by Blake Pierce
After dinner, they cleared off the table and Ryan sat there to focus on the legal work he’d brought home. Riley cleaned up the dishes and then settled down in the living room to watch TV. But she found it impossible to keep her mind on the programs. She felt terribly guilty about not coming clean with Ryan about what was really happening in her life. She tried to talk herself into telling him right now, but …
I can’t bother him when he’s working.
She knew that was mostly an excuse, though. She simply didn’t have the nerve to tell him the truth.
She also felt restless and uneasy about other things.
Was Crivaro ever going to call?
Was she off the “Clown Killer” case for good?
Was it even a case anymore?
For all she knew, Crivaro and McCune had already proven Gregory Wertz’s guilt once and for all. Or maybe they had moved on to an altogether different suspect. She wished she had some idea.
After a while, Ryan came in and sat down on the couch beside her. When a commercial came on, he clicked the mute button on the remote.
Riley looked at him with surprise.
“Riley we’ve got to talk,” Ryan said with a very serious expression.
Riley swallowed hard, wondering what was coming next.
Ryan said, “I called my parents today and told them …”
He paused and Riley thought …
Oh, God.
He told them I was pregnant.
Instead he said …
“I told them we were engaged. I’d planned to write to them about it sometime soon, not right away. But they called me at work today and … well, I just felt that it was time I told them.”
He took her hand again and added …
“So we’ve got to make plans—where the wedding’s going to be, and when.”
Riley could hardly believe her ears.
“Oh, Ryan, I don’t know …”
She fell silent. She really didn’t know what to say.
Ryan said, “What’s wrong, Riley? Please don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts. About getting married, I mean.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that,” Riley said. “It’s just … well, right now, there’s so much going on in our lives. And making plans like this … I don’t know even know where to even begin.”
Riley could see disappointment in Ryan’s eyes. She realized he’d hoped she’d be excited and eager to have this discussion. She wished she actually felt that way. She wasn’t quite sure why she didn’t.
Ryan said, “Well, let’s start by talking about when. We need to work it in sometime this summer.”
Riley’s dropped open.
“This summer?” she said.
Ryan shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?”
“Well, you’ve got your important new job, for one thing. And I’m in this intern program.”
Ryan said, “Aren’t interns allowed to take one day of leave per month? You could make one of those days a Friday or a Monday, turn it into a long weekend. I can do the same thing with my job.”
Riley stared hard at him.
“But what’s the hurry?” she asked. “Why can’t we wait till the end of summer?”
Ryan looked as if he were surprised at the question.
He said, “Riley, you’re six weeks along in your pregnancy. You’ve got more than nine weeks to go in the summer program.”
Riley was starting to understand his sense of urgency now. He hadn’t yet told his parents—or anybody else—that she was pregnant. And nine weeks from now, her pregnancy would definitely be showing.
Riley felt a twinge of resentment.
“You don’t want to be embarrassed,” she said.
Ryan let out a deep sigh.
“Riley, I wish you wouldn’t look at it that way.”
“How else am I supposed to look at it?”
Ryan said, “Well, can you blame me? Don’t you feel the same way? About your own father, I mean?”
Riley was taken aback. She hadn’t really given any thought to how her father might feel about her pregnancy.
In fact, she hadn’t given any thought as to whether …
She said slowly, “Ryan, I don’t even know if I want to invite him. You know things have never been good between us. You don’t know him.”
“Maybe I’d like to get to know him,” Ryan said.
Riley shook her head.
“No, you wouldn’t. Believe me. He’s always been impossible for anybody to get along with. And living alone up in the mountains all these years has only made him worse. And …”
She swallowed hard and said …
“And he’s never approved of anything I’ve done in my whole life.”
Ryan said, “Then what about your aunt and uncle? Don’t you want them to come?”
Riley felt a pang at the mention of her Aunt Ruth and Uncle Deke. They had brought Riley to live with them in Larned, Virginia, after her mother had been killed and Daddy had gotten too abusive. She was grateful to them now, but she’d been rebellious and difficult during her teenage years, and she’d put them through some terrible times. Her drinking and sex and irresponsible behavior had taken a toll in Riley’s relationship with them.
She hadn’t been in touch with them since she’d started college. She felt bad about that, and she wished she could think of some way to make it up to them.
But the idea of them coming to the wedding was too much for Riley to think about.
She said to Ryan, “They’ve retired to Florida, and they’re really getting along in years. I wouldn’t feel right asking them to make the trip.”
An uncomfortable silence fell between her and Ryan.
Riley decided not to even mention her estranged older sister, Wendy, who had run away from home as a teenager. Riley didn’t even know where Wendy might live anymore. She couldn’t remember having ever told Ryan anything about her.
Finally Ryan spoke in a husky, bitter voice …
“So what do you want to do? Just get our wedding done and over with in a civil ceremony, and not invite any guests at all?”
Riley struggled not to say aloud …
Actually, that sounds like a wonderful idea right now.
Instead, she said nothing at all.
Finally Ryan got up from the couch. “I guess now isn’t a good time to discuss it.”
He sounded quietly angry. But Riley couldn’t argue with him. He was obviously right.
“I’m sorry,” Riley said.
Ryan went back to his work without another word. Riley sat staring at the silent images on the TV for several long minutes, feeling absolutely miserable. She was also deeply exhausted after three long, difficult, and confusing days. She went to the bathroom, took a shower, and then went straight to bed.
She lay there for a little while wondering whether she could really sleep.
She remembered how excited she’d been about moving to DC and living with Ryan and starting a family with him.
But now …
Everything is such a mess.
She had no idea what she was going to wind up doing this summer—could she work with Crivaro and McCune, or would she be just taking classes and workshops like the rest of the interns? She still wondered if things would be best if she simply dropped out and found a job.
She remembered words her father had said to her countless times over the years …
“You can’t do anything right, girl.”
Daddy had scarcely kept secret that he even blamed her for her mother’s murder.
Rationally, she knew better—or at least she thought she did …
I was only six.
But she knew that her father’s blame had taken root deep inside her. No matter what she did, no matter what she succeeded at, it was never enough—at least not for herself.
She felt a sob well up in her throat as she wondered …
Are things ever going to be any different?
She started crying freely as s
he lay there. Her tears came as a relief, and she felt sure that pretty soon she was going to be able to sleep after all.
But as her consciousness faded, she again felt the horrible presence of the killer.
No, it wasn’t Gregory Wertz.
She was sure of it.
He’s still out there.
And he’s going to kill again.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Riley’s eyes snapped open at the sound of her cell phone buzzing on the nightstand.
She heard Ryan let out a sleepy growl of annoyance as she reached for the phone. When she saw that the call was from Agent Crivaro, she leapt out of bed and rushed out of the bedroom to keep from waking Ryan.
“Are you awake?” Crivaro asked when she took the call.
“Yeah,” Riley said.
And she wasn’t lying. She’d been sleeping deeply just a moment ago, but now she felt jolted as fully awake as if she’d already had a cup of coffee.
“I need you here at the Hoover Building ASAP,” Crivaro said.
“What’s going on?” Riley asked breathlessly.
“Gregory Wertz isn’t the killer. We checked and double-checked his alibies yesterday. He’s in the clear for both murders. So today we’ve got to start all over at square one. The worst part is, the media found out that we got the wrong guy, and they’re going crazy today. So the pressure’s on. I need all hands on deck. How soon can you get here?”
“Twenty or thirty minutes,” Riley said. “Or a little more. I have to catch the metro.”
“Get going right now,” Crivaro said. He told her the room where she should meet him when she got to the building, then abruptly ended the call.
Riley realized she was hyperventilating as she stared at the phone.
She flashed back again to what she’d told Crivaro two nights ago …
“Wertz isn’t the killer. I’m sure of it now.”
Now Riley wondered …
Is that why he’s bringing me back?
Because my instincts turned out to be right?
Maybe.
Or maybe the only thing that mattered to him right now was, as he’d just put it …
“I need all hands on deck.”
She had no idea, but she quickly decided that it didn’t make any difference. She was back on the case again, and she needed to get to the Hoover Building right now. She gathered up some clothes and got dressed and ready as quietly as she could while Ryan kept on snoring.
She didn’t have time for her usual cereal and coffee, so she grabbed an energy bar out of a kitchen cabinet. Then she dashed off a hasty note to Ryan explaining that she’d had to rush off to a meeting. She left it on the kitchen table and hurried on out toward the metro stop.
As she did every morning, Riley bought a newspaper at a vending box on the way to the stop. She looked at the front page as she sat down to wait for her train.
She could see at a glance that Crivaro was right—the media was all over the case. The headline blared …
Clown Killer Still at Large
She skimmed the story. It said that the FBI had had a suspect in custody who turned out not to be guilty—and so, as Crivaro had put it, they were back at “square one.” The rest of the story seemed hardly worth reading—just wild rumors and innuendo from all sorts of unreliable sources.
Riley caught her train and on the short trip she leafed through the rest of the newspaper, looking at columns and features that normally interested her. One of those regular items was called “Poetry Place.” Every day it featured a poem sent in by one of the newspaper’s readers, often signed with just a first name. The poems were usually awful and sometimes unintentionally funny, but they made for entertaining reading.
The title of today’s poem immediately caught her attention …
Welcome to the Labyrinth
She felt a prickle all over, although she wasn’t sure why. The prickling increased as she continued to read the rest of the poem …
Come, my chosen dear;
Don’t falter and don’t cringe;
Join me without fear
For one last merry binge.
Let’s dance and play amid
The palpable public crush
Of revelers who bid
A wild farewell to flesh.
We’ll put on without shame
A flamboyant display
And look and dress the same
In colorful array.
A merry couple we,
Locked in our embrace—
Just wait until you see
The look upon your face!
The poem was signed simply …
Joey
Riley felt a gnawing feeling deep down in her gut.
The killer! He wrote this! she felt sure.
It’s a message!
She took a few deep breaths and told herself not to jump to conclusions. After all, did she have any rational reason for thinking the poem had been written by the killer himself? She began to read it more carefully, picking out specific words and phrases.
The title itself piqued her interest. She remembered that feeling she’d gotten at Lady Bird Johnson Park—her near-certainty that the killer carried his victims off to some special place, a lair. Was the poem itself his riddling way of hinting at the location of his lair—his “labyrinth”?
The first line of the poem was plenty suggestive …
Come, my chosen dear …
The killer had definitely “chosen” his victims, studying their movements and stalking them before abducting them.
Then there were words and phrases like “flamboyant display,” and “colorful array.” Weren’t those obvious references to clown makeup and costumes?
The writer of the poem said that he and his “chosen dear” would “look and dress the same.” Might that mean that he himself dressed and made himself up as a clown while he tormented his costumed victim?
And there were the last two lines …
Just wait until you see
The look upon your face!
Riley felt all but sure those lines meant that he showed the victim her made-up face in a mirror as she was in her last dying agony.
But perhaps the most chilling line of all was …
A wild farewell to flesh.
What could that mean except death—a “wild” farewell to life brought on by amphetamine-induced fear?
Riley shivered all over.
I feel so close to him right now.
She felt even closer than she’d had at the murder scene, or the Birches’ home, or the alley behind the movie theater, or at the marina in Lady Bird Johnson Park.
She also felt cruelly taunted, almost as if the message had been intended for her personally.
Be careful, she told herself.
She couldn’t let her imagination run away with her, and she mustn’t succumb to paranoia.
It was a public message, after all.
Surely I’m not the only person who noticed it.
And surely it had caught the FBI’s attention. She was curious to find out what Crivaro and the other investigators working on the case had to say about it.
*
When Riley walked into the vast lobby of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, she saw more people roaming around than she’d seen on other days, many of them with video cameras.
Reporters, she guessed.
They had come here hoping to catch some news about the Clown Killer as soon as anything broke. Right now they looked discouraged and frustrated, with no one around to pester for information. Riley kept her head low as she made her way to the security gate, hoping none of them would recognize her from the scene where Janet Davis’s body had been found.
Riley was relieved that she got into the secure areas without incident. She found the room Crivaro had mentioned on the phone and knocked on the door.
The stranger who opened the door looked at her with surprise.
The man said, “Um—may I help you? Because we’
re rather busy here.”
Riley could see that some eight or nine men were sitting at a conference table. She recognized two or three of the cops from two mornings ago. She figured the others were FBI agents. Of course Agents Crivaro and McCune were here.
Sitting next to Crivaro was Elliot Flack, the special agent who had lectured the interns yesterday. Riley remembered Crivaro referring to Flack as “an old colleague of mine.”
Crivaro spoke to the man who had opened the door …
“Let her come in.”
The man waved Riley inside, so she found an empty chair and sat down. The conversation resumed right away without any introduction or comment.
Riley felt invisible.
The cops and agents sounded irritable and anxious. At the moment, they seemed to have been talking over a list of possible suspects, none of whom were proving to be plausible.
When they were finished with the list, Flack said …
“If anybody’s got any ideas, now’s a good time to speak up.”
There were grunts of discouragement around the table.
Riley wondered …
Have they talked about the poem already?
If they had, what conclusions had they drawn about it?
Riley shyly held up her hand.
Crivaro said, “What have you got, Sweeney?”
Riley took the newspaper out of her purse and folded it open to the poem.
“I was just wondering … what do all of you think about this?”
The men looked at her and the newspaper curiously.
“What do we think about what?” asked one of the cops.
“This poem,” Riley said, pointing at the paper. “You’ve seen it already, right? I mean, it was written by the killer, wasn’t it?”
Everybody stared at her like she was out of her mind.
Crivaro growled softly …
“Explain yourself, Sweeney.”
Riley gulped hard. Then in a shaky voice she read the title and the poem aloud. By the time she finished, most of the men were fidgeting and grumbling.