The Scarecrow

by Michael Connelly

  “What about the story?” Larry asked.

  “It’s your story. You’ve got a handle on it.”

  “Yeah, through you. Who am I going to get to give me the inside stuff?”

  “You’re a reporter. You’ll figure it out.”

  “Can I call you?”

  “No, you can’t call me.”

  Larry frowned, but I didn’t let him swing too long.

  “But you can take me to lunch on the Times expense account. Then I’ll talk to you.”

  “You’re the man.”

  “See you around, Larry.”

  I headed for the elevator alcove, the security man trailing behind me. I took a wide look around the newsroom but made sure my eyes never caught on anybody else’s. I didn’t want any good-byes. I walked along the row of glass offices and didn’t bother to look in at any of the editors I had worked for. I just wanted to get out of there.

  “Jack?”

  I stopped and turned around. Dorothy Fowler had stepped out of the glass office I had just passed. She beckoned me back.

  “Can you come in for a minute before you go?”

  I hesitated and shrugged. Then handed the box to the security man.

  “Be right back.”

  I stepped into the city editor’s office and slipped off my backpack as I sat down in front of her desk. She had a sly smile on her face. She spoke in a low voice, as if she was worried that what she said might be heard in the next office down.

  “I told Richard he was kidding himself. That you wouldn’t take the job back. They think people are like puppets and they can play with the strings.”

  “You shouldn’t have been so sure. I almost took it.”

  “I doubt that, Jack. Very much.”

  I thought that was a compliment. I nodded and looked behind her at the wall covered with photos and cards and newspaper clips. She had a classic headline from one of the New York tabs on the wall: “Headless Body in Topless Bar.” You couldn’t beat that one.

  “What will you do now?”

  I gave her a more expansive version of what I had told Kramer. I would write a book about my part in the Courier-McGinnis story, then I would get a long-awaited shot at publishing a novel. All the while, I would be on the masthead at velvetcoffin.com and free to tackle the investigative projects of my choosing. It wouldn’t pay much but it would be journalism. I was just making the jump to the digital world.

  “That all sounds great,” she said. “We’re really going to miss you around here. You are one of the best.”

  I don’t take compliments like that well. I’m cynical and look for the angle. If I was that good, why did I get put on the thirty list in the first place? The answer had to be that I was good but not good enough and she was just blowing smoke. I looked away from her, as I do when someone is lying to my face, and back at the images taped to the wall.

  That’s when I saw it. Something that had eluded me before. But not this time. I bent forward so I could see it better and then I stood up and leaned across her desk.

  “Jack, what?”

  I pointed to the wall.

  “Can I see that? The photo from The Wizard of Oz.”

  Fowler reached up and pulled it off the wall and handed it to me.

  “It’s a joke from a friend,” she said. “I’m from Kansas.”

  “I get that,” I said.

  I studied the photo, zeroing in on the Scarecrow. The photo was too small for me to be completely sure.

  “Can I run a search on your computer real quick?” I asked.

  I was coming around her desk before she answered.

  “Uh, sure, what is it that—”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  She got up and got out of the way. I took her seat, looked at her screen and opened up Google. The machine was running slowly.

  “Come on, come on, come on.”

  “Jack, what is it?”

  “Let me just…”

  The search window finally came up and I clicked over to Google Images. I typed Scarecrow into the search block and let it fly.

  My screen soon filled with sixteen small images of scarecrows. There were photos of the lovable character from The Wizard of Oz movie and color sketches from Batman comic books of a villain called the Scarecrow. There were several other photos and drawings of scarecrows from books and movies and Halloween costume catalogs. They ranged from the benign and friendly to the horrible and menacing. Some had cheerful eyes and smiles and some had their eyes and mouths stitched closed.

  I spent two minutes clicking on each photo and enlarging it. I studied them and, sixteen for sixteen, they all had one thing in common. Each scarecrow’s construction included a burlap bag pulled over the head to form a face. Each bag was cinched around the neck with a cord. Sometimes it was a thick rope and sometimes it was basic household clothesline. But it didn’t matter. The image was consistent and it matched what I had seen in the files I had accumulated as well as the lasting image I had of Angela Cook.

  I could see now that in the murders a clear plastic bag had been used to create the face of the scarecrow. No burlap, but this inconsistency with the established imagery didn’t matter. The construction was the same. A bag over the head and a rope around the neck were used to create the same image.

  I clicked to the next screen of images. Again the same construction. This time the images were older, going back through a century to the original illustrations in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. And then I saw it. The illustrations were credited to William Wallace Denslow. William Denslow as in Bill Denslow, as in Denslow Data.

  I felt no doubt that I had just found the signature. The secret signature that Rachel had told me would be there.

  I killed the screen and stood up.

  “I have to go.”

  I went around her desk and grabbed my backpack off the floor.

  “Jack?” Fowler asked.

  I headed toward the door.

  “It was nice working with you, Dorothy.”

  The plane landed hard on the tarmac at Sky Harbor but I barely noticed. I had gotten so used to flying in the last two weeks that I didn’t even bother to look out the window anymore to psychically nurse the plane to a safe touchdown.

  I had not called Rachel yet. I wanted to get to Arizona first so that whatever happened with my information included my involvement. Technically, I was no longer a reporter, but I was still protecting my story.

  The delay also allowed me to think more about what I had and to work out an approach. After picking up a rental and getting to Mesa, I pulled into the lot of a convenience store and went in to buy a throw-away phone. I knew Rachel was working in the bunker at Western Data. When I called her, I didn’t want her seeing my name on the ID screen and then answering with it in front of Carver.

  Finally ready and back in the car, I made the call and she answered after five rings.

  “Hello, this is Agent Walling.”

  “It’s me. Don’t say my name.”

  There was a pause before she continued.

  “How can I help you?”

  “Are you with Carver?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I’m in Mesa and about ten minutes away. I need to meet you without anybody else in there knowing.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s not going to be possible. What is this about?”

  At least she was playing along.

  “I can’t tell you. I have to show you. Did you eat lunch yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, tell them you need a latte or something you can’t get out of one of their machines. Meet me at Hightower Grounds in ten minutes. Take their latte orders if you have to. Sell it and get out of there and meet me. I don’t want to come near Western Data because of the cameras all over that place.”

  “And you can’t give me any idea what this is all about?”

  “It’s about Carver, so don’t ask questions like that. Just make the excuse and meet me. Don’t tell anyone tha
t I’m here or what you’re really doing.”

  She didn’t respond and I grew impatient.

  “Rachel, will you be there or not?”

  “That will be fine,” she finally said. “I’ll talk to you then.”

  She clicked off the call.

  In another five minutes I was at Hightower Grounds. The place had obviously been named for the old desert observation tower that rose behind it. It looked like the tower was closed now but it was festooned on top with cell repeaters and antennas.

  I went in and found the place almost empty. A couple of customers who looked like college students sat by themselves with laptops open in front of them. I went to the counter and ordered two cups of coffee and then set my computer up on a table in a corner away from the other customers.

  After I picked up the two cups I had ordered, I doused mine liberally with sugar and milk and returned to my table. Through the window I checked the parking lot and saw no sign of Rachel. I sat down and took a sip of steaming coffee and connected to the Internet through the coffee shop’s free WiFi.

  Fifteen minutes went by. I checked messages and thought about what I would say to Rachel—if she showed up. I got the page of scarecrow images up on my screen and was ready to go. I was down to reading the receipt that had come with the coffee.

  Free WiFi with every purchase!

  Check us out on the net

  www.hightowergrounds.com

  I crumpled it and threw it toward a trash can and missed. After getting up and putting in the rebound, I opened my throwaway and was about to call Rachel again, when I finally saw her pull into the lot and park. She came in, saw me and diverted directly to my table. She was holding a piece of paper with coffee orders written down on it.

  “The last time I went out for coffee I was a rookie agent at a hostage negotiation in Baltimore,” she said. “I don’t do this, Jack, so this better be good.”

  “Don’t worry, it is. I think. Why don’t you just sit down?”

  She did and I pushed the cup of black coffee across the table to her. She didn’t touch it. She was wearing sunglasses but I could see the deep line of purple under her left eye. The swelling of her jaw was completely gone now and the split in her lip was hidden beneath her lip gloss. You had to look for it to see it. I had been wondering if it would be proper to lean over and try to hug or kiss her but took the hint from her all-business demeanor and kept my distance.

  “Okay, Jack, I’m here. What are you doing here?”

  “I think I found the signature. If I’m right, McGinnis was just a cover. A fall guy. The other killer is the Scarecrow. It’s got to be Carver.”

  She stared at me for a long moment, her eyes revealing nothing through the shades. Finally, she spoke.

  “So you jumped on a plane, frequent flier that you are, to come over here and tell me the man I’m working beside is also the killer I’ve been chasing.”

  “That’s right.”

  “This better be good, Jack.”

  “Who’s back in the bunker with Carver?”

  “Two agents from the EER team, Torres and Mowry. But never mind them. Tell me what’s going on.”

  I tried to set the stage for what I would show her on the laptop.

  “First of all, I was bothered by a question. What was the plan in abducting you?”

  “After seeing some of the video recovered in the bunker, I don’t want to think about that.”

  “Sorry, wrong choice of words. I don’t mean what was going to happen to you. What I mean is why you. Why take so big a risk to go after you? The easy answer is that it would create a large distraction from the central investigation. And that is true, but at best it would be a temporary diversion. Agents would start pouring into this place by the dozens. Pretty soon you wouldn’t be able to run a stop sign without getting pulled over by the feds. Diversion over.”

  Rachel followed the logic and nodded in agreement.

  “Okay, but what if there was another reason?” I asked. “You have two killers out there. A mentor and a student. The student tries to abduct you on his own. Why?”

  “Because McGinnis was dead,” Rachel said. “There was only the student.”

  “Okay, then if that is true, why even make the move? Why go after you? Why not get the hell out of Dodge instead? You see, it isn’t adding up. At least with the way we’ve been looking at it. We think grabbing you was a diversionary move. But it really wasn’t.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “Well, what if McGinnis wasn’t the mentor? What if he was meant to look like he was? What if he was just a fall guy and abducting you was part of a plan to secure the real mentor? To help him get away.”

  “What about the evidence we recovered?”

  “You mean him having my book on his bookshelf and the leg braces and porno in the house? Isn’t that kind of convenient?”

  “That stuff wasn’t left lying around the house. It was hidden and only found after an hours-long search. But never mind all of that. Yes, it could have been planted. I’m thinking more about the server in Western Data we found that was full of video evidence.”

  “First of all, you said he isn’t identifiable on the videos. And who is to say he and Courier were the only ones with access to that server. Couldn’t the evidence on there have been planted just like the stuff at the house?”

  She didn’t respond right away and I knew I had her thinking. Maybe she had thought all along that things were hanging too easily on McGinnis. But then she shook her head like this didn’t add up either.

  “It still doesn’t make sense if you’re claiming the mentor is Carver. He didn’t try to get away. When Courier was trying to grab me, Carver was in the bunker with Torres and…”

  She didn’t finish. I did.

  “Mowry. Yes, he was with two FBI agents.”

  I watched the realization come to her.

  “He would have a perfect alibi because two agents would vouch for him,” she finally said. “If I disappeared while he was with the EER team, he would have an alibi and the bureau would be almost certain that it was McGinnis and Courier who had grabbed me.”

  I nodded.

  “It would not only put Carver above suspicion, it would keep him right in the middle of your investigation.”

  I waited only a second for her to respond. When she didn’t, I pressed on.

  “Think about it. How did Courier know what hotel you were in? We told Carver when he asked us during the tour. Remember? Then he told Courier. He sent Courier.”

  She shook her head.

  “And last night I even said I was going back to the hotel to get room service and to go to sleep.”

  I spread my hands as if to say the conclusion was obvious.

  “But this isn’t enough, Jack. It doesn’t add up to Carver being—”

  “I know. But maybe this does.”

  I turned the computer so she could see the screen. I had the page of scarecrow images up on Google. She leaned over and looked at it first, then pulled the computer all the way over to her side of the table. She worked the keyboard and blew the images up, one by one. I didn’t need to say anything.

  “Denslow!” she suddenly said. “Did you see this? The original illustrator of Wizard of Oz was named William Denslow.”

  “Yeah, I saw that. That’s why I’m here.”

  “It still doesn’t connect directly to Carver.”

  “It doesn’t matter. There’s a lot of smoke here, Rachel. Carver connects to a lot of it. He had access to McGinnis and Freddy Stone. He had access to the servers. We also know he has the technical skills we’ve seen all through this.”

  Rachel was typing on my laptop while she responded.

  “There is still no direct connection, Jack. This could just as easily be someone setting up Carver as it is—I just got another hit. I Googled the name Freddy Stone. Take a look at this.”

  She turned the laptop around so I could see the screen. On it was a Wikipedia biography of an earl
y twentieth-century actor named Fred Stone. The bio said Stone was best known for first establishing the character of the Scarecrow in the 1902 Broadway version of The Wizard of Oz.

  “See, it’s got to be Carver. All the spokes in the wheel come to him in the center. He’s making scarecrows out of the victims. It’s his secret signature.”

  Rachel shook her head once.

  “Look, we checked him out! He was clean. He’s some sort of genius out of MIT.”

  “Clean how? You mean no arrest record? It wouldn’t be the first time one of these guys operated completely beneath law enforcement radar. Ted Bundy worked at some sort of crisis hotline when he wasn’t out killing women. It put him in constant contact with the police. Besides that, the geniuses are the ones you gotta watch out for, you ask me.”

  “But I have a vibe for these guys and I didn’t pick up a thing. I had lunch with him today. He took me to McGinnis’s favorite barbecue joint.”

  I could see self-doubt in her eyes. She hadn’t seen this coming.

  “Let’s go get him,” I said. “We confront him and make him talk. Most of these serials are proud of their work. My bet is he’ll talk.”

  She looked up from the screen at me.

  “Go get him? Jack, you’re not an agent and you’re not a cop. You’re a reporter.”

  “Not anymore. I got walked out by security today with a cardboard box. I’m done as a reporter.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s a long story that I’ll tell you later. What are we going to do about Carver?”

  “I don’t know, Jack.”

  “Well, you can’t just go back there and bring him his latte.”

  I noticed one of the customers sitting a few tables behind Rachel turn from the screen of his laptop and look up toward the open-beamed ceiling and smile. He then raised a fist and offered up his middle finger. I followed his gaze to one of the crossbeams. There was a small black camera mounted on the beam, its lens trained on the sitting area of the coffee shop. The kid turned back and started typing on his computer.

  I jumped up, leaving Rachel and moving toward him.

  “Hey,” I said, pointing up at the camera. “What is that? Where’s it go?”

  The kid crinkled his nose at my stupidity and shrugged.