Rage Against the Dying

by Becky Masterman

  LYNCH: I really need to go take a piss. Right now.

  For the first time in twenty-four hours I thought of something besides killing a man. I backed up the video, reran it. Three times. Counted the pauses, one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand … more than three seconds each time. Managed to pause it at the precise moment Coleman asked him what he did with the ears. This is what she had given me the video for, so I could see it and judge for myself. Lynch’s retinas dilated and his eyes cut left and down. His jaw dropped. But even if I didn’t have those tells to go on, I felt certain he had to be lying.

  More than lying. He actually went so pale the scab on his cheek appeared to darken. The look on his face was panic. And after Coleman pointed out how important was knowing the location of the ears, the look on his face was … fear.

  I forwarded the video and the profile comparison to Sigmund Weiss.

  Seventeen

  Subsequent generations may develop new distasteful terms for it but, shocking though it may be, the concept has been around for some time. Dr. David Weiss, JD, PhD in psychology, aka Sigmund, Sig for short, and I were fuck buddies once. Okay, twice. Three times if you count my going-away party, where we were so drunk we never succeeded in even removing our clothes.

  The first time I had sex with Sigmund was when Paul dumped me; second was toward the end of my career, after I shot the suspect, when I couldn’t remember if there was someone I really was and one night needed a connection to her.

  Also, Weiss was smarter than me, and I always liked that. I like hanging out with people who make me skip mentally to catch up to them.

  I did not marry the Perfesser because he subconsciously reminded me of Sigmund.

  On the East Coast, Sigmund was three hours ahead of me, but that was no guarantee of his calling anytime soon. He always said he subscribed to some ancient rule, Among mortals second thoughts are wisest. Sigmund would watch the video, and think, and watch, and think again before calling.

  So I killed some time. I got a package of ground meat out of the fridge and mixed it with egg, bread crumbs, and chili sauce to give it a kick. Meatloaf was part of my rotating list of seven things I could make, including Shake’n Bake chicken, broiled fish, and baked pork chops with some barbecue sauce on them. I had been thinking of getting a grill.

  I mashed and punched at the mixture while I thought of Floyd Lynch’s face. I shaped it into a little football and put it back in the fridge for later.

  Sigmund still hadn’t called, so I fired up my computer and Skyped him.

  “Bravely using the latest technology,” he said, leaning back from the computer in his office and taking his time giving me the once over. I didn’t try to stop him, didn’t know how, though I hoped my recently killing someone didn’t show. “I suppose you are not quite the Luddite I had taken you for, Stinger.”

  “Because I didn’t sleep with a toaster when I was little the way you did?”

  “Stinger is bantering. She always banters when she’s under stress.”

  “Come on, the toaster crack is funny. You’ve just always been jealous because you can’t take a joke.”

  “You hide behind your jokes.” He leaned forward again as if he could see more of me that way. “This business is taking a toll on you. Let me see your cuticles.”

  I held up only the middle fingers of both hands, fingers that I hadn’t worked over lately. He leaned back again, looking superior. “So I watched the video you sent. What a surprise.” He didn’t look surprised.

  “When Coleman asked him what he did with the ears, he paused, you know that pause?”

  “Yes, I know that pause. It was long.”

  “I timed it at three point five seconds. And then you saw him say he threw the ears away.”

  “Only his facial expression wasn’t indicative of that. It didn’t match the carelessness of simply tossing the ears into the garbage. It was an expression of panic. He was suddenly afraid we’d know he didn’t do it. Either he doesn’t know where they are, or he’s afraid of telling us because whoever has them is the real killer. Quod erat demonstrandum,” Sigmund said, which is his shorthand for everything is apparent and speaking about it further bores me. “He’s not your man, of course.”

  We both knew that no killer who goes to that much trouble to enact a murder, with a repeated elaborate ritual, and then takes something from the victim to relive the pleasure afterward would ever throw these souvenirs in the garbage, let alone forget where he threw them. Think Dahmer with his body parts in the fridge. Think the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. Either Lynch doesn’t know where the treasured ears are, or he knows where they are but couldn’t tell because of who it would incriminate.

  “Are you as certain as I am?” I asked.

  “More so. He would never forget where the ears are, if he ever knew. You still need to find those ears, Stinger. The killer has them. And I think that scares Mr. Lynch more than the death penalty. But an expression isn’t enough, of course. You need evidence.”

  That’s where I was stuck. “There’s no me about this. I can’t get near Lynch in any official capacity, and I wouldn’t want to ruin the case by doing so. It’s up to Coleman, and she’s running into resistance. Coleman tried to tell Hughes about her doubts but even his public defender is swept up in the circle-jerk thrill of catching the Route 66 killer.”

  “Morrison’s pressure. He wants this case for his self-published memoirs after he retires. I’m coming back out there.”

  “That’s okay. It would just cause Coleman more trouble.”

  “You were the one who said I still have some clout.”

  “Not yet. Let me handle it and I’ll let you know if I need help.”

  “They need to start from the beginning. There will be bigger holes in Lynch’s confession than being afraid to tell you where the ears are. Who else is on the list?”

  “There was no wife or kids. Coleman wants me to go with her to talk to Lynch’s father, who lives east of the city.”

  “They didn’t already do that?”

  “No, they didn’t. What do you think about doing a voice comparison? Check that bit where Floyd talks like a woman against the tapes we have from Jessica’s wire?”

  “That couldn’t hurt. I’ll have it done at the lab here. They should also ask Mr. Floyd Lynch again about that other body they found in the car, the one he called the lot lizard. He faltered when he spoke about her at the dumpsite.”

  “They, they. It’s turning out to be Coleman and me, and I’m limited by being out of the business.”

  “Have you heard much about NamUs?” He pronounced it “name us.”

  “Not much. An identification database. It was being developed around the time I left.”

  “Civilians can look at it and add information without authorization.”

  I made a note on my pad to find out what was known about the prostitute and check it against the site. “Remember the postcards?” I asked.

  He shifted his head and waved a hand to indicate it went without saying.

  “Zach kept receiving them. He showed me maybe a half dozen more that he stopped bothering to send to us. Told me they comforted him because he could pretend they were really from Jessica.”

  “No.” For the split of a second Sigmund’s eyes narrowed and a rare wave of disgust passed over his face. It was so subtle I may be the only person in the world who could recognize it. Sigmund looked away from the screen. “We have to find that motherfucker,” he murmured in what I knew was the direction of his office window. Obscenity with Sigmund was also rare. Then he recovered his composure and stared at the screen impassively. “They need to interview Floyd Lynch again under the presumption that this is a false confession, and find out how he got the information.”

  Sigmund didn’t need to defend the possibility of a false confession. More than thirty people confessed to the famous Black Dahlia murder in LA, and over five hundred came forward claiming to have some involvement. Some fals
e confessions were coerced under the pressure to solve the case, but there were other, voluntary confessions. Sigmund was thinking about the celebrity motivation, the wannabes. Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to six hundred murders though there was only evidence of three. John Mark Karr, who confessed to murdering JonBenet Ramsey though his DNA did not match that at the scene and there was no record of his ever having been to Colorado where the murder occurred.

  Robert Charles Brown.

  Laverne Pavlinac.

  Those two were convincing enough to be sent to prison until the real culprit was found. You could look it up.

  In Lynch’s case it would have been simpler than that. The apparent evidence of his guilt, combined with what might have been an obsession with the Route 66 killings, the lack of support from his public defender, and the threat of the death penalty, would have made a confession seem like the best option.

  Floyd Lynch may have killed the woman found in his truck, or he may have found her already dead as he said at the start. He may have begun with a fascination for the Route 66 murders, and, when he was cornered, decided to take responsibility.

  And voilà. The idiot goes to prison and the asshole stays free.

  But it all went back to how Floyd Lynch knew about the details withheld from the public. That’s what was different in this case. Barring the extreme coincidence that someone on the inside at the Bureau had leaked those details, which had somehow found their circuitous way to Lynch, it could only mean one thing. He knew the killer.

  “It’s been a whole seven years since the last killing,” I said, hoping Sigmund would get my point and agree.

  “No killings that we know of,” Sigmund said. “He may have just changed his venue and mode, may even now be planning his next kill. Or he’s stopped temporarily like the Grim Sleeper.”

  He had to remind me of the guy out in California who was dubbed that because he killed half of his victims in the mid-eighties, then took a break and killed the other half after 2002. I groaned.

  “Don’t deny you’ve already considered it. Besides, the Route 66 killer is enormously controlled. He was able to wait precisely one year before he killed again. That’s frankly another point against Lynch being the killer. I don’t see him as having very good impulse control.” Sigmund picked up what I figured was the comparative profile that Coleman had compiled and gazed blankly at it. “I wonder what the real killer is feeling about this little man who has usurped his fame. It will either drive him deeper into hiding or inspire him to regain his glory. You need to get to Lynch, Stinger.”

  He was right; it was what I was thinking. I said, “Thanks for your help.” I stopped picking at a hangnail, my whole body wanting to tell Sig about the real mess I needed help on. “Sigmund?”

  “You can see I’m still here.”

  “Is it possible that somebody we put away is out on parole and we weren’t notified?”

  He thought, said, “No, they’re very good about notifying us. Why?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking.”

  I expected Sigmund to be the first to disengage from the conversation, but he did not.

  “Now for the thing I don’t know,” he said. “You’re different from when I was there.”

  “How so?”

  “I can tell you’re really troubled when you sound breathier than usual, as if you weren’t breathing with both lungs. Are you terribly upset by the likelihood that Lynch isn’t the killer? Are you feeling guilty?”

  No, I’m having problems with a dead guy who I surmise is somehow connected to everything we’d just been talking about. I wanted so badly to tell Sigmund about it that I could feel the words forming in my mouth and had to bite down hard to keep them from coming out. There was something about Sigmund that made you want to confess and end the suspense. And then he could help me find out who might be after me.

  Instead of spilling, I found myself giving a caricature of a casual shrug and actually batting my eyelashes. “Other than feeling jerked around by all this uncertainty, and hating the thought of having to tell Zach that the guy who killed his daughter is still out there, nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”

  Eighteen

  Flowing between several different mountain ranges like a river of pavement and buildings, the Tucson area is tucked into the center of the Sonoran Desert. The Sonoran Desert is the largest, possibly the only, stand of saguaro cactus in the world. It’s pronounced “swarro,” and they’re the kind of cactus you always think about when you think cactus, the kind that studs the landscape like a giant Gumby.

  Now desert is mostly beige, that is to say rocks and sand. Only the hardiest of plants can survive, and you get to thinking, if that cactus can take it, so can I. I like the ruggedness of a place that can kill you, either by brush fire, dehydration, or drowning in a flash flood. Next to the desert, I feel soft and gentle.

  Unlike Tucson, the area around the town of Benson, about an hour east from the easternmost part of the city, and at a higher elevation, sports less desolate-looking vegetation, with apple, peach, and pecan orchards. Benson has at least as many mobile homes as houses, and even a lot of the houses are prefab, their aluminum skirts hiding their lack of foundation like modest librarians.

  As Coleman had suggested, I had met her in the parking lot attached to one of several skyscrapers in downtown Tucson, a twelve-story building in which the FBI occupies the sixth. She was sitting in her car looking at her watch when I pulled into the space next to hers.

  I couldn’t bring myself to apologize for being fourteen minutes late, and besides, in that time she’d cranked up the AC so her Prius was bearable. Almost. Having taken my suggestion to dress in less intimidating attire, she was wearing black slacks and a white short-sleeved linen blouse. I guess that was as casual as Coleman could be. I pressed the button to shut off her radio, which was playing a song by one of those girls who all sound alike.

  “Do you mind?” Coleman asked.

  “Not anymore. Please leave it off. I hate music.”

  Coleman allowed that and as the Prius pushed the speed limit along I-10 East, she grilled me about my reaction to the video, and nearly crowed with triumph when I told her I not only saw the part about the ears but forwarded it to Sig Weiss, who concurred.

  “So both of you think it’s awfully suspicious,” she said.

  “That’s right.” I repeated how Weiss thought we should interrogate Floyd again from the supposition that his confession was false. “But we still need evidence. We need the big holes in his confession.” I smiled at a thought. “We need to show Lynch the gun that isn’t smoking.”

  Satisfied that for the time being she had Sigmund and me on her side, Coleman spent the rest of the trip briefing me on what she knew about Wilbur and Michael Lynch, Floyd’s father and brother, respectively:

  “Wilbur works?”

  “On disability.”

  “Michael lives at home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Employed?”

  “Started paramedic training, but I don’t know if he ever finished.”

  “Mother?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Call ahead?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Resistance?”

  “Not much.”

  And so on, with my thoughts half on Lynch and half on the dead guy in the wash, and whether this interview would help me discover a connection between them.

  Coleman turned right on Palo Verde Drive into a trailer park, where I directed her to park a little ways off and we walked to the childhood home of Floyd Lynch. Dirt coated the roof of the trailer, its windows, a dirt bike with wheels the size of small blimps parked out front and the ragged umbrella with faded blue and white striping that tilted over a rusted metal patio table.

  Wilbur Lynch stepped through the front screen door with his shotgun and did not invite us in. Tall and cowboy lean, his body belied the sixty-three years that Coleman had told me he had. His face, on the other hand, was lined with a lifetime of low humid
ity and Camel cigarettes, one of which fit a notch in his lower lip that looked like do-it-yourself cancer surgery.

  Coleman flashed her badge while I put my hand on my tote as if I still had a badge to flash. “I’m Agent Laura Coleman,” she said, “And this—”

  I was about to interrupt her, but my disguise, hair down and Jackie-O sunglasses, was preserved by Lynch’s own interruption.

  “You don’t look like FBI,” he said, explaining his shotgun.

  Privately I disagreed; I would have thought Coleman looked like FBI even if she wasn’t. But we both did that little side head tic that gets past the allusion to our not being male, and Coleman shot me an arch look that said, “I should have worn the black suit.”

  “I wondered when you’d get here,” he said, sitting down on a rusted chair by the rusted umbrella table and gesturing to the other two. We cautiously took two of the other chairs, taking care not to get scratched. “I thought you’d all be over to see me right after you captured him. I thought I’d be on the news.” His drawl was easygoing, but he fixed his eye on us as if he wanted to make sure we noticed how much he didn’t care. He put out his cigarette on the table and casually brushed the ash off with the side of his hand.

  “I’m sorry about your son,” Coleman said, without elaborating on the part she had played in putting him in jail.

  Lynch smiled and took a packet of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. “Well, good for you. I guess it’s good that somebody’s sorry.” He tapped the packet so a couple cigarettes slid out and offered us one with an excessively smooth gesture that told me he was concentrating on keeping his hands steady. We declined, so he lit one for himself.

  Once the cigarette was fitted securely into the notch in his lip, Coleman said, “Can we take it from that that you didn’t have a good relationship with Floyd?”

  “You could say that.”

  I picked up the slack left by his comment. “He grew up here, though, right? Went to school, had friends?”

  “I suppose. He always kept to himself, read a lot. He was a reader.” Lynch left his upper lip cocked in a snarl as he said the word, as if that was the first step on the road to sexual homicide. “So he confessed. Don’t send me the body.” He made a heh-heh sound that was supposed to be a laugh.