the pay phone i picked the receiver off the hook and the phone was dead i didn't let on though she was watching me i dialed information i need a cab company i said to the non-existent operator i dropped a quarter in the slot and dialed a number i then read the address off the phone and asked for a cab when i hung up and turned around agent walling was standing there very close she reached past me and picked up the phone after holding it to her ear for a second she smiled slightly and hung it back up she pointed to the side of the box to where the receiver cable was attached it was severed the wires tied together in a knot your act could use some polish too fine just leave me alone i turned away and started looking through the store's glass windows to see if there was another phone inside there wasn't look what did you want me to do she asked my back i need to know what you know i whipped around on her then why didn't you just ask why'd you have to try to humiliate me you are a reporter jack are you going to tell me you were just going to open up your files and share with me maybe yeah right that'll be the day when one of you people do that look at warren he's not even a reporter anymore and he was acting like one it's in the blood hey you know speaking of blood there's more at stake here than a story okay you don't know what i would have done if you had approached me like a human being okay she said softly maybe i don't i'll grant you that we did a little pacing in opposite directions until she spoke so what do we do here we are you found me out now you have a choice i need to know what you know are you going to tell me or are you going to take your ball and go home you do that and we both lose out so does your brother she had skillfully backed me into the corner and i knew it on principle i should have walked off but i couldn't despite everything i liked her i silently walked to the car got in and then looked at her through the windshield she nodded once and came around to the driver's side after getting in she turned to me and held out her hand rachel walling i took it and shook it jack mcavoy i know nice to meet you likewise 20. as a show of good faith rachel walling went first after extracting a promise from me that the conversation was off the record until her team supervisor decided how much cooperation if any the bureau would give me i didn't mind making the promise because i knew i was holding the high hand i already had a story and the bureau would likely not want a story published yet i figured that gave me a lot of leverage whether agent walling realized it yet or not for a half hour while we moved slowly south on the freeway toward quantico she told me what the bureau had been doing for the last 28 hours nathan ford of the law enforcement foundation had called her at three o'clock thursday to inform her of my visit to the foundation the findings of my own investigation to that point and my request to see the suicide files walling concurred with his decision to rebuff me and then consulted with bob backus her immediate supervisor backus gave her the go-ahead to drop the profiling work she had been assigned and proceed with a priority investigation of the claims i had made in my meeting with ford at this time the bureau had not yet heard from anyone from the denver or chicago police department walling started her work on the behavioral science services computer which had a direct tie to the foundation computer basically i did the same search michael warren did for you she said in fact i was online in quantico when he went in and did it i just id'd the user and literally watched him do it on my laptop i guessed right then that you had turned him as a source and he was doing the search for you this became a problem of containment as you can imagine i didn't need to go up to the city today because we have hard copies of all the protocols at quantico but i had to see what you were doing i got a second confirmation that warren was leaking to you and that you had copies of the protocols when i found your notebook page left in the files i shook my head what's going to happen to warren after i told ford we confronted him this morning he admitted what he had done even told me what hotel you were at ford asked for his resignation and warren gave it i felt a pang of guilt yet i was not overwrought by what had happened for i wasn't sure if warren hadn't somehow engineered his own dismissal maybe it was a self-derailment at least that's what i told myself it was easier to handle that way by the way she said where did i go wrong with my act my editor didn't know where i was staying only warren knew she was quiet for a few moments until i prompted her to continue the chronology of her investigation she told me that on thursday afternoon when she ran the computer search she came up with the same 13 names of dead homicide detectives as warren had gotten for me plus my brother and john brooks of chicago she then pulled the hard copies of the protocols and looked for ties keying on the suicide notes as i had told ford i wanted to do she had the aid of a bureau cryptologist and the fbi cipher computer which had a database that made the rockies look like a comic book including your brother and brooks we came up with a total of five direct connections to the notes she said so in about three hours you did what it took me all week to do how'd you get the cavity without the note in the file she took her foot off the gas and looked over at me only for a moment then she took the car back up to speed we didn't count mccafferty there are agents from the baltimore field office on that now this was puzzling because i had five cases including mccafferty then what five have you got uh let me think okay my brother and brooks that's two i was opening my notebook as i said this right reading my notes i said you got koteit in albuquerque haunted by ill angels right we have him there was one in dallas garland petry sadly i know i am shorn of my strength from for annie yeah got that and then i had mccafferty who do you have um something or other from florida it was an old one he was a sheriff's deputy i need my notes wait a minute i flipped through a few pages of my notebook and found it clifford beltran sarasota county sheriff's department he that's it but wait a minute i've got his notice lord help my poor soul i read all the poems that wasn't in any of them you're right you found it somewhere else where one of the short stories no they were his last words pose last words lord helped my poor soul i nodded it wasn't a poem but it fit so now there were six i was quiet a moment almost in respect to the new man added to the list i looked down at my notes beltran had been dead three years a long time for a murder to go unnoticed was poe a suicide no no i suppose his lifestyle might be considered a long suicide he was a womanizer and a heavy drinker he died at 40 apparently after a lengthy drinking bout in baltimore i nodded thinking about the killer the phantom and wondering if he drew corollaries to pose life jack what about mccafferty she asked we had him as a possible but no note according to the protocol what did you get now i had another problem bledsoe he had revealed something to me that he had not revealed to anyone before i didn't feel i could just turn around and give it to the fbi i've got to make a call first before i can tell you oh jesus jack you going to pull that after all i just told you i thought we had a deal we do i just have to make a call first and clear something with a source get me to a phone and i'll do it right then i don't think it will be a problem anyway the bottom line is mccafferty is on the list there was a note i looked through my notebook again and then read from it the fever called living is conquered at last that was the note it's from for annie just like petrie in dallas i looked over at her and could tell she was still upset look rachel can i call you that i'm not going to hold back on you i'll make the call your agents from the field office probably already got this anyway probably she said in a voice that seemed to say anything you can get we can get better okay so go on then what happened after you came up with the list of five she told me that at six o'clock thursday evening she and bacchus convened the meeting of bss and critical incident unit agents to discuss her preliminary findings after she trotted out the five names she had and explained the connections her boss bacchus became agitated and ordered a full-scale priority investigation walling was named a lead agent reporting to him other bss and ciu agents were assigned to victimology and profiling tasks and vicap liaison agents from local field offices in the five cities where the deaths occurred were scrambled to immediately begin gathering and shipping data on the deaths involved the team literally worked through the night the poet what we're calling him the poet every task force investigation gets a code name jesus i said the tabloids are going to love that i can see the headlines the poet kills without rhyme or reason you guys are asking for it the tabs will never know about it bacchus is determined that we get this guy before he's spooked by any press leaks there was silence while i thought of how to answer that aren't you forgetting something i finally asked jack i know you're a reporter and you're the one who started this whole thing but you've got to understand if you start a media firestorm about this guy will never get him he'll get spooked and go back underneath his rock we'll lose our chance well i'm not on the public payroll what i am though is paid to report and write stories the fbi cannot tell me what and when to write you can't use anything i just told you i know it i agreed and i'll keep my word i don't need to use it i already had it most of it all except for beltran and all i have to do is read the bio section of this book and i'll find his last words i don't need the fbi's information or permission for this story that brought the silence back i could tell she was steaming but i had to stand my ground i had to play my cards as shrewdly as i could in this kind of game you don't get a second deal after a few minutes of this i started seeing the freeway signs for quantico we were close look i said we will talk about the story later i'm not going to run off and start writing my editor and i will calmly talk about it and i will let you know what we're going to do is that okay that's fine jack i hope you're thinking about your brother when you have that discussion i'm sure your editor won't be look do me a favor don't talk to me about my brother and my motives because you don't know a thing about me or him or what i'm thinking about fine we drove a few miles in solid silence my anger wore off a bit and i began wondering if i'd been too harsh her goal was to capture this person they now called the poet it was mine too look i'm sorry for the speech i said i still think we can help each other we can cooperate and maybe catch the sky i don't know she replied i don't see the point in cooperating when what i say is just going to show up in the newspapers and then the tv and then the tabloids you're right i don't know what you're thinking i don't know you and i don't think i can trust you she didn't say another word until we got to the gatehouse at quantico 21. it was dark and i couldn't see the grounds well as we drove in the fbi academy and research center was located in the heart of a u.s marine base it consisted of three sprawling brick buildings connected by glassed walkways and atriums agent walling pulled into a lot marked for fbi agents only and parked she continued her silence as we parked and got out it was getting to me i did not want her unhappy with me or thinking of me as self-serving look my main priority is obviously to get this guy i tried let me just use a phone i'll call my source and my editor and we'll work something out okay sure she said grudgingly one word and i was happy just to have finally leveraged something out of her we went into the center building took a series of hallways to a set of stairs which we took down to the national center for the analysis of violent crime it was the basement she led me past the reception area into a large room that didn't look that much different from a newsroom there were two rows of desks and workspaces with sound partitions between them and a row of private offices running down the right side she stepped back and pointed me into one of the private offices i assumed it was hers though it was austere and impersonal the only photo i saw anywhere was the one of the president on the rear wall why don't you sit there and use the phone she said i'm going to find out where bob is and see what's been going on and don't worry the phone's not tapped as i noted the sarcasm in her voice i saw her eyes scan the desk making sure i would not be left alone with any important documents lying about satisfied there was nothing she left i sat behind the desk and opened my notebook to the numbers dan bledsoe had given me i got him at home it's jack mcavoy from today right yeah listen i got picked up by the fbi after i got back into dc they're doing a major deal on this guy and they've connected up five cases but they don't have mccafferty yet because of no note i can give it to them and they'll go from there but i wanted to check with you first about it they'll probably come to talk to you if i tell them they'll probably come even if i don't while he thought about this my eyes scanned the desk as walling had done it was very clean taken up mostly by a monthly calendar that also served as a blotter i noted that she had just come back from a vacation this is the end of this cassette this program is continued on side one of cassette number five [Music] this is cassette number five it was very clean taken up mostly by a monthly calendar that also served as a blotter i noted that she had just come back from a vacation the date blocks for the prior week having vac written in each one there were abbreviated notations in the blocks for other dates of the month but they were indecipherable to me give it to him bledsoe said you're sure sure if the bureau comes out and says johnny mack was murdered then his wife gets the bread that's all i wanted in the first place so tell them they're not going to do anything to me they can't what's done is done i already heard from a friend that they were up here going through records today okay man thanks you going to get a piece of it i don't know i'm working on it it's your case hang in there but don't trust the g jack they'll use you and what you got and then leave you on the sidewalk like dog i thanked him for the advice and as i hung up a man in the standard issue gray fbi suit walked by the open door of the office noticed me behind the desk and stopped he stepped in a curious look on his face excuse me what are you doing in here waiting for agent walling he was a large man with a sharp and ruddy face and short black hair and you are my name is jack mcavoy she just don't sit behind the desk he made a twirling motion with his hand indicating i should come around to the front of the desk and take one of the chairs there rather than argue the point i followed his instructions he thanked me and left the office the episode served as a reminder to me as to why i never liked dealing with fbi agents in general they all carried anal retentive genes more than most after i was sure he was gone i reached across the desk to walling's phone and punched in greg glenn's direct number it was shortly after five in denver and i knew he would be busy supervising deadline but i had no choice when i could call jack can you call back no i've got to talk to you okay hurry we had another clinic shooting and we're bending deadline i quickly brought him up to date on what i had and what had happened with the fbi he seemed to forget all about the clinic shooting and the deadline repeatedly saying that what i had was fantastic and was going to be a fantastic story i left out the part about warren losing his job and walling's attempt to scam me i told him where i was and what i wanted to do he approved it we're probably going to need the whole news hole for this clinic stuff anyway he said at least the next couple of days it's going crazy here i could use you on rewrite sorry yeah oh well you go ahead and play it out and see what you get then let me know this is going to be great jack i hope so glenn started talking about the possibilities again in terms of journalism awards and kicking the competition's ass breaking a national story while i listened walling stepped into the office with a man i assumed was bob backus he also wore a gray suit but had the air of the man in charge he looked like he was in his mid to late thirties and was still in good shape he had a pleasant look on his face short cropped brown hair and piercing blue eyes i held one finger up to signal i was almost done i cut in on glenn greg i gotta go okay well let me know and one thing jack what get me some art right as i hung up i thought that might be a little too hopeful on his part getting a photographer in on this would be a long shot i had to worry about getting myself in first jack this is bob backus assistant special agent in charge he leads my team bob jack mcavoy of the rocky mountain news we shook hands and backus had a vice lock for a grip that was as standard fbi macho as the suit as he spoke he reached down absent-mindedly to the desk and straightened the calendar always glad to meet one of our friends in the fourth estate especially one that doesn't come from inside the beltway i just nodded it was and everybody there knew it jack why don't we go over to the boardroom and get a cup of coffee becca said it's been a long day i'll show you around a little on the way as we went upstairs backus said nothing of consequence other than to express condolences about my brother after the three of us were seated with our coffee at one of the tables in the cafeteria called the boardroom he got down to business jack we are off the record becca said everything that you see or hear while in quantico is off the record are we clear on that yes for the time being okay if you want to talk about changing that agreement talk to me or rachel then we'll hash it out would you be willing to sign an agreement to that effect sure but i'm going to be the one who writes it bacchus nodded like i had scored a point in a debate final fair enough he moved his coffee cup to the side brushed some unseen impurity off his palms and leaned across the table toward me jack we've got a status meeting in 15 minutes as i am sure rachel has told you we are going full speed we'd be criminally negligent in my opinion if we didn't proceed with this investigation in any other way i've got my entire team on it eight other bss agents on loan two techs assigned full time and six field offices involved i can't remember when we've had that kind of commitment to an investigation before i'm glad to hear that bob he didn't seem to flinch at my use of his first name it had been a small test he was seemingly treating me as an equal calling me by my first name often i decided to see what would happen if i did the same so far so good you have done some very fine work backus continued what you have done has given us a solid blueprint it's a start and i want to tell you we're already more than 24 solid hours into it behind backus i saw the agent who had spoken to me in wallings office sit down at another table with a cup of coffee and a sandwich he watched us as he began to eat we are talking about a tremendous amount of resources being committed to the investigation becca said but right now our number one priority is one of containment it was going exactly the way i had expected and i had to struggle to keep a look on my face that did not give away that i knew i held sway over the fbi and the investigation i had leverage i was an insider you don't want me to write about it i said quietly yes that's exactly right not yet at least we know that you have enough even without what you've learned from us to write a hell of a story it's an explosive story jack if you write about it out there in denver it is going to attract attention overnight it will be on the network and in every newspaper then hard copy in the rest of the tabloids anybody who doesn't have his head in the sand is going to know about it and jack plain and simple we can't have that once the offender knows we know about him he could disappear if he is smart and we already know he is damn smart he will disappear we'll never get him then you don't want that we're talking about the person who killed your brother you don't want that do you i nodded that i understood the dilemma and was silent a moment as i composed my reply i looked from back as to walling and then back to backus my paper has already invested a lot of time and money i said i've got the story down cold just so you understand i could write a story tonight that says authorities are conducting a nationwide investigation into the likelihood that a serial killer of cops has been operating for as long as three years without detection we're talking about one a as i said you've done very good work and nobody's arguing what kind of a story this is so then what are you proposing i just kill it and walk away wait for you to hold a press conference one day when and if you get this guy back has cleared his throat and leaned back i glanced over at walling but her face showed nothing i won't sugarcoat it baca said but yes i want you to sit on the story for a little while until when what's a little while backus looked around the cafeteria as if he had never been there he answered without looking at me until we get this person i whistled low and what would i get for sitting on the story what would the rocky mountain news get first and foremost you'd be helping us get your brother's killer if that's not enough for you i'm sure we could work out some sort of exclusivity agreement on the arrest of the suspect no one spoke for a long moment because it was clear the ball was in my court i weighed my words carefully before finally leaning forward across the table and speaking well bob as i think you know this is one of those rare occasions when you guys don't hold all the cards and can't call all of the shots this is my investigation you see i started it and i'm not just going to drop out i'm not going to go back to denver and sit behind my desk and wait for the phone to ring i'm in and if you don't keep me in then i go back to write the story it will be in the paper sunday morning it's our best circulation day you do that to your own brother walling said the words tight with anger don't you give a rachel please becca said it's a good point what we i give a i said i was the only one who did so don't try to lay any guilt on me my brother stays dead whether you find this guy or not and whether i write the story or not okay jack we're not questioning your motives here becca said his hands raised in a calming gesture we seem to have gotten into an adversarial stance here and i don't want that why don't you clearly tell me what you want i'm sure we are going to work this out right here before the coffee even gets cold it's simple i said quickly put me on the investigation complete access as an observer i won't write a word until we either get the son of a or give up that's blackmail walling said no it's the agreement i'm offering to make i responded it's actually a concession because i have the story now having to sit on it is against my instincts and against what i do i looked at bacchus walling was angry but i knew it didn't matter back us would make the call i don't think we can do that jack he finally said it's against bureau regulations to bring somebody in like that it could be dangerous to you as well i don't care about that any of it that's the deal take it or leave it call whoever you've got to call but that's the deal bacchus pulled his cup in front of him and looked down into the still steaming blackness he hadn't even sipped it this proposal is well above my level of authority he said i'll have to get back to you when i'll make the call right now what about the status conference they can't start without me why don't the both of you wait here this shouldn't take long becca stood up and carefully slid his chair into the table just so we're clear i said before he turned away if allowed into this as an observer with two exceptions i will not write about the case until we have an arrest or you determined it is fruitless and focus your primary efforts on other cases what are the exceptions backus asked one is if you ask me to write about it there may come a time that you want to flush this guy out with a story i'll write it then the other exception is if the story leaks if this shows up in any other paper or on tv all bets are off immediately if i even get wind that somebody else is about to break it i'll break it myself first this is my goddamn story bacchus looked at me and nodded i won't be long after he had left walling looked at me and quietly said if that had been me i would have called your bluff that was no bluff i said that was for real if that's true that you trade catching the guy who killed your brother for a story then that makes me feel very sad for you i'm going to get more coffee she got up then and left me as i watched her walk back to the concession counter my mind wandered over what she had said and then came to rest on the line by poe that i had read the night before that would not leave my memory i dwelt alone in the land of moan and my soul was a stagnant tide 22 when i entered the conference room with bacchus and walling there were a few seats in the room without agents in them the status meeting was set up with agents sitting around the long table and then an outside layer of sitters on chairs lining the walls backus pointed to a chair on the outer rim and signals me to sit in walling then went to the two remaining slots at the center of the table the chairs had apparently been exclusively reserved for them i felt a lot of eyes on me as the stranger but i reached down to the floor and fiddled with my computer satchel acting like i was looking for something so i did not have to meet any of their stairs bacchus had taken the deal or rather whoever he had called had taken the deal i was along for the ride with agent walling assigned to babysit as she called it i wrote out and signed an agreement stating that i would not write about the investigation until its fruition or disbanding or in the event of the occurrence of either of the exceptions i had mentioned earlier i asked backus about a photographer joining me and he said that wasn't part of the deal but he did agree to consider specific requests for photography it was the best i could do for glenn after bacchus and walling were settled in their seats and interest in me lagged i looked about there were a dozen other men and three women in the room including walling most of the men were in short sleeves and appeared to have been at whatever they were doing for a while there were a lot of styrofoam cups a lot of paperwork on laps and on the table a woman was making her way around the room handing out a sheaf of papers to each agent i noticed one of the agents was the sharp-faced man i had encountered in walling's office and then had seen again in the cafeteria when walling had gone to refill her coffee cup i had seen him get up from his meal and go to the food counters to talk to her i couldn't hear what was said but i could tell she had dismissed him and he didn't seem too happy about it okay people becca said let's get this going if we can it's been a long day and they're probably only going to get longer from here the murmur of conversation abruptly halted as smoothly as possible i reached down to my computer bag and slid out a notebook i opened it to a fresh page and got ready to take notes first of all a short announcement baca said the new man you see seated against the wall is jack mcavoy he is a reporter for the rocky mountain news and he plans to be with us until this is over it is his fine work that resulted in this task force being formed he discovered our poet he has agreed not to write about our investigation until we have the offender in custody i want all of you to extend him every courtesy he has the special agent in charges blessing to be here i felt the eyes on me again and i sat frozen with my notebook and pen in hand as if i had been caught at a crime scene with blood on my hands if he's not going to write how come he's got the notebook out i looked toward the familiar voice and saw it was the sharp-faced man from walling's office who had asked the question he needs to take notes so that when he does right he has the facts walling said unexpectedly coming to my defense that'll be the day when one of them reports the facts the agent threw back at her gordon let's not make mr mcavoy uncomfortable becca said smiling i trust he will do a good job the saic trusts that he will and in fact he has done an excellent job up until now so we are going to give him both the benefit of the doubt and our cooperation i watched the one called gordon shake his head and dismay his face darkening at least i was getting clues right away about who to steer clear of the next came when the woman with the handouts passed by me without giving me anything this will be our last group meeting becca said tomorrow most of us separate and the oc for this investigation will move to denver site of the latest case rachel will remain case agent and coordinator brass and brad will stay here to do the collating and all that good stuff i want hard copy reports from all agents by 1800 eastern to denver and quantico every day for now use the facts of the denver field office the number should be on the printout you just received we'll set up our own lines and we'll get those numbers to you as soon as we do now let's go over what we've got it's very important that we're all on the same wavelength i don't want anything slipping through the cracks on this one we've had enough of that already we better not screw up gordon said sarcastically we've also got the press watching us a few people laughed but back us cut it off alright alright gordon you've made your disagreement loud and clear i'm going to yield to brass for a few minutes and she'll go over what we've got so far a woman across the table from bacchus cleared her throat and spread three pages of what looked like computer printouts in front of her on the table and stood up okay she said we have six dead detectives in six states we also have six unsolved homicides that the detectives had been working individually at the times of their own deaths the bottom line is we don't feel comfortable yet making a firm commitment to whether we have one or two offenders out there or possibly even more though this seems unlikely our hunch however is that we are dealing with one but at the moment i don't have a lot backing that up what we do feel comfortable with is that the deaths of the six detectives are certainly linked and therefore most likely the work of one hand for the moment our emphasis is on this offender the one we are calling the poet beyond that we only have the theory of linkage to the other cases we'll talk about them later first let's start with the detectives take a look at the first pvr in your package for a few seconds and then i'll point out some things i looked at everyone studying the handout and felt annoyed at being left out i decided that after the meeting i would talk to bacchus about it i looked over at gordon and saw him looking at me he winked at me and then turned his face to the reports in front of him i then saw walling get up and come round the table to my side of the room she handed me a copy of the printout i nodded my thanks but she had already headed back to her spot i noticed that as she walked back she glanced at gordon and their eyes locked in a long stair i looked at the pages in my hands the first sheet was just an organizational structure with the names of the agents involved and their assignments there were also the phone and fax numbers for the field offices in denver baltimore tampa chicago dallas and albuquerque i ran my eyes down the list of agents and found only one gordon gordon thorson i saw that his assignment simply read quantico go next i looked for brass on the list and guessed easily enough that she was brasilia duran assigned on the sheet as victim coordinator slash profiling other assignments to agents were listed there were handwriting and cryptology assignments but most were just noted as cities of assignment followed by a victim's name apparently two bss agents would go to each city where the poet had been to coordinate investigations of those cases with agents from the city's field office and local police i turned the page to the next sheet which was the one everybody else was reading preliminary victimology report the poet bss 95-17 victim number one clifford beltran sarasota county sheriff's department homicide white male date of birth 314-34 date of death 4192 weapon smith and wesson 12-gauge shotgun one shot head place of death residence no witness 2 john brooks chicago police department homicide area 6 blackmail date of birth 721-54 date of death 10 30 93 weapon service glock 19. two shots one impact head place of death residence no witness three garland petrie dallas police department homicide white male date of birth at 11 11 51 date of death 328 94 weapon service beretta 38 two shots two impacts chest and head place of death residence no witness four morris koteit albuquerque police department homicide hispanic male date of birth 14 56 date of death 9 24 94 weapon service smith watson 38 two shots one impact head place of death car no witness five sean mcavoy denver police department homicide white male date of birth 52160 date of death 210 95 weapon surface smith wesson 38 one shot head place of death car no witness the first thing i noticed was that they didn't have mccafferty on the list yet he'd be number two i then realized that the eyes of many of those in the room were falling on me again as people read to the last name and apparently realized who i was i kept my eyes on the page in front of me staring at the notes under my brother's name his life had been reduced to short descriptions and dates brasilia duran finally rescued me from the moment okay fyi these were printed up before the sixth case was confirmed she said if you want to put it on your sheet now it will be between beltran and brooks the name is john mccafferty a homicide detective with the baltimore police department we'll get more details later anyway as you can see not a lot of things are consistent through these cases the weapons used to differ places of death differ and we have three whites one black and one hispanic as victims the additional case mccafferty is a white male 47 years old but there are limited common denominators to the physical scene and evidence each victim was a male homicide detective who was killed by a fatal head shot and there were no eyewitnesses to these shootings from there we get into the two key commonalities that we want to exploit we have a reference to edgar allan poe in each case that's one the second key is that each victim was believed by his colleagues to have been obsessive about a particular homicide case two of them to the point that they had sought counseling if you turn to the next page the sound of everyone turning the page whispered through the room i could feel a grim fascination settling over everyone it was a surreal moment for me i felt like maybe a screenwriter does when he finally sees his movie on the screen before all of this was something hidden in my notebooks and computer and head as part of the far realm of possibility but here was a room crowded with investigators openly talking about it looking at printouts confirming the existence of this horror the next page contain the suicide notes all the quotes from poe's poems that i had found and written down the night before this is where the cases irrefutably come together duran said our poet likes edgar allan poe we don't know why yet but it's something we'll be working on here at quantico while you people go traveling i am going to defer to brad for a moment to have him tell you a little about this the agent sitting directly next to duran stood up and took up the lead i flipped to the front page of the package and found an agent bradley hazelton listed brass and brad what a team i thought hazelton a gangly man with acne scarred cheeks poked his glasses back on his nose before speaking um what we've got here are that the six quotes in these cases that's including the baltimore case come from three of post poems as well as his own last reported words we are looking at these to determine if we can get some kind of common fix on what the poems were about and how they may relate to this offender we're looking for anything there it seems pretty clear that this is where the offender's playing with us and where he is taking the most risk i don't think we'd be here today or mr mcavoy would have found a connection among these cases if our guy didn't decide to quote edgar allan poe so then these poems are his signature we'll be trying to find out why he chose poe as opposed to say walt whitman but i i'll tell you why said an agent sitting at the far end of the table paul was a morbid and so is our guy a few people laughed uh yes probably that's correct in a general sense hazelton said oblivious that the comment was made to lighten everyone up nevertheless uh brass and i will be working on this and if you have any ideas i'd like to hear them as for right now a couple of things to throw out poe is credited with being the father of mystery fiction with the publication of the murders of the rue morgue which is uh basically a detective story so we may have an offender out there who is looking at this as some kind of a mystery puzzle he simply likes to taunt us with his own sort of mystery by using poe's words as clues also i've started reading through some of the established criticism and analysis of poe's work and found something interesting one of the poems that our guy used is called the haunted palace now this poem was contained within a short story called the fall of the house of usher i'm sure you've all heard of it or read it anyway the standard analysis of this poem is that while at face value it serves as a description of the house of usher it is also a disguised or subconscious description of the story's focal character roderick usher and that name you know if you were at last night's briefing came up in the death of victim number six i'm sorry that's uh sean mcavoy he's not just a number he looked over at me and nodded and i nodded back the description in the poem uh hold on hazelton was looking through his notes then found what he needed pushed his glasses back on again and continued okay we've got banners yellow glorious golden on its roof did float and flow and then later on we have along the ramparts plumed and pallid okay and then a few lines later we have mention of two luminous windows blah blah blah anyway what this translates to as far as description goes is that of a reclusive white male with blonde hair perhaps long or curly blonde hair and eyeglasses there's your start on the physical profile there was a roll of laughter through the room and hazelton seemed to take it personally it's in the books he protested i'm serious and i think it's a place to start wait a minute uh wait a minute said a voice from the outer rim a man stood up so he'd have the attention of the whole room he was older than most of the other agents and carried the no-nonsense heir of a veteran what are we talking about here yellow banners flowing what is this this post stuff is great it'll probably help that kid over there sell a lot of papers but nothing's convinced me in the last 20 hours that i've been here that there's some mope out there on the street who somehow someway got the drop on five six veteran dicks and put their own weapons in their mouths i'm having a hard time seeing it that's what i'm saying what do you got on that there was the hum of the green comments and head nods in the room i heard someone call the agent who started the ball rolling smitty and i saw a chuck smith listed on the front page of the packet he was heading to dallas brass duran stood up to address the issue we know that's the rub she said methodology is what we are least prepared to discuss at this point but the poll correlation is definitive in my judgment and bob agrees so what's our alternative do we say this is impossible and drop it no we act as if other lives may be at stake because they may very well be the questions you have will hopefully be answered as we go but i agree it is something we need to be considering and it is always healthy to be skeptical it's a question of control how does the poet get control of these men she turned her head and scanned the room smitty was silent now brass backer said let's go on to the first victims okay folks next page the page we turned to contained information on the murders that had obsessed the detectives the poet killed these were called secondary victims on the report even though in each city they had actually died first i noticed that once again the sheep was not up to date paulie amherst the woman whose murder had obsessed john mccafferty in baltimore had not yet made the list secondary victimology preliminary one gabriel ortiz sarasota florida student hispanic male date of birth 6182 date of death 214 92 ligature strangulation molestation kapok fiber two robert smathers chicago student black male date of birth 811 81 date of death 8 15 93 manual strangulation mutilation antimortem three althea grenadine dallas student black female date of birth 10 10 84 date of death 1494 multiple stabbing chest mutilation antimortem four manuela cortes albuquerque new mexico housekeeper hispanic female date of birth 4 11 46 date of death 816 94 multiple blunt force mutilation post mortem kpoc fiber 5 theresa lofton denver colorado student day care employee white female date of birth 7475 date of death 12 16 94 ligature strangulation mutilation post mortem kapoc fiber okay once again we are missing one duran said baltimore i understand the case was not a child but a teacher paulie amherst ligature strangulation and postmortem mutilation she waited a beat in case people were writing notes we are still in the process of having files and data faxed in on these cases she continued this was just put together for the meeting but preliminarily what we are looking at as far as these secondary cases go is a commonality involving children three victims were children two worked directly with children and the last one manuela cortes was a housekeeper who was abducted and murdered at some point while going to the school her employer's children attend to walk them home the extrapolation is that the intended targets in this chain were children but in half the cases perhaps something went wrong the stalking pattern was somehow interrupted by the adult victims and they were eliminated what is to be made from the mutilation an agent on the outer rim asked some of its post and with the kids it wasn't we are not sure but a guess at this time is that it might be part of his cloaking by using differing methodology and pathology he has been able to camouflage himself on this page these cases may look similar but the more complete the analysis the more different they are it is as if six different men with differing pathologies killed these victims in fact all the cases were submitted on vicap questionnaires by the local agencies but none drew matches to the others remember the questionnaire is now up to 18 pages bottom line i think this offenders read up on us i think he knew how to do things differently enough with each of these victims so that our trusty computer never scored a match the only mistake he made was the k-pop fibers that is how we have him an agent on the outer rim raised his hand and duran nodded at him if there were three incidents of k-pop fiber being recovered why didn't we get a match on the vicap computer if both cases were entered like you said human error in the first case the ortiz boy kapok was indigenous to the area and dismissed it wasn't put on the questionnaire in the albuquerque case the fibers were not identified until after a vicap survey was submitted once they were identified as k-pop the survey was not updated and oversight we missed the match we only got that from the field office today only in the denver case was the capex seen as significant enough to include on the vicap request there was a groan from several of the agents and i felt my own heart sink a bit the chance of identifying that there was a serial killer at work as early as the albuquerque case had been missed but if it hadn't been missed i wondered maybe sean would be alive that brings us to the big question duran said how many killers have we got one who does the first string and another who does the detectives or just one one who does them all for the moment based primarily on the logistical improbabilities associated with two killers we are pursuing a theory of linkage our assumption is that in each city the two deaths are linked what's the pathology smitty asked we're only guessing now the obvious one is that he sees killing the detective as a way of covering his tracks ensuring his escape but we have another theory as well that is that the first homicide was committed by the offender in order to draw a homicide detective into the frame in other words the first kill is bait presented in such a horrific fashion as to attract a homicide detective's obsession we are assuming that the poet then stalked each one of these officers and learned their habits and routines that enabled him to get close and carry out the eventual murder without detection this silenced the room i got the feeling that many of the agents though surely veterans of numerous investigations of serial killings had never before encountered a predator like the one they were calling the poet of course brass said all we have is theory for the time being becca stood up thank you brass he said then addressing the room added quickly now because i want to do some profiling and get this wrapped up gordon you had something for us yes real quick thorson said standing up and moving to an easel with a large drawing pad on it the map in your package is outdated because of the baltimore connection so if i can have your attention up here for a moment he quickly drew the outline of the united states with a thick black marker then with a red marker he began to draw the poet's trail starting in florida which he had drawn proportionately small compared to the rest of the country the line went up to baltimore and over to chicago then down to dallas then up to albuquerque and finally up further to denver he picked up the black marker again and wrote the dates of the killings in each of the cities it's pretty self-explanatory orson said our man is heading west and he's obviously pissed off with homicide cops about something he raised his hand and waved it over the western half of the country he had drawn we'll look for the next hits out here unless we get lucky and get him first looking at the terminus of the red line thorson had drawn gave me a strange feeling about what was ahead where was the poet who was next why don't we just let him get to california so he can be among his own kind and a problem everyone laughed at the joke from one of the agents seated in the outer rim the humor emboldened hazelton uh hey gardo he said reaching back to the easel and tapping a pencil on the small rendering of florida i hope this map wasn't some kind of freudian slip on your part that brought the loudest laughter of the meeting and thorson's face reddened though he smiled at the joke at his expense i saw rachel walling's face light up with delight very funny hazel thorson loudly retorted why don't you go back to analyzing the poems you're good at that the laughter dried up quickly and i suspected that thorson had taunted hazelton with a barb that was more personal than witty okay if i can continue thorson said fyi tonight we'll be alerting all the fos particularly in the west to be on watch for something like this it would help us a lot if we could get an early notice on the next one and get our lab into one of the scenes we'll have a go team ready but right now we are relying on the locals for everything bob bacca's cleared his throat to continue the discussion if nobody has anything we come to profiling what can we say about this offender i would like to put something on the alert gordon sends out then came a procession of thrown out observations a lot of them free-form non-sequiturs some of them even bringing laughter i could see there was a lot of camaraderie among the agents there was also some strife as exhibited by the play between thorson and walling and then thorson and hazelton nevertheless i got the feeling that these people had sat around the table in this room doing this before sadly many times before the profile that emerged would be of small use in catching the poet generalities the agents threw into the ring were primarily interior descriptions anger isolation above average education and intelligence how do you identify these things among the masses i thought no chance occasionally bacchus would step in and throw out a question to get the discussion back on course if you subscribe to brass's last theory why homicide cops you answer that and you've got him in a box that's the mystery this poetry stuff is the diversion rich or poor oh he's got money he has to wherever he goes he's not staying long no job killing is his job he's got to have a bank account or rich parents something and he's got wheels and he needs money to put gas in the tank the session went on for another 20 minutes with duran taking notes for the preliminary profile then backus ended it and told everyone to take the rest of the night off before traveling in the morning as the meeting broke up a few people came up to me and introduced themselves expressing condolences for my brother and admiration for my investigation but it was only a few and they included hazelton and duran after a few minutes of this i was left alone and was looking about for walling when gordon thorson approached he held his hand out and after hesitating i shook it didn't mean to give you a hard time he said smiling warmly that's okay it was fine he had a tight grip and after the standard two-second shake i tried to pull away but he wouldn't let go instead he pulled my hand toward him and leaned forward so that only i would hear what he had to say next it's good that your brother isn't around to see this he whispered if i did what you did to get on this case i'd be ashamed i couldn't live with myself he straightened up always continuing the smile i just looked at him and inexplicably nodded he dropped my hand and stepped away i felt humiliated in that i had not defended myself i had stupidly just nodded my head what was that about i turned it was rachel walling uh nothing he just nothing whatever he said forget it he can be an i nodded yeah i was getting that idea come on let's go back to the boardroom i'm starved in the hallway she told me the travel plans we're leaving early tomorrow it's better if you stay here tonight instead of going all the way back to the hilton the visitor dorms mostly clear out on fridays we can put you in one of those and have the hilton just clear your room and send your stuff to denver will that be a problem uh no i guess i was still thinking about thorson him uh what that guy thorson he is an forget about him we're leaving tomorrow and he's staying here what about the hilton uh yeah fine i've got my computer and everything else that's important already with me i'll see about getting you a fresh shirt in the morning oh my car i got a rental in the hilton's garage where are the keys i pulled them out of my pocket give them to me we'll take care of it 23. in the early hours when dawn was still only a hint around the curtains gladden moved about darlene's apartment too nervous to sleep too excited to want to he paced through the small rooms thinking planning waiting he looked in on darlene in the bedroom watched her on the bed for a few moments and then returned to the living room unframed posters from old porno movies were taped to the walls and the place was filled with bric-a-brac souvenirs of a worthless life there was a nicotine veneer on everything gladden was a smoker but still found it disgusting the place was a mess he paused in front of one of the posters from a film called inside darlene she had told him she'd been a star in the early 80s before video revolutionized the business and she started looking old the wear and tear of the life showing around her eyes and mouth she pointed with a wistful smile to the posters where the airbrushed photos showed her body and face smooth and unlined she was billed simply as darlene no last name needed he wondered what it was like living in a place where the images of your former glorious self mocked your present self from the walls he turned away and noticed her purse on the card table in the dining room and looked through it it was full of makeup mostly in empty cigarette packages and matchbooks there was a small spray can for repelling attackers and her wallet she had seven dollars looked at her license and discovered for the first time what her full name was [Music] this is the end of side one this program is continued on side two of this cassette [Music] he turned away and noticed her purse on the card table in the dining room and looked through it it was full of makeup mostly in empty cigarette packages and matchbooks there was a small spray can for repelling attackers and her wallet she had seven dollars he looked at her license and discovered for the first time what her full name was darlene kogo he said out loud pleased to meet you he took the money and put everything else back in the purse seven dollars wasn't much but it was seven dollars the man at the digitate dealership had made him pay in advance to order the camera gladden was now down to a few hundred dollars and he figured seven more couldn't hurt he put his money worries aside and began to pace again he had a problem of timing the camera had to be shipped from new york it wouldn't be in until wednesday five more days he knew that to be safe he'd have to wait it out right here in darlene's apartment and he knew he could do it he decided to make a list for the store darlene's shelves were almost empty except for tuna fish and he hated that he'd have to go out get supplies and then dig in until wednesday he wouldn't need much spring water darlene apparently drank tap water also fruit loops maybe some chef boy rd he heard a car drive by outside he moved toward the door to listen and finally he heard the sound he had been waiting for the newspaper hitting the ground darlene had told him the tenant in the apartment next door got the paper gladden was proud of himself for having thought to ask he went to the window now and peered through the blinds to the street dawn was coming up gray and misty he saw no activity outside after turning two locks gladden opened the door and stepped out into the crisp morning air he looked around and saw the folded newspaper on the sidewalk in front of the apartment next door no lights were on behind the apartment's doors gladden quickly walked to the newspaper picked it up and returned to the apartment he had come from on the couch he quickly went to the metro section of the paper and flipped through the eight pages there was no story nothing on the maid he tossed the section aside and picked up the front section he turned the section over and there it was at last his own photo at the bottom right corner of the front page it was the mug shot from the santa monica arrest he pulled his eyes away from his own image and started reading the story he was overjoyed he had made the front page again after so many years his face flushed as he read motel murder suspect escaped the law in florida by keisha russell time staff writer a florida man who authorities said escaped justice as a child molester in florida has been identified as the suspect in the brutal mutilation murder of a hollywood motel maid los angeles police said friday william gladden 29 is being sought in the death of evangeline crowder whose body was found in gladden's room at the hollywood star motel the nineteen-year-old victim's body had been cut into pieces and placed into the three drawers of a bureau in the room the body was discovered after gladden checked out of the motel a motel employee who was looking for the missing maid entered the room and saw blood seeping from the bureau police said crowder was the mother of an infant boy gladden was registered at the hotel under the name bryce kidder but police said that analysis of a fingerprint found in the room identified the suspect as gladden gladden was sentenced to 70 years in prison after a highly publicized child molestation trial in tampa florida seven years ago however after serving only two years in prison he was released when his conviction was overturned on appeal key evidence photos of nude children was ruled illegally obtained by authorities after the legal setback prosecutors allowed gladden to plead guilty to lesser charges he was released on probation for time already served in prison in another irony police have also learned that gladden was arrested in santa monica three days before the motel murder was discovered he was taken into custody on a variety of minor charges stemming from a complaint that he was taking photos of children being washed at the beach showers and at the carousel on the pier however he was arraigned and released on bail before his true identity was learned continued page 14 a gladden had to open the section and follow the story to an inside page there he saw another photograph of himself staring out at the reader this was of the thin-faced and red-haired 21 year old he had been before persecution had begun in florida and there was another story about him as well he quickly finished reading the first story continued from 1a police said they have not determined a motive for crowders slaying though the motel room where gladden had stayed for nearly a week had been meticulously wiped clean of fingerprints lapd detective ed thomas said glendon made one mistake that led to his identification that was leaving a single fingerprint behind on the underside of the toilet's flush handle it was a lucky break thomas said that one print was all we needed the print was fed into the department's automated fingerprint identification system part of a nationwide computer network of fingerprint data a match was found to gladdens fingerprints which were on file with the florida department of law enforcement computer according to thomas gladden has been wanted on probation violation for nearly four years the violation was filed when he stopped regular visits to a probation officer in florida and disappeared in the santa monica case detectives arrested gladden on sunday after a chase from the carousel at the pier where they observed him watching young children on the popular ride while attempting to run from police he threw a trash can off the pier into the bay he was finally captured in a restaurant on the third street promenade gladden would use the name harold brisbane when arrested was charged with pollution of public waterways vandalism of city property and evading a police officer however the district attorney's office declined to file any charges relating to his alleged photographing of children citing insufficient evidence of a crime smpd detective constance delphi said she and her partner began watching the carousel ride after receiving a complaint from an employee who had described gladden as loitering near children and taking pictures out on the beaches of nude children being washed at the showers by their parents though gladden was fingerprinted upon his arrest santa monica does not have its own fingerprint computer and relies on use of a department of justice computer and other departments including the lapd to run prints on the afis network the process usually takes days because departments run their own prints as priorities in this case the santa monica prince taken of the man originally identified as brisbane were not run by lapd until tuesday by then gladden who had spent sunday night in the county jail and bailed out by posting a fifty thousand dollar bond the lapd then also identified gladden late thursday through the print taken from the motel room detectives involved in the two cases were left to wonder about this sequence of events and how they allegedly took a murderous turn there was always second guessing when things like this happen said delpy of the smpd exploited child unit what could we have done better to keep him locked up i don't know sometimes you win and sometimes you lose thomas said the real crime was in florida where gladden was allowed to go free here you have a man an obvious pedophile and the system lets him go thomas said when the system doesn't work it always seems to be a case like this where somebody innocent pays the price gladden quickly went on to the other story he felt a weird sensibilation as he read about himself he reveled in the glory of it suspect did an end run around justice in florida by kisha russell time staff writer a gifted jail house lawyer according to authorities william gladden used his prison learned while to subvert the justice system and then disappear until this week gladden worked at the little ducks child care center in tampa eight years ago when he was arrested and charged with molesting as many as eleven children over a three year period the arrest spawned a highly publicized trial resulting in his conviction on twenty eight of the charges two years later by all accounts the key evidence leading to the convictions was a cache of polaroid pictures of nine of the young victims in the photos the children were seen in various stages of undress in the closet at the now defunct day care center the telling thing about the pictures however was not that some of the children were nude but the looks on their faces according to charles honchell the former hillsborough county prosecutor who was assigned to the case all the kids were scared honchel said friday in a telephone interview from tampa where he is now in private practice these kids didn't like what was being done and it showed it really went to the truth of the case what their faces said in the photos matched the things they told the counselors but at the trial the photos were more important than the counselors and what the children had told them despite objections from gladden that the photos had been discovered during an illegal search of his apartment by a police officer whose son was one of the alleged molestation victims the judge allowed the photos into evidence jurors said afterward that they relied almost exclusively on the photos to convict gladden because the two councilors who dealt with the children had been discredited by the attorney representing gladden for their alleged methods of leading the children into voicing accusations against claddon after his conviction gladden was sentenced to 70 years imprisonment to be served at the union correctional institute at rayford in the prison gladden who already had a degree in english literature studied poetry psychology and the law it appears that it is in the law that he excelled the convicted molester quickly learned the skills of a jailhouse lawyer according to honcho and helped other inmates with appellate briefs while composing his own among his more celebrated clients in the prison sexual offender ward were donnell forks the so-called pillowcase rapist of orlando former miami dolphins football player alan genon and las vegas stage hypnotist horus gamble all three are serving time for multiple rape convictions and gladden was unsuccessful in his attempts to win them freedom or new trials with appeals he wrote while serving time with them but within a year of his imprisonment houchel said glendon filed a thoroughly researched appeal of his own conviction which challenged once again the search that led to the discovery of the incriminating photos honcho explained that raymond gomez the officer who found the photos had gone to gladden's home in a rage after his nine-year-old son revealed that he had been molested by a man who worked at the boys day care center receiving no answer after knocking the off duty officer said he found the door unlocked and entered gomez later testified in a hearing on the matter that he found the photos spread out on a bedspread he quickly extricated himself from the house and reported his knowledge to detectives who then obtained a search warrant gladden was arrested after the detectives went back later that day with the warrant and found the photos hidden in a closet gladden maintained at trial that the door was not unlocked when he had left his apartment and the photos were not on display regardless of whether the door was unlocked and the photos left out he argued the search by gomez was a clear breach of his constitutional rights to protection from unlawful search and seizure however the trial judge ruled that gomez was acting as a father not a police officer when he entered the apartment the accidental discovery of the key evidence was therefore not a breach of the constitution an appeals court later cited with gladden saying that gomez had knowledge through his police training of search and seizure laws and should have known better than to enter the premises without authority the florida supreme court later refused to reverse the appeals court clearing the way for a new trial without the use of the photos as evidence faced with the difficult task of winning a case without key evidence the first jury said was vital authorities allowed glenn to plead guilty to one count of lewd behavior with a child the maximum sentence for such a crime is five years in prison and five years of consecutive probation by that point gladden had served 33 months in prison and had earned an equal amount in good behavior game time at his sentencing he received the maximum penalty but still walked out of court a free man on probation it was an end run around justice council the prosecutor recalled we knew he did it but we couldn't use the evidence we had in our hands after that sentencing it was hard for me to look at those parents and their children because i knew this guy would be out there and that he'd probably want to do it again within a year of his release gladden disappeared and a warrant was issued for probation violation he resurfaced this week in southern california with what authorities here called deadly consequences gladden read the story completely through a second time he was fascinated by its thoroughness and the credit it gave him he also liked how if you read between the lines it questioned the story of the cop gomez that liar gladden thought he broke in and he ruined the case served him right he was almost tempted to pick up the phone and call the reporter to thank her for the story but decided against it too risky he thought of hanschel the young prosecutor and run he said aloud then he yelled it out and run his mind raced and filled with joy there was so much they didn't know and already he was on the front page they would certainly learn soon they would know his moment of glory was coming soon now gladden got up and went into the bedroom to prepare to go to the store he thought it would be best to go early he looked at darlene again bending over the bed he touched her wrist and tried to lift her arm full rigor mortis had set in he looked at her face the jaw muscles were already contracting pulling her lips back into an ugly grin her eyes appeared to be staring at their own reflection in the mirror over the bed he reached over and pulled the wig off her head her real hair was reddish brown and short unattractive he noticed some of the blood had gotten on the lower fringe of blonde curls and he took the wig into the bathroom to wash it off afterward he returned to the bedroom and gathered the things from the closet he would need to go to the store glancing back the body as he was leaving the room glendon realized he had never asked her what the tattoo was supposed to be now it was too late before closing the door and leaving the room he turned the air conditioner on high in the living room as he changed clothes he made a metal note to pick up some more incense at the store he decided he would use the seven dollars he had taken from her purse she was creating the problem he thought she should pay to fix it 24. saturday morning we took a helicopter from quantico to national and boarded a small bureau jet bound for colorado it was where my brother had died it was where the freshest trail was it was me bacchus walling and a forensic specialist named thompson i recognized from the meeting the evening before beneath my jacket i was wearing a light blue pullover shirt with the fbi seal on the left breast walling had knocked on the door of my dorm that morning and presented it to me with a smile it was a nice gesture but i couldn't wait to get to denver so i could change into my own clothes still it beat wearing the same shirt i had already worn for two days the ride was smooth and i sat in the back three rows behind backus and walling thompson sat behind them i passed the time by reading the biographical note on poe in the book i had bought and typing notes into my laptop about halfway across the country rachel got up from her spot and came back to visit me she dressed in jeans a green corduroy shirt and black hiking boots she hooked her hair back behind her ear as she moved into the seat next to me and it helped frame her face she was beautiful and i realized that in less than 24 hours had gone from hating her to wanting her what are you thinking about all alone back here nothing much my brother i guess if we get this guy i guess maybe i'll find out how it happened still hard to believe were you close to him most of the time i didn't have to think about it but in the last few months no it had happened before it was kind of cyclical we'd get along and then we'd get sick of each other was he older or younger older how much older three minutes we were twins i didn't know i nodded and she frowned as if the thought that we had been twins made the loss all the more hurtful maybe it had i didn't catch that in the reports probably not important well it helps explain why you i've always wondered about twins you mean like did i get a psychic message from him the night he was killed the answer is no that kind of stuff never happened with us or if it did i never recognized it and he never said anything about it she nodded and i looked back out of the window for a few seconds i felt good being with her despite the rocky start of the day before but i was beginning to suspect that rachel walling could put her worst enemy at ease i tried asking her questions about herself to turn it around she mentioned the marriage i already knew about from warren but she didn't say much about her former husband she said she had gone to georgetown to study psychology and was recruited in her last year by the bureau after becoming an agent in the new york field office she had gone back to school at night at columbia for a law degree she freely admitted that being a woman plus having a law degree put her on the bureau's fast track the bss was a plum assignment your folks must be very proud of you i said she shook her head no my mother left when i was young i haven't seen her in a long time she doesn't know anything about me your father my dad died when i was very young i knew i had strayed beyond the bounds of routine conversation but my instinct as a journalist was always to ask the next question the one they don't expect i also sensed that she wanted to say more but wouldn't unless i asked what happened he was a policeman we lived in baltimore he killed himself oh man rachel i'm sorry i shouldn't have no it's okay i wanted you to know that i think it has everything to do with what i am and what i'm doing maybe it's that way with your brother in this story that's why i wanted to tell you that if i was harsh with you yesterday i'm sorry don't worry about it thanks we were silent for a few moments but i sensed the subject wasn't closed yet the suicide study with the foundation is that yes that's why i started it another void of silence followed but i was not uncomfortable and i don't think she was either eventually she got up and went to a storage area at the back of the cabin and got everybody's sodas when bacchus was done joking about what a fine stewardess she made she sat down with me again when the conversation began again i tried to move the subject away from the memory of her father do you ever miss having been a practicing shrink i asked isn't that what you first went to school for not at all this is more satisfying i've probably had more first-hand experience with sociopaths than most shrinks have in a lifetime and that's only the agents you work with she laughed easily boy if you only knew maybe it was only the fact that she was a woman but i sensed she was different from the other agents i had known and dealt with over the years she wasn't as sharp around the edges she was a listener not a teller a thinker not a reactor i was beginning to feel i could tell her what i was thinking at any given time and not worry about the consequences like thorson i said he seems like he's got his top screwed on a little too tight definitely she said and then an uneasy smile and shake of the head followed what's with him anyway he's angry but what a lot of things he's got a lot of baggage including me he was my husband it didn't really surprise me there had been the visible tension between them my initial impression of thorson was that he could be poster boy for the men are pigs society no wonder walling had a dim view of the other side sorry i brought him up then i said i'm betting a thousand here she smiled that's okay he leaves that impression on a lot of people must be hard to have to work with him how come you're both in the same unit we're not exactly i'm in behavioral sciences he's in critical incident we only have to work together at times like these we used to be partners before we married spent a lot of time on the road together then we just came apart she drank some of her coke and i didn't ask any more questions i couldn't ask any of the right ones so i decided to cool it for a while but she continued on unbidden when we divorced he switched over to critical response she said but that's as far as he will go we still have our little meetings in the cafeteria and on cases like this then why don't you transfer out i asked because like i said assignment to the center is a plum i don't want to leave and neither does he it's either that or he just stays around to spite me bob backus talked to us once and said he thought it would be better if one of us transferred out but neither of us will blink they can't move gordon because he's got seniority he's been there since the center started if they move me the unit loses one of only three females and they know i'll make a beef about it what could you do just say i'm being moved because i'm the woman maybe talk to the post the center is one of the bureau's bright spots when we come to town to help the local cops we're heroes jack the media lapse it up and the bureau doesn't want to dim that so gordon and i get to keep making dirty faces with each other across the table the plane pushed over into a descent and through the window i could look up ahead on the far west horizon were the familiar rockies we were almost there were you involved in the interviews of bundy and manson people like that i had heard or read somewhere about the bss project to interview all known serial rapists and killers in prisons across the country from the interviews came the psychological data bank the bss used to create profiles of other killers the interview project had taken years and i remembered something about it having taken its toll on the agents who faced these men that was a trip she said me gordon bob we were all part of that i still get a letter from charlie every now and then usually around christmas as a criminal he was most effective in manipulation of his female followers so i think he thinks that if he is going to get anybody to sympathize with him at the bureau it will be a woman me i saw the logic and nodded and the rapists she said a lot of the same pathology is the killers they were some sweet guys i can tell you i could just feel them sizing me up when i'd go in i could tell they were trying to figure out how much time they'd have before the guard could get in you know whether they could take me before help came in it really showed their pathology they only thought in terms of help coming to save me not that i might be able to defend myself save myself they simply looked at all women as victims as prey you mean you talk to these people alone no separation the interviews were informal usually in a lawyer room no separation but usually a hack hole the protocol hack hole a window one of the guards could watch through the protocol called for two agents and all the interviews but in practice there were just too many of these guys so most of the time we'd go to a prison and split up it was quicker that way the interview rooms were always monitored but every now and then i'd get this creepy chill from some of those guys like i was alone but i couldn't look up to see if the hack was watching because then the subject would look up and if he saw the hack wasn't looking then you know well for some of the more violent offenders my partner and i would do it together gordon or bob or or whoever was with me but it was always faster when we split up and did separate the interviews i imagine that if you spent a couple years doing those interviews you'd come away with some psychological baggage of your own i wondered if that was what she had meant when she had talked about her marriage with forsen did you wear the same clothes she asked what you and your brother you know like you see some twins do oh the matching stuff no thank god my parents never pulled any of that with us so who was the black sheep of the family you were him me definitely john was the saint and i was the sinner and what are your sins i looked at her too many to recount here really then what was the most saintly thing he ever did as the smile dropped off my face at the memory that would be her answer the plane banked sharply to the left came out of it and started to climb rachel immediately forgot her question and leaned into the aisle so she could look toward the front presently i saw bacchus coming down the aisle his hands grabbing the bulkhead for balance he signaled to thompson to follow him and they both made their way back to us what is it rachel asked we're diverting becca said i just got a call from quantico this morning the field office in phoenix responded to our alert one week ago a homicide detective was found dead in his home it was supposed to be a suicide but something was wrong they've ruled it a homicide looks like the poet made a mistake phoenix yes the freshest trail he looked at his watch and we have to hurry he's to be buried in four hours and i want to have a look at the body first 25 two government cars and four agents from the field office met us after the jet landed at sky harbor international in phoenix it was a warm day compared to where we had come from and we took our jackets off and carried them with our computer bags and overnighters thompson also carried a toolbox which contained his equipment i rode with walling and two agents named matuzik and mize white guys who looked like they had less than 10 years experience combined it was clear by their deferential treatment of walling that they held the bss unit in high esteem they had either been briefed on the fact that i was a reporter or judged by my beard and hair that i was not an agent despite the fbi seal on my shirt they paid little attention to me where are we going walling asked as our grey nondescript ford followed the gray non-descript ford carrying backus and thompson out of the airport scottsdale funeral home mai said he was in the front passenger seat while matusak drove he looked at his watch funeral is it too your man is probably going to have less than a half hour with the body before they'll have to suit him up and put him in the box for the show was it open casket yeah last night what to zach said he's already been embalmed and made up i don't know what you're expecting we're not expecting anything we just want to look i assume agent backus is being briefed up ahead of us do you two care to fill us in that's robert backus my said he looks so young robert backus jr oh wise made a face that seemed to show that he understood why such a young man was running the show figures you don't know what you're talking about rachel said he's got the name but he's also the hardest working and most thorough agent i've ever worked with he earned the position he has it probably would have been easier for him in fact if he had a name like mize now can one of you fill us in on what's going on she was brutal i saw matuzik study her in the mirror he then looked over at me and rachel registered this he's fine she said he's got approval from the top to be here he knows everything we do you have a problem with that not if you don't matuzak said john you tell it mize cleared his throat he was still smarting not a lot to fill in we don't have a lot because we weren't invited in but what we do know is they found this guy named william orsalak they found him in his house on monday homicide cop they figured he'd been dead at least three days he was off friday because of cop time and the last anybody remembered seeing him was thursday night at a bar they all go to who found him somebody from the squad when he didn't show mundy he was divorced lived alone anyway they apparently spent all week on the fence you know suicide or murder eventually they went with murder that was yesterday apparently there were too many problems with the suicide what do you know about the scene i hate to tell you this age is walling but you'd learn just as much as me by picking up one of the local papers like i said phoenix police didn't invite us to the dance so we don't know what they have after we got the wire from quantico this morning jamie foxx he's up in the lead car with agent backus took a look at it while working a little ot doing paperwork this morning it seemed to fit with what you people were working on and he made the call then me and bob got called out but like i said we don't know what's what for sure fine she sounded put out i knew she wanted to be up in the lead car i'm sure we'll get it at the funeral home what about the locals they're meeting us we parked in the back of the scottsdale funeral home on camelback road the lot was already crowded though the funeral was still two hours away there were several men milling about or leaning on cars detectives i could tell probably waiting to hear what the fbi had to say i saw one tv truck with the dish on top parked at the far end of the lot walling and i got out and joined bacchus and thompson and we were led to a rear door of the mortuary inside we stepped into a large room with white tile running up to the ceiling there were two stainless steel tables for bodies in the center with overhead spray hoses and stainless steel counters and equipment against three walls a group of five men were in the room and as they moved to greet us i could see the body on the far table i assumed it to be your select though there was no obvious sign of damage from a gunshot to the head the body was naked and someone had taken a yard long length of paper towel from the roll on the counter and placed it across the dead cop's waist to cover the genitals the suit ursalak would wear to the grave was on a hanger on a hook on the far wall handshakes were passed all around between us and the living cops thompson was directed to the body and he carried his case over and went to work examining i don't think you'll get anything we don't already have said the one called grayson was in charge of the investigation for the locals he was a stocky man with an assured and good-natured demeanor he was deeply tanned as were the other locals we don't either said walling quick with the politically correct response you've been over him now he's been washed and readied but uh we need to go through the motions becca said why don't you folks tell us what you're working grayson asked maybe we can make some sense out of this fair enough becca said as backus gave an abbreviated report on the poet investigation i watched thompson do his work he was at home with the body not timid about touching probing squeezing he spent a good amount of time running gloved fingers through the dead man's gray white hair and then carefully brushed it back in place with a comb from his own pocket he then made a careful study of the mouth and throat using a lighted magnifying glass at one point he put the magnifier aside and pulled a camera from the toolbox he took a photo of the throat flash drawing the attention of the cops assembled in the room uh just documentary photos gentlemen thompson said not even looking up from his work next he began studying the extremities of the body first the right arm and hand then the left he used the magnifier again when he studied the left palm and fingers then he took two photos of the palm and two of the index finger the cops in the room didn't seem to think much of this seemingly accepting his earlier statement that the photos were routine but because i had noticed that he had not taken photos of the right hand i knew he had found something of possible significance on the left thompson returned the camera to the box after placing the four new polaroids it had spit out on the counter he then continued his search of the body but took no more photos he interrupted bacchus to ask for help in turning the body over then the head-to-foot search began again i could see a patch of a dark waxy material in the back of the dead man's head and i assumed this to be where the exit wound was thompson didn't bother taking a polaroid of this thompson finished with the body at about the same time bacchus finished his briefing and i wondered if it hadn't been planned that way anything backus asked nothing a note i don't think thompson said i'd like to review the autopsy if i could was the report brought along as requested grayson said here's a copy of everything he added a file to him and thompson stepped back with it to a counter where he opened it and began scanning pages so i've told you what i know gentlemen bacchus said now i'd like to hear what it was about this case that dissuaded you from calling it suicide well i don't think i was entirely dissuaded until i heard your story grayson said now i think this poet excuse me agent walling is our guy anyway we raised the question and then decided to go with the classification of homicide because of three reasons one when we found bill his hair was parted the wrong way for twenty years he's been coming in the office his part is on the left we find him dead in the parts on the right that was a little thing but there were two others and they add up next was the forensics we had guys swab the mouth for gsr so we could make a determination if the gun was in his mouth or held a few inches outside or what we got the gsr but we also got some gun oil and a third substance that we haven't been able to identify properly until we could explain it i wasn't comfortable going suicide on this what can you tell me about the substance thompson asked some kind of animal fat extract there's pulverized silicon in it too it's in the forensic report that you've gotten that file too i thought i saw thompson glance at backus and then away a tacit admission of knowledge you know it grayson asked seeming to catch the same impression not offhand thompson said i'll get the specifics from the report and have the lab in quantico run it on the computer i'll let you know what was the third reason backus asked quickly leaving the subject the third reason came from jim beam orsalak's old partner he's retired now that's his name jim beam walling asked yeah the beamer he called me up from tucson after he heard about bill and asked if we'd recovered the slug i said sure we dug it out of the wall behind his head then he asked me if it was gold gold backus asked real gold yes a golden bullet i told him no it was a lead slug like all the others in his clip like the one we dug out of the floor too we figured that the floor shot was the first one you know get up the courage shot but then beemer told me it was no suicide that it was murder and how did he know this he and osadak went back a lot of years and he knew that alsalak occasionally hell there probably isn't a single cop who hadn't thought about it at one time or another killing himself walling said a statement not a question right and jim beam tells me that one time orsalak showed him this golden bullet that he got from somewhere he didn't know a mail order catalog or something and he says to beamer this is my golden parachute when i can't take it no more this one's for me so what beam was saying was no golden bullet no suicide did you find the golden bullet walling asked yeah we found it after we talked to beam we found it it was in the drawer right next to his bed like it was kept nearby in case he ever needed it so that convinced you in totality all three things lead its way over toward homicide murder but like i said i wasn't convinced of anything until you walked in here and told your story now i got a heart on for this poet the size of sorry for the offense agent walden none taken we all have a hard-on for him was there a suicide note yes and that's the thing that made it so hard for us to call it a homicide there was a note and damn if it wasn't in bill's rating walling nodded that what he had just said was no surprise what did the note say it didn't make a whole lot of sense it was like a poem it went well hold on here agent thomas let me borrow that file a sec thompson thompson said as he handed it over sorry grayson looked through some pages until he found what he wanted he read out loud mountains toppling evermore into seas without a shore that was it walling and backus looked at me i opened the book and started paging through the poems i remember the line but i'm not sure where i went to the poems that the poet had already used and started reading quickly i found it in dreamland the poem used twice before including the note left on my brother's windshield i got it i said i held the book out so rachel could read the poem the others crowded around her as well son of a grayson muttered can you give us a run down on how you think it happened rachel asked him uh sure our theory is whoever this doer was he came in and surprised bill in his sleep with bill's own gun he made him get up and get dressed that's when bill parted his hair wrong i mean he didn't know what was going to happen or maybe he did either way he leaves us a little sign from there he's taken out into the living room put in the chair and the doer makes him write out that note on a piece of paper torn out of his own notebook he keeps in his coat pocket then he pops him on in the mouth puts the gun in bill's hand puts the slug into the floor and you got gunshot residue on the hand the doer's out of there and we don't find poor bill for three days grayson looked over the shoulder at the body noticed it was being unattended and looked at his watch hey where's the guy he said somebody go get him and tell him we're through you're through with the body right uh yes thompson said we have to get him ready detective grayson walling said was there a specific case that detective ortholite was currently pursuing oh yeah that was a case little joaquin case eight-year-old kid abducted last month all they found of him was his head mention of the case and its brutality brought a moment of silence in the room where the dead were prepared before that moment i had no doubt that ortilak's death was related to the others but after hearing of the crime against the boy i felt an unwavering certainty and the anger that was becoming so familiar to me foaming in my guts i assume everyone is going to the funeral becca said that's right can we arrange a time to meet again we would like to see the reports of the boy joaquin as well they set the meeting for nine o'clock sunday morning at the phoenix police department grayson apparently felt that if it was on his turf he might be better able to hang on to a piece of it but i had a feeling that the big g was about to move in and sweep him aside like a tidal wave hitting a lifeguard stand one last thing the press walling said i saw a tv truck outside yeah they've been all over this especially when they he didn't finish when they what well somebody sort of put it out on the police frequency that we were meeting the fbi here rachel groaned and grayson nodded as if he expected it look this absolutely has to be contained she said if any of what we just told you men gets out the poet will go under we'll never catch the man who did that she nodded at the corpse and a few of the cops turned to make sure it was still there the undertaker had just stepped into the room and was lifting the hanger containing orcillax last suit he was looking at the assemblage of investigators waiting for them to leave so that he could be alone with the body we're about out of here george grayson said you can start baca said tell the media that the fbi's interest was purely routine and that you will continue to handle the investigation as suspected homicide don't act like you are sure of anything as we were walking back through the lot to the government cars a young woman with bleached blonde hair and a grim look on her face came up to us with a microphone a cameraman in tow holding the mic to her own mouth she asked why is the fbi here today she turned the microphone and pointed it directly under my chin for the response i opened my mouth but nothing came out i had no idea why i was chosen but then i realized it was the shirt i wore the fbi seal on the breast pocket apparently assured her that she was talking to the bureau i'll answer that baca said quickly and the microphone went to his chin we came at the request of the phoenix police department to make a routine examination of the body and to hear details of the case it is expected that our involvement ends here and further questions should go to the police we have no further comment thank you [Music] this is the end of this cassette this program is continued on side one of cassette number six this is cassette number six i'll answer that baca said quickly and the microphone went to his chin we came at the request of the phoenix police department to make a routine examination of the body and to hear details of the case it is expected that our involvement ends here and further questions should go to the police we have no further comment thank you but are you convinced that detective also like was the victim of foul play the reporter persisted i'm sorry becca said you'll have to refer your questions to the phoenix police and your name is i'd rather keep my name out of it thank you he brushed fire and got into one of the cars i followed walling to the other in a few minutes we were out of there and driving back toward phoenix are you worried rachel asked about what the exclusivity of your story i'm getting there but i'm hoping she's like most tv reporters and how are they sourceless and senseless if she is then i'll be okay 26. the field office was in the federal courthouse on washington street just a few blocks from the police department where we would meet with the locals the next day as we followed mize and matuzak down a polished corridor to a conference room i sensed an anxiousness in rachel and i thought i knew what it was by traveling with me she had been unable to be in the other car when thompson filled back us in on what he had learned from the body the conference room was far smaller than the one we had used in quantico when we entered bacchus and thompson were already seated at the table and bacchus held a phone to his ear he covered the mouthpiece when we entered and said guys i'm going to need to talk to my people alone for a few minutes uh what you could do is get us some cars if you can we'll also need to reserve rooms somewhere six rooms it looks like matuzak and mize looked like they had just gotten word that they were demoted they nodded glumly and left the room i didn't know where that left me if i was invited or excluded since i really wasn't one of bacchus's people jack rachel have a seat becca said let me finish up and i'll have james bring you up to date we took seats and watched and listened to the one-sided phone conversation it was clear backus was listening to messages and responding to them not all seem to have something to do with the poet investigation okay what about gordon and carter he said after the messages were apparently finished with what's the eta that light damn okay listen three things call denver and have them go to the evidence in the mcboy case tell them to check the insides of the gloves for blood if they find blood tell them to start exhumation proceedings right right if it's a problem call me right away also tell them to see if the police took gsr swabs from the mouth of the victim and if they did have it all sent to quantico that goes for all the cases the third thing is james thompson will be fedexing to the lab from out here we need substance identification asap same with denver if it comes what else when's the conference call with brass okay we'll talk then he hung up and looked at us i wanted to ask what he meant by exhumation but rachel spoke first six rooms is gordon coming out here he and carter are coming here bob why you know we need them rachel we are hitting critical mass on this investigation and things are moving at the most we are now ten days behind this offender we need more bodies to make the moves we're going to have to make it's that simple and that's more than enough said about it now jack did you have something to say that examination you're talking about we'll talk about that in a few minutes it will become clear james tell them what you found on the body from his pocket thompson pulled four polaroid photos and spread them on the table in front of rachel and me this is the left palm and index finger the two on the left were taken with the one to one the other two are ten times magnified perforations rachel said right i didn't see them until she had said it but then i recognized the tiny punch holes in the lines of the skin three in the palm two in the tip of the index finger what is it i asked on the surface it looks like nothing more than pinpricks thompson said but there is no scabbing or closing of the wounds they occurred close to time of death shortly before or possibly after though there wouldn't be much of a point to it after point to what jack we're looking for ways this could have been done becca said how could veteran tough cops be taken like this control is what we are talking about it's one of the keys i waved a hand toward the photos and what does this tell you that and other things may indicate hypnosis was involved you're saying this guy hypnotized my brother and these others into putting a gun in their mouths and pulling the trigger no i don't think it's that simple you have to remember that it is quite difficult to use hypnotic suggestion to override the self-preservation instinct in an individual's mind most experts say it's flatly impossible but if a person is susceptible to hypnotism that person can be controlled to varying extent he can be made docile manageable it's only a possibility at this point but we have five perforations on this victim's hand a standard method of testing for hypnotic trance would be to prick the skin with a pin after placing the suggestion that there will be no pain if the patient reacts the hypnosis is not working if he shows no signs of feeling the pain he is under trans conditions and controllable thompson added you want to look at my brother's hand yes jack becca said we'll need an exhumation order i believe the file said he was married will his widow allow this i don't know we may need your help on that i just nodded things were getting stranger all the time what were the other things you said the perforations and other things may indicate hypnosis was involved the autopsies rachel answered none of the victim's blood screens came out totally clean each one had something in his blood your brother cough syrup i said defensively from the car's glove box right it ranges from over-the-counter things like cough syrup to prescription drugs one of them had percocet which had been prescribed for a back injury 18 months earlier i think that was the chicago case another one i think it was petrie in dallas had codeine in his blood it came from prescription tylenol with codeine the prescription bottle was in his medicine cabinet okay so what's it mean well individually it meant nothing at the time of each of these deaths whatever came up on the blood screen in each case was explained by the victim's access to it i mean it's reasonable to believe that if someone was going to kill himself he might take a couple of percocets from the old prescription bottle to calm himself so these things were dismissed but now they mean something possibly she said the finding of the preparations suggests hypnosis if you add to that the introduction of some chemical suppressor into blood then you begin to see how these men may have been controlled cough syrup it could possibly enhance a subject's susceptibility to hypnosis codeine is a tested enhancer over-the-counter cough medications don't have codeine in them anymore but some of the replacement ingredients could still act as similar enhancers have you known this all along no it was just something that had no context until now has it come up before how do you know so much hypnosis is used fairly often as a law enforcement tool baka said it's also come up on the other side before there was one case several years ago rachel said there was a man our las vegas nightclub kind of guy who did hypnotism as his act he was also a paedophile and what he'd do is when he'd do shows at county fairs and so forth he'd get close to kids he had a children's act a matinee and he tell the audience he needed a young volunteer the parents would practically throw their kids at him he'd pick the lucky one and say he had to go backstage to prepare the child while some other act was going on he'd hypnotize the kid back there rape her and then through hypnotic suggestion wipe the memory then he'd trot the kid on stage do his act and then take them out of the trance he used codeine as an enhancer put it in their cokes i remember thompson said nodding harry the hypnotic no it was horus the hypnotist rachel said he was one of our interviews on the rape project at rayford down in florida wait a minute i said could he no this is not him he'd still be in prison in florida he got something like a 25-year bid this was only six seven years ago he's still inside he's got to be i'll have it checked anyway baca said to be sure but regardless you see the possibility we're looking at here jack i'd like you to call your sister-in-law it would be better if she heard it from you tell her how important it is i nodded okay jack we appreciate it now why don't we take a break here and see what there is to eat in this town we've got the conference call with the other fos in an hour and 20 minutes what about the other thing i said what thing bacchus asked the substance in that detective's mouth it looked like you guys knew what it was no i just made arrangements to send the swab they took back east and then hopefully we'll know then he was lying and i knew it but i let it go everybody stood up and headed into the hallway i told him i wasn't hungry and needed to find a place to buy some clothes i said i'd find a cab if there were no stores within walking distance i think i'll go with jack rachel said i didn't know if she really wanted to or her job was just to watch me make sure i didn't run off and write a story i raised my hand in an i don't care attitude with directions from matuzak we started walking toward a mall called the arizona center it was a beautiful day and the walk was a nice break from the intensity of recent days rachel and i talked about phoenix it was her first visit too and eventually i steered the conversation back to my last question tobaccos he was lying so was thompson you mean about the oral swabs right i think bob just doesn't want you to know more than you need to i'm not talking about as a reporter i mean as a brother if there was something new i want to know it the deal was i'd be on the inside not on the inside sometimes and then on the outside like with this hypnosis crap other times she stopped and turned to me i will tell you if you want to know jack if it's what we think and all the killings follow pattern then it's not going to be very pleasant for you to dwell on i looked in the direction we were headed the mall was in sight a sandstone colored edifice with welcoming open-air walkways tell me i said nothing is for sure until a swab is analyzed but it sounds like the substance grayson described was something we've seen before you see some repeat offenders are smart they know about leaving evidence behind evidence like semen so they use condoms but if it's a lubricated condom the lubricant can be left behind detected sometimes it's accidental and sometimes they want us to know what they did i looked at her and almost released an audible groan you're saying the poet had sex with him possibly but to be frank we've suspected it from the start serial killers jack it's almost always about sexual gratification it's about power and control and these are components of sexual gratification there wouldn't have been time what do you mean with my brother the ranger was right there there couldn't have i stopped realizing that there only wasn't time afterward jesus oh man that was what bob had hoped not to have to tell you i turned away and looked up at the blue sky the only imperfection was the slice of the twin controls of a jet long out of the picture i don't get it why is this guy doing this we may never know that jack she put a comforting hand on my shoulder these people that we hunt sometimes there is no explanation that's the very hardest part coming up with the motivation understanding what drives them to do what they do we have a saying about it we say these people are from the moon sometimes it is the only way to describe it when we don't have the answers trying to figure these people out is like putting a shattered mirror back together there is no way to explain the behavior of some humans so we simply say they are not humans we say they are from the moon and on the particular moon where the poet comes from these instincts that he is following are normal and natural he is following those instincts creating scenes that give him satisfaction it's our job to chart the poet's moon and then we'll be better able to find him and send him back all i could do was take it all in and nod there was no comfort in her words all i knew was that if given the chance i wanted to send the poet back to the moon i wanted to do it myself come on she said try to forget about that for now let's go get you some new things we can't have those reporters thinking you're one of us anymore she smiled and i returned it weekly and let her push me toward the mall 27. we met back in the conference room of the field office at 6 30. bacchus was there trying to work out the logistics with the phone along with thompson matuzak mize and three agents i hadn't been introduced to i put my shopping bag under the conference table it contained two new shirts a pair of pants and a package of underwear and socks i immediately wished i had changed into one of the new shirts because the unintroduced agents studied me in my fbi shirt with grim looks that suggested i had committed some kind of sacrilege by trying to impersonate an agent bacchus told whoever he was talking to to call him back when it was set up and then hung up okay he said we start the full meeting as soon as they have the phone set up meantime let's talk about phoenix beginning tomorrow i want to start a ground zero investigation of both the detective and the boy both cases from the top but i'd like oh i'm sorry uh rachel jack this is vince poole saic phoenix he's going to give us whatever we need pool who looked like he had 25 years on the job the most of anyone in the room nodded at us and said nothing backus didn't bother to introduce the other men we have the meeting with the locals tomorrow at 0.900 becca said i think we'll be able to brush them aside gently poole said well we don't want any animosity these are the fellows who knew or select the best they'll be good sources i think we have to bring them into this but remain firmly in control no problem this one may be our best chance it's fresh we've got to hope the offender made a mistake and between these two deaths the boy and the detective we can find it i'd like to see the phone on the table buzzed and backus picked up the receiver and said hello hold on he pushed a button on the phone and hung up the receiver brass you there here boss okay let's run down the list see who we've got tampa agents from six cities announced their presence on the speaker okay good i want this to be as informal as possible why don't we go round robin to see what people have brass i'd like to finish up with you so florida is that you ted uh yes sir with steve here we are just getting our feet wet on this and hope to have more by tomorrow but there are some anomalies here that we think are already worth noting go ahead this is the first or believed to be the first of the poet's stops clifford beltran the second incident in baltimore did not take place until nearly 10 months later that is the longest interval we have as well this leads us to possibly question the randomness of this first kill you think the poet knew beltran rachel asked it's possible at the moment though it's just a hunch we're working there are a few other things that when thrown into the stew are worth taking a look at in support however first this is the only one with a shotgun we checked the autopsy file today and they weren't pretty pictures total obliteration with both barrels we all know the symbolic pathology of that overkill baca said suggesting knowledge or acquaintance of the victim right next we have the weapon itself according to reports it was an old smith and wesson that beltran kept in the closet on a top shelf out of sight this information is attributed in the reports to his sister beltran had never married and lived in the house he grew up in we haven't talked to the sister ourselves the point is if this was a suicide yeah fine he went to the closet and got out the shotgun but now we come along and say this was no suicide how did the poet know the shotgun was up there on the shelf rachel said right how did he know good one ted steve baka said i like it what else the last thing is kinda sticky is the reporter there everyone in the room looked at me yes baca said but we are still off the record you can say what you were going to say right jack i nodded and then realized they wouldn't see this in all the other cities that's right i said we're off the record okay well this is more speculation at this time and we're not sure how it fits but we have this on the autopsy of the first victim the boy gabriel ortiz the coroner concluded based on examination of the anal glands and muscles that the boy was the victim of long-term molestation if the boy's killer was also his abuser over a period of time then this does not fit our pattern of random selection and acquisition of victims so that seems unlikely to us however looking at it from beltran's point of view three years ago of not having the benefit of our knowledge something here doesn't fit he had this one case knew nothing about the others we know about now when the autopsy came back concluding the boy was the victim of long-term molestation it stands to reason that beltran should have jumped all over that and looked for the abuser as suspect numero uno he didn't no he headed a team of three detectives and he directed almost all investigative work toward the park where the boy had been abducted after school i got this off the record from one of the guys on the team he said he suggested a wider focus looking into the boy's background but beltran turned him down now the good stuff my source at the sheriff's tells me beltran specifically asked for the investigation he wanted it after he supposedly offed himself my source did some checking and it turns out beltran had known the kid through a local social services program called best pals which puts fatherless boys with adults like a big brother program beltran was a cop so he had no trouble going through the screening process he was the boy's best pal i'm sure you can all take it from there you think perhaps beltran was the boy's molester bacchus asked it's possible i think that's what my source was driving at but he won't put it on the line everybody's dead was written off they're not going to go public with a story like that not with one of their own and the sheriff being an elective office i watched backus not his head that's to be expected there was silence for a few moments ted steve this is all very interesting becca said but how does it fit is it just an interesting offshoot or are you seeing something there we're not sure ourselves but if you say beltran was a molester a pedophile no less and add that he was put down with a shotgun that somebody knew was on the top shelf of the closet because he knew beltran then we are getting into an area i think we should explore further i agree tell us what else did your source know about beltran and best pals he said he was told that beltran had been with best pals for a long time he'd been with a lot of boys we assume and that is where you will pursue this correct we'll hit it hard in the morning nothing we can do with it tonight bacchus nodded and put a finger to his mouth in a contemplative gesture brass becca said what do you think of all this how would that play with the psychopathology children are a string all through this so are homicide cops we just don't have a handle yet on what this guy is all about i think this is something that should be pursued vigorously ted steve do you need more bodies backus asked i think we're all set we've got everybody in the tampa fo wanting in on this so what we need we can take from there excellent by the way have you talked to the boy's mother about her son's relationship with beltran we are still trying to track her as well as beltran's sister remember it's been three years hopefully we'll get to them tomorrow after best pals okay then how about baltimore sheila yes sir we spent most of the day recovering the ground of the locals we talked to bledsoe the theory he had on the polly amherst case from the start was that they were looking for a molester amherst was a teacher bledsoe said he and mccafferty always thought that she might have stumbled onto a molester on the school grounds was abducted strangled and then butchered as a means of disguising the true motivation of the crime why did it have to be a molester rachel asked could she have stumbled onto a burglar a drug deal anything else polly amherst had third period recess watch on the day she disappeared the locals interviewed every child that had been in the yard a lot of conflicting stories but a handful of the kids remember a man at the fence he had stringy blonde hair and had glasses he was white sounds like brad wasn't too far off with his description of roderick usher they also said this man had a camera that was about the extent of the description okay sheila what else backus asked the one piece of physical evidence recovered with the body was a strand of hair bleached blonde natural color is reddish brown that's about it for now we are going to work with bledsoe again tomorrow okay chicago's next the rest of the reports contained nothing noteworthy in terms of identifying or adding to the growing database on the poet the agents were mostly covering ground the locals had already tried and they were finding nothing new even the report from denver contained mostly old information but at the end the agent on the line said that an examination of the gloves worn by my brother was conducted and a single blood spot was found in the fur lining of the right hand glove the agent asked whether i was still willing to call riley and ask her to allow an examination i didn't answer because i was in a daze thinking about what the indication of hypnotism meant my brother's last moments were like asked again i said i would call in the morning as an afterthought the agent concluded his report by saying he had shipped the gsr swabs from my brother's mouth to the lab in quantico they run a pretty good ship here boss and i don't think we'll get more than what they found which was backus asked careful not to look at me just the gsr nothing else i didn't know what i felt when i heard those words i guess there was relief but it was no proof that anything did or did not happen john was still dead and i was still haunted by thoughts of what his last moments and thoughts had been i tried to shove it aside and concentrate on the conference call bacchus had asked brass to update everyone on the victimology and i had missed most of the report so we are discounting any correlation aside from the possibilities mentioned earlier in florida i'm saying they are picked at random they didn't know each other they never worked together and the paths of all six never crossed we found out that four of them went to some kind of a bureau sponsored homicide seminar at quantico four years ago but the other two didn't and we don't know if the four who did go ever even met or or talked to each other at the seminar all of this doesn't include or select in phoenix and we haven't had time yet to do a track on him so if there is no correlation we are to assume they are chosen by the offender simply because they take the bait rachel said i think that's correct so he must stand by and watch and see his prey for the first time after the bait kill again correct all of these bait cases received heavy local media attention he could have seen each of the detectives for the first time on tv or in a newspaper photo no physically archetypal attraction involved no he simply takes whoever gets the case the lead detective becomes the prey now that is not to say that after that selection he may not find that one or more of these subjects was more attractive or fulfilling to his fantasy that can always happen what fantasy i asked struggling just to keep up with what brass was saying is that jack well jack we don't know what fantasy that's the point we are coming at it from the wrong direction we don't know the fantasy that motivates this killer and what we are seeing and guessing about our other parts we may never know what rocks his world he's down from the moon jack the only way we'll really ever know is if he decides to tell us someday i nodded and thought of another question i waited until it was clear no one else had anything um agent brass i mean uh duran yes you might have already said this but what about the poems do you have any more of an idea how they fit well they are obviously being used in exhibition we noted this yesterday this is his signature and though he obviously wants to elude capture at the same time his psychology is such that he just has to leave a little something that says hey i was here this is where the poems come in as for the poems themselves the correlation is that they all are or can be read as being about death there is also the theme that death is a portal to other things other places through the pale door i believe is one of the quotes he used what it may be is that the poet may believe he is sending these men he has killed to a better world he is transforming them it's something to consider when we consider the pathology of this individual but once again we come back to the instability of all our conjecture it's kind of like we are looking through a full trash can to try to find out what somebody ate for dinner last night we don't know what this man is doing and we won't until we have him brass bob again uh what are you reading on the planning of these crimes i'll let brad answer that uh this is brad um we're calling this guy a modified traveler yes he is using the whole country as his canvas but he is staying put for weeks and sometimes months at a time this is unusual in our prior profiling the poet is not a hit and run killer he hits and then he stays around for a while we are to expect that during this period the hunter watches the haunted he must come to know his victim's routines and nuances possibly he even strikes up a passing acquaintance that's something to look for a new friend or acquaintance in each detective's life maybe a new neighbor or guy at the local bar the situation in denver also suggests that he may come at them as a source someone with information he may be using a combination of these approaches which leads to the next step becca said after contact power hazelton said after he gets close enough to these victims how does he take control well we assume he has some kind of a weapon that initially allows him to take theirs but there is something more how does he get six now seven homicide detectives to write out lines of poetry how does he avoid a struggle in every one of these cases at the moment we are exploring the possibility of hypnosis combined with chemical enhancers taken from the victims themselves all but one of these incidents occurred in the victim's house the mcavoy case is the anomaly setting it aside and looking at the others there is probably no one among us who has an empty medicine cabinet and there probably isn't a cabinet among the bunch that doesn't have some prescription or store-bought medication that wouldn't serve as an enhancer obviously some things work better than others but the point is if this scenario is correct the poet is using the things made available to him by the victims we are looking at this hard uh that's it for now okay then baca said any other questions the room and phone speaker remained silent okay people he said leaning forward his hands on the table and his mouth close to the phone speaker your best work we really need it this time rachel and i followed bacchus and thompson to the hyatt where matuzik had reserved rooms i had to check in and pay for my room while backus checked in and got keys for the other five which the government would pay for still i got the discounts the hotel regularly gave the fbi it must have been the shirt rachel and thompson were waiting in the lobby lounge where we had decided on a drink before dinner when backus gave her one of the keys i heard him say that she was in room 321 and i committed it to memory i was four doors away in room 317 and i was already thinking about the night ahead about closing that gap after a half hour of small talk baca stood up and said he was going to his room to review the day's reports before heading out to the airport to pick up thorson and carter he turned down an offer to join us for dinner and headed toward the elevator a few minutes later thompson split too saying he wanted to read through the autopsy report on ursulak in detail just you and me jack rachel said when thompson was out of earshot what do you feel like eating i'm not sure what about you haven't thought about it i know what i want to do first though let's take a hot bath we agreed to meet in an hour for dinner we rode the elevator up to our floor in a silence couched in the sexual tension in my room i tried to take my mind off rachel by connecting my computer to the phone line and checking my messages in denver there was only one from greg glenn asking where i was i answered it but doubted that he would see it until he came back into work on monday i then sent a message to laurie prine asking her to search for any stories on horus the hypnotist that might have run in the florida newspapers in the last seven years i asked her to ship any hits she got to my computer basket but said it was no hurry after that i showered and changed into my new clothes for my dinner with rachel i was ready 20 minutes early and i thought about going down and seeing if there was a drugstore nearby but then i thought about the impression it would give rachel if things worked out and i came to her bed a condom already in my pocket i decided against the drugstore i decided to play things as they came did you see cnn no i said i was standing in the doorway of her room she went back to the bed and sat down to put her shoes on she looked refreshed and was wearing a cream-colored shirt with black jeans the tv was still on but it was a story about the clinic shootings in colorado i didn't think that was what she was talking about what did it say we were on you me and bob coming out of the funeral home somehow they got bob's name and put it on the screen did it say he was bss no just fbi but it doesn't matter cnn must have taken the feed off the local channel wherever he is if our guy saw it we could have a problem how come it's not that unusual for the fbi to take a look at cases like this bureau's always sticking its nose in the problem is it plays to the poet we see it in almost all of the cases one concept of the gratification these kinds of killers seek is seeing their work on tv and in the papers in a way it allows them to relive the fantasy of the incident part of that infatuation with the media extends to the pursuers i get the feeling that this guy the poet knows more about us than we do about him if i'm right then he's probably read books on serial killers the commercial drake and even some of the more serious work he may know names bob's father is in many of them bob himself is in some so am i our names photos our words if he saw that on cnn and recognized us then he'll assume we are right behind him we may lose him now he might go under ambivalence won the night unable to decide what or where we wanted to eat we settled for the hotel's restaurant the food was okay but we shared a bottle of bueller cabernet that was perfect i told her not to worry about the government per diem because the newspaper was paying she ordered cherry's jubilee for dessert after i told her that i get the feeling that you'd be happy if there was no free media in the world i told her when we were slowing down on the desert the implications of the cnn report had dominated the conversation during dinner not at all i respect the media as a necessity in a free society i don't respect the irresponsibility that you see more often than you don't what was irresponsible about that report that one was marginal but it bothers me that they used our images without bothering to ask what the ramifications could be i just wish that sometimes the media would concentrate on the larger picture or story rather than go for the immediate gratification every time not every time i didn't blow you people off and say i'm writing my story i went long term i went for the larger story oh very noble coming from somebody who extorted his way into the investigation she was smiling and so was i hey i protested can we talk about something else i'm tired of all this god i'd love to just be able to lay back and forget about it for a while there it was again her choice of words the way she looked at me as she said them was i reading it correctly or only reading what i wanted to read okay forget about the poet i said let's talk about you me what about me this stuff going on with thorson is like a tv sitcom that's private not when you guys are staring daggers across the room all the time and you're trying to get back us to take him off the case i don't want him off the case i just want him off my back and i don't want him out here he always finds a way to sneak in and try to take over you watch how long were you married 15 glorious months when did it end long time ago three years that's a long time for hostilities to linger i don't want to talk about this but i sensed she did i let a little time go by the waiter came and refilled our coffee cups what happened i asked softly you don't deserve to be unhappy like that she reached up and tugged gently on my beard the first time she had touched me since ramming my face into the bed back in washington you're sweet she shook her head it was just the wrong thing for both of us sometimes i don't even know what we saw in each other it just didn't work how come just because it was a just because type of thing like i said we both had a lot of baggage his was heavier he'd worn a mask and i didn't see all the rage behind it until it was too late i got out as soon as i could what was he angry about a lot of things he carries a lot of anger from other women relationships i was his second failed marriage the job his father sometimes it came out like a blowtorch did he ever hurt you no i didn't stay long enough for him to try first all men deny the women's intuition but i think if i state it would have come to that supposed the natural course of things i still try to stay away from him and he still has something for you you're crazy if you think that there's something there the only thing he has for me is a desire to see me unhappy he wants to get back at me for being the cause of his bad marriage his bad life everything how's a guy like that keep his job like i said he's got a mask he's good at hiding it you saw him at the meeting he was contained you also have to understand something about the fbi they don't go looking to bust their agents as long as he did the work didn't matter what i felt or said you complained about him not directly that would have been cutting my own throat i've got an enviable position in the bss but make no mistake the bureau's a man's world and you don't go to the boss to complain about your ex-husband about things you think he might do i'd probably end up on the bank squad in salt lake city if i tried that so what can you do not much indirectly i've dropped enough hints on bacchus for him to know what's going on as you can tell by what you heard today he's not going to do anything about it i have to assume that gordon's dropping hints in his other ear if i were bob i'd just sit back like he's doing and wait for one of us to up first one to do it gets shipped out and what would constitute a up i don't know with the bureau you never know but he's got to be more careful with me than him prevailing factors you know he's got to have his together if he's going to try to move a woman out of the unit so that's my edge i nodded we had come to a natural end to that branch of the conversation but i didn't want her to go back to her room i wanted to be with her you're a pretty good interviewer jack pretty sly one we've spent the whole time talking about me and the bureau what about you what about me never married never divorced i don't even have plants at home i sit behind a computer all day it's not in the same league as you and thorsen she smiled and then giggled a bit girlishly yes we are a pair were do you feel any better after the meeting today about what they found in denver you mean what they didn't find i don't know i guess it's better that it looks like he didn't have to go through that there still is nothing to feel better about though did you call your sister-in-law no not yet i'll do it in the morning seems like something that should be discussed in daylight i've never spent a lot of time with the families of the victims she said the bureau always gets called in later i have i'm the master of interviewing the fresh widow the now childless mother father of the dead bride you name it i've interviewed it we were quiet a long moment the waiter came by with his coffee pot but we both passed i asked for the check i knew it wasn't going to happen with her tonight i had lost the nerve to pursue it because i didn't want to risk her rejection my pattern had always been the same when i didn't care whether a woman rejected me i always took the chance when i did care and knew rejection would cut me i always held back what are you thinking about she asked nothing i lied my brother i guess why don't you tell that story what story the other day you're about to tell me something good about him the nicest thing he ever did for you i looked across the table at her i knew the story instantly but thought about it before speaking i could have easily lied and told her the nicest thing he did was just love me but i trusted her we trust the things we find beautiful the things we want and maybe i wanted to confess to somebody after so many years the nicest thing he ever did was not blame me for what our sister died when we were kids it was my fault he knew he was the only one who really knew and her but he never blamed me and he never told anyone in fact he took on half the guilt that was the nicest thing she leaned forward across the table with a pinged look on her face i think she would have made a good sympathetic psychiatrist if she had wanted to be one what happened jack she fell through the ice at the lake the same place where shawn's body was found she was bigger than me older this is the end of side one this program is continued on side two of this cassette [Music] what happened jack she fell through the ice at the lake the same place where sean's body was found she was bigger than me older we'd gone out there with our parents we had a camper and my folks were making lunch or something me and sean were outside and sarah was watching us i ran out on the frozen lake sarah ran out after me to stop me from going too far out to where the ice was thin only she was older and bigger and heavier and she fell through i started screaming sean started screaming my father and some other people there tried but they couldn't get to her in time i drank from my coffee cup but it was empty i looked at her and continued anyway everybody was asking what happened you know and i couldn't i couldn't talk and he sean said we had both been out on the ice and then when sarah came out it cracked and she fell through it was a lie and i don't know if my parents ever believed it i don't think they did but he did it for me it was like he was willing to share the guilt with me make it easier by half i stared into my empty cup rachel said nothing you might have made a big as a shrink that's a story i've never told anyone well i think telling it might have just been something you felt you owed your brother maybe a way of thanking him the waiter placed a check on our table and thanked us i opened my wallet and put a credit card down on top of it i can think of a better way to thank him i thought after we stepped off of the elevator i nearly became paralyzed with fear i couldn't bring myself to act on my desire we moved to her door first she pulled the card key from her pocket and looked up at me i hesitated said nothing well she said after a long moment i guess we start early tomorrow do you eat breakfast just coffee usually okay well i'll call you and maybe if there's time we can grab a cup i nodded too overrun with the embarrassment of my failure and coward as to say anything goodnight jack goodnight i managed to say before walking off down the hall i sat on the edge of the bed watching cnn for a half hour hoping to see the report she had mentioned or anything to take my mind off the disastrous end of the night why is it i wondered that it is the ones who mean so much that are the hardest to reach out to some deep instinct told me that the moment in the hall had been the time the right moment and i had ignored it i had run from it now i feared that my failure would haunt me forever because that instinct might never come back i don't think i heard the first knock because the one that raised me from my dark reverie was very loud and surely not the first effort it had the urgency of a third or fourth knock jarred by the intrusion i quickly turned off the tv and went to the door opening it without looking through the peephole it was her rachel hi hi i thought i'd give you a chance to redeem yourself that is if you wanted to i looked at her and a dozen responses went through my mind all engineered to neatly put the ball back in her court and make her make the move but the instinct came back and i knew what she wanted and what i needed to do i stepped toward her and put an arm behind her back and kissed her then i pulled her into the room closed the door thank you i whispered almost nothing was said after that she hit the light switch then led me to the bed she put her arms around my neck and pulled me down into a long deep kiss we fumbled with each other's clothes and then decided wordlessly to just take off our own it was faster do you have something she whispered you know to use crestfallen by the consequences of my inaction earlier i shook my head no and was about to offer to go to the drugstore a trip that i knew would destroy the moment i think i might she said she pulled her purse onto the bed and i heard the zipper of an interior pocket opening she then pressed the plastic condom package into my palm i always keep one for emergencies she said with a smile in her voice we made love after that slowly smiling in the shadows of the room i think of it now as a wonderful moment perhaps the most erotic and passionate hour of my life in reality though when i stripped the gauze from the memory i know it was a nervous hour with both of us seemingly too eager and willing to please the other and perhaps thereby robbing ourselves of some of the true enjoyment of the moment my sense of rachel was that she was craving the intimacy of the act not as much the sensual pleasure as the closeness with another human being it was that way for me as well but i also found a deep carnal desire for her body she had wide and dark gorillas on small breasts a lovely rounded stomach with soft hair below it as we found each other's rhythm her face fleshed and became warm she was beautiful and i told her so but this seemed only to embarrass her and she pulled me down into an embrace so that i could not see her face my face in her hair i smelled the scent of apples afterwards she rolled onto her stomach and i lightly rubbed her back i want to be with you after this i said she didn't answer but that was okay i knew that what we had just shared was genuine she slowly pulled herself up into a sitting position what is it i can't stay i want to but i can't i should be in my own room in the morning in case bob calls he'll want to talk before the meeting with the locals and he said he'd call disappointed i wordlessly watched her dress she moved about in the darkness skillfully knowing her way when she was finished she bent down and lightly kissed me on the lips go to sleep i will you too but after she was gone i couldn't sleep i felt too good i felt reaffirmed and an unexplainable joy every day you fight death with life and what is more vital in life than the physical act of love my brother and all that had happened seemed far away i rolled to the side of the bed and picked up the phone full of myself i wanted to tell her these thoughts but after eight rings she didn't pick up and the operator answered are you sure that was rachel walling's room yes sir 321 would you like to leave a message no thanks i set up and turned on the light i turned on the television with the remote and flipped back and forth between leno and letterman for a few minutes not really watching i tried her number again and still no answer getting dressed i told myself i wanted a coke i took change off the bureau and my key and went down the hall to the alcove where the vending machines were on my way back i stopped by 321 and listened at the door i heard nothing i lightly knocked and waited knocked again she didn't answer my door i fumbled to use the key and turned the knob while holding the can of coke finally i put the can down on the rug and was opening the door when i heard footsteps and turned to see a man coming down the hallway toward me the hall lights were dimmed because of the hour and the bright lights from the elevator alcove cast the approaching man in silhouette he was a large man and in his hand i saw he carried something a bag maybe he was ten feet away hiya sport thorson his voice though recognizable spooked me and i think he saw it in my face i heard him chuckle as he passed by me pleasant dreams i said nothing i picked up the can and moved into my room slowly continuing to watch thorson move down the hall he passed by 321 without hesitation and stopped at a room further down the hallway as he was opening it with a key he looked back down the hall at me our eyes locked for a moment then i slipped wordlessly into my room twenty eight gladden wished he had asked darlene where the remote control was before he had killed her it annoyed him to have to get up to switch channels every one of the los angeles television channels had picked up on the time story he had to sit right in front of the box though and manually change the channel to try to catch all the reports he had seen what detective thomas looked like he had been interviewed by all of the channels he lay on the couch too excited to sleep he wanted to change the channel to cnn but didn't want to get up again he was on some cable channel on the nether reaches of the list a woman with a french accent was preparing crepes filled with yogurt gladden didn't know whether it was a dessert or a breakfast but it was making him hungry and he considered opening another can of ravioli he decided against it he knew he had to conserve his supplies still four days to go where's the remote darlene he called out he got up and switched the channel then turned out the lights and returned to the couch with the monologue of the cnn anchors as a calming background he thought about the work ahead his plans they knew about him now and he had to be more careful than ever he finally settled towards sleep his eyes drooping and the tv noise lulling him finally to sleep but just as he was about to drop off his ears picked up on a report from phoenix about the murder of a police detective gladden opened his eyes 29 in the morning rachel called me before i was out of bed i squinted at the clock and saw it was 7 30. i didn't ask why she hadn't answered either the phone or her door the night before i'd already spent a good part of the night brooding about it and decided she had probably been taking a shower during the times i phoned or knocked you up i am now good call your sister-in-law right i will you want to get coffee how long till you're ready i have to make the call and get a shower an hour you're on your own then jack okay a half hour you've already been up no well don't you have to take a shower i don't take an hour to get ready even on a day off okay okay a half hour as i got up i found the torn condom package on the floor i picked it up and committed the brand to memory since it obviously was the one she preferred then threw it in the bathroom trash can i was almost hoping riley wouldn't be home because i didn't know exactly how to ask her to let people dig up her husband's body or how she would react but i knew that at five till nine on a sunday morning there wasn't much chance that she would be anywhere else as far as i knew her only appearances in church in recent years were at sean's funeral and her wedding before that she answered on the second ring with a voice that seemed more cheerful than i'd heard in the last month at first i wasn't even sure it was her ryles jack where are you i was worried i'm in phoenix why are you worried well you know i didn't know what was going on i'm sorry i didn't call everything's okay i'm with the fbi i can't say a lot but they are looking into sean's death his and some others i looked out the window and saw the lines of a mountain on the horizon the tourist pamphlet that came with the room said it was called camelback mountain and the name fit i didn't know if i was saying too much but it wasn't like riley was going to go sell the story to the national enquirer uh something's come up on the case they think there might have been some evidence missed on sean uh they want to riley they need to take him out of the ground to look at him again there was no response i waited a long time riley jack why it will help the case the investigation but what do they want are are they going to cut him open again she said the last part in a desperate whisper and i realized how i had bungled the job of telling her oh no not at all all they want to do is look at his hands nothing else you have to give them permission otherwise they have to go through courts and it's a long mess it's hands why jack it's a long story i'm not really supposed to tell you but i'll tell you this they think the guy whoever did this he tried to hypnotize sean they want to look at his hands to see if there are pinpricks you know that's the test somebody might have given to see if sean was really hypnotized there was more silence there was something else i said did shawn have a cough or a cold you know back on the day it happened yes she said after a moment's hesitation he was sick and i told him not to go in that day i was sick too and i told him to stay home with me jack you know what what i must have felt sick because i was pregnant i found out wednesday it caught me off guard i hesitated oh briley i finally said that's wonderful did you tell the folks yes they know they're very happy it's like a miracle child because i didn't know and we hadn't really been trying it's great news i didn't know how to get back to the other conversation we had been having finally i just bull rushed her to the point i've gotta go now riles what can i tell them rachel was in the lobby when i stepped out of the elevator she had both her computer bag and her overnighter with her you checked out i asked not understanding fbi rules of the road never leave anything in the room because you never know when you'll have to fly we get a break today i'm not going to have time to come back and pack my things i nodded it was too late for me to pack and i had almost nothing to pack anyway did you call her yes she said fine she said do it for what it's worth she also said he was sick the cough syrup was his and i figured out why sean was killed in his car and not at home like the others why his wife riley was home because she was sick too my brother would have done everything he could not to take this guy back to his house not with her there i nodded sadly at my brother's last and maybe bravest act i think you're right jack it fits but listen there's been a development bob's just got word and called me from the fo he's delaying the meeting with the locals we got a fax from the poet the mood of the conference room was decidedly somber only the agents from quantico were taking part bacchus thompson thorson and an agent named carter who had been at the first status meeting i had attended back at quantico i noticed rachel and thorsen exchanged contemptible looks as we entered i focused on bacchus he seemed lost in thought he had his portable computer open on the table in front of him but he wasn't looking at it he looked fresh in a different gray suit a bemused smile spread in his face and he looked at me jack you get to see firsthand now why we were concerned about containing this story a five-second video bite was all it took and the offender knows we are on his trail i nodded i don't think he should be here for this thorson said a deal is a deal gordon he certainly had nothing to do with the cnn story still i think it's not can it gordon rachel said it doesn't matter what you think okay let's halt hostilities and concentrate on the problem baca said i've got copies here he opened a file and passed copies of the facts across the table i got my own copy there was silence in the room as we all read bob backus fbi agent and hello to you sir i caught the news and saw you in phoenix you sly one no comments to dim bulb reporters do not fool me i know your face bob you are coming for me and i anxiously await your arrival but be careful my friend bob not so close after all look what happened to poor orcilac and those others they put orsalak in the ground today the end of a good job but an fbi man of such stature as yours now that would be a noble hunt not to worry bob you are safe my next intended has been anointed i've made my choice and i have him in sight even as you read these words are you huddled with your masses now wondering what makes your opponent tick it's a terrible mystery isn't it bothers like a pin prick in the palm i suspect i offer you one clue what are friends for i am the rotten apple of my best pals i who am i when you know the answer bob say it over and over again then you'll get it you'll know you're a pro and i'm sure you are up to the challenge i'm counting on you bob i dwell alone in the land of moan bob and my work has just begun and bob may the best man win i cannot sign my correspondence for you haven't given me my name yet what is it bob i'll watch for you on television and i'll wait to hear my name until then i will close with this short and tall i killed them all tried carefully i read the facts twice and each time it gave me the same chill i knew what they meant now about the moon the letter was the voice of a man from someplace else not here not this planet everybody in agreement on authenticity bacchus asked there are several authenticators rachel said the pinprick the quote from poe what about the reference to best pal has florida been informed about this yes the best pals angle obviously becomes the priority they're dropping everything else for the time being what does brass say that it obviously confirms the linkage theory there are references here to both strings the detectives and the others she and brad were right one offender she's now going with the florida killings as our model everything that follows is just a repetition of the initial crime sequence he's repeating the ritual in other words find out why he killed beltran and you know why he killed the rest right brass and brad have been talking to florida all morning hopefully it won't take long to get some answers and put the model together everybody seemed to brood over this for a few moments we're going to stay here rachel asked i think it's best becca said the answers may be in florida but it's static history we're still closest to him here it says he's already chosen his next intended i said is that the next cop you think that's exactly what i think bacchus said somberly so we've run out of time as we sit here talking he is watching another man another cop somewhere and if we don't find out where that is we're going to have another dead man on our hands he pounded a fist on the table we've got to make a break people we've got to do something we have to find that man before it is too late he said it with force and conviction he was marshaling his troops he had asked for their best work before he needed it to be even better now bob rachel said the facts makes reference to orzelac's funeral being today when did this come in and where did it go to gordon has that thorson cleared his throat and spoke without looking at rachel or me it came to a fax line at quantico that is assigned to academy business thorson said needless to say its sender used a masking option on the sender id nothing there it arrived at 3 38 this morning that's eastern time i had hazelton chase down the sequence a fax call came into the general quantico number the operator recognized the facts beep and switched the call to the wire room she couldn't tell where or who it was going to because all she had was the beep so she took a guess and switched it to an academy fax and it was there in the basket until this morning when it was finally noticed and brought down to the center we're lucky it's not still sitting there unnoticed bacchus added right thorson said anyway hazelton took the original to the lab and came up with something their take is that it wasn't a fax to fax transmission it came from an inboard fax a computer i said with a fax modem and since we know this guy is a traveler it's not likely that he's lugging around an apple mac on his back the speculation is he has a laptop computer with a fax modem most likely a cellular modem it would give him the most freedom everyone digested this for a few moments i wasn't sure of its significance it seemed to me that a lot of the information they amassed during the investigation was useless until they had a suspect in custody then it might be used to build a case against him for trial but until then it wasn't much help in catching him alright so he has state of the art computer equipment rachel finally said what do we have in place for the next facts we'll be standing by to trace any facts calls to the general line thorson said at best we'll get the originating cell no closer what's that mean i asked forsen seemed reluctant to answer any question from me rachel stepped in when he didn't it means if he's on a cellular we can't make a trace to a direct number or location we'll get the city and the originating cell where the call came from probably at best that we'll knock it down to a search area of more than a hundred thousand people but we'll have the city becca said we'll be able to go to the locals and look for cases that may serve as bait cases it would only have to be a homicide committed in the last week just since orsalak he looked at thorson gordon i want another flag sent to all fos tell them to check with the locals on any recent homicides we're talking about all the whodunits in general but child cases in particular and anything with unusual mo or violent assault on the corpse before or after death get that out by this afternoon request acknowledgement from faics by 1800 tomorrow i don't want it to fall through the cracks got it also fyi brass suggested one other thing as well bacchus added and that's that the bit in the facts about his next target being selected could be a bluff uh designed to make us react and scramble while the offender is actually slipping away going under remember it was the chief fear that we had about publicity i disagree rachel said reading this i see a braggart someone who thinks he's better than us and wants to toy with us i take him at his word there's a cop out there somewhere and he's in the sights i tend to think that way too baka said i think brass does as well but felt the need to put the other possibility on the table so then what's our strategy now simple bacchus said we find this guy and arrest him before he hurts anybody else becca smiled and everyone but thorson followed suit actually i think that until something else breaks we stay put and redouble our efforts here and let's keep this facts to ourselves meantime we're ready to move if something develops we hope for another facts from our guy and brass is working up another alert for the field offices i'll tell her to stress its importance to the fos in the pacific time zone he scanned the room and nodded he was finished did i say it again he asked your best work we really need it now more than ever 30. the meeting with the locals didn't get underway until almost 11 it was short and sweet it was the kind of situation where the suitor asks the bride-to-be's father for approval of the marriage most of the time it doesn't really matter what the old man says it's going to happen in carefully chosen friendly words bacchus told the locals that the big g was in town and was now running the show there was a little bit of posturing and disagreement on some particulars but they rolled over with the empty promises bacchus made during this meeting i completely avoided eye contact with thorson while driving over from the federal building rachel had explained to me the reason for the morning's tensions between her and thorsen the night before she had run into her former husband in the hallway while leaving my hotel room her disheveled appearance probably told him all he needed to know i groaned when i heard thinking about how it complicated things she seemed to be unconcerned and viewed the situation as amusing at the end of the meeting with the locals bacchus divided assignments rachel and thompson were given the orcilak crime scene i was to ride with them mize and matuzak were to start backtracking on the interviews the locals had conducted of orcillax friends and try to reconstruct the dead detectives movements on this last day thorson and carter were given the little joaquin case and assigned to recover the ground trod by the locals grayson would act as liaison to the phoenix cops and backus of course would run the show from the field office maintaining contact on other developments on the case in quantico and the other cities orsalak had lived in a small yellow ranch house with stucco walls in tempe the next town over from phoenix it was a marginal neighborhood i counted three junk cars parked on sunburned lawns and two sunday morning garage sales in full swing on the block rachel used the key she had gotten from grayson to cut through an evidence sticker spread across the front door jamb and then unlocked the door before pushing it open she turned to me remember they didn't find him for three and a half days are you up to this course for some reason i was embarrassed that she had asked me this in front of thompson who smiled like i was a rookie that annoyed me too even though in actuality i was less than a rookie we were three steps in before the odor engulfed me and nearly provoked an involuntary wretching spasm as a reporter i had seen plenty of bodies but i'd never had the pleasure of entering a closed structure where a body had rotted for three days before discovery the putrid odor was almost palpable it was like the ghost of william orsilak haunting the place and all who dared enter rachel left the front door open to help air the place out some what are you looking for i asked once i was reasonably assured that i had controlled my throat inside i don't know rachel replied it's already been gone over by the locals his friends she went to the dining room table in the room to the right of the door and put down and opened a file she had been carrying she began leafing through the pages it was part of the package the local cops had turned over to the agents have a look around she said it looks like they were pretty thorough but you might come up with something just don't touch anything right i left her there and started slowly to look about my eyes first caught on the easy chair in the living room it was a dark green but the headrest was stained darker with blood it had flowed down the back into the seat of the chair or selects blood on the floor in front of the chair and near the wall behind it chalk circles outlined two holes where bullets had been retrieved thompson knelt there and opened his toolbox he began probing the bullet holes with a thin steel pick i left him there and walked further into the house there were two bedrooms orsalax and an extra that seemed dusty and unused there were photos of two teenaged boys on the bureau in the bedroom the detective had used but i guessed his kids never used the other they never came to visit i moved slowly through these rooms and the hallway bathroom but i saw nothing that i thought mattered to the investigation i secretly hoped i would come upon something that would help and that would impress rachel but i came up empty when i stepped back into the living room i saw neither rachel nor thompson rachel no answer i walked through the dining room to the kitchen but it was empty i went through the laundry room opened the door and glanced into the dark garage but saw no one there either coming back into the kitchen i saw the door a jar and glanced through the window over the sink i saw a movement in the tall brush at the rear of the backyard rachel was walking with her head down through the brush thompson behind her the yard was cleared for maybe 20 yards going back a seven foot high plank fence ran down both sides but at the back there was no fence line and the yard dropped down into a dry creek bed where there was a lot of brush rachel and thompson were on a trail moving through the brush away from the house thanks for waiting i said when i caught up what are you doing what do you think jack rachel said did the poet just park in the driveway knock on the door and pop or salak after being invited in i don't know i doubt it i do too no he watched him maybe for days but the locals canvassed the neighborhood and no neighbors saw a car that didn't belong nobody saw anything out of the routine so you think he came in through here it's a possibility she studied the ground as we walked she was looking for anything a footprint in the mud a broken twig she stopped a few times to bend and look at pieces of debris along the trail a cigarette box an empty soft drink bottle she didn't touch any of it it could be collected later if necessary the trail took us under a stanchion holding up high tension power lines and into a stand of heavy brush at the back end of a trailer park we reached a high point and looked down into the park it was not well kept and many of the units had crudely fashioned add-ons like porches and tool sheds on some of the units the porches had been enclosed with plastic sheeting and were being used as additional bedrooms and living spaces an aura of crowded poverty emanated from the 30 or so dwellings jammed together on the lot like toothpicks in a box well shall we rachel asked as if we were going for high tea ladies first thompson said several of the inhabitants of the park were sitting on door stoops and old couches set in front of their units they were mostly latinos and a few blacks maybe some indians they watched us emerge from the brush with no real interest which showed they recognized us as cops we showed the same disinterest to them as we started walking along the narrow lane between rows of trailers what are we doing i asked just having a look rachel answered we can ask questions later if we take it slow and calm they'll know we're not here to kick ass it might help her eyes never stop scanning the park and every trailer we passed as we walked i realized that it was the first time i had seen her at work in the field this wasn't sitting around a table trying to interpret facts this was the gathering time i found myself watching her more than anything else he watched or select rachel said more to herself than either thompson or me and once he knew where he lived he started planning how to get in and how to get out he had to have a getaway route and a getaway car and it would not have been smart to park it anywhere on orsalax street we were coming down the main street as narrow as it was to the front of the park and the entrance off of a city street so he parked somewhere over here and walked through the first trailer at the entrance had a sign on the door that said office a larger sign attached to an iron framework on top of the trailer said sunshine acres mobile home park sunshine acres thompson asked more like sunshine half acre not much of a park either i added rachel was off on her own not listening she walked past the steps to the office door and out to the city street it was four lanes and we were in an industrial area directly across from the trailer park was that you store it and on either side of that were warehouses i watched rachel look around and take in the surroundings her eyes held on the one street light which was a half block away i knew what she was thinking and it would be dark here at night she walked along the curb her eyes scanning the asphalt looking for something anything maybe a cigarette butt or a piece of luck thompson stood with me kicking at the ground with one foot i couldn't take my eyes off of rachel i saw her stop and look down and bite her lip for a moment i walked over glimmering like a cache of diamonds against the curb was a pile of shattered safety glass she told her shoe through the glass stones the trailer park's manager was already about three shots into the day when we opened the door and stepped into the cramped space advertised outside as an office it was clear the place was also the man's home he was sitting in a green corduroy lazy boy chair with the feet extension up its sides were scarred by cat scratches but it was still the nicest piece of furniture he had other than the television that was a new looking panasonic with a built-in vcr he was watching a home shopping show and it took him a long time to pull his eyes off the tube to have a look at us the device being sold sliced and chopped vegetables without all the mess and set up time of a food processor you the manager rachel asked that should be obvious shouldn't an officer a wise guy i thought he was about 60 and he wore green fatigues in a white sleeveless t-shirt with burn holes on the chest through which a crop of gray chest hair protruded he was balding and had a drinker's red face he was white the only white person i had seen so far in the park its agent she said showing him the inside of her badge wallet fbi what's the g care about a little car breaking see i read a lot i know you people call yourselves the g i don't like that rachel looked at me and thompson and then back at the man i felt the small tingling of anxiousness how do you know about the car break in rachel asked i see me out there i got eyes you was looking at the glass i swept it up in the pile street cleaners only come round here maybe once a month more in the summer when it's dusty out no i mean how did you even know there was a car burglary because i sleep back there in the back room i heard them break the window saw messing about inside their car when was this let's see that'd be thursday last i was wondering when guide reported but i didn't think no fbi agent will be coming out how about you two you with the g2 never mind that mister what is your name sir adkins okay mr adkins do you know whose car got broken into nope never saw him i just heard the window and saw the kids what about the plate nope you didn't call the police don't have no phone i could use this over to lot three but it was the middle of the night and i knew those cops wouldn't come running on a car robbery not here you got too much to do so you never at any point saw the owner of the car and he never knocked on the door to see if maybe you heard the break-in or saw anybody that's right and what about the kids who broke in thompson asked robbing rachel of the payoff question you know them mr atkins had kids with a d no t mr g atkins laughed at his command of the alphabet mr adkins thompson said correcting himself well do you doing what know who the kids were no i don't know who they were his eyes strayed past us to the television on the program they were now selling a glove with small rubber bristles on the palm for grooming pets and now what else you could use that for adkins said he made a masturbation motion with his hand and winked and smiled at thompson that's what they're really selling that for you know rachel stepped over to the tv and turned it off adkins didn't protest she straightened up and looked at him we're investigating the murder of a police officer we'd like your attention we have reason to believe the car you saw burglarized belong to a suspect we are not interested in prosecuting the boys who broke into the car but we need to speak to them you were lying just then mr adkins i saw it in your eyes the boys came from this park no all right let me finish yes you were lying to us but we're going to give you another chance you can tell us the truth now or we'll go back and get more agents and police and we'll go through this dump you call a trailer park like an army laying siege you think we'll find any stolen property in those tin cans do you think we might run across some people wanted on warrant how about some illegals what about safety code violations we passed one back there i saw the extension cord going out the door into the shed they've got somebody living in there don't they and i bet you and your employer charge extra for that or maybe just you do what's your employer going to say when he finds out what's he going to say when the receivables go down because the people who are supposed to be paying you rent cannot because they've been deported or they're in lock up on warrant holes for not paying child support what about you mr adkins you want me to run the serial number off that television on the computer the tv's mine bought it fair square know what you are fbi lady investigator rachel ignored the comment though i think thompson turned away to hide a smile fair and square from who never mind it was those tyrell brothers okay they're the ones what robbed that car now if they come in here and beat the out of me i'm suing you got that with directions from adkins we arrived at a trailer four units in from the main entrance word had spread that the law was in the park there were more people on stoops than sitting on the outdoor couches when we got to number four the tyrell brothers were waiting for us they were sitting on an old grider beneath a blue canvas awning extending from the side of a double-wide trailer next to the door of the trailer was a washer and dryer set beneath the blue canvas cover to keep the rain off the two brothers were teenagers maybe a year apart and of mixed race black and white rachel stepped to the edge of the shade provided by the awning thompson took a spot about five feet to her left guys rachel said and got no response your mother home nah she not officer the older one said he looked at the other with slow eyes the other started rocking the glider back and forth with his leg you know rachel said we know you're smart we don't want any trouble with you don't want to give you any trouble we promised mr adkins that when we went in there to ask where your trailer was afghan the younger one said we're here about the car that was parked out on the road last week i didn't see it no we didn't see it rachel walked over close to the older one and bent down to talk directly into his ear come on now she said softly this is one of those times your mother told you about think now use your head remember what she told you you don't want trouble for her or for yourselves you want us to go away and leave you alone and there's only one way we're going to do that when rachel walked into the squad room at the field office she carried the plastic bag like a trophy she set it down on matuzak's desk and a handful of agents gathered around to look backus came in and looked down at it like he was looking at the holy grail then he looked up at rachel with excitement plainly in his eyes grayson checked with the pd he said no record of any break-in reported at that spot not on that day not on that week you'd think a legal citizen who gets his car broken into would make a report rachel nodded you'd think backus nodded to matuzak who picked the evidence bag up off the table you know what to do yes bring us back some luck we need it what the bag contained was a car stereo stolen from a late model ford mustang white or yellow depending on which of the tyrell brothers had better eyesight in the dark it was all we got from them but the feeling the hope or that it was enough rachel and thompson interviewed them separately and then switched partners and interviewed them again but the radio was all the tyrol brothers could give they said they never saw the driver who left the mustang at the curb in front of the sunshine acres and they took nothing but the stereo and a quick smash and grab they never bothered to even open the trunk they never looked at the plate to see if the car was even registered in arizona while rachel spent the rest of the afternoon doing paperwork and preparing an addendum on the car to be transmitted to all field offices matuzak fed the serial number off of the stereo to the automotive id unit at washington dc headquarters then gave the stereo itself to a lab tech for processing thompson had taken prints of the tyrell brothers for elimination purposes [Music] this is the end of this cassette this program is continued on side one of cassette number seven [Music] this is cassette number seven [Music] while rachel spent the rest of the afternoon doing paperwork and preparing an addendum on the car to be transmitted to all field offices matuzak fed the serial number off of the stereo to the automotive id unit at washington dc headquarters then gave the stereo itself to a lab tech for processing thompson had taken prints of the tyrell brothers for elimination purposes the lab got no usable prints off of the stereo other than those left by the tyrells but the serial number was not a dead end it came back to a 1994 pale yellow mustang registered to hertz corporation matuzek and mize then headed to sky harbor international to continue tracing the car the mood of the agents in the field office was upbeat rachel had delivered there was no guarantee that the mustang had been driven by the poet but the time of its being parked outside sunshine acres matched the time period in which orsalek had been killed and there was the fact that the break-in by the brothers had never been reported to the police it added up to a viable lead and more so it gave them a little more knowledge about how the poet operated it was an important gain they felt like i felt that the poet was an enigma a phantom somewhere out there in the darkness coming up with a lead like the car stereo seemed to make the possibility of catching him more believable we were closer and we were coming for most of the afternoon i stayed out of the way and simply watched rachel work i was fascinated by her skill amazed at how she had come up with the stereo how she had talked to adkins and the tyrells at one point in the office she noticed my gaze and asked what i was doing nothing just watching you like watching me you are good at what you do it's always interesting to watch somebody like that thank you i just got lucky i have a feeling you get lucky a lot i think in this business you make your own luck at the end of the day after bacchus had picked up and read a copy of the alert she had transmitted i watched his eyes narrow into two black marbles i wonder if that choice of car was intentional he asked a pale yellow mustang why is that i asked i saw rachel nodding she knew the answer the bible becca said behold a pale horse and his name that sat on him was death and hell followed with him rachel finished we made love again sunday night and she seemed even more giving and needing of the intimacy in the end if either of us was holding back was me while i wanted nothing more in the world at that moment than to surrender to the feelings i had for her a low whisper in the back of my mind found just enough volume to question her motives perhaps it was a testament to my own precarious self-confidence but i couldn't help but listen to the voice when it suggested that perhaps her aim was just as much to hurt her ex-husband as to please me and herself the thought made me feel guilty and insincere when we held each other afterward she whispered that this time she was going to stay until dawn 31. the phone pulled me out of a sound sleep i looked around the strange confines of the room getting my bearings and my eyes fell on rachel's you better get it she said calmly it's your room she didn't seem to have nearly the same difficulty i had coming awake in fact for a moment i had the feeling she had already been awake and was watching me when the phone rang i lifted the receiver on what i guessed was the ninth or tenth ring at the same time i saw that the clock on the bed table said it was 7 15. yes but walling on the line i froze there was something reminiscent about the voice but i didn't place it in my jumbled mind then a thought occurred to me that rachel shouldn't be in my room uh you got the wrong room she's in don't with me reporter put her on i covered the phone with my hand and turned to rachel it's thorson he says he knows you're there here give it to me she said angrily and jerk the phone out of my hand what do you want there was a period of silence he must have said two or three sentences to her where did it come from more silence why are you calling me she asked the anger back in her voice go ahead and tell him if that's what you want if you want him to know it says as much about you as me i'm sure you'd like to know that you're some kind of a peeping tom she handed me the phone and i hung it up she pulled a pillow over her face and moaned i pulled it off her face what is it i've got bad news for you jack what in this morning's edition of the los angeles times there was a story about the poet i'm sorry i've got to bring you into the fo for a meeting with bob i was silent for a moment confused how'd they we don't know that's what we're going to talk about how much did they have did he say no but apparently it was enough i knew i should have written this yesterday damn it once it was clear that this guy knew about you people there was no reason not to write it you made a deal and stuck to it you had to jack look let's wait on this until we get to the office and talk about what they had i've got to call my editor you can do that later bob's apparently already in and waiting for us i guess he doesn't sleep the phone rang again she jerked the phone out of the cradle what is it she said in a voice painted with annoyance then in a softer tone she said hold on she smiled sheepishly and handed me the phone she then lightly kissed me on the cheek whispered that she was going to her room to get ready and started to get dressed i put the phone to my ear hello it's greg glenn uh who was that uh that was an fbi agent we've got a meeting i guess you've heard about the la times you're damn right i have the sinking sensation in my chest was growing glenn went on they've got a story on the killer in the paper our killer jack they're calling him the poet you told me we had the exclusive on this and we were protected we were it was all i could manage to say as rachel finished throwing her clothes on she watched me with sympathetic eyes not anymore you've got to come back this morning and write hours for tomorrow whatever you've got and you better have more than they've got we could have had this in the paper jack but you convinced me now we're playing catch-up on our own story god damn it all right i said sharply just to shut him up and i hope i don't find out that you've extended your stay in phoenix just because you found some babe to bang down there you greg do you have a story there or not of course i do it's a great story a great read but it's in the wrong paper just read it to me no wait a minute i gotta go to this meeting have somebody in the library don't you listen jack you aren't going to any meeting i want you on the next plane back here to write this for tomorrow i watched rachel blow a kiss at me and then go out the door i understand you'll have it for tomorrow but i can write it here and ship it no this is a hands-on story i want to work this one right here with you let me go to this meeting and call you back why there's a new development i lied i don't know what it is and i have to go to find out let me go and i'll call you meantime have the library take the time story off their wire and ship it to my basket i'll call it up here i gotta go i hung up before he could protest i quickly got dressed and headed out the door with my computer bag i was in a daze i didn't know how this could have happened but a thought was pushing through forsen we each grabbed two cups to go from a hospitality stand in the lobby and then headed to the federal building she had packed all her things again i had forgotten we didn't talk until we had finished our first cups i imagined we had completely different thoughts and dilemmas going through our minds are you going back to denver she asked i don't know yet how bad was it it was bad last time he'll ever listen to one of my promises i don't understand how it could have happened they would have had to call bob back as for comment maybe they did no he would have told you he would have kept his deal he's second generation bureau i've never seen anyone tow the line like that man well i hope he keeps the deal now because i'm writing today what did the story say i don't know i should have it as soon as i can hook up to a phone we were at the courthouse she pulled into the garage for federal employees only bacchus and thorson were in the conference room the meeting began with backus expressing his regret that the story had leaked before i could write it it seemed legitimate to me and i regretted impugning his integrity with my comment earlier to rachel you have it i can get it on my computer if i can use the phone line by all means i've been waiting for someone from the la field office to fax it the only reason i know about it is because brass tells me we're already getting calls from other media into quantico i plugged in and turned on my computer and dialed into the rocky system i didn't bother to read any of my messages i went right to my personal basket and looked at the files i noticed there were two new ones poet copy and hip stories i remembered then that i had asked lori prime for stories on hypnosis and horus the hypnotist but i'd have to look at those files later i called up poet copy and got a shock that i should have seen coming before i had even read the first line of the story damn it what rachel asked it was written by warren he resigns from the law enforcement foundation and then turns around and uses my story to get back with the times reporters thorson said with unhidden joy just can't trust him i ignored him but it was hard i was angry about what had happened at warren and at myself i should have seen it coming read it jack baca said i did fbi police seek serial cop killer the hunted turns on the hunters by michael warren special to the times the fbi has begun a manhunt for a serial killer who has claimed as many as seven homicide detectives as his victims in a nationwide rampage began as long as three years ago dubbed the poet because he has left notes containing lines of poetry from the work of edgar allan poe at each murder scene the suspect has attempted to disguise the deaths of his victims as suicides and for as long as three years his victims were countered as such until the similarities of the crimes including the quotes from poe were discovered last week according to a source close to the investigation that discovery prompted the fbi to act quickly in its efforts to identify and capture the poet dozens of fbi agents and police in seven cities are carrying out the investigation under the direction of the fbi's behavioral science section the investigation currently has its most intense focus on phoenix where the latest death attributed to the poet occurred the source said the source who talked to the times on the condition of anonymity declined to disclose how the activities of the poet were discovered but said that a joint study by the fbi and the law enforcement foundation of police suicides in the last six years provided key information the story went on to list the names of the victims and some of the details of each case it then included a few paragraphs on the bss unit as filler and ended with a wrap-up quote from the unnamed source saying that the fbi had little to go on in terms of knowing who or where the poet was by the time i was done reading it my cheeks were hot with anger there was nothing worse than living by the letter of an agreement when one of the people you made the deal with doesn't the story was weak in my opinion a lot of words around a few facts and all attributed to an anonymous source warren didn't even mention the facts or more importantly the bait murders i knew that what i would write that day would be the definitive piece on the poet but that didn't move the anger back in my throat much for whatever the shortcomings of the story were it was still clear that warren had talked to someone in the bureau and i couldn't help but think that that person was sitting at the conference room table with me we had a deal i said looking up from the computer somebody gave this to this guy he knew what i had when i came to him on thursday but he went to somebody in the bureau for the rest probably someone on the task force probably somebody that may be true jack but he already had this because of you thorson interrupted you only have yourself to blame wrong i said glaring back at him i gave him most of it but not the poet the offender wasn't even called that when i was with warren that came from the task force and that blows our deal somebody's talking who shouldn't be talking the story's out i have to go write what i know today for tomorrow a small measure of silence passed through the room jack back i said i know this won't do you much good now but i want you to know that when i get some time and space on this thing i'm going to find out who the leak was and that person won't be working for me anymore and maybe not even the bureau you're right it doesn't do me much good i need to ask a favor nonetheless i looked at bacchus wondering if he was actually foolish enough to again try to convince me to hold off on writing a story every tv station and paper in the country would be running anyway that night and the next day what is it when you write this i want you to please keep in mind that we still need to get this man you have information that could irreparably harm our chances of doing that i'm talking about specific things details of the profile details about the possible hypnosis the condoms if you print those jack and they are repeated on tv or in a newspaper he has access to then he will change his routine see what i'm saying it will only make it harder for us i nodded but then looked at him with a hard stare you're not going to tell me what to write i know that i'm asking you to think about your brother about us and be careful of what you write i trust you jack implicitly i thought about that for a long moment and then nodded again bob i made a deal with you and came out on the short end if you want me to protect you now there's got to be a new deal you're going to have reporters coming out of the woodwork today but i want you to refer all calls to public affairs in quantico i talk to and quote from you exclusively also i get the facts from the poet exclusively you give me that and i won't mention the details of the profile or the hypnosis in my story that's a deal becca said he said it so quickly that i started to think he knew exactly what i had been going to say that he had known all along that i was going to suggest the new deal but one thing jack becca said let's agree on holding back one line from the facts if we start getting confessions we'll be able to use the holdback line to weed out the phonies no problem i said i'll be here i'll tell the front that your calls can come through no one else from the press there will be a lot of those calls my intention was to let public affairs handle it anyway if the statement they put out includes the origination of the case tell them not to use my name just say inquiries from the rocky mountain news started it rolling bacchus nodded one last thing i said and then paused a moment i'm still concerned about the leak if i find out the l a times or any other media outlet also got the poet facts today then i'll put everything i know into the next story the profile everything okay understood you weasel thorson said angrily you think you can just come in here and dictate what you thorson i said i've been wanting to say that to you since quantico you okay if i was betting i'd say you were the leak so don't tell me anything about being always you thorson roared as he stood up to challenge me but quickly backus was up and putting a hand on his shoulder he gently pushed him back down into his seat rachel watched the whole thing a small thin smile on her face easy gordon back a soothed easy nobody's accusing anyone of anything let's keep things cool everybody's a little hot and bothered today but it's no reason why we can't cool down jack that's a dangerous accusation if you have something to back it up let's hear it if not you'd best leave things like that unsaid i said nothing i only had my gut instinct that thorson had leaked the story to me over because of some paranoia about reporters in general and my relationship with rachel in particular it wasn't the kind of thing to bring up for discussion everybody eventually took their seats and just stared at each other that was entertaining as hell fellas but i'd like to do some work today rachel finally said and i have to go i said what line do you want to hold back on the facts the riddle backus answered don't mention best pals i thought a moment it was one of the better lines fine no problem i stood up and so did rachel i'll give you a ride back to the hotel is it that bad getting scooped like that she asked as we were headed back to the hotel it's bad i guess it's like with you guys the ones that get away i hope bacchus busts thorson for this the it will be hard for him to prove anything it's just going to be suspicion if you told bacchus about us and told him that thorson knew then he'd believe it i can't if i told bacchus about us i'd be the one who'd go down after some silence she changed the subject back to the story you'll have so much more than he had but who i'm talking about warren you'll have the better story first with the story first with the glory that's an old newspaper saying but it's true in most stories the one that's there first is always the one who gets the credit even if the first story is full of holes and even if it's a stolen story is that what it's about getting credit just being first even if you don't have it right i looked over at her and tried to smile yeah sometimes most times pretty noble job huh she didn't answer we drove in silence for a while i wished that she would say something about us and what we had or didn't have but she didn't we were getting close to the hotel now what if i can't convince him to let me stay here and i have to go back to denver what happens to us she didn't answer for a while i don't know jack what do you want to happen i don't know but i don't want it to just end like this i thought i didn't know how to say what i wanted to tell her i don't want it to end like this either she drove to the front of the hotel to drop me off she said she had to get back a guy in a red jacket with gold braiding on the shoulders opened the door for me robbing us of any privacy i wanted to kiss her but something about the situation and being in the g car made it seem inappropriate and awkward i'll see you when i can i said as soon as i can good she said smiling goodbye jack good luck with the story call me at the field office and let me know if you are writing from here maybe we can get together tonight that was a better reason than any i had come up with for staying in phoenix she reached over and touched my beard like she had done once before and just before i got out of the car she told me to wait she took a card out of her purse and wrote a number on the back of it then she gave it to me that's my pager number in case something happens it's on the satellite so you can beat me wherever i am in the whole world the whole world until the satellite falls 32. gladden looked at the words on the screen they were beautiful as if written by the unseen hand of god so right so knowledgeable he read them again they know about me now and i am ready i await them i am prepared to take my place in the pantheon of faces i feel as i did as a child when i waited for the closet door to be opened so that i could receive him the line of light to the bottom my beacon i watched the light and the shadows each of his footfalls made then i knew he was there and that i would have his love the apple of his eye we are what they make us and yet they turn from us we are cast off we become nomads in the world of the moan my rejection is my pain and motivation i carry with me the vengeance of all the children i am the idol and i am called the predator the one to watch for in your midst i am the cucalorus the blur of light and dark my story is not one of deprivation and abuse i welcomed the touch i can admit it can you i wanted craved welcomed the touch it was only the rejection when my bones grew too large that cut me so deeply and forced on me the life of a wanderer i am the cast off and the children must stay forever young he looked up when the phone rang it was on the counter in the kitchen and he stared at it as it rang it was the first call she had gotten the machine picked up after three rings and her taped message played gladden had written it out on a piece of paper and made her read it three times before it was recorded on the fourth stupid woman he thought as he listened now she wasn't much of an actress at least with her clothes on hello this is darlene i i can't take your call right now i've had to go out of town because of an emergency i will be checking messages uh messages and will call you as soon as i can she sounded nervous and gladden worried that because of the repeat of the one word that a caller would know she was reading he listened as a male voice left an angry message after the beep arlene god damn it you better call me as soon as you get this you left me in a big lurch over here you should have called and you just might not have a job to come back to girl god damn it gladden thought it had worked he got up and erased the message her boss he assumed but he wouldn't be getting a call back from darlene he noticed the smell as he stood in the kitchen doorway he grabbed his matches off his cigarettes on the living room coffee table and went into the bedroom he studied the body for a few moments the face was a pale green but darker since the last time he had checked bloody fluid was draining from the mouth and nose as the body purged itself of decomposition fluids he had read about these purges in one of the books he had successfully petitioned to receive before the warden at rayford forensic pathology gladden wished he had the camera so he could document the changes in darlene he lit four more sticks of jasmine incense placing them in ashtrays at the four corners of the bed this time after he had left and closed the bedroom door he laid a wet towel along the threshold hoping it would prevent the odor from spreading into the area of the apartment where he was living he still had two days to go 33. i convinced greg glenn to let me write from phoenix for the rest of the morning i stayed in my room making calls gathering comments from players in the story ranging from wexler in denver to bledsoe in baltimore i wrote for five straight hours after that and the only disturbances i had all day were calls from glenn himself nervously asking how i was doing an hour before the five o'clock deadline in denver i filed two stories to the metro desk my nerves were jangling by the time i shipped the stories and i had a headache that was almost off the scale i'd been through a pot and a half of room service coffee and a full pack of marlboros the most i had smoked in one sitting in years pacing the room and waiting for greg glenn's callback i made a quick call to room service again explained that i couldn't leave my room because i was expecting an important call and ordered a bottle of aspirin from the hotel's lobby shop after it arrived i downed three tablets with mineral water from the minibar and almost immediately started feeling better next i called my mother and riley and alerted them that my stories would be in the next day's paper i also told them there was a chance that reporters from other media outlets might try to contact them now that the story was out and to be prepared both said they didn't want to talk to any reporters and i said that was fine not missing the irony that i was one myself lastly i realized i had forgotten to call rachel to tell her i was still in town i called the phoenix field office of the fbi but was told by the agent who answered that she was gone what do you mean gone is she still in phoenix i'm not a liberty to say can i speak with agent bacchus then he's gone too who may i ask is calling i hung up and dialed the hotel's front desk and asked for her room i was told she had checked out so had bacchus so had thorson carter and thompson son of a i said after hanging up there had been a break had to be for all of them to have checked out there had to have been a major breakthrough in the investigation and i realized i had been left behind that my moment on the inside was surely over now i got up and paced the room some more wondering where they would have gone and what could have made them move so quickly then i remembered the card rachel had given me i dug it out of my pocket and punched the paging number into the phone ten minutes surely seemed enough time to bounce my message off the satellite and then down to her wherever she was but ten minutes came and went and the phone didn't ring another ten minutes passed and then a half hour not even greg glenn called i even picked up the phone to make sure i hadn't broken it restless but tired of pacing and waiting i fired up the laptop and logged into rocky again i called up my messages but there were none of any importance i switched to my personal basket scrolled the files and called up the one labeled hip stories the file contained several stories on horus gamble one after the other in chronological order i began to read from the oldest story forward my memory of the hypnotist coming back as i went it was a colorful history a researcher for the cia in the early 60s gamble later was a practicing psychiatrist in beverly hills who specialized in hypnotherapy he parlayed his skill and expertise in the hypnotic arts as he called them into a nightclub act as horus the hypnotist first it was just appearances on open mic nights at the clubs in los angeles but the act became immensely popular and he started taking it to las vegas for week-long gigs on the strip soon gamble wasn't a practicing shrink anymore he was a full-time entertainer appearing on the stages of the nicest palaces on the las vegas strip by the mid-seventies his name was on the building with sinatra's at caesars albeit in smaller letters he made four appearances on carson's show the last time putting his host in a hypnotic trance and listening from him his true thoughts on his other guests that evening because of carson's caustic comments the studio audience thought it was a gag but it wasn't after carson saw the tape he cancelled the airing of the show and put horus the hypnotist on his blacklist the cancellation made news in the entertainment trade papers and was a dagger in the heart of gamble's career he never made another network television appearance until his arrest his shot at tv gone gamble's schtick got old even in vegas and his stages moved further and further away from the strip soon he was on the road working comedy clubs and cabarets then finally it was the strip club and county fair circuit his fall from fame was complete his arrest in orlando at the orange county fair was the exclamation mark at the end of that fall according to trial stories gamble was charged with assaulting young girls that he had chosen as volunteer assistance for matinee performances at the county fair prosecutors said he followed a routine of seeking a girl 10 to 12 years old from the audience and then taking her backstage to prepare once in his private dressing room he gave the intended victim a coke laced with codeine and sodium pentathol a quantity of both was seized during his arrest and told her he must see if she could be hypnotized before the performance started with the drugs acting as hypnotic enhancers the girl was placed in a trance and then assaulted by gamble prosecutors said the molestation primarily involved flay show and masturbation assaults difficult to prove through physical evidence afterward gobble repressed memory of the event in the victim's mind with hypnotic suggestion it was unknown how many girls were victimized by a gamble he was not discovered until a psychologist treating a 13 year old girl with behavioral problems brought out her assault by gamble during a hypnotherapy session a police investigation was launched and gamble was eventually charged with attacks on four girls at trial the defense's contention was that the events as described by the victims and police simply did not happen gamble presented no fewer than six highly qualified experts in hypnotism who testified that the human mind while in a hypnotic trance could not be persuaded or forced under any circumstances to do or even say anything that would endanger the person or be morally repugnant to them and gamble's attorney never missed a chance to remind the jury that there was no physical evidence of molestation but the prosecution won the case with essentially one witness he was gamble's former cia supervisor who testified that gamble's research in the early 60s included experimentation with hypnosis and the use of drug combinations to create a hypnotic override of the brain's moral and safety inhibitions it was mind control and the former cia supervisor said codeine and sodium pentathol were both among the drugs gamble had used to positive results in his studies a jury took two days to convict gamble of four counts of sexual assault of a child he was sentenced to 85 years in prison to be served at the union correctional institute in rayford one of the stories in the file said he appealed the conviction on the basis of incompetent counsel but his plea was rejected all the way up to the florida supreme court as i reached the bottom of the computer file i noticed the last story was only a few days old i found this curious because gamble had been convicted seven years earlier this story also had come from the la tines instead of the orlando sentinel which all the previous had come from curious i started reading it and at first believed lori pryne had simply made a mistake it happens often enough i thought that she had shipped me a story unrelated to my request and that somebody else at the rocky had probably asked for it was a report on a suspect in the murder of a hollywood motel maid i was about to stop reading but then i came across horus gamble's name the story said the suspect in a maid's killing had served time at rayford with gamble and even helped him with some undescribed jailhouse legal work i reread the lines as an idea spun in my mind and then finally couldn't be contained once more i called rachel's pager after disconnecting the laptop this time my fingers were shaking as i punched out the number and i could hardly keep still afterward i paced the room again staring at the phone finally as if the power of my stare had caused it the phone rang and i grabbed it up before it had even stopped its first sounding rachel i think i've got something just hope it isn't syphilis jack it was greg glenn i thought it was somebody else uh listen i'm waiting on a call it's very important and when it comes i should take it forget it jack we're pushing the envelope you ready i looked at my watch it was ten minutes past the first deadline okay i'm ready the faster the better okay first off good work jack this well it doesn't make up entirely for not being first but it's a much better read and much better information okay so what needs to be fixed i asked quickly i didn't care about his compliment criticism parley i just wanted to be done by the time rachel answered my page because there was only one phone line into the room i couldn't use my laptop to connect with the rocky and view the actual edited version of the story instead i called up the original version on the laptop and glenn read off the changes he had made i want to make the lead a little tighter and stronger go right out with a fax a little harder i fiddled around with it and this is what i've got a cryptic note from a serial killer who apparently preys on randomly selected children women and homicide detectives was being analyzed by fbi agents monday as the latest twist in the investigation of the slayer they have dubbed the poet what do you think fine he had changed the word studied to analyzed it wasn't worth protesting we spent the next 10 minutes fine-tuning the main story going back and forth on nitpicks he didn't make too many significant changes and with deadline breathing on his neck he didn't have the time to do a lot anyway in the end i thought some of the changes were good and some were made simply for changes sake a practice all newspaper editors i've ever worked with seemed to share on the second story which was a short first person account of how my search for understanding of my brother's suicide uncovered the trail of the poet it was an understated tooting of the rocky's horn glenn didn't mess with it when we were done he had me hold on the line while he shipped the stories to the copy desk i think maybe we should keep this line open in case they come up with something on the rim glenn said who's got it brown has the main and bayer has the side i'll do the back reading myself i was in good hands brown and bayer were two of the best of the rim rats so what are you planning for tomorrow glenn asked while we were waiting i know it's early but we also have to talk about the weekend i haven't thought about that stuff yet you've got to have a follow jack something we don't go out front this big with something and then come back flat footed the next day there's got to be a follow and for this weekend i'd like a scene setter you know inside the fbi hunt for a serial killer maybe get into the personalities of the people you've been dealing with we'll need art too i know i know i said i just haven't thought about all of that yet i didn't want to tell him about my latest discovery and the new theory i was brewing information like that in an editor's hands was dangerous the next thing you know it's on the daily news budget practically the same as being written in granite that i'll have a follow linking the poet to horus the hypnotist i decided i would wait and talk to rachel before i told glenn about that what about the bureau are they going to let you back inside good question i said i doubt it i kind of got the sayonara when i left today in fact i don't even know where they are i think they blew down something's happening jack i thought you don't worry greg i'll find out where they went and when i do i've still got some leverage with them and there are a few things i didn't have room for in the stories today one way or the other i'll have something tomorrow i just don't know what yet after that i'll do the scene setter but don't count on any art these people don't like their pictures taken after a few more minutes glenn got an all clear from the copy desk and the story was shipped to composing glenn said he was going to babysit it to production to make sure nothing went wrong but i was finished for the night he told me to have a nice dinner on the company expense account and call him in the morning i told him i would as i contemplated whether to page rachel for a third time the phone ah yes sport i recognize the sarcasm dripping off the voice thorson you got it what do you want i'm just letting you know that agent walling is tied up and she won't be calling you back anytime soon so do us in yourself a favor and stop calling the pager it gets annoying where is she that's really none of your business now is it you shot your wad so to speak you got your story now you're on your own you're in l.a message delivered signing off wait listen thorson i think i've got something let me talk to backus no sir you aren't talking to anyone on this investigation anymore you are out mcavoy remember that all media inquiries on this investigation are now being handled by public affairs at washington headquarters anger was bawling like a fist inside me my jaw was clenched tight but i managed to take a shot at him does that include michael warren's inquiries forsen or does he have a direct line to you you're wrong about that i'm no leak you kind of people make me sick i've got more respect for some of the scumbags i put in stir than i have for you you two see what i mean you people have no respect what so that thorson let me talk to rachel or backus i've got a lead they should have you have something you give it to me they're busy it called me to tell him anything at all but i swallowed back the anger and did what i thought was the right thing i have a name it could be the guy william gladden he's a pedophile from florida but he's in l.a at least he was he i know who he is and what he is you do past experience then i remembered the prison interviews the rape project or rachel told me about that he was one of the subjects yes so forget him he's not the guy thought you were going to be the hero and solve it didn't you how do you know he's not the guy he fits and there's the possibility he learned hypnotism from horus gamble if you know about gladden then you know about gamble it all fits they're looking for gladden in la he cut up a motel maid don't you see the maid could be the bait murder the detective his name is ed thomas could be the intended victim he was talking about in the facts let me you're wrong thorson interrupted loudly we already checked this guy out you're not the first to come up with him mcavoy you're not that special we checked gladden out and he's not our guy okay we're not stupid now drop it and go the back to denver when we get the real guy you'll know how do you mean you checked gladden out i'm not going into it we're busy and you're no longer inside you're out and you're staying out just don't call the pager anymore like i said it gets annoying he hung up before i could say another word i slammed the phone into its cradle and it bounced down to the floor i was tempted to immediately page rachel again but thought better of it what could she be doing i wondered that would have made her ask thorsen to call me instead of her a crushing feeling began to form in my chest and many thoughts went through my mind had she merely been babysitting me while i was on the case with them watching me while i watched them had everything just been an act for her i broke away from it there was no way to know the answers until i spoke to her i had to guard against letting my impressions of thorson's comments speak for her instead i began to analyze what thorsen had told me he said rachel could not call me she was tied up what could that mean they have a suspect in custody and she as lead investigator was conducting the interrogation was the suspect under surveillance if so she might be in a car and away from a telephone or by asking thorsen to call me was she sending me a message communicating something she didn't have the guts to tell me herself the nuances of the situation were unreadable to me i gave up on a deeper meaning and thought about the surface i thought about thorson's reaction to my mention of william gladden he'd showed no surprise at the name and seemed to easily dismiss it but in replaying the conversation in my mind i realized that whether i was right or wrong about gladden thorson would have played it the same way if i was right he would have wanted to deflect me if i was wrong he would not have missed the opportunity to let me know the next thought i focused on was the possibility that i was right about gladden and that the bureau had somehow made a mistake in dismissing him as a suspect if this was the case the detective in los angeles could be in danger and not even know it it took me two calls to the los angeles police department to get a number for detective thomas at the hollywood division but when i called the number it went unanswered and kicked over to the station's front desk the officer who answered told me thomas was unavailable he would not tell me why or when the detective would be available i decided not to leave a message i paced the room for a few minutes after hanging up and wrestled with thoughts about what to do i came to the same conclusion from every angle i tried there was only one way of learning the answers to the questions i had about gladden and i knew that was to go to los angeles to go to detective thomas i had nothing to lose my stories were filed and i was off the case i made some calls and booked the next southwest flight from phoenix to burbank the airline operator told me burbank was just as close to hollywood as la international the front desk clerk was the same man who had checked all of us in on saturday you're leaving on the fly too i see i nodded realizing he was talking about the fbi agents uh yes i said they got a head start though he smiled i saw you on tv the other night at first perplexed i then realized what he meant the scene out at the funeral home me in the fbi shirt i knew then that the clerk thought i was an fbi agent i didn't bother to correct him the boss man wasn't too happy about that i said well you people must get that a lot when you swoop into town like that anyway i hope you catch him yeah we do too he went about processing my bill he asked if i had any room charges and i told him about the room service and the items i had taken from the bar listen i said i guess you also have to charge me for a pillowcase [Music] this is the end of side one this program is continued on side two of this cassette

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Keywords: The Poet, Michael Connelly, Buck Schirner, Jack McEvoy, michael connelly audiobook full, michael connelly audiobook, audiobook michael connelly, michael connelly audiobooks full length, audiobook, audiobook full, connelly audiobook, audiobook thriller mystery

Id: iI1eLSEl-OU

Length: 640min 53sec (38453 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 07 2021