by Joshua Corin
“Well, Esme, I’ll be honest. She’s covered in green paint.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s just finger-paint. She’s making you a card. Turns out I had finger-paint and construction paper in the closet from when Merideth was her age and, well, there you go. Don’t worry. I’m making sure she’s not eating any of the paint.”
“Holly, can you put her on speakerphone?”
“Speakerphone? What a novel idea. No wonder you’re such a VIP! One second.”
While Esme waited, there was a knock on the conference room door. It was Tom.
“I have the updated psych profile,” he said. “Thought you’d want to take a peek.”
“Sure. But just a peek. I’m underage.”
“Who’s underage?” warbled Holly from thousands of miles away. “Esme, you’re not doing anything worth gossiping about, are you?”
Tom went to exit but Esme signaled for him to stay.
“Holly, am I on speakerphone?”
“Hi, Mommy,” replied Sophie.
Esme’s face lit up. “Hi, baby! I hear you’ve been making me a card.”
“I was drawing the state of Texas in green paint.”
“Why green?”
“Because it’s your favorite color.”
So precious. She spotted Tom, still in the doorway. “I miss you, baby. You know that, right?”
“Sure, Mommy,” Sophie replied. She sounded so casual. “What are we having for dinner?”
“That’s up to your father.” Esme got an idea. “Tell him I said you should have macaroni and cheese.”
“But he hates macaroni and cheese.”
Yep. Rafe hated its creamy taste, its gooey texture, and, most of all, its cheesy aroma, which lingered for days. This would show him. Act like an ass? Deal with mac and cheese.
Esme told Sophie how much she loved her and kissed the air, pretending it was her. Then she hung up.
“Macaroni and cheese, huh?” Tom’s face was aglow with bemusement. “I think I ate that every day one summer. When I was six.”
They sat down at the table. Esme reviewed the profile Norm had typed up. It didn’t take long.
“The card should be back soon from the lab,” said Tom. He was referring to the Shoebox greeting which Galileo had left on Darcy’s body. Esme had already reviewed the missive scrawled inside: Don’t stare into the barrel of a gun.
“Fingerprints?”
Tom shook his head. “Not likely.” The killer was too cautious.
“Handwriting analysis?”
“Well, the way he dots his i’s proves he was abused by his mother.”
“Really?”
“No.”
Esme examined the crime scene photos. “He’s an atheist on a crusade. The irony alone just kills me.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“He’s angry at people of faith, but he’s not targeting pastors and priests. He’s targeting civil servants. He blames religion on the public authority. He’s just starting with cops and firefighters. Jesus, Tom, it’s an election year. That’s not happenstance. We need to alert the campaigns.”
“If all goes well tonight,” replied Tom, “we won’t need to.”
9
Lilly Toro wanted to vomit. She rolled down the driver’s window of her VW. The fresh air didn’t help. She was in the parking garage. It smelled of oil and frustration. Her one consolation was that she wasn’t alone. Dozens of cops and G-men were concealed on every rooftop within a two-mile radius, all armed, all watching her back. One FBI agent was literally watching her back: Tom Piper was hidden on the floor of the VW’s backseat, his six-foot-plus frame contorted like a curlicue. The fact that Lilly wasn’t the only uncomfortable soul here provided her with a modicum of solace. But she still wanted to vomit.
She was a journalist, damn it. She wasn’t meant to be part of the story. Yes, she wanted to be embedded with the task force, but in a few minutes a mass murderer would be appearing in this parking garage and his focus would be on her. The flak jacket underneath her sweater did little to allay her concerns. After all, the fucker had a tendency to shoot people in the head.
Lilly was wrong, though, about Tom’s discomfort. Discomfort didn’t even begin to describe the amount of pain he was in, most of it radiating from his left shoulder. He didn’t have to be here. Another agent could have easily taken his place in the car. This was his operation. Procedure dictated he remain at a distance so as to best oversee and coordinate. But Darcy Parr was dead. She had been his responsibility. If he had to suffer a bit to help catch her killer, so be it.
Which led Tom back to Esme.
She was back at city hall. When Tom last checked in on her, before heading out, she was sitting on the floor amongst teetering towers of paperwork. As her hyperactive IQ absorbed every datum of information, her lips moved along with the words of whatever British rock song was emanating from her iPod. Every so often she’d tuck some of her chestnut-brown hair behind an ear. Did she realize how adorable she was? Did her husband? It’s not that Tom didn’t like Rafe. It’s just…
Well, no. It was that. Tom didn’t like Rafe.
Not out of jealousy, mind you. Tom’s affection for Esme went well beyond romantic. She was the daughter he never had. Like any good father, he simply wanted what was best for his daughter. Rafe Stuart was not that. How could Tom respect a man who took a shining star and covered it with a tarp?
“We’re coming up on nine o’clock,” announced Norm over the radio. Since Tom had relegated himself to being Lilly’s body man for this particular op, he’d given Norm the reins. Right now Norm was crowded into an unmarked van with the chief of police and a cadre of his finest officers. They had tiny cameras planted all across the city block, and they all fed into the twelve monitors in the van.
Meanwhile, Norm was chowing down on a bean burrito. To his mind, nothing beat genuine Tex-Mex cuisine. When he was buried, he wanted to be buried near Corpus Christi, so his eventual decay would fertilize the corn crops used to create such crisp and succulent tortillas. What a righteous spin on “you are what you eat,” eh?
“Okay, girls and boys.” Norm washed down the last bite of his burrito with a mouthful of Coke. “It’s nine o’clock. All points, check in.”
All points checked in.
And waited.
And waited.
Daryl Hewes, who didn’t handle idleness very well, used the time to calculate his taxes. In his head. He was situated on the roof of the Santa Fe Building, one of the city’s oldest skyscrapers, with two of Amarillo’s finest. One of the cops held a pair of binoculars. The other peered through the scope of his rifle.
Daryl Hewes didn’t handle idleness well, but there was an even more primal motivation for his mental distractions. Since he’d met her months earlier, the accountant had been carrying a small torch for Ms. Darcy Parr. He could float off at the very sight of her blond locks, the very sound of her down-home Virginia accent. And now the girl was dead, and now his chest felt like razor blades. He would never float off again.
“I hope he tries something,” said the cop with the rifle. “I’d love to put a .45 right between the fucker’s eyes. That’s what you get for pulling this shit in Texas.”
“Yep,” agreed the other cop. “A .45 to the forehead would do it. Or we could just feed him one of your wife’s brownies.”
“Don’t you be assaulting my wife.”
“She delivered the first blow. I think I spent the whole evening on the can. Eventually I just asked Dorleen to bring me my pillow.”
“If my wife’s brownies were so rotten, how come you ate half the container?”
“’Cause the container tasted better than the brownies!”
“At least my wife bakes. Dorleen wouldn’t know a stuffed ham if it sat on her lap and said hello.”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you sit on her lap and we’ll find out?”
“Gentlemen,” chimed in Norm over the radio, “as amusing
as your discussion is, try to keep it off channel. Okay?”
“Sorry, boss,” the cops replied.
Norm and the boys in the van had a good chuckle. It helped lighten the mood. Because their man was now twenty-five minutes late for the meet, and that was far from good.
“Should we go?” Lilly asked Tom.
“No.”
“I think we should go.”
“It’s not up to you.”
“I’m the one behind the wheel. What’s to stop me from turning the key, gunning the gas, and heading off into the sunset?”
“Well, for one,” replied Tom, flexing his shoulder, “the sun set four hours ago.”
“Bite me.”
“Ms. Toro, we’ve got seven sharpshooters trained on your location. You move this vehicle even an inch and you’re going to need to get a new set of tires.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m threatening your car.”
“Why do you need me here, anyway? I called him. I set everything up. He pulls into the garage and you take him down. Why do you need me here?”
“Verisimilitude, Ms. Toro.”
Nine twenty-five became 9:30. Tom began to feel uneasy. Tardiness was one thing, but thirty minutes?
“I wasn’t really going to drive off. I’m not a coward.”
Tom glanced up at her. “I never said you were.”
She opened her window and lit up a cigarette.
“That’s why I wanted to write this story, you know. I know I come across as a Grade-A bitch but I admire what you do. You bring down the bad guys. We take you for granted.”
“We’re not in it for the accolades, Ms. Toro.”
“Modesty gets you a modest-sized office and lets you live a modest-sized life. You bring down the bad guys. Tell me that doesn’t tickle your ego just a little.”
“Is this an interview?”
“How else are we going to pass the time? The guy’s always late.”
A warning bell sounded in Tom’s head. “He is?”
“Man, you’re the ones who had all that surveillance on me. Don’t you people talk to each other?”
“How late is he usually?”
“Like forty-five minutes. Really pisses me off, but what can you do, right? Rule number one—don’t alienate your scumbag informant. Anyway, that’s why God invented menthols…”
Lilly said a few more things, but Tom was no longer listening. His mind whirred. Forty-five minutes late? Galileo was a control freak. If he was late, it was by choice. If he was late, it was because…
It was because he used the time to scope the vicinity.
But from where?
Every building in a two-mile radius had been quietly emptied of all personnel, including custodial staff. Every rooftop was occupied by at least one police officer, and everyone had checked in.
Damn it.
They’d spooked him. He’d gone to wherever he usually went, and had either seen the evacuation or a uniform on a roof. He wasn’t going to show.
So where was he going to go? The Rangers had set up roadblocks at all points in and out of the city. He may not have been trapped in the parking garage, but he was still trapped in Amarillo. Where was he going to go?
And why had he killed Darcy Parr? The two men posted outside the hospital room were much better witnesses than she. They’d actually seen him, in his faux beard, with his cell phone. If he was concerned about identification, he would have gone after them. But he went after her. Yes, their encounter at Walmart was a coincidence, but wasn’t it a tremendous risk for a control freak like him to kill in such an uncontrolled environment? Couldn’t he have at least waited until the parking lot?
No, he couldn’t have waited. Esme had said it herself. He was a man on a crusade. And the task force stood in his warpath. That’s why he’d positioned Lilly to be his mole. He wanted to know about them, so he could take them out. But the task force was all here downtown, augmented by the Amarillo P.D. To try something here would be suicide.
Wait.
No.
Tom realized, and his face blanched bone-white. The entire task force wasn’t here. One of them was still at city hall, unarmed and unawares.
Oh, God.
Esme.
After concluding that all Atlanta, GA, and Amarillo, TX had in common were their vowels, Esme reviewed the shoe boxes and rewatched the video. It didn’t take much critical analysis to see that this guy had a serious beef with religion. Both Atlanta and Amarillo were Bible Belt cities. Was that the link? If so, why target the police and firemen rather than the ministers and preachers?
She then reviewed the photographs of the crime scenes themselves. Was there a connection in the street addresses or in the architecture? No, but it was too early in the investigation to rule anything out, no matter how obscure or arcane.
However, it was never too early for David Bowie. She dialed up Aladdin Sane and let her little gray cells kick into high gear. Deductive reasoning could be taught, and was, but her ability to think outside the box was a gift. The problems arose whenever Esme had to force herself to think inside the box. But she had been conditioning herself for years now to direct the train of her thoughts along more logical rails. She had dulled her edges. She had made herself less special.
What if her normalizing efforts were permanent? What if she couldn’t do this anymore? What if her gift, like an ignored dog, had just gone away for good? Was Rafe correct? Did she even belong here? As the bombast of Bowie’s “Drive-In Saturday” flooded her ears, she gazed at all the evidence arrayed before her in the conference room, and nothing happened. No ah-ha. No lightbulb. No oblique realization. Nothing.
She wasn’t Sherlock Holmes, not anymore. She was Amy Lieb.
Esme rubbed at her eyes. Was it true? Had living in Stepford lobotomized her? Was she now no different from Amy Lieb? She reflected on Amy, so enthusiastic about her bake sales and her position as treasurer for the Oyster Bay Elementary PTA and her gung-ho campaign for Bob Kellerman, even going so far as to hammer placards in front of the schoolyard. Silly Amy, so eager to do good that she was willing to violate the separation of—
Esme frowned. She was about to mentally accuse her neighbor of violating the separation of church and state, but proselytizing for a certain presidential candidate on school property—while illegal (and a little foolish, given that ten-year-olds couldn’t vote)—was hardly the same thing as proselytizing for a certain religion. The Democratic Party wasn’t quite the same thing as the Catholic Church, now was it? So why had her mind veered in that direction?
The unsub, “Galileo,” was anti-religion (church) and only targeted public servants (state). Was it because the line between the two was so blurry in the South? Was that it? If Galileo was that fixated, then why not go after the state congressmen who enforced God-centered government? Hell, why stop there? Why not just go after the president of the United States? Well, for one, the president of the United States was about to end his eight years and be replaced…
With Amy Lieb still on her mind, Esme typed a few words into a Google search, and felt her heart smile. What did Atlanta and Amarillo have in common? They both had recently hosted speeches given on separate occasions by one of the men running for president, Bob Kellerman. Her heart’s smile stretched ventricle-to-ventricle when she read the name of the one organization which had sponsored both of his appearances: the Unity for a Better Tomorrow.
According to their own Web site, the Unity for a Better Tomorrow was a not-for-profit organization out of Omaha, Nebraska, started in 1971 by Donald and Roberta Chappell. They claimed to have over eleven million subscribers nationwide. Esme had never heard of them, but, then again, that wasn’t really the company she kept back on Long Island.
The Unity for a Better Tomorrow wasn’t strictly Christian. It said so on their home page so it must be true. So what if all of the good family values they promoted happened to coincide with the teachings of Jesus Christ? That just proved once agai
n how universal and valid those teachings were, didn’t it?
The Unity for a Better Tomorrow had a comprehensive presence on the Web. One of its pages was entitled Contemporary American Saints and listed 242 faith-based congressmen and governors and the churches they attended with their families every Sunday. Next to each name was an Add to Cart button, which brought you to a billing page, so you could donate to these fine citizens’ individual reelection campaigns. Likewise, on the much more comprehensive Contemporary American Sinners page, was a list of 116 elected public officials who were “antagonists to faith.” Next to these names was the official’s telephone number and home address, presumably so you could call them up and/or write them a letter to ask why they were such evil, evil people.
“Faith is patriotic.” This, from Donald Chappell, on the Unity’s home page. “It was for our God-given rights that we declared independence in 1776. It is on a Bible, that Great Book of Truth, that we swear in open court to tell the truth, so help us God. It is affirmed in our Pledge of Allegiance. It is written on our currency. We are one nation under God. That is what makes us indivisible.
“And yet this very core of our Americanism is under attack. Intellectuals seek to strip our country of our laws. They seek to replace our core values with wantonness, anarchy and secularism. These are the same mistakes which doomed the Romans. These are the same mistakes which doomed the Soviets. Do not, do not, do not let these misguided elitists doom our great nation.
“‘With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.’ These are the words of perhaps the greatest American to ever live, Abraham Lincoln. With them, he roused our nation from a dark calamity. As we face another, even darker calamity, let Lincoln’s words rouse your faith in your country, and help us protect the blessed soul of the United States of America.”
Esme spent an hour on the Web site. She found no mention of “abortion,” no mention of “capital punishment” or “prayer in schools” or any of the typical hot-button issues. The Unity for a Better Tomorrow was undoubtedly passionate, but in such a carefully vague way so as to avoid radicalism.