by Blake Pierce
Riley stammered as she went on to try to explain her own thoughts about the poem, especially the significance of certain words and phrases like “chosen dear,” “farewell to flesh,” “flamboyant display,” and “colorful array.”
But she felt so flustered that she was afraid she wasn’t making much sense.
Apparently, most of the men at the table didn’t think so either.
One of the cops said to her, “So you think the killer actually wrote this poem? Like it’s a message or something?”
Riley said, “Well … yeah. It seems obvious to me.”
With a smirk, McCune said, “I’ve got to hand it to you, Sweeney—you’ve got a hell of an imagination.”
Riley cringed as she heard others chuckle in agreement.
One of the FBI agents shook his head and said, “We can’t waste our time on this kind of crap. We need viable theories. What kind of profile can we come up with?”
The FBI agents began brainstorming about the killer himself, throwing out lots of questions …
Where did he live?
What kinds of relationships did he have?
What did he do for a living?
Riley was sure they were all excellent questions, the kind that skilled profilers would always ask about such a killer. As she listened, she felt embarrassed at her own silly and irrelevant attempt to participate in the discussion.
But questions came coming, and nobody was providing answers.
Were his killings sexually motivated?
If not, what was driving him?
Anger, thrill-seeking, revenge, a desire for fame?
Riley couldn’t help feeling that the men sitting around her were just spinning their wheels. And from their testy voices and scowling faces, she guessed that they were feeling the same way.
She found herself staring at the poem, still lying on the table in front of her.
She felt a renewed sense of certainty …
This really means something.
But how was she, a mere intern, going to convince all these seasoned investigators that she was really onto something?
She was sure that lives depended on it.
But she felt invisible again. In fact, no one seemed to notice as she got up and slipped out the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
As Riley walked away from the room and down the hallway, she thought wryly …
Invisibility has its advantages.
After all, nobody had stopped her from leaving. The men must have assumed she had gone to the restroom—if they had assumed anything at all. She found herself wondering why Crivaro had bothered calling to tell her to come here in the first place if he hadn’t expected her to contribute anything.
She smiled a little as she thought …
Maybe I’ll surprise them all by making myself useful.
She headed to the nearest elevator, then went straight to the computer room where she’d participated in yesterday’s workshop. She showed her intern ID to the room monitor, then went to one of the computers and logged into the Internet.
She placed the poem on the typing stand next to the computer and looked it over, wondering …
Where do I start?
How do I start?
Well, first there was the title …
Welcome to the Labyrinth
Riley knew that the word “labyrinth” referred to a maze. She remembered seeing a popular fantasy movie about such a maze when she was little. But she also had vague recollections of reading or hearing about a specific labyrinth in Greek mythology.
She ran a search on the word and quickly found the ancient story of a vast labyrinth on the island of Crete. At its center lived a monstrous creature called the Minotaur, half man and half bull, who devoured any hero who found his way inside.
Riley felt a twinge of encouragement.
Yes, the image of a maze with a monster dwelling deep inside it fit well with her sense that the man tormented and killed his victims inside his personal lair.
But some of the following lines bothered her …
Let’s dance and play amid
The palpable public crush
Of revelers who bid
A wild farewell to flesh.
She’d been sure that “farewell to flesh” meant death. But now that she read the stanza more closely, there also seemed to be a sense of a crowd of people—a “public crush” of them bidding “a wild farewell to flesh.”
How did this fit with her image of a private lair?
Did it fit?
Maybe I’ve got the whole thing wrong, she worried.
No, she still felt sure that the phrase “farewell to flesh” meant death, but …
Maybe it means something else as well.
She ran a search on the phrase and quickly found something.
“Farewell to flesh” was a literal translation of the Latin phrase carne vale—from which came the word carnival.
Carnival!
Riley’s interest rose as she kept on reading.
Carnival was a festive season coming before the Catholic observance of Lent. Riley had heard Catholic friends explain that Lent was a time of penance, self-denial, and sometimes fasting. Carne, Riley saw, could also be translated to mean “meat.” So carne vale was a time of partying and feasting and “living it up” before one had to say “farewell” to pleasures of the flesh.
But of course, “carnival” had a different significance to a non-Catholic like Riley.
She ran a search on the word and she found it defined as …
a traveling amusement show or circus
Of course, that definition was more familiar to Riley than the religious one. She had been to a few carnivals over the years. They were colorful, noisy, happy events with food vendors, games of chance, circus-style acrobatics, and amusement rides …
And clowns.
Riley was sure she was on the right track now. And she was convinced that the phrase “farewell to flesh” really did have a dual meaning here.
It did, indeed, mean death.
But it also literally referred to an actual place.
Somehow, that’s what his “labyrinth” was, his lair—a carnival.
Riley’s head buzzed as pieces of the puzzle seemed to come together. Riley was now curious about the supposed name of the poet …
Joey
She typed in “Joey meaning.”
At first, the list of results that came up didn’t look encouraging.
Joey was, of course, an abbreviation of the name “Joseph.” Riley also saw that the word “joey” could refer to “a young kangaroo or other marsupial,” which didn’t strike her as at all helpful.
She scanned through several search pages, hoping that something useful would jump out at her. Finally she stumbled across an article about Joseph Grimaldi, an English actor of the early nineteenth century. Skimming the article, she saw that he had been a famous comedian and pantomimist.
Then she noticed that Grimaldi’s most popular stage character was named “Joey.”
Riley felt a surge of excitement as she read further …
Because of his thieving, mischievous, buffoonish white-faced character Joey, Grimaldi is said to be the first true circus clown. In fact, the name “Joey” has been used for countless circus clowns ever since.
Riley gasped aloud.
Joey is a name for a clown!
Pieces of the puzzle seemed to be rapidly fitting together.
She glanced at the poem again and noticed again the lines …
We’ll put on without shame
A flamboyant display
And look and dress the same
In colorful array.
Her earlier hunch had been right! The killer not only dressed and made up his victims to look like clowns, he looked like that himself …
He is a clown!
And his “labyrinth” is a carnival!
For a moment, Riley just stared at the computer, overwhelmed with the real
ization of what a fantastic tool this was.
Her hand shook as she jotted down all this information on a notepad. Then she rushed out of the room and headed back to the room where the meeting was being held. She didn’t bother to knock this time, just walked right in.
Again, nobody seemed to notice her. Riley sensed that the meeting was coming to an end. She heard the men murmuring to one another about breaking up into teams and who was going to do what today. Crivaro was talking intently with McCune and Special Agent Flack.
Feeling suddenly bold, Riley tapped Crivaro on the shoulder. When he turned to look at her, she said …
“Agent Crivaro, could I have a word with you?”
Crivaro stared at her for a moment. Then he turned toward Agent Flack and gave him a nod. Both Crivaro and Flack got up and followed Riley out into the hall.
Riley wasn’t sure how she felt about Crivaro including Flack in their talk. She’d hoped to be able to talk to Crivaro alone, to try to persuade him of her tentative theory one to one, face to face.
She started feeling nervous again, and breathed slowly to try to calm herself down.
She handed the newspaper poem to Crivaro, and Flack stood beside him looking at it. She talked them through the computer search she’d just done, explaining the significance of “labyrinth,” “farewell to flesh,” and the name “Joey.”
When she finished, Crivaro and Flack just looked at each other.
Riley couldn’t read their expressions.
Do they think I’m being stupid? she wondered.
Then Crivaro looked at her and said without smiling …
“Good work, Sweeney.”
Riley’s knees weakened with joy and pride.
I’ve finally done something right, she thought.
Now it was up to Crivaro to decide what to do about it.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
As he stood in the hallway with Flack and Riley Sweeney, Jake Crivaro tried not to smile at the girl’s look of pride.
Don’t want her to get too complacent, he thought.
He’d meant it when he said “good work.” It wasn’t often that a rookie came up with a solid insight like that. He couldn’t remember an intern ever doing it. But he wasn’t ready to give her too much praise right away. In fact, he couldn’t help but wonder whether she might be reading too much into the poem.
He looked at the paper in his hand and scanned the text again.
No, she’s not reading too much into it.
Crivaro felt positive that she was right about the significance of all those words and phrases, especially that name …
Joey.
It wasn’t a coincidence that Joey was a clown’s name. This was most likely a message from the killer, who was hinting at …
Well, something.
The message was plenty cryptic even now that Riley had at least partially deciphered it. But Crivaro felt pretty sure that it suggested the killer’s whereabouts—his “lair,” as Riley called it.
They hadn’t nailed down any essential details, but he had a strong feeling that they were on the right track.
Crivaro looked up from the poem at his longtime colleague, Elliot Flack. Crivaro could tell from Flack’s fascinated expression that he, too, had been persuaded of the poem’s significance.
Flack said, “That column invites readers to submit poems, so they must have some kind of information on whoever sent this one in. My guess is that it’ll be a fake name and won’t lead us anywhere. But I’ll get somebody over to the newspaper office to find out whatever they know.”
Crivaro nodded approvingly.
He opened the newspaper and flipped through its pages until he found what he’d hoped would be there.
It was an advertisement for a traveling carnival that had already been playing for a week in DC’s Northwest quadrant. It seemed to be the only carnival currently running in the area.
His lair, he thought.
Crivaro showed the ad to Flack and said, “Sweeney and I are going to check this place out,”
He heard Riley gasp with delight.
Flack nodded. “You two get right on it. And I’ll go back in there and bring the guys up to speed on this new info. We’ve got to rethink our strategy.”
Flack went back into the room and shut the door behind him. Crivaro and Riley headed straight to the parking garage and got into his car. As he drove out of the building, Crivaro remembered what the girl had said the night before last behind the theater where Margo Birch’s body had been found …
“Wertz isn’t the killer. I’m sure of it now.”
He’d thought exactly the same thing at that very moment, although he hadn’t said so.
Maybe he should have.
Would a few words of encouragement kill me?
The girl definitely had good instincts. That was why he’d been drawn to her in the first place. But he knew perfectly well that he hadn’t been making her feel very good about herself. And he knew why.
He said, “Look, I know I’ve been cutting you out of the investigation some. There really hasn’t been anything much going on, but that’s not the whole reason.”
Riley just stared at him without reply.
Jake swallowed hard and continued, “You might have heard rumors that I had troubles with my last partner. Gus Bollinger was his name. A real shit-for-brains rookie …”
The words were out before Crivaro could think …
This girl’s a rookie too.
He didn’t want her to think he thought that all rookies were idiots.
He added, “He wasn’t anything like you, believe me.”
He paused for a moment, then went on.
“Bollinger and I were working together in central Virginia on a serial case—the so-called ‘Matchbook Killer,’ maybe you heard about it. Someone was murdering young women in motel rooms. When he buried them in shallow graves, he left matchbooks with the victims—matchbooks from bars in the area.”
Crivaro fell silent again.
Did he really want to go into details how badly Bollinger had screwed up—how he’d handled a drinking glass the killer had touched in one of the bars, hopelessly smearing up any fingerprints that had been on it?
No, Crivaro’s anger was too fresh.
If he went into all that, he’d probably lose his temper yet again, and to no purpose at all.
Finally he said, “Suffice it to say Bollinger botched the whole case. The murderer seems to have stopped killing young women—at least for now, maybe for good. It looks like maybe we’ll never catch the bastard.”
He shook his head and growled …
“Damn, but I hate cold cases. Anyway, maybe you can understand now why I’m kind of skittish about partners of any sort. In fact …”
He was about to say that he didn’t think all that highly of Agent Mark McCune. So far, McCune seemed to be an improvement on Bollinger. But as far as Crivaro was concerned, McCune didn’t have much of anything to offer as an investigator—not a lot of intelligence, and certainly no special instinct.
But he told himself …
I’d better keep my mouth shut about that. They’re liable to have to work together.
But maybe there was one other thing he should tell her.
“Riley, I’ve got a son about your age. I’ll have to admit I was kind of relieved when he decided not to follow in my footsteps. Looks like he’s headed for real estate.”
She still didn’t say anything, but he could see that she was watching him closely.
“You’ve got real potential,” he said. “That’s why I got you here this summer. But if you’re not interested in an FBI career, I want you to know that’s okay too.”
“I don’t really know yet,” Riley muttered.
Crivaro fell silent again. He couldn’t remember ever having talked about the thing that was on his mind. Why was he saying it now?
He continued, “I don’t see much of my son, these days. I’ve been divorced for years, and believe m
e it was really ugly. And it wasn’t my wife’s fault, none of it. It was all because I was married to my work.”
Riley said, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Crivaro said. “Just remember what I’m telling you. You’ve got a boyfriend, right? I mean, with that ring, I guess you’re actually engaged. Well, hang onto that as best you can. Because believe me, getting obsessed with the darkest parts of human nature wreaks havoc on relationships. It gets hard to just … be a human being. Keep that in mind, that’s all I’m saying.”
When Riley said nothing, Crivaro glanced over and saw that she seemed to be deep in thought.
I guess she’s really taking my advice to heart, he guessed.
Either that, or she’s just not paying attention.
He sure hoped she was paying attention. Crivaro had done some research about Riley before submitting her application for the program. So he knew something that she probably didn’t suspect he knew—that she’d seen her own mother murdered when she was six years old.
He wondered whether he should bring that up now.
After all, it did pertain to the talk he’d been giving her. Pursuing this kind of work was almost certainly going to bring on flashbacks and reawaken her trauma …
If it hasn’t happened already.
Maybe he should say something about it.
Maybe later, he decided.
Meanwhile, he had a feeling that Riley wasn’t telling him something that was going on in her life right now—something that he probably should know. He’d suspected that since two mornings ago, when she’d looked ill and out of sorts. She looked better today, but his curiosity still nagged at him.
He was trying to think of a way to broach the subject when Riley spoke.
“What about the other carnival?”
“Huh?” Crivaro said.
“The carnival back in the field. You know, the carnival that had left the night before Janet Davis’s body was found there. What do we know about it?”
Crivaro said, “I assigned a small FBI team to investigate that outfit. The guys spent all yesterday trying to find any connection between the carnival and the victim or the crime. They came up dry.”