“I’ll just sort of hum, then, so
you’ll know the line’s open and
I’m still here.”
“That’s very good,” Molly said.
At seven o’clock Jesse, wearing a navy pea jacket over his
Kevlar vest, walked down the mall with his hands in the pockets and stood in front of the elevator, opposite the entrance to the food court.
“It’s seven o’clock,”
Molly said.
On the phone Suit said, “Jesse there?”
“Un-huh.”
“Anything happening?”
“No, honey, not yet.”
“I kind of like the honey
thing. Will you call me honey
around the station, after this is over?”
“No.”
Behind Jesse the elevator door opened and a man and woman stood
in the door. They were wearing hats and scarves that partly hid their faces.
“Jesse,” the man said.
As Jesse turned toward them they each raised a long-barreled pistol and shot Jesse in the chest. The pistols made only a flat pop that was lost in the hubbub of the mall. Jesse stepped a half step back.
“It’s happening,” Molly said
into the phone and dropped it and
turned with her gun out. DeAngelo was on his feet as well, his handgun leveled.
The elevator door closed and the elevator went back up, taking the man and woman with it. People in the food court area were beginning to react. The result was confusion.
“There’s an escalator at each
end,” Jesse said, pointing.
“Molly, cover that one. Anthony, stay here.”
Then he turned and ran down the mall, forcing his way through the crowd, his gun held down against his thigh. When he reached the escalator, he slowed and opened his coat so that, as he went up the moving stairs, he could speak into the microphone clipped to his vest.
“Suit?”
“You okay, Jesse?”
“I am. It went down. We’ve got them
somewhere on the second
level now.”
“Shall we come in.”
“No. We’ll try to chase them to
you.”
“We’ll be here.”
“When we saw them they were wearing black watch caps pulled down
over their foreheads, and black or navy scarves wrapped up over their chins, like they were cold. She had on a fur coat. He was wearing a trench coat.”
“We’ll be looking.”
“Make sure everybody gets the message,”
Jesse said. “And they
could change, so don’t lock in on the coats and scarves.”
“Roger, Jesse.”
At the top of the escalator Jesse paused with the gun at his side, looking around. Most people didn’t notice the gun. The ones
that did looked quickly and moved swiftly away. Jesse made sure his badge, clipped to his vest, was visible. Don’t want somebody
calling 911, and end up shooting it out with the local SWAT
team. He looked down to the far end of the mall and saw Molly
standing at the top of her escalator.
On the first level, Anthony stood facing the elevator. His gun was in his hand, held down against his right thigh. The elevator came back down and the doors opened and several men and women got out. One of them was a good-looking woman wearing a paisley yellow silk scarf over her head, and an ankle-length yellow wool coat. She carried a small shopping bag, and smiled at Anthony as she headed past him toward the exit. Anthony was pretty sure she wasn’t the
one. Still, better to play it safe.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Anthony said.
She turned and took the gun from the shopping bag and shot him in the forehead. As Anthony went down, one of the men from the elevator stepped up and took the woman’s arm. He was wearing a
leather jacket and a long-billed low-crowned baseball hat.
By the time Anthony hit the floor the man and woman were walking
firmly past him and out the front door of the mall. As they reached the parking lot several people pushed past them, running toward a Paradise Police car. The people crowded around the car, all talking at once to Eddie Cox and gesturing toward the mall. The man and woman passed the crowd and got into a rented Volvo, and drove quietly away.
64
Jesse sat with Healy in the front seat of Healy’s unmarked
car.
“We found their other clothes in the washrooms,” Healy
said.
“Had the change of clothes in the shopping bags,” Jesse
said.
“Maybe you should have asked for help,”
Healy
said.
“We had all the exits covered,” Jesse said.
“Which means they walked right past one of your guys.”
“Simpson and I were the only ones really knew what they looked
like,” Jesse said.
“If you’d brought us in
…” Healy said.
“You wouldn’t have known what they looked like
either.”
“True, but we might have had more people at the elevator.”
“And your people couldn’t have started shooting,” Jesse said,
“any more than Anthony could. There were eight or ten people coming
off that elevator.”
“And he was probably a little less cautious because it was a
good-looking broad,” Healy said.
Jesse shrugged.
“Whether it would have gone better if you’d invited us in,”
Healy said. “It couldn’t have gone worse.”
“No. One of my guys is dead, and the Lincolns are gone.”
“You’re sure it was them,” Healy
said.
“It was them.”
“You recognized them.”
“It was them.”
Healy nodded and didn’t speak for a moment.
Then he said, “We’re covering their condo.
Their Saab is still
in their parking lot.”
Jesse nodded. “Maybe a rental,” he said.
“We’ll be checking the rental agencies, but it’s,” he glanced at
the digital clock on his dashboard, “two twenty-six in the morning.”
“If they used their own names,” Jesse said.
“Have to show a credit card.”
“These are people who could have had a whole other identity
waiting around in case they needed it,” Jesse said.
“Want to go take a look at their home?”
Healy
said.
“Warrant?” Jesse said.
“Already got that covered,” Healy said.
“Why you get the big bucks,” Jesse said.
“First I have to go see
Betty deAngelo.”
“The widow?” Healy said.
Jesse nodded.
“Lucky you,” Healy said.
“She has five kids,” Jesse said.
“Hard,” Healy said.
Jesse nodded.
“I’ll meet you at the Lincolns’
condo,” he said.
Jesse got out of the car and walked across the empty parking lot
to where his car sat alone near the east entrance of the mall.
Behind him Healy’s car drove away. Healy was right, Anthony would
have hesitated before shooting at a good-looking woman. And Healy was probably right about including the state cops. Jesse should have brought them in. He didn’t have enough people. He had more
people, maybe it wouldn’t have been Anthony. Maybe it wouldn’t have
been anybody. Maybe they’d have caught the Lincolns. His footsteps
were loud in the empty darkness. Maybe he overestimated himself and his men. Maybe thinking about it wasn’t usefu
l. He unlocked his car
and got in and started it up. The headlights underscored how still and abandoned the parking lot was. He put the car in gear and drove.
He didn’t know the names of any of
Anthony’s children. There was
probably an Anthony Junior. He hoped the children wouldn’t be there
when he had to talk with Betty.
65
When Jesse got to the Lincolns’ condominium at 4:15
in the
morning, the state crime-scene people were beginning to wind down.
A couple of state homicide detectives were poking about.
“Talk to the widow?” Healy said.
Jesse nodded. Healy nodded with him.
“You ever see the den, here?”
“Lot of equipment,” Jesse said.
“Take a look,” Healy said and walked with Jesse into the
den.
On the computer screen was a candid head shot of Jesse that looked as if it had been taken when he was leaving the Paradise Police Station. The picture had apparently been cropped and blown up so that the background was hard to be sure of.
“We found it on the screen just like this when we came
in.”
“They thought I’d be dead,”
Jesse said.
“Yep.”
Healy turned and called into the living room.
“Rosario.”
One of the crime-scene technicians came into the room.
“Run these pictures through,” Healy said.
Rosario looked at the picture on the computer screen, and then at Jesse.
“Captain’s afraid of computers,”
Rosario said.
“I can’t even download porn,”
Healy said. “Run
them.”
“Yessir, Captain,” Rosario said and
clicked the
mouse.
A picture of Abby Taylor came up. Rosario clicked again. A picture of Garfield Kennedy. Click. Barbara Carey. Click. Kenneth Eisley. Click. Back to Jesse.
“They’re all blowups of candid
shots,” Rosario said. “One of
those digital cameras. You plug it into the computer and process it however you want.”
“And my picture was on the screen just like that when you came
in?”
“Yep.”
“Anything else interesting?”
“On the computer?” Rosario said.
“Nothing I can find. But maybe
the guys in the lab …”
“Make sure you don’t lose
anything,” Healy said, “when you shut it down.”
Jesse went back to the living room with Healy.
“Anything else interesting?” Jesse said.
“Place is immaculate. No sign of flight. Clothes, toothbrushes,
hair spray, all in place. Checkbooks show money in the bank. Couple credit cards in the drawer. Food in the refrigerator. Expiration dates suggest it was bought recently. Concierge doesn’t remember
them leaving yesterday. But you can take the elevator from their place direct to the lower level, and go out the side door to the parking lot.”
“Why are the pictures on the computer screen?” Jesse
said.
“I know,” Healy said. “It
bothers me too.”
“It incriminates them,” Jesse said.
“Decisively,” Healy said.
“So why display them?”
“They didn’t expect us to be
here?” Healy said.
“Or they did.”
Healy walked to the window and looked out. There was nothing to
see but himself and the room reflected in the night-darkened glass.
“They wanted us to know?” Healy said.
“Maybe.”
Jesse walked over and stood beside Healy, staring at the darkness.
“So how did they know we’d be
here?” he said.
“They had no reason to think they wouldn’t kill me,” Jesse
said.
“And if they had killed you,” Healy said,
“they had no reason to
think we’d suspect them.”
“But they left what amounts to a confession in plain view,”
Jesse said.
“To five murders,” Healy said.
“Or so they
expected.”
Behind them the specialists were packing up.
“We’re about done here,
Captain,” Rosario said.
Healy nodded. He spoke to one of the detectives.
“Leave a couple of uniforms here,” he said. “Case they come
back.”
“I’ll stay a while,” Jesse said.
“Sure,” Healy said. “You want to
be alone?”
“Yeah.”
“I like to do that too,” Healy said.
“Sort of listen to a crime
scene. By myself.”
“Something like that,” Jesse said.
“Okay. Paulie,” Healy said to the
detective. “Tell the troopers
to stay in the vestibule until Stone leaves.”
When everyone was gone Jesse stood in the thick silence and looked slowly around the room. The place had been measured, searched, photographed, inventoried, dusted. The computer had been removed. He walked to the bathroom. Two toothbrushes stood in holders. A barely squeezed tube of toothpaste for sensitive teeth lay on the counter. The soap in the soap dish was new. A full bottle of shampoo stood on a shelf in the shower stall beside a fresh bar of soap. On a shelf above the bathroom sink were matched jars and tubes of makeup, all barely used, all in order by size and shape. The bed seemed freshly made. He turned back the spread. The sheets seemed newly washed and ironed. He opened bureau drawers.
Tony’s shirts were carefully laid out by color, still in their
transparent envelopes from the cleaner. His socks were rolled.
Brianna’s bureau was equally immaculate. The kitchen was spotless.
The counters were washed. The refrigerator was clean and organized.
A place for everything and everything in its place. The dining room table was set with good china. The whole place looked as if they were expecting company … They were. That’s why they had left
the evidence displayed. A farewell. See how much smarter we are
than you are. They would simply disappear and, in time, someone would notice they were gone, or maybe there would be an anonymous tip. And the cops would come and there would be the confession on the computer screen. They had never planned to come back. And they were too compulsive to leave the place un-immaculate for the company to see. Even had they successfully killed him they were moving on. He was to be the final triumph.
Here.
66
Jesse talked to the press the next morning on the front steps of
the Paradise Police Station. Yes, a Paradise police officer, Anthony deAngelo, had been killed last night. Yes, they had identified two suspects: Tony and Brianna Lincoln. No, they did not know the whereabouts of the suspects. Yes, the search was continuing. When they had asked all the questions Jesse could stand to hear, the news conference ended and Jesse went inside.
Molly nodded toward his office.
“Jenn,” Molly said. “She came in
the side.”
Jesse nodded and walked into his office. Jenn was sitting on the
edge of his desk, looking through Jesse’s side window at the turmoil of media that surged around the front lawn of the police station. Jesse closed the office door behind him.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
Jesse went around the desk and sat in his chair. Jenn shifted on
the edge of his desk so she was looking at him, her right leg resting on the ground, her left draped over his desk,
�
��Are you okay?” she said.
“Physically? Sure,” Jesse said.
“Small caliber, good
vest.”
“Still, someone tried to kill you.”
“I know.”
“And they did kill one of your men.”
“Yes.”
“And they got away,” Jenn said.
“So far,” Jesse said.
Jenn was quiet for a moment.
“You must feel awful,” she said.
“I try not to feel too much,” Jesse said.
“How’s the drinking?” Jenn said.
“I don’t drink anymore,” Jesse
said.
Jenn nodded.
“Did you have to tell Anthony’s
family?”
Jesse nodded.
“His wife,” Jesse said.
“Was it bad?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure you don’t feel
awful?” Jenn
said.
Jesse shrugged and looked out the window at the press scrum.
Then he took in some air, and looked back at Jenn and said,
“Yes. I guess, in fact, I do.”
“Of course you do,” she said.
“May I say
something?”
“If I said no, you’d say it
anyway.”
Jenn smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “I suppose I
would.”
She paused and pressed her face for a moment into her semi-cupped hands and rubbed her eyes, as if she were very tired.
Then she raised her head and took a breath.
“I am very sorry I tried to impose upon our relationship to get
a break on this serial killer story,” she said.
“You didn’t need
that. You shouldn’t have had to address that. I was wrong and stupid to ask.”
Jesse smiled faintly.
“Wrong and stupid?”
he said.
“Yes. I was thinking only about myself. I should have been
thinking about you. I’m very sorry.”
Jesse said nothing for a time.
Then he said, “Thank you, Jenn.”
“You’re welcome.”
She was wearing perfume. Her hair was well cut and perfectly arranged. Her makeup was bright and expert. Her clothes were very immediate. There was a kind of physical brightness about her that was just short of flamboyant.
“Would you like to talk about it?” she said.
“Off the record?”
Jenn hung her head a little.
“I’ll never tell anyone,” she
said, “what you say to me unless
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