by D. F. Bailey
“Yeah.”
“Wow.” Her eyebrows arched with bewilderment. “That’s brutal.”
He tipped his head to one side and nodded. Then he asked, “So did you manage to dig anything up?”
“Mmm-hmm. Have a look.” She opened a file folder on her desk and waved him over. “Two stories. One from the Wichita Eagle, the other from the Reno Gazette-Journal. The first story came out in April this year. The other in July.”
He rolled his chair next to her and glanced at the photocopied pages without reading the stories. “So one in Kansas, another in Nevada. And now California. Each attack just three or four months apart.”
She shrugged off the notion that the sequence could be meaningful. “People sometimes look for patterns where none exist. Their first mistake is to make assumptions from a data set that’s too small.”
“Right. And three’s too small.”
“Way too small.”
He nodded in agreement. “Maybe we’ll find more important info from the two articles. Similarities, idiosyncrasies, that kind of thing. Can I borrow them for a while?”
“Of course. Another point to remember is that if the FBI believes there’s a serial murder spree underway, it’s likely they’d only acknowledge the bare facts. Until they solve it. Then they’ll want to hit the front pages with all the gory details.”
“You mean there might be five or ten murders out there with the same MO — the five knives — and nobody knows it?”
“Or more. And some of them could be copy-cats.” She shrugged as if the possibilities were unlimited.
He rolled his chair back to his desk and began to read the story from the Wichita Eagle. Again the memory of his brief investigation of the rumored knife killing in Iraq crossed his mind. For the first time since he’d returned to America from his deployment, he felt the cold snake of war coiling at his feet. He could almost hear it, too. The hissing.
※
Finch read the article from the Wichita Eagle through once and then pulled his notebook from his courier bag and made a bullet list of what he considered the pertinent points.
The victim, George Sculley, a white male in his mid-forties, lived alone in his second-floor apartment.
Sculley was unemployed, “known to police,” but had no criminal record.
The police reported that he’d died of five discrete knife wounds. Five knives were buried in his stomach, ribs, heart, throat and one ear.
None of his neighbors reported any sound of disturbance other than a rock ’n’ roll station playing through the night of the murder.
Neighbors called Sculley “quiet,” “not a problem,” “a guy who kept to himself.”
The apparent similarities to Henman’s murder struck Will immediately. The knives, the music, the loner. He realized he needed to check if Henman had a previous record. If he’d been pimping teenage girls for very long, the answer was probably a yes. Biscombe could determine that. Also, he made a note of the reporter on the Wichita story: Barry Doe. He knew he should call Doe to see if the local police had requested that he suppress any details which could further identify the nature of the crime.
Then he turned to the second article in the Reno Gazette-Journal. The reporter, Jane Cojocaru, had written a mere sketch of the crime compared to what Doe had written three months earlier. Perhaps the FBI had jumped on Cojocaru before she could break the story. Why not? That’s what they’d done to Finch. Nonetheless, he made a second bullet list based on her reporting of the murder in Reno.
The victim, Jerome Bartleby, a single white male, thirty-three, had one previous conviction for possession of a controlled substance.
Lived alone in a downtown apartment. Over a six-month period held and lost three jobs in the kitchens of various local restaurants.
Police reported that he’d been found bound to a chair and died of five knife wounds to different — unspecified — parts of his torso and head.
Finch then considered the similarities of the two victims to Seamus Henman’s murder. The five knives, of course. And all were single white males. If Henman was known to police, then all three of them dropped into the same kettle of fish. The differences? The background music in one, but not reported in the other. One bound to a chair, the other with no mention of restraints. One unemployed, the other couldn’t hold down a job.
On a separate sheet of paper in his notebook, he started a To-Do list. He identified the tasks that he had to complete to make more sense of the story.
Talk to Jojo. Did she see a third man?
Henman — did he have a record?
Call Barry Doe — Wichita story.
Call Jane Cojocaru — Reno. Story squashed by FBI?
Reconcile similarities / differences: Wichita vs. Reno.
Talk to Jeremiah Rickets: 5 knives in Baghdad?
He stopped there. Then he drew connecting arrows from item one to item six. Contacting Jeremiah Rickets was now job one. If he could link the rumors in Iraq to the Henman and Esposito murders, everything would change. And if he could make a compelling argument to Wally Gimbel by six o’clock, he knew the story would jump to the front page.
※
As Finch pushed through the door on Guerrero Street and stepped into the 500 Club, he imagined that Jeremiah Rickets had anticipated Will’s arrival seconds before he entered the bar. It was a personal quality Finch grew to appreciate after working with Rickets for six months in Baghdad. Something he’d never encountered in anyone else: this uncanny ability to predict what people might do or where they might suddenly appear. Or how events might unfold when layers of cause and effect multiplied to produce battlefield surprises. This extraordinary skill or talent — combat clairvoyance or whatever it was — had proved its merits in several situations in Iraq. Rickets became a favorite companion of soldiers horrified by the IEDs that littered the roadways in and out of the Iraqi capital. Improvised Explosive Devices could tear off an arm or a leg. Or kill you straight out. But Rickets just danced past them all.
“Stick to J.R. like black on a bruise,” the survivors had advised the new joes. Black on a bruise became a mantra to anyone who’d witnessed Rickets’s magic on patrol.
But for the mojo to work, they had to call him J.R. Jeremiah Rickets hated his name. Loathed Jeremiah — “too Biblical” he’d confessed to Finch once they could trust one another. He despised Jerry even more. (“A minor cartoon character and a yuppie comedian.”) Worst of all was his surname: “a bone disease.” So you either called him J.R. or you stood outside his circle of protection.
Finch recalled all this as The 500 Club bartender pulled a draft of pale ale for him. From a distance Finch nodded to J.R. and then wandered over to his corner table. They traded a fist bump and a thumbs-up handshake.
“Good to see you, man.” Finch sat and sipped the foam off the top of his ale.
“Wish I could say the same.” J.R. wiped a hand under his nose and glanced away as if he were blocking a sneeze.
“What? You expecting some trouble?” Finch’s voice held a note of wariness.
“Well, when you called and asked me about the five knives….” He let this idea hang and then added, “What did you expect? I’m telling you there’s nothing but trouble back there. And I don’t want any part of it.”
Finch settled in his chair and studied J.R. for a moment. A scrap of beard covered his square jaw. His teeth were yellow. The once tight, black skin on his face had become thick and puffy. Finch wondered if he’d found sanctuary in steroids of some kind. It had been two years since he’d last seen him, years that had not been kind to the thirty-year-old from South Chicago who’d joined the 49th Military Police Brigade after his first tour in Baghdad. J.R. had won two medals and been promoted up the ranks twice. But whatever pride he once bore had faded.
Will set his forearms on the table and leaned forward. “So you’re saying the five knives thing is true. It did happen in Iraq.”
JR’s head flicked to one side as if he’d taken a sl
ight nudge to the jaw. “Yeah. It wasn’t just rumint,” he allowed.
Rumint. Rumor and intelligence. Finch recalled the group-speak that evolved among the troops in Iraq. His favorite turn of phrase was the “self-licking ice cream cone.” A reference to an operation launched to serve its own political ends. Which was almost all of them. Evidently part of J.R. still inhabited that world. At least in his mind.
“I was never sure,” Finch said. “When I was ordered to track it down in oh-four, no one would step up and confirm or deny it.”
“Yeah, well. Like so much else, they kept it deniable. Not like that shit storm you found at Abu Ghraib. When those photos came out? The Hajji prisoners stripped naked, chained up, dogs at their balls.” He looked Finch directly in the eyes. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
Finch frowned and turned away. “Still can’t talk about that, J.R. I thought you, of all people, would’ve figured that out.”
J.R. chuckled and took a long drink of beer. “What I figured out back then was that you were way more than a powerpoint ranger.”
Finch laughed at the jibe. He’d been called a flak and a desk jockey. Powerpoint ranger was new to him. Yeah, J.R. was still living back in the sandbox.
“What I know now,” he continued, “is that you were in Military Intelligence. They put you into Abu Ghraib undercover. To try to contain it. But when 60 Minutes spilled the beans, that meant someone leaked the story. That was you, wasn’t it?”
J.R. was close. Too close. “And you know this — how?”
He smiled again. J.R. seemed almost happy now. He tapped two fingers to his left temple. “Black on a bruise, man.”
“Lucky for me that won’t hold up in court.” Finch winked at him, a signal that while J.R. might be closing the corner on what actually happened at Ghraib, it was time to move on. He glanced away and then turned his gaze back to his friend.
“So … the five knives. Did you personally see any victims?”
J.R. set his elbows on the table and bunched this hands together in front of his mouth. He blinked — a slow, heavy motion of his eyelids. “Twice.”
“So there were two victims.”
His eyes narrowed. “More.”
When he realized they were talking in whispers, Finch leaned forward. “How many are we talking about?”
“At least four. That’s the number of official sheets I read.”
“You think there could be more?”
“Fuck, it was the sandbox, man.” His voice rose with an edge of anger. “You know that. Some of them prob’ly just sank under the moon dust.”
“Yeah. I know.” Finch leaned back in his chair to consider this. He needed just one or two more answers, and he could wrap this up. “Did you ever find who was doing it?”
“Who do you think it was?”
“I don’t know. A psycho. Special Ops. Meat Eaters. That’s why I’m asking you. That was your patrol with the 49th Brigade.”
“Yeah, that was my unit all right.” J.R. shook his head from side to side, a gesture that he had nothing more to add. “I ask you about Abu Ghraib, and you lock the door. Now you want me to dish details on the worst thing I seen over there? It’s tit for tat, man. Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”
J.R. frowned, fed-up with the interrogation. Finch knew that he was likely to balk at any more questions. He decided to change direction.
“All right. So look. Now he’s showed up here.”
“Who?”
“The killer. The five knives.”
“Here?” J.R. glanced around the room, a mock grin on his face. “Where’s here, man? Frisco?”
“Maybe.” Finch knew that he couldn’t reveal too much detail. It would be a violation of his deal with the feds to mention the killings in Kansas and Nevada.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means … I think so. Maybe,” he said again, an attempt to backtrack.
J.R. shook his head with a weary despondency.
“Look, after hearing nothing from you in what — two years? — you phone me today, ask to meet here in my neighborhood bar. For what? To walk down memory lane with an old army joe? No.” J.R. dropped his hands onto the table, palms down. “Why? Because you got a new job on a paper and now you need some intel. And don’t get me wrong, that’s good for you. Good for you. Every one of us could use a new job. Hell, I just lost my job working in security. Had it for six months, then poof. Vaporized.” He snapped his fingers and stared at Finch with a gesture of helplessness.
“Geez, J.R. Sorry to hear that.” Will leaned back in the chair, wondering what more he could add. “I mean it.”
“Look, you have to understand — this is painful. Man, it hurts me to tell you all this shit.”
Finch watched the emotions stream over JR’s face. The story had opened something in him that Finch had never seen before. Under the thin veneer of J.R.’s military bravado lived a man struggling to contain the horror of what he’d seen in the war.
“By the way, this is so you,” he continued. “You know you’re the only friend I have like you — and I got plenty. Black, white, Asians. Girls, men, and women. You’re the only one who never opened your door to me. Not a crack. That’s what made you perfect for Intelligence, I guess. You never show your cards, man. That’s good for poker. But in life? That just makes you sad and lonely.”
Finch nodded. He knew that J.R. had it right. At least partly. He’d wanted to tell him about Cecily. About the baby. But a wariness kept him buttoned up. Especially around J.R. who could intuit almost anything tucked below the surface.
“You’re right. I know it.” He leaned forward again. “Maybe because I felt some fear.”
“Fear. What are you afraid of? Me?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head and shrugged. In fact, J.R. did frighten him. Talking to him about their time in Iraq brought the horror back into own his life, too. Better to make a joke about it. “Or maybe it’s like you say. I really am sad and lonely.” He added a weak laugh.
J.R. rolled his lips in a frown. “Well, that’s something. Not much. But at least you tossed out a crumb.”
He drank off the dregs of his beer and pulled a gray watch cap from his jacket pocket and tugged it over his head. “Okay. I gotta go.”
Finch checked his wristwatch. “Me too. J.R., look, I know what you’re thinking about all this. But if something new breaks on this story can I call you?”
“I don’t know.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw as if he were searching for an honest answer. “What for? I just told you all I know.”
“In case something comes up that I need to double check.” Finch remained in his chair. He had a feeling that J.R. wanted to leave the 500 Club on his own.
J.R. pulled a jacket over his shoulders and shook his head. “It’s not a good idea, Finch. It brings back memories, man. I just can’t go back there anymore.”
Finch watched him amble toward the front door. J.R. waved a hand to the bartender but didn’t turn back toward Finch. Then he pushed through the door, stepped into the rain and was gone.
※ — ELEVEN — ※
“HEY BISK, IT’S Will calling.”
“What, you got a new phone?”
Finch coughed up a weak laugh. “Very funny. No, I’m calling from the Post. Look, I need to track down Jojo. When I called Central Station, they told me you were on hand when they released her.”
“Yeah. First thing this morning.” Biscombe drew a long breath. “You know she’s only seventeen, right? Legally, still a child.”
“Seventeen going on twenty-two. A dangerous age if you ask me.”
“No doubt about that. I met with her social worker, and she’s gone back to her group home. Did you know about her parents?”
“What about them?”
“Both killed in a shoot-out outside a bank. Almost two years ago. An armed robbery over in Emeryville. They weren’t involved, just passing by on the sidewalk in front of the bank. Hard to believe.”
<
br /> Finch considered this. Another horror story shatters a young kid’s life. He’d had his troubles as a teenager when his mother died. And then four years later, his father passed on. But that was nothing like Jojo’s disaster. He shook his head wondering how she could move forward and find her way in the world following the murders of her parents — and now, Esposito and Henman.
“You think she’ll be okay?”
“She’s lucky. She’s in one of the better foster homes in town. Seriously, if she’s capable of getting her life in order, she’s in the right place.”
“Ever the optimist, Bisk. Do they teach that in Berkeley Law? Pollyanna 101?”
He chuckled at that. “Yeah, I was first in a class of two hundred.”
Finch smiled, glad that he could change the mood. John Biscombe was the most upbeat person he’d ever known. Somehow law school had failed to suck the optimism out of him.
“So look, I’ve got two favors to ask.”
“Whoa, I am so surprised.” Biscombe’s turn to serve up some sarcasm. It was a game they liked to play from time to time. Out-smart one another in exchange for a good laugh.
Finch let the derision pass. “The first is, can you check to see if Seamus Henman had a police record.”
“Sure. That’s easy. Makes me think you’re trying to soften me up for favor number two.”
“No, no. That’s a gimme.”
“A gimme?”
“Yeah. Can you gimme Jojo’s address?”
“Ahhh. Should’ve seen that coming.” He paused as if he might be switching his phone to his other ear. “Hang on. I’ve got it somewhere … wait a sec.”
Finch could hear Biscombe shuffling some paperwork. When he found what he needed, he gave Finch an address on Euclid Avenue.