The Competition

by Marcia Clark

  We walked out of the interview room and headed to Bailey’s desk.

  “Who the hell knows?” Bailey said. “My guess? Evan’s world blew up on him when he found out his buddy was a psycho killer. So now, anything’s possible.”

  “And he’s using the tweets to tell Logan he’s not talking so—”

  “So Logan won’t feel the need to come back and shut him up. That’s my take.”

  Which might not be that crazy, now that I thought about it. “From Logan’s point of view, all he knows is we’ve named him as a person of interest. As far as he knows, no one could identify him. He was covered from head to toe. He doesn’t know we spotted his tattoo on the videos. So who could’ve pointed the finger at him?”

  “The last person he spoke to who’s still alive,” Bailey said. “Which seems to be Evan.”

  “I’m not saying I believe Logan would risk coming after him. But I do get why Evan might be worried about it. We’ve got someone sitting on Evan’s place, don’t we?”

  “We’ve got extra patrol, but it’ll take some doing to get a car permanently stationed. We’re stretched pretty thin.”

  Graden had gotten the chief to discreetly approve extra details for malls, government buildings, and some of the bigger venues around the city. It was a shot in the dark, but we had to do something. Getting an extra body assigned to one house on a full-time basis when there was no specific threat would’ve been hard under the best of circumstances—and these were the worst.

  “I got hold of the shrinkers this morning,” Bailey said. “They should be here any minute. And I had Nick print out all of Logan’s emails.” Bailey leaned in, her voice low. “We’re going to tell them about the letter, right?”

  I’d given this some thought. “I’d like to, but our conversations with the shrinks aren’t privileged—”

  “Jeez, don’t you think they’d be willing to keep this under wraps?”

  “They’re probably cool, but we don’t know for sure. If we’re wrong and they sound the alarm, there’ll be riots in the streets.” Bailey gave a tight-lipped nod. “Let’s at least hold off until we can talk to Graden about it again.”

  “Okay, but the sooner the better.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “I’m going to run to the snack bar.” When the going gets tough, the tough pound chocolate. “Want anything?”

  Bailey opted for a Snickers. I commended her good taste. I went for the Look bar. I’d just gotten back when Nick sauntered over to Bailey’s desk, wearing his usual cowboy boots and sexy smile. He eyed the candy. “Not that y’all need to get any sweeter, but those are some fine choices.” He handed me a batch of pages. “Didn’t find too many emails from Logan, and they only go back about ten months. That when they met?” I nodded. “Nothing remarkable crime-wise, but there you go.”

  “What about Otis’s laptop?” Bailey asked. “Anything?”

  “Not so far. Kid was a major gamer, but from what I’ve seen, his guns were all digital. And not all that much correspondence with Logan.”

  “So no weird writings?” I asked. Nick shook his head. “What about other pictures?”

  “None that we care about. Some old ones of him and some junior-high buddies at a paintballing party. That’s about as ‘hot’ as it gets.”

  “And nothing of interest on Logan’s laptop, I take it?” Bailey asked.

  “Nope. I printed out all his emails for the past year, though, just to show you.” He handed Bailey a thick stack of paper. “Got some with Evan, a few from Caleb and a kid named Kenny. But it was all just routine boy stuff. Girls, school, movies, junk like that.”

  We thanked Nick. He tipped an imaginary cowboy hat and left. A few minutes later, Drs. Malloy and Shelby showed up. Bailey had managed to snag us a small conference room in a private corner of the building.

  “I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Evan.” I told them about Evan’s encounter with Logan the morning of the shooting, his reaction to the photo of Shane, and his recent tweeting that we’d been harassing him. I gave them Bailey’s theory. “Do you think he’s trying to show Logan he’s not a threat?”

  Michael Malloy nodded. “Seems likely. And probably your second suspect as well. Bailey’s right about his world being rocked. If a buddy he trusted can turn out to be a murderer, especially on this scale, then anything’s possible.”

  “And remember, Evan was in that gym too,” Jenny said. “He’s lucky to be alive, and he knows it. I agree with your assessment of Logan’s point of view. From his standpoint, Evan might well appear to be his number one threat. Does that mean I think he would go after Evan? No. It’s too big a risk. And it’s not worth it. Evan’s information wouldn’t put Logan away. And much as I understand why Evan might be frightened by the revelation that Logan has teamed up with someone who looks as threatening as Shane, Evan’s certainly no threat to Shane. He seemed to be truthful when he said he didn’t know him?”

  “He did,” Bailey said.

  “But we’re being objective,” Michael said. “Evan’s psychological state is not conducive to objective thinking. Remember, all of these kids are extremely traumatized.”

  “Right,” Jenny said. “Now imagine that on top of all that, you’re the last living person to speak to Logan. And what he tells you strongly indicates he was about to commit a massacre. The emotional conflicts would be massive.”

  Michael nodded. “On the one hand, Evan feels guilty about not alerting anyone when Logan told him to skip school—”

  “He does,” I said. “Which is crazy. No one could’ve known—”

  Jenny held up a hand. “Again, we’re not talking about rational thinking here. And on the other hand, he’s scared for his own safety, for all the reasons we’ve discussed. Added to that, believe it or not, he probably also feels guilty for telling you about his encounter with Logan—”

  Bailey nodded. “For betraying his buddy.”

  “And they typically overestimate their own importance,” Michael said. “To put it bluntly, they’re self-centered. Evan’s statement isn’t huge in the grand scheme of things, but it is to him. And so he believes it must be to Logan—or maybe Shane—as well.”

  “Still strikes me as kind of paranoid, don’t you think?” I asked.

  Jenny tilted her head. “Is there such a thing as irrational fear when you’re dealing with someone who’s so irrationally violent?”

  Touché.

  I passed them the copies of all the email correspondence with Logan. “We’d like you to read these and get back to us by tonight or, at the latest, tomorrow morning with any ideas you may have about where Logan and his accomplice might be—”

  Michael nodded. “I assume your people have already checked for any oblique references to a plan? Or some kind of code that might have been used?”

  “Yes,” I said. “There was nothing they could see.”

  Jenny frowned. “That’s very, very odd. I’ve never heard of a case where there wasn’t some evidence of preparation or planning. Typically written. Whether it’s in the form of poems to a teacher, drawings of some kind, or posting on the Internet or in some kind of journal. This type of killer is usually a copious writer. And it usually begins months before the event. It’s a form of ramping up, if you will. For a mass murderer—especially one as young as Logan—not to write or say anything about what he plans to do…it’s extraordinary.”

  “But why would they want to write down their plans?” Bailey asked. “Why take the risk?”

  Jenny nodded. “It does seem counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But these killers live in their heads a great deal of the time. They get a lot of traction out of their fantasies. Writing, for them, is a way of savoring those fantasies. Plus—and this is an important point—much of the thrill for this type of killer is the sense of power. Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac for them. That’s why the killings are almost always set up ‘fish in a barrel’ style. They want to master the situation and terrorize a captive audience. That’s
also why writing about their desires is perfect for them. When they write about their desires, they control it all: the means, the location, and the outcome.”

  “Writing or no, there had to have been a heck of a lot of planning,” Bailey said. “They didn’t just put that arsenal together over a long weekend.”

  “Oh, no doubt they’d been planning this for several months, if not a year,” Jenny said. “I’m only saying that these killers need some outlet for all this homicidal energy that gets generated every time they think about what they plan to do. Writing usually provides that outlet.”

  “They had each other to talk to,” I said. “Wouldn’t that have siphoned off some steam?”

  “Some,” Michael said. “But they couldn’t talk about it whenever or wherever they wanted. Understand that this killing was something they both thought about night and day, every single day. Writing is something one can do at any time. No one overhears it. And if they’re careful, no one sees it. Talking is a different story.”

  “Right,” Jenny said. “And given that there are no writings, it’s difficult to believe this boy, Logan, showed absolutely nothing out of the ordinary in the months leading up to the crime.”

  “His friends did say he seemed wound pretty tight,” Bailey said. “He’d pop off at little things. But how would that tip anyone off that he was planning something like this?”

  “Yeah, exactly,” I said. “What would tip you off? If a kid doesn’t already have a track record for violent behavior—”

  “And these killers seldom do—” Jenny said.

  “Then what would you expect to see that would make you suspect a kid would do something like this?”

  Jenny sighed. “That is the classic question in these cases. So Johnny got into a fight, or stole someone’s cell phone. Or defaced school property. Why should that make us suspect he’s building bombs in the basement?” Jenny shook her head. “We have never been able to answer that.”

  41

  After the doctors left I started to pace. “You were right, we can’t put it off. We’ve got to tell them about the letter. Is Graden still with the chief?”

  “I’ll find out.”

  We were about to head out to his office when Bailey’s cell phone rang. She looked at the number and made a face. “It’s one of the guys manning our tip line.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse. This one really has the Looney Tunes coming out of the woodwork.” She answered the phone and listened. After a few minutes, she pulled out her pen and notepad and wrote. When she ended the call, she held up her notepad. “Want to hear what I’m talking about?”

  “Sure.” I needed a good laugh.

  Bailey read from her notes. “The second shooter is Justin Bieber. He and Logan are lovers.” I chuckled. She raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh, it gets better.” She continued reading. “The second shooter and mastermind is Alec Baldwin, and his next target is the paparazzi and tabloid reporters—”

  “Go, Alec.”

  Bailey threw me a look and flipped a page on her notepad. “Logan is in a hotel in midtown Manhattan—”

  “Ooh, the St. Regis? Maybe we need to go and check this one out ourselves.”

  “The caller didn’t name the hotel. However, he did opine that Logan is a Gemini and that therefore the second shooter has to be a Scorpio. Our next caller swears he saw Logan in Deer Valley, Utah. Skiing.” She turned another page. “Shall I go on?”

  I shook my head. “I get the drift—no pun intended.” Bailey gave me a sour look. I remembered they’d just released the information about Shane Dolan at the press conference this morning. “What about Shane Dolan? Any sightings on him?”

  “More of the same. Nothing that makes any sense. But I’ve got them checking out every lead. At least those on this planet.”

  “I don’t believe they left the state. Though I don’t know why I think that.”

  “Because given what the shrinkers said, it makes the most sense,” Bailey said. “They’ll want to aim for places they’re familiar with, where they can feel in control. And where they know the escape route. That is, assuming…”

  They still planned to escape. We couldn’t even predict that with freaks like this. I started to go through a mental checklist of the evidence we’d collected so far. “What’ve we got on the guns they dropped at the school?”

  “They’re not registered, big shock. The assault rifles were SBR AR fifteenss. As for where they might’ve gotten the guns…Ed said it’s going to be tough to narrow down.” Bailey saw my frustration. “I know. He’s moving as fast as he can. But bear in mind, it’s entirely possible those guns went through a bunch of hands before Logan and company got hold of them.” Bailey looked at me. “And I doubt that any of those hands belonged to law-abiding citizens.”

  “So beyond the initial sale from the manufacturer to the store, we might not ever figure out who sold to our guys.”

  “It’s too soon to tell. But don’t forget, Shane Dolan might be our buyer. If he was buying and selling on a regular basis, he probably has his own connect.”

  “Great. So all we have to do is find Dolan’s connect. Piece of cake. Except we can’t even find Dolan. How can it be that a shitbird like him doesn’t have a rap sheet?”

  “He does, I told you.”

  “Yeah, a DUI eight years ago.” I started to pace again. Another possibility occurred to me. “They dropped two assault rifles and two small caliber handguns at the scene, and they used up a ton of ammo. Unless they raided an armory, they’ll need to buy more firepower if they’re going to strike again. Don’t you think?”

  “Not necessarily. They might have a whole arsenal stashed away somewhere.”

  “Yeah, but where?” Was I reaching? I didn’t think so. “Think about it: any place Logan had access to would pose a risk. Where would he put the guns? Not his house. And he didn’t have any friends who seemed likely to hold on to a stash of weapons. If he or Shane had rented a storage locker, we’d know it by now—”

  “Unless they used a fake name—”

  “Come on, we’re not dealing with the Mafia here. Where are they going to get ID solid enough to buy a storage locker? Those places are pretty tough these days.” So many of the people in need of storage lockers were in dire shape—the kind of shape that made storage locker payments very low on the to-pay list—storage companies practically required a blood test. “I’m betting they’ll need to score more guns and ammo—”

  “Or not,” Bailey said. “Who says they’ll do it the same way next time? Maybe they’ll go for some kind of IED or do it Oklahoma City style—”

  Too many unknowns. I was making myself—and Bailey—crazy. “You going to check in with Dorian?” We hadn’t heard any news about the evidence seized at the school. That probably meant there was nothing to report. But I was edgy with the need to make something happen.

  “Yeah, I’ll take the hit this time. You’re too crazy.”

  A sign of true friendship. “I’ll call Ed. See if he has anything new.”

  I called Ed and got his voice mail, so I left a message. Bailey had done the same with Dorian. We headed to Graden’s office and found out he was still with the chief. They had no ETA for him, so I headed back to my office.

  I’d left the door open for Graden’s detective so he could check out the bug. Graden had said he was going to have the detective put it back in place so as not to tip off whoever planted it. I looked under the table, and sure enough, there it was. I knew it was the smart thing to do, but it was a drag. My office, my sanctuary at work, had been violated. It seriously gave me the creeps. And I sure didn’t want to talk to anyone with that thing listening in, so I put my phone on vibrate and spent the next couple of hours plowing through the reports that’d been generated so far. It was almost five o’clock before Ed called me back.

  “Say, slugger, just got your message,” he said. “Guess you’re looking for some good news.”

  “Nah, why would I do a sill
y thing like that?” The bug couldn’t pick up his end of the conversation, could it? No, of course it couldn’t. But just knowing it was there, listening, drove me crazy.

  “Good, ’cause I don’t have any. The serial numbers have all been filed—”

  “All? How—”

  “With acid. Surprisingly sophisticated for a teenager.”

  But not so surprising for a gun nut like Shane.

  Ed continued. “And to answer your next question, yeah, it is strange that all of them were removed the same way.”

  “How old are the weapons?” Pedro had said the thirty-eight Shane was trying to sell looked new.

  “Not old, but I couldn’t say they all looked brand spanking new either.” He sighed. “I won’t lie to you, no serial numbers means life just got a lot tougher for you and me.”

  Could we ever catch a break in this damn case? Especially with the threat that hung over our heads, the dead ends were making me want to pull my hair out. Ed didn’t have anything else to add so I thanked him and dialed Bailey’s number, but at that moment, my cell rang. It was Dr. Jenny.

  “I’ve read the emails and conferred with Michael,” she said. “He agrees with my assessment, so if you like, I can give you our conclusions. We can do it on the phone, or in your office—”

  “Uh, can you hang on, Jenny?” Neither of those options was going to work. I called Vanderputz’s secretary and asked if we could use the eighteenth-floor conference room. I knew that couldn’t be bugged. They swept it twice a day. I got the okay and told Jenny where to meet us; then I called Bailey.

  She said she’d tracked down Graden. “Are you in your office?” she asked.

  “Yeah, so don’t—”

  “Got it. He says we should tell the shrinks. I’ll be there in ten.” She ended the call.

  I tossed my phone on the desk and looked over my shoulder. That bug…I swore I could feel it staring at me.