I slowly depressed the talk button and then began speaking. “Goddammit? Did I hear you right? My, my, my, Eldon. Taking your Lord’s name in vain?”
“Don’t push me, Gant!” he shot back.
“Isn’t there a commandment about that or something, Eldon? You know what? I think there is. Seems to me it goes: Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.”
“Don’t you dare pass judgment on ME, Gant.”
“Why not?” I asked with mock surprise. “Turn about fair play, Eldon.”
“Goddammit, Gant! I said…”
“Again, Eldon?” I cut him off. “What happened? Don’t tell me that somehow the devil got behind you.”
“I told you I’ll kill her!”
“Yeah, you keep saying that,” I spat. “So what’s stopping you?”
“I will, Gant! I’ll do it!”
“You talk a good game, but I don’t think so, Eldon. Not this time, and let me tell you why.” I continued with my explanation, ignoring his insistent commentary. “You need Millicent. You need Millicent to get to me. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it, Eldon?”
I waited for him to reply and heard only labored breathing at the other end, so I pressed forward.
“See,” I told him. “What you really want is to kill me, not her. We both know that. Hell, everyone here knows that. You’ve made no secret of it. But there’s something else we both know: if you kill Millicent, about two seconds later a team of heavily armed SWAT guys is going to screw up your little world.
“If that happens, Eldon, it’s all over. There’s no way you’ll ever get to me. How do you think your God is going to feel about that?”
“My God is a compassionate God,” he snarled.
“No, Eldon,” I countered. “I’ve read your book. I know what it says. Your God is a vengeful God.”
“Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live, Gant,” he finally replied. “And she’s a Witch. She must be punished for her sins.”
“Are you still stuck on that?” I admonished. “You know, when I read that particular passage, there was a lot more to it than that. Are you using some kind of abridged edition?”
“Vengeance is mine,” he returned.
“Saith the Lord, Eldon,” I came back immediately. “Let’s get the quote right if you are going to use it. Or, is it maybe that you’re trying to tell me that YOU are the Lord? If you are, then I think we are talking about a major sin here. Hubris, idolatry, the whole nine yards.”
A quiet lull followed my observation, and I listened closely to the sounds coming from the handset. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was hearing at first. As the noise began, it sounded like sobbing, but after a moment, it inched up in volume and started taking on the properties of a throaty chuckle.
“Glad you find this all so entertaining, Eldon,” I chided.
“You’re good, Gant.” Porter finally eked out the words through the insane laugh. “I’ll give you that, you’re really good. But I’m not fooled. Maybe a man without true faith would have fallen for your lies but not me.”
“Well, Eldon,” I answered in a pseudo-friendly tone. “You know how it is. Satan has an agenda, and he expects me to keep it.”
“Don’t mock me, Gant.”
“Who says I’m mocking you, Eldon? You’re the one who keeps telling me that I’m doing Satan’s bidding.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Stop trying to mess with my mind, Gant.” He hardened his voice. “It won’t work. You know my path is clear, and nothing you say can shake my belief.”
“Fine,” I replied. “You’re right, let’s just quit screwing around.”
“Yes, let’s.”
The conversation had moved through a series of levels since it had begun. In my mind, I seemed to have accomplished the task given me by Agent McCoy, but he had yet to assume control of the phone. I decided I would just keep going until someone took the device away from me.
I wasn’t really interested in chitchatting with Porter, to be honest. There were several things I wanted to say, but they didn’t fall under the heading of pleasant conversation. I mentally scrolled through the list but realized quickly that the majority of them might very well undo what I had just accomplished.
I wasn’t sure what my next comment should be. I didn’t quite know how fragile the calm was that I had reached with Porter. I suppose what finally came out of my mouth was as much a surprise to me as it was to anyone else. What’s more, the calm with which I made the comment was actually startling.
“Come on out and get me, Eldon, I’m waiting right here.”
“With a small army,” he spat.
“Hey, you invited them when you kidnapped Millicent,” I chided. “Don’t lay that one at my feet.”
“I’m not coming out,” he replied.
“Okay, then what do you suggest we do about this?”
There was a heavy pause before his voice issued from the earpiece. “You come in here.”
“You see, now, Eldon, I’d love to do that,” I offered. “Really I would, but I don’t think the gang down here is going to allow it.”
“It’s heresy for them to protect you that way.”
“Protect me?” I responded with feigned surprise. “They aren’t protecting me. They’re protecting you. You see, Eldon, everyone down here knows that I have every intention of killing you.”
His next words came as an even hiss. “You come in, and I send the Witch out.”
As I’d been expecting, someone took the phone away. Not physically from my hand, but in a sense, the method was just as unceremonious. This time there was no warning click as there had been when I was back at the apartment. No rush of static. No beep. No nothing. The handset simply retreated into the all too familiar thickness of electronic death as the line was instantly severed by the HNT.
“Eldon, Mister Gant isn’t here to negotiate with you,” I heard Agent McCoy begin. “Now, I gave you something you wanted. It’s time for you to give something in return…”
I turned back to face the team and held the now-useless phone out in front of me. Agent Kavanaugh appeared by my side and took the device from my hand then settled it carefully into the large gadget box. When she had said I was her responsibility, she had apparently been serious.
“Don’t trust me?” I quipped, keeping my voice low.
“It’s not a trust issue, Mister Gant,” she returned.
I answered with a shake of my head, “Could’ve fooled me.”
She took me by the arm and began guiding me away from the group. “You’ve been very helpful, Mister Gant, and you did very well on the line. Especially using the hostage’s first name repeatedly.”
“Yeah, I read about that somewhere,” I replied. “But it won’t work with him. He doesn’t care about her identity.”
“That remains to be seen,” she returned. “As well as you did, however, I would question the wisdom of that last ploy.”
“You mean when I told him I was going to kill him?”
“Yes sir,” she acknowledged.
I glanced over at her as we walked, and I spoke with absolute sincerity, “Who says it was a ploy?”
*****
“I know this is an unpleasant situation for you to be in, but we need to ask you for some more help,” Agent Kavanaugh told me.
We were sitting in the back of a large panel van, the inside of which looked like a compact conference room, communications center, and armory all rolled into one. I was holding a thermos cup that was half-filled with coffee. I had accepted it when it was offered but after a couple of sips, came to the conclusion that I didn’t really want it. Not that it was bad or anything, I was just far too wired to even think about drinking it.
As it was, the only reason I was still holding the container was that I didn’t seem to be able to find a place to put it down. Any space that appeared like it would fit the cup was already supporting something else far mor
e important looking and in the case of the electronics, far more expensive.
“Forgive me for asking then,” I replied, fighting to keep the shortness from my voice, “but if you need my help, shouldn’t I be out there instead of in here?”
The entire day, right up to a very few moments ago, seemed to have been built around an ever-increasing urgency. Now, suddenly that imperative had slammed face first into an invisible wall. That barrier had presented itself in the form of the standard operating procedures for hostage negotiation.
“There’s no rush,” she told me. “This is standard procedure. It takes several hours at least before Stockholm Syndrome starts taking hold.”
“I already told you this wacko doesn’t care about her identity,” I remarked. “You aren’t going to get any Stockholm Syndrome. He doesn’t play by your pat psychological profile.”
“We know what we are doing, Mister Gant.”
“I’m sure you do under most circumstances, but you’re wrong this time.”
“How do you know that?”
“Long story. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
She looked back at me and frowned then absently drummed the end of a ballpoint pen on the notepad she was holding.
“Be that as it may, you’re safer in here,” she finally replied.
“From what, Agent Kavanaugh?” I asked as I motioned in what I thought was the general direction of the warehouse. “He’s hiding out in the building. What’s he going to do to me?”
She pointed toward the opposite corner of the van. “The building is that way.”
“Sorry,” I snapped. “It’s been a really freaking long day.”
“I understand that.” She nodded sympathetically. “But as I told you earlier, we don’t know for sure what Porter has in there with him, and now that the urgency of the moment has passed, we want you to stay out of sight.”
“Unless you expect him to throw loose bricks at me, I doubt you have anything to worry about.”
“Mister Gant,” she said. “Apparently, I am not making myself clear. While we do not know this for a fact, we do have every reason to believe that Porter is armed.”
“You mean with a gun?” I shook my head and asked the question with an overabundance of incredulity in my voice. “No way. That’s not his style.”
“Style or not, Mister Gant,” she contended. “The second victim this morning was shot once in the back of the head. That tells us he has a gun.”
It took a moment for what she had said to register. When it did, I’m sure the look of confusion on my face had to be textbook.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I waved my free hand at her. “Back up for a second. What second victim? What are you talking about?”
“At the scene on Locust where Mister Harper was found, a second body was discovered. The victim was male, approximately mid-sixties and apparently homeless. The current theory is that he entered the warehouse in search of shelter and stumbled upon Porter in the act of… Well, you know.”
“How do you know it was Porter who killed him?”
“Fingerprints on the body,” she returned matter-of-factly. “Porter apparently had Mister Harper’s blood on his hands already.”
The image of Randy’s corpse imprinted itself on my retinas, dancing in the air before me like a three-dimensional movie. I stopped for a moment and fought back a wave of nausea.
I shook my head again when the feeling passed. “No way. This doesn’t add up. Porter doesn’t use a gun, and besides he kills Witches not homeless people.”
“What about Mister Kasprzykowski?” she asked, stumbling over the name. “He wasn’t a Witch.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that,” I replied. “But even then, he killed him with a blow to the back of the head with a hammer.”
“Yes, and he killed this homeless man with a gunshot to the back of the head. I’m certain you know that Porter has a criminal history, Mister Gant,” she continued. “Several of his earlier crimes involved handguns.”
I closed my eyes and started rubbing my forehead. My perpetual headache was working its way around the inside of my skull. The pain was thick and just the other side of normal. As usual, I couldn’t put my finger on the cause other than to say that it was coming from a source beyond the physical realm.
“No. No way,” I said. “Porter doesn’t have a gun.”
“Mister Gant.” Agent Kavanaugh took on a concerned tone. “I really don’t understand why you are having such a problem with this.”
“Twilight Zone,” I muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Twilight Zone,” I said a bit more clearly as I re-opened my eyes and looked up at her.
She shook her head as a mask of obfuscation passed over her features. “I don’t understand.”
“Ask the big Indian outside,” I told her. “He’ll explain it to you.”
CHAPTER 35:
“What did he say to you during the first conversation this morning?” Agent Kavanaugh asked.
We had been sequestered in the back of the panel van for something close to half an hour by now. She had all but dismissed my objection to the idea that Eldon Porter was using any type of firearm, as well as my suggestion that she talk to Ben for an explanation as to how I could be so certain. Of course, I don’t suppose that his answer would have been any more convincing than mine.
“Which part?” I asked, still trying to temper my impatience at the “hurry up and wait” overtone of the current situation.
The order of the moment was taking the form of an in-depth interview of yours truly. The questions that comprised the Q amp; A ranged from the expected to the seemingly non sequitur. She had already made several queries that appeared to come from far left and well over the horizon, leading me at times to simply stare back at her with a dumbstruck gaze.
She gave me a quick shake of her head. “Any details you can remember. Any at all.”
“Let’s see,” I sighed heavily. “He quoted a few Bible verses to me, then informed me that he intended to rape my wife. Is that what you want to know?”
The abruptness in my voice was unmistakable. Any attempt at disguising my anxiety was effectively rendered null and void by my rapidly hardening attitude.
Kavanaugh stared back at me for a moment, wagging the ballpoint pen back and forth between her thumb and forefinger as she drummed it on the legal pad in her lap. The rhythm of the nervous tick wasn’t helping my headache in the least. If anything, it was simply reminding me that it was there. I was just about to reach out and snatch the pen from between her fingers when she stopped.
“Mister Gant,” she began. “I know this is hard, and trust me, I realize this doesn’t seem important to you, but each detail gives us something more to work with.”
“Forgive me,” I told her. “But some of your questions really haven’t made much sense to me.”
“On the surface, to most people, they don’t,” she agreed. “But we aren’t in a normal situation here. Specific details are important to the overall profile of both the individual and the situation.”
“Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t see how some of the things you’ve asked can relate to all of this.”
“Believe me, Mister Gant, you would be amazed by what seemingly insignificant details can sometimes mean the difference between peaceful resolution and tragedy.”
“Maybe so, but ten minutes ago you asked me what color coat he was wearing earlier today. I mean, come on…”
“Do you play chess, Mister Gant?”
“Yes,” I answered. “And will you please call me Rowan? I’ve been getting ‘Mistered’ and ‘Sir’ed’ to death today.”
“All right, Rowan,” she continued. “As a chess player, you are certainly familiar with the concept of a stalemate, correct?”
“Of course.”
“Well, that’s exactly what a hostage scenario is. A stalemate. A big, hairy, no-win situation. The thing is, the hostage-taker doesn’t know this. We do, but he does
n’t. His mental state usually places him in one of two frames of mind. Either he believes he has the upper hand and will be able to force his demands on us, or he is in such a state of desperation that he believes he cannot win.
“The second state is the worst because that is usually when he will start killing hostages in an attempt to regain perceived control of the situation. Our job is to make an end run around the stalemate by convincing him that we are as concerned for his well being as we are for the hostage or hostages.”
“I understand that,” I said. “But the color of his coat?”
“Sometimes, even when you think it is going well, something that appears wholly unrelated can make everything go sour.” Kavanaugh sighed. “Let me give you an example. I worked a hostage negotiation three years ago in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a bank robbery gone bad. The gunman had five hostages, but things had stayed fairly calm. We were in the ninth hour, and everything was going by the book. It really looked like we were going to be able to bring on a positive resolution with no casualties, not even the gunman.
“As a good faith move for the release of one of the hostages, we gave in to a request for soda. A specific brand of root beer actually.” She paused for a moment. There was a distant look in her eyes that bespoke of repressed sadness and maybe even a modicum of self-blame. She looked down at the notepad in her lap then back to me. “Two minutes after we sent it in, the gunman went berserk, and without warning he killed the hostage he had told us he would release. He shot her point blank in the back of the head as he shoved her out the door.
“Her name was Becky, and she was a twenty-three-year-old teller-trainee with a husband and a one-year-old daughter.” She paused again as if taking a moment to force the memory from her mind, and then asked, “Do you know why he killed her?”
I simply shook my head.
Her expression moved in the direction of controlled anger for a pair of seconds and then blanked to a professional, matter-of-fact countenance as she looked me in the eyes. “Because the soda was in a can instead of a bottle. We had missed a detail.”
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