Back inside the house I went directly to the office. But when I entered, I immediately saw that my desktop computer was not on my desktop. It was gone and I realized that the police or the FBI had taken it. Somehow, knowing that a bunch of strange men were looking through all my work and personal files, including my ill-fated novel, made me feel exposed in a whole new way. I was not the killer out there on the loose but the FBI had my computer. When Rachel got back from Washington, I was going to ask her to get it back for me.
My shoulders sagged a little and I could feel that the hard exterior I had put on to help me get through the return to my house was slipping. I had to get out or the horrors of what had happened to Angela would creep back into my thoughts and paralyze me. I had to keep moving.
My last stop in the house was the kitchen. I checked the refrigerator and took all the outdated or close-to-outdated items out and dumped them in the trash can. I dropped in the bananas from the fruit bowl and a half loaf of bread from one of the cabinets. I then went out the back door and put the bag in the bigger can next to the garage. I went inside again, locked up and went out the front door to the waiting car.
“Back to the Kyoto,” I told the driver.
I had almost a full day still ahead and it was time to get to work.
As we drove away I saw that my neighbor had gone back inside her safe little home. I was drawn to turn and look through the rear window at my house. It was the only place I had ever owned and I had never contemplated not living there. I realized that one killer had given it to me and another had taken it away.
We made the turn onto Sunset and I lost sight of it.
THIRTEEN: Together Again
Carver worked his hunch on the computer while Stone gathered the things he wanted to take with him. Between searches Carver shredded the pages in Stone’s recycle box. He wanted to leave the FBI something that would keep its agents busy.
He stopped everything when the photo and story appeared on the screen. He scanned it quickly, then looked across the warehouse at Stone. He was throwing clothing into a black trash bag. He had no suitcase. Carver could tell he was working gingerly and was still in some pain.
“I was right,” Carver said. “She’s in L.A.”
Stone dropped the bag he was filling and crossed the concrete floor. He looked over Carver’s shoulder at the middle screen. Carver double-clicked the photo to make it larger.
“Is that her?” he asked.
“I told you, all I got was a quick glance when I went by the room. I didn’t really even see her face. She was in a chair sort of to the side. I didn’t have the angle on her face. It could be her, but maybe not.”
“I think it was her. She was with Jack. Rachel and Jack, together again.”
“Wait a minute. Rachel?”
“Yes, Special Agent Rachel Walling.”
“I think… I think he said that name.”
“Who?”
“McEvoy. When he opened the door and went in the room. When I was coming up behind him. I heard her. She said, ‘Hello, Jack.’ And then he said something and I think he said her name. I think he said something like ‘Rachel, what are you doing?’ ”
“Are you sure? You didn’t say anything about a name before.”
“I know, but you saying that brought it back. I am sure he said that name.”
Carver got excited by the prospect of McEvoy and Walling being on his trail. It raised the stakes considerably to have two such opponents.
“What’s that story about?” Stone asked.
“It’s about her and an L.A. cop getting the guy they called the Bagman. He cut up women and put them in trash bags. This picture was taken at the press conference they had. Two and a half years ago in L.A. They killed the Bagman.”
Carver could hear Stone breathing through his mouth.
“Finish gathering your things now, Freddy.”
“What are we going to do? Go after her now?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think we sit back and wait.”
“For what?”
“For her. She’ll come to us, and when she does, she’ll be a prize.”
Carver waited to see if Stone would say anything, whether he would object or offer his opinion. But Stone said nothing, showing he had apparently retained something from the morning’s lesson.
“How’s your back?” Carver asked.
“It hurts but it’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good.”
Carver cut the Internet link and stood up. He reached down behind the computer tower and detached the keyboard cable. He knew that the bureau could gather DNA from the microscopic bits of skin that fell between the letters on a keyboard. He would not leave this board behind.
“Let’s hurry up and finish now,” he said. “After that, we’ll go get you a massage and take care of that back.”
“I don’t need a massage. I’m fine.”
“I don’t want you hurting. I’m going to need you at full strength when Agent Walling shows up.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be ready.”
FOURTEEN: One False Move
On Monday morning I went on eastern daylight time. I wanted to be ready to react when Rachel called from Washington, so I got up early and cruised into the newsroom at six A.M. to continue my work with the files.
The place was completely dead, not a reporter or editor in sight, and I got a stark feeling for what the future held. At one time the newsroom was the best place in the world to work. A bustling place of camaraderie, competition, gossip, cynical wit and humor, it was at the crossroads of ideas and debate. It produced stories and pages that were vibrant and intelligent, that set the agenda for what was discussed and considered important in a city as diverse and exciting as Los Angeles. Now thousands of pages of editorial content were being cut each year and soon the paper would be like the newsroom, an intellectual ghost town. In many ways I was relieved that I would not be around to see it.
I sat down in my cubicle and checked e-mail first. My account had been reopened by the newsroom techs with a new password the Friday before. Over the weekend I had accumulated almost forty e-mails, most from strangers in reaction to the stories about the trunk murders. I read and deleted each, not willing to take the time to respond. Two were from people who said they were serial killers themselves and had put me on their list of targets. These I kept to show Rachel but I wasn’t too worried about them. One of the writers had spelled it cereal and I took this as a hint that I was dealing with either a prankster or someone of deficient intelligence.
I also got an angry e-mail from the photographer Sonny Lester, who said I had double-crossed him by not putting him on the story as I had agreed. I fired back an equally angry e-mail asking him which story he was talking about, since none of the stories on the case carried my byline. I said I had been left out to a greater extent than him and invited him to take all complaints to Dorothy Fowler, the city editor.
After that I unpacked the files and my laptop from my backpack and got down to work. The night before, I had made a lot of headway. I had completed my study of the records relating to the murder of Denise Babbit and had composed a profile of the murder along with a comprehensive list of the things about the victim that the killer would have had to know in order to commit the crime in the manner in which it was carried out. I was halfway through my study of Sharon Oglevy’s murder and was still compiling the same sort of information.
I set to work and was undisturbed as the newsroom slowly came to life, editors and reporters trudging in, coffee cups in hand, to start another week of work. At eight o’clock I broke for coffee and a doughnut and then made a round of calls at the cop shop, seeing if there was anything interesting on the overnight sheets, anything that might take me away from the task at hand.
Satisfied that all was quiet for the time being, I went back to the murder files and was just completing my profile of the Oglevy case when my first e-mail
of the day chimed on my computer. I looked up. The e-mail was from the axman, Richard Kramer. The missive was short on content but long on intrigue.
From: Richard Kramer
Subject: Re: today
Date: May 18, 2009 9:11 AM PDT
To: [email protected]
* * *
Jack, swing on by when you get a chance.
RK
* * *
I looked over the edge of my cubicle wall and at the line of glass offices. I didn’t see Kramer in his but from my angle I couldn’t see his desk. He was probably in there, waiting to give me the word on who would be taking Angela Cook’s place on the cop beat. Once more I would be squiring a young replacement around Parker Center, introducing this new reporter to the same people I had introduced Angela to just a week before.
I decided to get it over with. I stood up and made my way to the glass wall. Kramer was in there, typing out an e-mail to another hapless recipient. The door was open but I knocked on it before entering. Kramer turned from his screen and beckoned me in.
“Jack, have a seat. How are we doing this morning?”
I took one of the two chairs in front of his desk and sat down.
“I don’t know about you but I’m doing okay, I guess. Considering.”
Kramer nodded thoughtfully.
“Yes, it’s been an amazing ten days since you last sat in that chair.”
I had actually been sitting in the other chair when he had told me I was downsized but it wasn’t worth the correction. I remained silent, waiting for whatever it was he was going to say to me—or to us, if he was going to continue to refer to both of us.
“I’ve got some good news for you here,” he said.
He smiled and moved a thick document from the side of his desk to front and center. He looked down at it as he spoke.
“You see, Jack, we think this trunk murder case is going to have legs. Whether they catch this guy soon or not, it’s a story we’re going to ride with for a while. And so, we’re thinking we’re going to need you, Jack. Plain and simple, we want you to stick around.”
I looked at him blankly.
“You mean I’m not being laid off?”
Kramer continued as if I had not asked a question, as if he had not heard me make a sound at all.
“What we’re offering here is a six-month contract extension that would commence upon signing,” he said.
“You mean, then, I’m still laid off, but not for six months.”
Kramer turned the document around and slid it across the desk to me so I could read it.
“It’s a standard extension we will be using a lot around here, Jack.”
“I don’t have a contract. How can it be extended when I don’t have a contract in the first place?”
“They call it that because you are currently an employee and there is an implied contract. So any change in status that is contracturally agreed to is called an extension. It’s just legal mumbo-jumbo, Jack.”
I didn’t tell him that contracturally was not a word. I was speed-reading the front page of the document until I bottomed out on a big fat speed bump.
“This pays me thirty thousand dollars for six months,” I said.
“Yes, that is the standard extension rate.”
I did the quick, rough math.
“Let’s see, that would be about eighteen thousand less than I make for six months now. So you want me to take less to help you stay out front with this story. And let me guess…”
I picked up the document and started flipping through it.
“… I’m betting I no longer get any medical, dental or pension benefits under this contract. Is that right?”
I couldn’t find it and I guessed that there wasn’t a clause on benefits because they simply did not exist.
“Jack,” Kramer said in a calming tone. “There is some negotiation I can do financially, but you would have to pick up the benefits yourself. It’s the way we’re going with this now. It’s simply the wave of the future.”
I dropped the contract back on his desk and looked up at him.
“Wait till it’s your turn,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“You think it ends with us? The reporters and the copy editors? You think if you’re a good soldier and do their bidding that you’ll be safe in the end?”
“Jack, I don’t think my situation is what we’re discuss—”
“I don’t care if it is or it isn’t. I’m not signing this. I’d rather take my chances on unemployment. And I will. But someday they’re going to come for you and ask you to sign one of these things and then you’ll have to wonder how you’ll pay for your kids’ teeth and their doctors and their school and everything else. And I hope it’s okay with you because it’s simply the wave of the future.”
“Jack, you don’t even have kids. And threatening me because I do is—”
“I’m not threatening you and that’s not the point, Crammer. The point I’m trying to make is…”
I stared at him for a long moment.
“Never mind.”
I got up and walked out of the office and straight back to my pod. Along the way I looked at my watch and then pulled out my cell phone to see whether I had somehow missed a call. I hadn’t. It was nearing one P.M. in Washington, D.C., and I had heard nothing yet from Rachel.
Back at the cubicle I checked the phone and the e-mail and I had no messages there either.
I had been silent and had avoided intruding on her till now. But I needed to know what was happening. I called her cell and it went right to voice mail without a ring. I told her to call me as soon as she could and clicked off. On the slim chance her phone was dead or she had forgotten to turn it back on after the hearing, I called the Hotel Monaco and asked for her room. But I was told she had checked out that morning.
My desk phone buzzed as soon as I hung up. It was Larry Bernard from two pods away.
“What did Kramer want, to hire your sorry ass back?”
“Yeah.”
“What? Really?”
“At a reduced rate, of course. I told him to cram it.”
“Are you kidding, man? They’ve got you by the balls. Where else are you going to go?”
“Well, for one thing I’m not going to work here on a contract that pays me way less and takes away all my benefits. And that’s what I told him. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Are you making the checks on the story today?”
“Yeah, I’m on it.”
“Anything new?”
“Not that they’re telling me. It’s too early, anyway. Hey, I Tivoed you on CNN yesterday. You were good. But I thought they were supposed to have Winslow on. That’s why I put it on. They were promoting it at first and then he wasn’t on.”
“He showed but then they decided they couldn’t put him on the air.”
“How come?”
“His penchant for using the word motherfucker in every sentence he speaks.”
“Oh, yeah. When we talked to him Friday I picked up on that.”
“Hard not to. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Wait, where are you going?”
“Hunting.”
“What?”
I put the phone down on his question, shoved my laptop and files into my backpack and headed out of the newsroom to the stairwell. The newsroom might have at one time been the best place in the world to work. But it wasn’t now. People like the axman and the unseen forces behind him had made it forbidding and claustrophobic. I had to get away. I felt like I was a man without home or office to go to. But I still had a car, and in L.A. the car was king.
I headed west, jumping onto the 10 Freeway and taking it toward the beach. I was going against the grain of traffic and moved smoothly toward the clean ocean air. I didn’t know exactly where I was going but I drove with subconscious purpose, as though the hands on the wheel and the foot on the pedal knew what my brain didn’t.
In Santa Monica I exited
on Fourth Street and then took Pico down to the beach. I pulled into the parking lot where Denise Babbit’s car had been abandoned by Alonzo Winslow. The lot was almost empty and I parked in the same row and maybe even the same space where she had been left.
The sun had not burned off the marine layer yet and the sky was overcast. The Ferris wheel on the pier was shrouded in the mist.
Now what? I thought to myself. I checked my phone again. No messages. I watched a group of surfers coming in from their morning sets. They went to their cars and trucks, stripped off their wet suits and showered with gallon jugs of water, then wrapped towels around their bodies, pulled off their board shorts and changed into dry clothes underneath. It was the time-honored way of the pre-work surfer. One of them had a bumper sticker on his Subaru that made me smile.
CAN’T WE ALL GET A LONGBOARD?
I opened my backpack and pulled out Rachel’s legal pad. I had filled in several pages with my own notes from the survey of the files. I flipped to the last page and studied what I had put down.
WHAT HE NEEDED TO KNOW
Denise Babbit
1. Details of prior arrest
2. Car—trunk space
3. Work location
4. Work schedule—abducted after work
5. Visual—body type—giraffe, legs
Sharon Oglevy
1. Husband’s threat
2. Hiscar—trunkspace
3. Work location
4. Work schedule—abducted after work
5. Visual—body type—giraffe, legs
6. Husband’s home location
The two lists were short and almost identical and I felt sure that they held the connection between the two women and their killer. From the killer’s angle, these were all things that he would seemingly need to know before he made his move.
I lowered the car’s windows to let the damp sea air in. I thought about the Unsub and how he had come to choose these two women from these two different places.
The simple answer was that he had seen them. They both displayed their bodies publicly. If he was looking for a specific set of physical attributes, he could have seen both Denise Babbit and Sharon Oglevy onstage.
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