by George Fong
“Did they ever travel to Seattle together?”
Russell arched an eyebrow, nodding. “Kind of strange. I remember when they came back from one of their trips north, things were a little different.”
Russell’s response piqued Jack’s interest, and he asked Russell to explain.
“I don’t know, just different. They seemed edgy. It wasn’t long after that, Alvie packed his bags late one night and just vanished. Didn’t hear anything about him until years later when I learned he killed his wife and kid.”
The room fell silent. Russell kept staring on his coffee. “Something happened when they took that trip up there, didn’t it?”
“A fifteen-year-old girl was kidnapped and murdered,” Jack said. Then as if reading the old man’s thoughts, he added, “There’s no evidence Eric was involved.”
“What about Cooper?”
What about Cooper? Russell now referring to Alvin in the formal term, not the family friendly name he had been using.
“It looks like Cooper . . . contributed . . . to her disappearance.”
“And her death?”
Jack nodded.
Russell’s stare drifted downward, his forehead settling in his palm.
“Did Eric ever tell you he was heading up to Seattle to see Cooper?”
“No.”
“I need to find Alvin Cooper. I’m thinking Eric can point me in the right direction.”
“I thought Cooper’s in jail?” Russell said.
Jack shook his head. “Escaped.”
All color drained from Russell’s face. “I wish I could help you, Agent Paris, but like I said, I haven’t heard from Eric for almost a year.”
“You said Cooper just up and vanished?”
“That’s right.”
“I’d like to see Cooper’s room.”
Russell hesitated a moment before relenting. “I guess that would be OK.”
Jack stood and motioned for Russell to lead the way.
Upstairs, the rooms were divided between the front and the back of the house, the master bedroom in the back, two small rooms splitting the space up front. Russell pointed at the first door on the right. “That’s his.”
He stepped back, letting Jack make his way inside.
It was sparse with a single bed, plain wooden headboard, a matching nightstand and chest of drawers. The bed was made as if awaiting Cooper’s return. Two framed pictures hung on the wall, paintings of sailboats. The air was stale and cool, like no one had been in there for ages. Jack took his time, walked the room, didn’t touch anything. He knelt down, peered under the bed. Nothing but balls of dust. He turned his head and saw Russell watching him.
The two stepped out of the room, toward the stairs in back.
“That other one Eric’s room?”
“Yes, that’s his.”
“Mind if I take a quick look?”
Russell looked surprised, maybe even annoyed at the request but then just shrugged. “Go on in.”
It looked nearly identical to Cooper’s. Eric’s room had more personal items lying around, like a person who really belonged. But there was nothing that would help him find Youngblood. He knelt one more time, peering under the bed. This time, there was a well-worn cardboard box. He carefully slid it out.
“What did you find?”
He looked back at Russell, pointed at the box and gave a look that said, “Are you okay with me searching?”
Russell waited quietly in the hallway without a sign of protest.
Jack reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. He peeled back a red sweater on top, revealing several books and a banded block of envelopes, letters.
“Correspondences, notebooks.” Jack said, as if to himself.
The letters were addressed to a Madelyn Cooper at an address in Newport Beach.
“They’re Cooper’s,” Jack said.
Russell still said nothing.
Jack flipped through the envelopes and read the names listed to and from. All from Alvin Cooper, sent when he was in Europe. Jack placed the letters to the side of the box on the floor and scanned the remaining items. Four spiral notebooks, each with a different color cover. Jack flipped through the first notebook, noticing pages of handwritten paragraphs, each page dated and timed. He read the first line from each, getting a sense of what he was reading. It didn’t take long to realize what he had: Cooper’s journals. A worldview through a serial killer’s eyes. Suddenly Jack felt excited and disturbed at the same time.
“I’m taking these.” He wasn’t asking.
“Go ahead.”
Jack placed everything back in the box. The letters drew his interest but he had to read the journals if he wanted to understand Cooper’s mind. What made him tick, and possibly what made him kill. He thanked Russell for his time and gave him a business card.
“Call me if you remember anything that may help us locate Cooper or your nephew, Eric.”
They stood by the bay view window as they shook hands, Russell’s eyes betraying anger and regret.
It was getting late. The afternoon sun had passed above the row of beachfront homes, casting Jack’s shadow the width of the street. Russell stood at the doorway for a minute, watching Jack get into his rental, before he turned and disappeared back into his house.
25
Wednesday – 6:55 p.m.
Jack took a bite of the turkey and avocado sandwich he grabbed at Harry’s Grill, on Broadway off the Coast Highway. He hung a left toward the sand and walked down by the shore where he found an empty park bench. Cooper’s box under his arm, Jack found a quiet spot to concentrate, while the low sun on the horizon reflected brightly off the expansive ocean. Jack ate his sandwich, scanning the pages of Cooper’s notebooks. With everything going on, he’d forgotten how hungry he was, fueled only by coffee and a small bag of pretzels courtesy of United Express. Slipping a latex glove over his right hand, Jack flipped through the pages, his bare left handling sandwich and greasy chips duty. Slices of avocado and tomatoes spilled from the edges and onto the sandy ground under his legs. A man with a latex glove on one hand, eating a sloppy sandwich, reading a bunch of tattered notebooks on a beachfront table. If this were any place other than Southern California, Jack would have stuck out like a psych patient who had just wandered off the ward. But here no one seemed to care.
The first notebook didn’t reveal much. It started with Cooper’s returning from Hungary and learning his mother had passed. Jack found the passages about his mother’s death flat, unemotional. There was mention that he found a place to stay (the Russell home). More writings about his travels up the coast to Portland, down toward San Diego, even a stint in Mexico. In several of these passages, he made notes of unsuspecting families he watched, their children and how happy they seemed to be. These documentations piqued Jack’s interest, although they were mostly observations.
By book four, the writing became far more revealing. Even the handwriting had changed. On page three, Jack found Cooper detailing his Seattle trip, rambling about a possible job offer, working at the fresh water locks on Lake Union. The tone was unremarkable, a young man’s optimistic view of a steady job. Then there was a shift in focus. Jack’s reading slowed, his eyes fixated on each word before coming to a stop on the last sentence of that day’s entry.
And maybe I can start a family. I can’t ruin this chance to start over.
Jack looked up from the notebook, pausing to let the words soak in.
Start over?
26
Wednesday – 7:54 p.m.
An hour had passed and a cool ocean breeze blew off the water. Jack returned the notebooks to the box and started on the banded mail, letters Cooper sent to his mother when he was traveling across Europe. He must have collected them after she had died.
Seagulls filled the sky; their screeching made for constant background noise, coupled with the rhythmic crashing of waves now retreating from the shoreline. He noticed lights coming on from lo
cal restaurants and businesses, a sign that nightfall had arrived. It was late and Jack needed to get back to Sacramento.
Only three letters remained. He pulled the first from its envelope and began to read. Previously Cooper had appeared upbeat, if slightly concerned about being short of cash. It was a time when Communist Europe was redefining itself, trying to see what life was really like in the West. With communism collapsing, Eastern Europeans began fleeing across open borders as opportunities became available, the Wall that once contained loyal comrades turning porous as cheesecloth. Cooper had taken advantage of the turmoil, sneaking into Hungary while it was still a communist state.
The next letter was dated two weeks later, and talked about meeting a traveler from Britain by the name of Alexander McMartin. The two met at a Budapest nightclub and struck up a close friendship. Both low on money, they found a room to rent from a local Hungarian on the Buda side of the Danube, intending to earn a little money and find their way home.
The last letter was the one Jack found most disturbing. Far from upbeat, with Cooper constantly mentioning being homesick (although curiously he never asked his mother to send him money), he talked of the Wall between the East and West falling and people in the streets celebrating even though the Secret Police were still out in force. The police had come to their building one late night and dragged out a neighbor, who they never saw again. The landlord, a man named Lazlo Mink, told Cooper this was common and that he should not expect to see the neighbor again. The rent for the deserted room wasn’t much. Cooper shaved off even more by helping Mink and his family with their “delivery business.”
He wrote: The rent is cheap and by helping them deliver their packages around town, the stay is almost free. What we are delivering, I have no idea, but it helps us get by. Truth is, they could be running black market goods because they always seem to have things no one else in the city has. The place is a little seedy, but it’s all I can afford.
The letter ended. Jack flipped it over and studied the envelope, drumming the cover with his fingers. The return address was in care of Mr. Lazlo Mink. Running illegal goods in the communist black market in exchange for cheap housing. Wall or no wall, it wasn’t smart to write about these activities in a letter leaving a communist state. More than likely this information would’ve made Cooper a target, and placed the Mink family on the Hungarian Secret Police’s hot sheet. Jack peered inside the box for more letters. But there were none.
The wind picked up, darkness settling. Jack tossed his garbage into a wastebasket, tucked the box under his arm and headed for the car.
He drove back to the 405 South, the traffic heavy. He jumped over to the carpool lane hoping that a cop wouldn’t notice, and sped down the highway, making the airport just in time to catch the next flight to Sacramento. By the time he found his seat, fatigue had taken hold. His head fell against the headrest as he closed his eyes and let his body succumb to exhaustion. He managed to sleep through the bumpy flight, waking to the flight attendant’s voice crackling over the cabin speakers asking all passengers to store their tray tables and lock their seats in their original, upright positions. Jack rubbed the stiffness in his neck and peered out the plane’s window.
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Sacramento International....
27
Wednesday – 8:03 p.m.
Homer Landley pushed the bridge of his glasses. They slid down his nose from the combination of grease and perspiration, something that always happened when the room warmed. And it happened often. His air conditioner forever on the fritz, and Landley didn’t have the time, money—or energy—to fix the problem.
He leaned back, rocking in a kitchen table chair that doubled as his computer chair. The monitor blinked on and off, colors changing every time Landley swatted its side.
After two hours of filtering though various websites, Landley’s eyes ached. Besides surfing for kiddie porn, which was his real job (if you considered that a “real” job), Agent Marquez had him looking for JPetroski, a twenty-four carat scumball. She didn’t give Landley all the specifics but offered a big reward if he could find him.
He flooded his eyes with Visine, blinked out the sting and continued searching for any sign of the guy. No one in the chat room heard from JPetroski since Marquez’s conversation with him the previous day. Landley leaned against the table, the computer humming at full speed, digital pages materializing one after another, none of which yielded anything fruitful. He puffed his cheeks and blew out short breaths like a steam locomotive.
Landley rubbed his chin, elbow planted firmly on the table, and launched another site, one of his old favorites. A second passed and the screen refreshed. Landley whistled softly as he typed in a series of passwords, entering with the cyber equivalent of candy and a trench coat.
wuz up, dog? a message flashed welcoming Landley home.
nothin tell me something gud
got sum new pics fuckin off the hook
grown ups or lolita? he messaged back.
they look yung . . . u tell me
Landley’s computer chimed with an attachment from his friend. Landley perused the images, some color, many black and white, some even homegrown.
Landley muttered to himself as he cycled through. “Seen these before. Don’t waste my time.”
wat do u think, the message came back.
Landley typed, ho hum . . . been there done that
ya well I tride. at least u replied. unlike ur friend
wat friend?
family man . . . wat a weener!
Landley scooted his chair close to the table and tapped frantically at the keyboard. do u mean jpetroski
that’s the 1 . . . he used a different moniker but i new it was him. fuckers a creep
when did u talk???
2day
when?
today i say
Landley shook his head, his frustration elevating. wat TIME?
2 hors ago, guess
wat name
There was no immediate answer. Landley’s fingers drummed a nervous staccato on the top of his mouse. hello? he typed. how about a response.
After a long wait, the computer chimed a message. faust
Landley leaned forward, his face squishing into a contorted stare. “What the fuck is a Faust?” He typed out another message. did he say if hes coming back?
don’t no . . . why
no reason. got 2 go
Landley jumped up and grabbed his jacket off the couch, rushing out the door. He patted his pocket, felt his cell phone and car keys, then made his way through the parking lot. He opened his car door, allowed the day’s heat trapped inside to escape, before sliding behind the wheel and turning over the engine. As he left the lot, Landley hit the speed dial button to Agent Marquez, glancing at his cheap Casio watch, hoping to catch the detective before her shift ended.
She picked up on the second ring.
“What’s up, Homer?”
Landley stuttered, finding it difficult to talk and drive at the same time. “I think I found him. The guy.”
“Slow down. What guy?”
“Your J Petcock . . . Petski, that dude you asked me to find. Him!”
Marquez’s tone smoothed and dropped a few decibels, words slowing to calm Landley. “Are you talking about J Petroski?”
“That’s right, that’s the one. Only now he’s calling himself Faust.”
“Faust, as in Dr. Johann ‘sell your soul to the devil’ Faustus?”
“Is that a TV show?”
“Yes, Homer. Right after Dr. Phil and before Jerry Springer.” Marquez waited for him to get the joke, but he didn’t. “Dr. Faustus was a 16th Century literary character. He made a deal with the devil.”
“Fits his personality. Look, you want this guy, meet me at the undercover off-site. Time is money Lucy, let’s go!”
“All right, nice job.” Before Homer could say anything else, she added, “And Homer, don’t ever call me by my first name again.”
Landley’s smile evaporated as he sheepishly replied, “Yes, ma’am.”
Homer Landley’s apartment was empty, the only sign of life the hourglass tumbling on his computer. In his haste to hook up with Agent Marquez, Landley forgot to sign out, leaving his friend dangling on the other end. The low hum of his ancient refrigerator was interrupted by the chime of an incoming message.
Yo dog, faust was looking 4 u. said it was important. he promised me he wouldn’t tell but i gave him ur phone number. he’s going to call u. wants to see u right away
The empty apartment fell silent again before the sound of more chimes blinked up Landley’s screen.
u there dog?
hello?
hello?
28
Wednesday – 9:46 p.m.
Back on the 5, Jack called Marquez, updating her on his findings.
“That’s great, Jack,” she said. “But we may have stumbled on something better. I think Homer found Cooper online. He’s now going by the name of Faust.”
“I assume you’re referring to the four-hundred-year-old dead guy?”
“Maybe he ran out of friends to kill.”
“Are we going to get a chance at talking to Mr. Faust soon?”
“That would be Dr. Faust, and, yes, I have Homer coming over to the off-site to start scanning the Internet looking for him.”
Jack made a fist and rapped on the top of his steering wheel. “Good. I’ll get a team ready.”
“Meeting us there?”
“You bet.”
“One last thing,” Marquez said. “Ray Sizemore from Seattle got in this afternoon. He’s coming out to the site with Harrington.”
Jack was glad to hear Sizemore had made it in. Maybe he’d be able to shed some light on Youngblood’s travels to Washington State. Jack had begun wondering if Cooper wasn’t the only one involved in the Grace Holloway kidnapping case.