Black Fall

by Andrew Mayne

  “Anybody have any thoughts?” asks Ailes. He called us into a late-night meeting at our office, and I headed here straight from the airport.

  Gerald looks up from his computer, where he’s been monitoring weather reports. “This is the first specific prediction he’s made. And we have a tropical storm headed right for there.”

  “The video was released after the storm track was announced,” I point out.

  “Yes, but the predicted loss of life is specific.”

  “And it hasn’t happened yet. All we have is a video identifying an area after the fact. We have no reason to believe anything has been predicted yet.” I still smell a charlatan, and I can’t let it go.

  Ailes thinks this over for a moment. “What would you do if you were the president of Bolivia? How seriously would you take this?”

  “I’d be afraid to not take it seriously,” I admit. There’s something going on here, something potentially dangerous.

  “Even though you and everyone you’ve spoken to is skeptical of his predictive ability?”

  “Yeah, but maybe he, or whoever is actually behind this, would try to find a way to force it. Psychics have been known to plant evidence, and sometimes even cause the event they claim to predict by force.”

  “How do you cause a natural disaster?” asks Jennifer. But it doesn’t come across as a challenge, just a question for the room.

  I give this some consideration. “What kind of disasters kill the most people?”

  “Storms,” replies Gerald. “Flooding. Earthquakes are a distant second.”

  “I’ll quit my job and call this guy the Chosen One if this is another earthquake, based on what Kaur told me. As far as storms go, this isn’t even a massive one.”

  Ailes seems distant. Something we’ve said has him thinking. “I’m going to make some calls.”

  “What would you like us to do?” By “us” I mean me.

  “Let the wheels spin in the back of your head.”

  Half an hour later, my wheels are still spinning, but they aren’t getting much traction. I keep going in circles about method. All I can do is try to focus on motive, and I still come up blank. Meanwhile, Devon is gaining more converts as news sites go crazy over the latest video.

  My phone rings, distracting me from my research into Devon’s contacts.

  “Want an update on the Jane Doe?” asks Lewis.

  “I’m not in the pipeline on this,” I tell her. I have to be super cautious about not getting in Evans’s way—if it’s possible to get in the way of a tree stump.

  “That’s not my question. I spoke to your boy Agent Carr, by the way. He seems nice enough. Does he know you guys don’t get merit badges in the FBI?”

  “What do you got?” I ask, heading into the hall.

  “County forensics officially confirms the boot print at the farmhouse connects to the murder scene on the Jane Doe. We’re looking at tire tracks now.”

  The validation of my suspicions don’t make me feel any better. It makes me feel worse, in fact. “Any word on an ID for her?”

  “No. Although Dr. Tuft found something in that neck wound.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing much, just some tiny red paint flakes. Mean anything to you?”

  “She was wearing that red necklace.”

  “Part of the coating must have flaked away when the chain got yanked off her.”

  Something about her words gets me thinking. “Chain,” I repeat. That’s exactly what the girl’s necklace looked like. A red chain. I open the door to our office and holler to Gerald. “Can you look up anything related to a ‘Red Chain’ in the cult database?”

  “What are you thinking?” asks Lewis, overhearing me.

  “There’s something about the phrase, it feels familiar. ‘Red chain’.”

  “Let me know if anything turns up. Meanwhile, how are things with you?” she asks, concerned.

  “We’re trying to prevent a natural disaster from wiping out hundreds of lives,” I say, almost robotically, because I’m still thinking about the chain.

  “Oh? Um, good luck with that.”

  “Yeah. And Aileen? Thank you for keeping me in the loop.”

  “No problem. Who knows when I might need a favor from you FBI people. And don’t forget, next week we’re doing dinner.”

  “Of course.” I suddenly realize that underneath her easygoing manner Lewis might want someone to talk to as well.

  I walk back to the table and sit down. Next to my notes about disasters and failure points, I circle the words “red chain.”

  “It was an offshoot Christian cult in the fifteen hundreds,” says Gerald. “They were vegetarians, basically animists. Excommunicated and pretty much wiped out by the Inquisition.”

  “Oh, guess that rules them out.” I’m not ready to implicate a centuries-old cult in my attempted murder.

  “For what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Huh. Well, that name pops up again. Turns out a radical environmental group used the name in the early nineteen eighties. Started by a couple of professors from Michigan.”

  I’m more chilled than elated that my suspicions were on the mark. “What happened to them?”

  “One of them is doing time in federal prison not too far from here.”

  My ears perk up. “Really?”

  “Yeah, Ezra Winter. He was convicted of sending mail bombs to nuclear power plant developers and agricultural tech executives. One of them killed a man. He’s serving out a fifty-year sentence.”

  “Seriously?”

  Gerald taps a few buttons on his keyboard. “I’m sending you everything. Is this related to the Jane Doe who showed up on your doorstep?”

  “Maybe.” This screams of a connection, but I don’t want to jump too quickly to a conclusion.

  When Ailes comes back into the room, I pull him aside. “I’ve got nothing on this natural disaster thing.”

  “None of us do,” he says with a tone of defeat that coming from him sounds unnatural.

  I feel guilty for what I’m about to ask him in the middle of this. “I may have a lead on the Jane Doe.” I tell him about the Red Chain connection.

  After hearing me out, he replies, gently admonishing me. “It’s not your case, Blackwood.”

  “I know. But the men who killed her are still out there, and Evans and Carr aren’t going to do anything with this lead.”

  “Do you think Ezra Winter sent the woman to kill you?” he asks me bluntly.

  “I think he may be connected. That’s all. I just want to see him face-to-face.”

  Ailes thinks about this for a moment. “This should be Evans’s case.”

  “I understand that. But as far as he’s concerned, there isn’t a case, much less a connection to Winter. Do you really think he’s going to follow a lead based on one fleck of red paint?”

  He shakes his head. “No,” he admits. “Be back here by noon tomorrow. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  Noon doesn’t leave me much time, but I know he’s pushing things as far as he can.

  “I’m serious, Blackwood. I need your full attention on the predictions. We’re going to have a lot of explaining to do no matter what happens.”

  “I get it.”

  “I hope so.” He lowers his voice. “Right now, this woman is a distraction. An understandable one, but usually you’re better at compartmentalizing.”

  “I know.” But I can’t get the image of that knife blade poised over the baby out of my mind.

  “As your supervisor, the right solution is to ask you to take leave. Which you’re entitled to. Which I should make you do after everything. Truth is, I would if we weren’t short staffed with the earthquake and the protests.”

  We’re all feeling like a lone sheriff in an indifferent town.

  I steal a glance at the bullpen. “Don’t take this away from me. It’s not about me. It’s about the child.” As I say it, I realize why I’ve been so affected by the case.
My obsession is driven out of guilt for inciting what happened, not self-preservation.

  “I get it.” Ailes calls to Gerald. “You and Blackwood have a field trip tomorrow.”

  Gerald gives us the thumbs-up, then returns to his computer screen.

  “Why are you sending him? Don’t you need him here? No offense, Gerald,” I shout over to him.

  “I need you both. But if Winter is connected to your Jane Doe, then it would be foolish of me to send you alone.”

  It was more comforting when Ailes regarded my fixation on the Jane Doe as a foolish whim. Now that he’s taking it seriously, I’m getting even more concerned.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mastermind

  I’ve been to dozens of prisons, and talked to scores of inmates. From jailhouse snitches looking to get some leniency on an embezzlement conviction by ratting out a cell mate who has some information on a crime I’m investigating, to a serial killer I know would do anything within his power to hurt me, most of these encounters have been as dramatic as returning a book to the library. As the words flow out of Ezra Winter’s mouth, I’m speechless. Gerald and I both do our best to hide our shock.

  Winter is a slight man with a short white beard and prison crew cut. He sits across from us at the table with his hands chained through a ring. We’d come here to ask him about his little cult, and to see if he was still active with it, but instead he’s just blurted out something that makes my heart jump a beat.

  As soon as we sat down, he shared a knowing smile and then said, “I figured it was only a matter of time before someone came around to ask about me and Peter.”

  Peter.

  Peter Devon.

  I catch myself, and carry on as normally as possible. Right now he thinks we know something, and he’s primed to talk to us, if for no other reason than to feel important. “How would you describe that?”

  Gerald, to his credit, doesn’t react. He makes a small entry in his notebook and pretends to only be half-interested. The kid is good. Real good.

  “My relationship with Peter?” Winter says with a dramatic sigh. “Where to start? We had shared interests. We wanted to save the world from itself. I ended up here, and Peter, well, he died too soon.”

  “What about the predictions?”

  “You mean, Black Fall?”

  “Yes,” I reply. I give Gerald a glance, but my reminder is not necessary. He’s already got his phone out behind his pad, recording this.

  “I’m the one who told him about it. He was too myopic to see the grand scheme of things. Too left brain. It takes a poet to look at all that data and see the trend.” Winter is laying it on like a dinner theater actor who thinks he’s finally got his big Broadway break, and is using all of his skills to make us appreciate how important he is. He wants attention and possibly some kind of leniency.

  “Black Fall?” I repeat.

  “Exactly. Unfortunately, Peter wasn’t very good at explaining things to everyone else. I’m not sure he even got it, to be honest. I tried. God knows I tried.” He looks off to the side, sighing to show us how exasperated he is.

  I realize that what this man truly wants is an audience, so I play to this to keep him talking. “Could you explain it to me?”

  Winter gestures with his hands, oblivious to the handcuffs as they clang against the ring binding them to the table. “If you look at the timeline of history, I’m talking about all the way to life starting on earth, you see a series of rises and falls. Life builds up, then it collapses. Sometimes externally, other times internally. With human civilization, the greater the rise, the bigger the fall. We had a good run from the Greeks to the Romans, but then after the fall of the Roman Empire we had a thousand years of the Dark Ages. The Renaissance brought about the collapse of civilization in the Americas. Now, here we are at the highest point of history thus far, and inevitably we’re going to have the biggest collapse. A dark age unlike any other. The Black Fall.”

  “Then what happens?” I ask.

  “There are two outcomes,” Winter replies, launching into his narrative. God knows how many inmates he’s practiced this speech on. “The survivors, the ones who make it through the plagues, the riots, and starvation, foolishly try to rebuild the world that collapsed, or they find a better way to live.”

  “Like the way the Red Chain lives?” I throw it out there casually, so it doesn’t come across as an accusation.

  Winter flinches and stares down at his bound hands. “I don’t have any association with that organization anymore.”

  It is a canned response, like one an attorney had him rehearse. But he wants to keep our attention. I just need to provoke him. “Is that what your lawyer told you to say? You’re behind bars because you believed in the cause, yet I don’t see anyone else here. They abandoned you.”

  He twitches, then smugly smiles. “Don’t be fooled. I have my supporters. And they’re very loyal to me.”

  “Loyal enough to show up at my door and try to kill me?”

  I say this as lightly as I can. I don’t want him to think I’m flustered.

  “Pardon?” Winter gives me a confused look. “I’m sorry, but who are you?”

  He’s an arrogant man—full of his own bullshit and yet convinced of his own brilliance—but his reply feels utterly truthful. I had expected some kind of gloating hint, not an old man genuinely befuddled by this interruption to his diatribe.

  I change the topic back to Black Fall to keep him focused. “What do you know about the predictions?”

  He dismisses my accusation as quickly as I’d delivered it. “I wasn’t directly involved. But I have information that could be helpful.” He raises an eyebrow.

  “Such as?”

  “Look around you.” He nods to his chains. “Maybe if some arrangements can be made, I’d be able to help you out. As it stands, I have nothing to gain.”

  “You would only be useful to us if you were still in contact with the Red Chain.”

  “To my knowledge that organization no longer exists.” His eyes narrow. “But if it did, my influence extends well beyond these walls.”

  “But you can’t explain why one of your cult members wanted to kill me?” I slide a photo of our Jane Doe across the table.

  Winter glances at the photo, then shrugs. “I’ve made it clear I have no involvement with said organization.” He overenunciates this in a way that suggests he means the opposite. “Some say they have many cells, acting independently. Obviously someone thought you were a threat.”

  “To you?”

  “To humanity,” he says with certainty.

  “Me?” I turn to Gerald. “I don’t always separate my trash into the right bin, but I’ve never been called a threat to humanity.”

  I have to treat Winter like a buffoon if I want to keep him talking. He’s fighting for me to take him seriously, and I’m afraid he’ll shut up as soon as he thinks he’s won.

  “You don’t see it,” Winter replies. “Or you pretend not to. But neither did the men who built nuclear weapons and engineered crops that were a crime against nature. We’re all guilty. It’s just that some of us see it as our duty to fix the harm.”

  Gerald interjects. “Have you had any contact with current or former members of the Red Chain?” He phrases the question as a formality, distracting Winter from our exchange.

  “I’m not allowed to. My calls and communications are monitored.”

  “Do you have e-mail?” asks Gerald.

  “Yes. And federal marshals get to read everything I send,” Winter replies tersely.

  “But you still have influence,” I reply.

  He doesn’t actually answer the question about contact with the Red Chain. Gerald notices this too.

  Winter gives me a smug smile. “You could say.”

  “Were you involved in the taping of Devon’s predictions?”

  “I’ve said what I can. If you have any more questions, bring a US attorney with a parole deal and I could be quite forthcoming.”
He leans back, satisfied he has our interest.

  I stifle a yawn, feigning indifference. “To be brutally honest, we have a bunch of other people to talk to today. We’re not calling anyone unless you give us something more to work with.”

  There’s a twitch in his brow as he tries to decide if I’m bluffing. “I knew Peter Devon. Maybe better than anyone else. What more do you need?”

  “We’ll think about it,” I reply, then nod to Gerald to signal it’s time to leave.

  “What are the odds that’ll happen?” Gerald asks as we walk back down the corridor.

  “Normally, I’d say zero. He’s in here for murder. But if Devon manages to scare the right people, then who knows.”

  We pass a door marked information services. Gerald comes to a stop. “Got a second?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Research.” He has the look on his face he gets when he has an idea.

  Gerald knocks on the door, introduces us to the US marshal on duty who monitors inmate communications, and asks for a tour of the office.

  The marshal, a stocky man named Hopkins with close-cropped brown hair, explains the communication system to us. Mostly to me—I’m sure Gerald knows it backward and forward. He points to a list of prisoners.

  “Every inmate who is allowed computer access gets a correctional facility account to talk to his attorney and a list of other approved people. Some have different privileges than others.”

  “So even a killer like Winter gets e-mail?” I ask.

  “Well, he was a mail bomber and not a hacker, so yeah. Is that who you want to look up? We can read anything that’s not between him and his attorney.”

  “Mind if I look?” asks Gerald.

  “Go ahead, but good luck with that. I think he’s sent maybe two e-mails. I guess it’s against his religion.”

  Gerald taps away at the keyboard and pulls up an access log. “You said two?”

  “I think so.”

  Gerald runs a finger down a long list of dates on the screen. “Then how come it shows at least a few hundred sessions here?”

  Hopkins leans in to look at the screen, confused. “What? That’s weird. Every sent and received e-mail gets dumped into my box.” He leans over and taps away, opening Winter’s Sent folder. It’s empty. The Trash and the Inbox are empty as well. “See, nothing there,” he says, satisfied. “Might be a glitch.”