The Knight pbf-3

by Steven James

  I checked my voicemail.

  Nothing.

  Then I grabbed my bags, flagged a cab, and rode to my hotel.

  Reggie was several hours late getting home from work, but when he finally arrived, Amy Lynn met him with a kiss, told him how good it was to see him, and then pointed out the window to the pair of agents sitting in a car beside the curb. “Let those guys go. I’ll be safe with you. You can protect me.”

  “All right,” Reggie said gallantly, “I’ll take care of them.”

  He stepped outside.

  Yes, Amy Lynn would spend the night laughing at Reggie’s jokes, responding to his touch, pleasing him, so that tomorrow when she needed some time by herself, he would be more trusting, less wary, and it would be easier for her to slip away.

  Dr. Bryant, the journalism professor who’d taught her so much about how to use people to get a big story, would have been proud of her approach.

  A few moments later, Reggie returned and smiled. “All taken care of.”

  She gave him a sly grin. “Now, it’s just the two of us.”

  “And Jayson.”

  “Right,” she clarified. “And Jayson.”

  “But, we can tuck him in early.”

  “Perfect.”

  She took Reggie’s hand.

  Yes, tonight she would be his. And then tomorrow she would be free.

  90

  The Hyatt Regency HotelChicago, Illinois10:10 p.m. Central Time

  I took a few minutes to unpack, and then, since my body was still on Denver time and I wasn’t ready for bed, I decided to put in a little time on the case. I set my laptop on the desk, and, to make room for my notes, I started clearing off the notepad, hotel directory, and local travel guides when I noticed the Gideon Bible beside the room phone.

  I paused.

  And I remembered.

  At the conclusion of my video chat with Richard Basque earlier in the day, he’d referenced a biblical passage, one that I hadn’t yet taken the time to read.

  I thought I remembered the reference, but I wanted to confirm that I was right, so I accessed the video file of our conversation and played the final seconds.

  “I’ll take my chances. Good-bye, Richard,” I’d said.

  “I’ll be praying for you. Remember, Exodus 1:15-21. Remem-ber-”

  And that’s when I’d hung up.

  I paged through the Bible until I came to the first chapter of Exodus.

  The story was about Moses’s birth, and I recognized it from my childhood days when my mother had taken me to church.

  In the story, the Hebrews were living in Egypt where the king of the land, Pharaoh, became concerned about how numerous their population was becoming. Fearing that they might side with his enemies in a war, he ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill all the boys born to the Hebrew women.

  Then I came to verses seventeen through twenty:

  But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.

  And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, “Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?”

  And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.”

  Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.

  The next verse reiterated that since the midwives had feared God, he blessed them and gave them families of their own.

  I gazed at the verses for a few moments, thinking through the story. The message of the section seemed clear to me: the midwives had broken the law and then lied to protect innocent lives, and as a result, God had blessed them.

  I had to let that sink in.

  I read and reread the verses and then began thumbing through the Bible, remembering other stories, other examples of the same principle that protecting the innocent is more important than telling the truth.

  Rahab lied to protect the Hebrew spies and was honored by God for her choice.

  Jonathan lied to his father about David’s location to save him from being murdered.

  Even Jesus’s disciples didn’t tell the authorities “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” about his whereabouts because they knew it would mean his certain death. The only one who told the whole truth about his location was Judas-the world’s most infamous betrayer.

  In fact, as I flipped through the Bible and reviewed the stories that I was familiar with, I couldn’t find a single example of God being displeased with someone who lied to protect innocent life.

  I’ve always believed God values truth. I’d never doubted that.

  But it looked like he valued something else even more.

  During the interview Basque had asked me to lie about assaulting him, then told me to remember these Bible verses…

  A thought.

  A shocking thought: maybe Basque did turn to the Lord, after all.

  I could hardly believe I was even considering the possibility.

  But what if it were true? maybe Richard Basque realized that if I confessed to assaulting him, he would quite possibly be set free. And, despite his newfound spiritual convictions, he might be drawn into his old habits, his old hungers. Maybe he knew that for justice to be done, he needed to remain incarcerated Stop it, Pat. Too much speculation. Too many ifs and maybes. That’s not how you work. Stick to the facts. Stick to what you know.

  No, Basque’s motives weren’t at issue here, my testimony was.

  The midwives lied to protect innocent lives.

  That’s what mattered to them more than anything else.

  And that’s what mattered most to me too.

  All right then.

  I knew what I would say when I took the stand in the morning.

  91

  Monday, May 196:54 a.m. Central Time

  I was sliding my laptop into its case, getting ready to head to the lobby for breakfast when I heard my room phone ring. I answered, “Hello?”

  “Sorry if I woke you, my boy.”

  “Calvin! Where have you been?” Exasperation as well as anger found their way into my voice. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all weekend.”

  “Yes, and I am sorry about that. I’ve been a bit occupied. Buried myself in my work, I’m afraid. But I’ve uncovered something that might affect your testimony today.” He took a breath. “No doubt you made the connection to Boccaccio’s Decameron previous to the media revelations regarding the case?”

  “Yes.” I wondered if Calvin had discovered the link even before I did. “But how did you-”

  “What are you calling him? Not ‘The Day Four Killer,’ I hope.”

  “John.”

  Calvin was quiet for a moment. “Yes, that is appropriate.” Then he added, “Patrick, I believe he’s done it before.”

  I dropped onto the bed. “You have evidence he’s committed prior homicides?”

  “Yes, by reenacting other stories. Specifically, ‘The Man of Law’s Tale’ in England last May. The story is from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. As you may know, more than 20 percent of the stories in The Canterbury Tales are based on-”

  “Yes, yes,” I said. “I know: The Decameron.”

  “Precisely. Well, in lines 428-437 of ‘The Man of Law’s Tale,’ several people are stabbed and then hacked to pieces while seated at a table. I believe your man, John, reenacted this crime and killed four people last year on May 17th at a wedding in Canterbury, and I’m certain the city of the crime was not chosen randomly.”

  “No,” I said numbly, trying to let all of this register. “I’m sure it wasn’t.”

  “Later in the story, a man’s throat is slit and the bloody knife is left in his lover’s bed. And this very crime occurred the next day, May 18th, in Gloucester.”

  “How did you figure this out?”

  “Research,” he said simply. “But there a
re two more. In the next section of the tale, a man is killed for lying, perhaps by God; the context leaves it open for interpretation, and he falls to the ground so forcefully that his eyes pop out of their sockets.” Then he added grimly, “After removing Dr. Roland Smith’s eyes on May 19th, John let him live. The professor committed suicide a week later. At the time of his death, he was England’s leading expert on Geoffrey Chaucer.”

  I sat in stunned silence. The implications of what Calvin was saying were staggering.

  “And last, in lines 687-688, a false knight is slain. And on May 20th, a man named Byron Night was killed in London, Chaucer’s hometown. That one was harder to connect, but-”

  “The progression of the crime spree and the timing of the murder would have made the crime too much of a coincidence.”

  “Spot on.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  As Calvin spoke about this last murder, I was reminded that yesterday, immediately before ending his phone call to me, John had said that dusk would arrive today, “just like it did in London.”

  It’s him, Pat. He was connecting the dots for you.

  Could there have been more crime sprees? More murders that we didn’t know about, perhaps based on the other authors who drew material from Boccaccio-Tennyson, Longfellow, Shakespeare, Faulkner. .. Right now, I couldn’t afford to think about that. It was too overwhelming.

  “So, before now,” I said, “no one linked the crimes in England because each was so different.”

  “Yes. A different modus operandi, signature, cause of death, as well as no evidentiary connection between the victims or similar motives for the crimes.”

  “Linkage blindness.”

  “Exactly.”

  Even though Calvin’s information bore relevance to the killings in Colorado, he’d started the conversation by telling me that his research had uncovered something relevant to my testimony. “Calvin, a minute ago you said this had something to do with today’s trial. What did you mean by that?”

  “I no longer believe Richard Basque is guilty of the crimes for which he is being tried.”

  I found myself staring at the floor in shock. “What are you talking about?”

  “I believe John was responsible for at least four of the murders, possibly more. I can’t go into all of my reasons at the moment. Remember the DNA discrepancies that Professor Lebreau’s students at Michigan State found which precipitated Mr. Basque’s retrial?”

  I anticipated what he was about to say. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I believe it is the DNA of the man you refer to as John.”

  “Do you have any proof?”

  “I’m still in the process of collecting it.”

  My mind raced forward and backward through the case. Sorting, analyzing. One moment, everything seemed to make sense, the next moment, nothing did.

  If John, rather than Basque, had committed the crimes thirteen years ago, it would explain the DNA discrepancies, as well as the newspaper articles at the ranch: John wouldn’t have been chronicling Basque’s crimes but rather celebrating his own.

  It might also explain the attempt on Basque’s life-since, if Richard Basque were dead, the case would in all likelihood go away and John would never come under suspicion.

  I tried to wrap my thoughts around everything Calvin had just told me. “Where are you?”

  “Denver.”

  I rubbed my head. “What?”

  “I think I might know who John is. I’m going to-”

  A rush of adrenaline. “Who?”

  “First, I must try to prove myself wrong.”

  “You have to tell me.” My voice had become urgent. Intense.

  “I’m sorry, Patrick, but I’m afraid I no longer have the confidence in our system of justice that I used to. Quite frankly-”

  “No, Calvin, wait. I’ll be back later today. Wait for me. You have to-”

  “Hopefully, this case will be resolved by then.”

  “Listen to me-”

  He hung up.

  Immediately, I punched in the number for cybercrime to have them trace the call, even though I expected that Calvin would be too careful to let us find him.

  But they did find him, or at least the location of the phone he’d used.

  The call had come from police headquarters in downtown Denver.

  Steven James

  The Knight

  92

  I speed-dialed Kurt and told him what was going on. “Calvin’s there, right now, at HQ. He just called me from one of your phones.”

  “Hang on. I’ll be back in a sec.” As I waited, I thought of what Calvin had told me: one of the victims in England had been the country’s leading Chaucer expert.

  John told you he was updating Boccaccio’s story for our culture. .. An idea.

  I snapped my laptop open, cruised to my media files. Then, while Kurt spoke on another line with the officers at the headquarters’ front desk, I clicked to the video I’d taken of the interior of Elwin Daniels’s ranch house.

  A media player appeared on my screen.

  On the phone, I heard Kurt assigning officers to each of the building’s exits. Finally, he said to me, “What do you want us to do if we find Dr. Werjonic?”

  “Hold him for questioning.” I was dragging the cursor along the video. I knew what I was looking for; it would be somewhere in the middle of the footage. “I have reason to believe that Calvin has criminal intent.”

  A moment of hesitation. “You sure about this?”

  Even though Calvin hadn’t made any specific threats on the phone, I knew what he’d been implying. “I believe a man’s life might be in danger.”

  I came to the footage of the bathroom.

  “All right,” Kurt said. “I’m trusting you on this one, Pat; but I can’t believe you’re telling me to hold Dr. Calvin Werjonic.”

  The medicine cabinet.

  The countertop beside the sink.

  I pressed “pause.” Enlarged the image as much as I could and found what I was looking for-tiny, almost indistinguishable stippled marks on the four tubes of toothpaste. “And Kurt, get some officers to Dr. Adrian Bryant’s and Benjamin Rhodes’s homes immediately. Go to Bryant’s first.”

  “You think one of them might be the killer?”

  “No. I think they might be the next two victims.”

  “What?” he exclaimed.

  “I’ll explain later.” I felt helpless being in Chicago when all this was going down in Denver. “But if you find the men, get them to the hospital immediately. I think they’ve been poisoned. John put the bufotoxin in their toothpaste.”

  “You’re not making any sense, Pat.”

  “Just do it, Kurt. Move.” He told me he’d get back to me as soon as he had more, and I reminded him to call me on Tessa’s phone. As I ended the call I noticed the time: 7:14 a.m.

  If I were going to arrive at the courthouse before the protestors and journalists descended on it, I needed to get going.

  I grabbed my things and made sure I had Cheyenne’s St. Francis of Assisi pendant in my pocket, then I checked out of the hotel, hailed a taxi, and rode to the courthouse so that I could commit perjury.

  93

  Reggie had just stepped into the bathroom for his morning shower when Amy Lynn Greer received the text message on her Blackberry. The person who’d sent it claimed to have inside information about the Day Four Killer and included a phone number for her to call.

  Which she promptly did.

  “I work for the FBI,” a man told her in a hasty, whispered voice. “I’d like to discuss an opportunity with you.”

  “What sort of-”

  “I have access to police files. I can help you if you’ll help me. Are you interested in discussing this matter?”

  Oh yes. This was good.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I’ll email you an address. Come alone. We meet at noon. Don’t be late. And don’t post any other articles until we’ve spoken in person.
”

  “Wait, how do I know you’re really with the FBI?”

  “You’ll have to trust me.”

  Of course she didn’t trust him; she didn’t trust anyone. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t use him. “I’ll be there.”

  And then he hung up.

  She heard the water in the shower turn on. Reggie wouldn’t be out for at least ten minutes.

  This was her chance.

  Jayson stepped into the room, eating a handful of Cheerios.

  “C’mere,” she called to her son. “You can play spelling games until Daddy gets out of the shower. Mommy has to take care of a few things.”

  “Wha’ dings, Mommy?”

  “I’ll just be in the other room,” she lied. “Don’t worry.”

  She positioned her son in front of the computer and pulled up one of the preschool spelling games. The boy would be fine playing on the computer until his father was done showering.

  After Jayson was sufficiently preoccupied, she shoved her Blackberry and digital voice recorder into her purse, grabbed her car keys, and then slipped out the back door.

  Ridgeland High School lay just ahead.

  Tessa hated battling rush hour traffic so she’d been thankful earlier in the morning when Martha offered to drop her off at school on her way to bridge club.

  Martha still hadn’t brought up the diary or the whole deal with Paul’s letter the day before. But now as they approached the school, Tessa felt like she should probably say something about it.

  “Hey, listen, about what happened yesterday. You know in the living room when I…”

  “We don’t need to talk about all that now.”

  “OK.”

  They pulled to a stop in front of the school.

  “It’ll be all right.” Martha patted Tessa’s leg.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” But she didn’t get out of the car. “OK, so here’s the thing: I know you’re probably thinking I shouldn’t hold it against my mom, that I should forgive her, or whatever, but I’m not going to. I just can’t.”

  Martha was quiet for a long moment. At last she said, “Then you’ll hurt whenever you think of her.”