by Joshua Corin
The young woman shrugged. “I wanted to help. It’s not like it’s the first case file I’ve read.”
“It’s just the first time you got caught.”
Trumbull’s secretary hung up her phone. The assistant director could see them now. Both of them.
They rose from the chairs.
“Looks like he wants an audience for my beheading,” said Esme.
“You know what you did was wrong, don’t you?”
“I don’t know, sir. I think that depends on whether or not I’ve solved your case.”
“You think you found something in the file?”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“I see.”
The assistant director’s office was sparse. On the wall was the requisite photograph of the president of the United States, along with a framed Jasper Johns print. His bookshelves were packed with never-read tomes and his window afforded a grand, unappreciated view of rural Virginia. Trumbull stood up when they entered. He was a handsome man, with the hairline of a twenty-year-old, the physique of a thirty-year-old, and the gravitas of a forty-year-old. He grinned warmly at Tom. He did not even acknowledge Esme, not even with a glare.
“Before we begin, Tom, I wanted to bring this young woman to your attention. It seems she’s been eavesdropping on your cases.”
“Cases?” Tom raised an eyebrow. Plural?
“You get the good ones,” she murmured.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I wanted you to be here for this, Tom, because her brand of malfeasance is not tolerated here. I wanted you to be here for this because her crime victimized you, and you deserve to bear witness to her—”
“Beheading,” said Tom.
Trumbull smirked. “Call it what you will. Given the nature of her actions, I wanted to hear your input on what course of justice we should pursue.”
Tom paused. For her crimes, Esme could be facing ten years in prison.
He turned to her. Suddenly she looked so small, appropriate as her fate now fit in his hands.
“What do you think you found in the case file?” he asked her.
And so Esme told him: she believed the Buzzards Bay Butcher was a Red Sox fan.
Each of the victims, she explained, had a soiled Yankees T-shirt or sweatshirt or ball cap in their luggage. Soiled, because they had already worn it on their trip, worn it outside, worn it within view of someone so psychotically appalled to seeing Boston’s rival team on display so close to Boston itself that he reacted.
“Have someone go undercover,” she said. “Have them wear a Bucky Dent jersey. Have them walk around Buzzards Bay. Our guy won’t go after them that day, but maybe the next. And then you’ll have him.”
Trumbull rolled his eyes.
Tom didn’t.
Her theory may have been flimsy (it was the very crossroads of coincidence and conjecture), but what if she was correct?
He asked Trumbull for a week to test it out. What was one more week, if Esme’s fate was really in his hands? Reluctantly, the assistant director agreed. Tom called up Bobby Fink and informed him of the plan. Bobby bought a Yankees jacket (not the easiest thing to find in Massachusetts) and spent the rest of the day wandering the shops in Buzzards Bay.
The killer made his move the next day, outside of a clambake on the beach. He was tackled to the ground by four officers. Bobby read him his rights. He and Bobby got the credit for nabbing the Buzzards Bay Butcher, and their capital with the Bureau soared. Tom spent his on Esme. He had the charges on her dropped, and a few months later when the deputy director created the task force and put Tom in charge, Esme Shepherd was his first recruit (on her guarantee that she would never—ever—bend the rules again…at least not without his permission first).
And now they were in Amarillo, so many years later, and Esme lay unconscious in an ambulance, on the way to Baptist St. Anthony’s in Amarillo, Texas. Somewhere out there, her assailant roamed free. He was targeting them now, and he showed no signs of giving up, or getting caught.
11
Never before in her life had Lilly Toro so desperately wanted to be home. And not her apartment, either, but her childhood home, her parents’ home, a walk-up in Oakland which perpetually reeked of boiled cabbage and/or cheddar cheese. She hadn’t seen her parents in a while. They didn’t approve of her lifestyle. As far as she knew, they didn’t even look for her byline anymore in the Chronicle. But she so desperately wanted to run into their arms right now, maybe share a bowl of soup, sit with them on the sofa and watch a western on their old TV. Instead, she was here, in a small musty room in the Amarillo P.D., a thousand miles away.
They had taken her cell phone. They had taken her wristwatch.
“Am I under arrest?” Lilly had asked the two FBI agents. Their names were Hector and Anna Jackson (no relation).
“This is just a precaution,” Anna Jackson explained. “In case he comes after you.”
Then they left.
Lilly had no idea how much time had passed. Maybe hours. The walls lacked a clock. The walls lacked everything except gray paint. The same paint covered the door. The door was locked. She had tried it. She had also pounded the door with her fists and kicked the door with her feet.
In one of the corners of the ceiling, a small video camera recorded it all. Lilly gave her viewers the finger and sat back down in her chair. More time passed. She craved a cigarette. She craved answers. She craved home.
The door opened. It was Jackson & Jackson.
“I want a lawyer,” said Lilly.
Hector Jackson and Anna Jackson exchanged a look. They appeared amused.
Lilly wasn’t.
“I’m an American citizen,” she said.
“So am I,” replied Hector Jackson.
“Me, too,” replied Anna Jackson. She had a file in her hand. She placed it on the table.
“What’s that?”
“Your FBI file.”
“I have an FBI file?”
The agents once again exchanged looks. “You do now.”
Lilly stared at the file for a minute, then rose to her feet. “If I’m not under arrest, then—”
“Sit down.”
“Fuck you.” She headed for the door. It was locked. “Open it.”
The agents stood up, and walked toward her. Lilly stepped out of the way. With a buzz, the door unlocked. Hector opened it, and exited. Anna followed him out. Before Lilly could do the same, Anna pulled the door shut.
“Damn it!” howled Lilly. She kicked again at the door.
They’d left the file on the table.
They wanted her to see it. Why?
She approached the table.
No. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
She turned her back on the table, arms crossed. Fuck ’em.
More time passed. Maybe hours.
Lilly pulled a chair into the corner and sat facing the wall. They wanted to play games with her? She could out-stubborn a donkey. She could out-stubborn her mother, and her mother had a reputation in the Bay Area for her stubbornness. Her mother refused to upgrade from vinyl records. Her mother refused to acknowledge the existence of the Internet. Her mother voted Republican.
More time passed.
Lilly got tired. And hungry. And bored.
She glanced back at the table. The file was thick. It would make a nice pillow. And if she “accidentally” peeked inside while adjusting it, well, these things happened….
Lilly “accidentally” peeked inside.
The cover page was a drawing, a copy of the sketch taken from her description of Ray Milton. Maybe it was the light, or maybe it was the police artist’s rendition, but the face on the paper looked like, well, Robert Redford. Redford circa 1972. Redford circa Jeremiah Johnson, one of the better westerns in her father’s VHS collection.
Lilly turned the page.
It was blank.
She flipped to another page. Also blank.
She rifled through the file. Blank, blank, blank, blank, blank.<
br />
“What the…?”
The door opened. A middle-aged cop strolled in, bald save for the black sideburns that tracked down the sides of his face.
“Hi,” he said, and held out his hand. “I’m Ray Milton.”
Lilly let go of the file. Hundreds of pages of empty paper fluttered to the hard gray floor.
Officer Milton gazed down with sadness at the mess. Then his steely eyes once again found Lilly.
“I was at the memorial service,” he said. “When I got home, I noticed my badge was missing. I didn’t report it. That was my mistake, and I’ll be duly punished. Everyone’s mighty upset right now, and we’re going to take the fall.”
Lilly wiped her moist forehead. Was it getting warmer in here? “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know.”
He bent down, which took some effort, and began to clean up the papers. After a moment, Lilly helped him.
“Nobody intends to screw up,” he said. “I’ve got a clean record. I’m a good cop. I got injured a while back—stupid thing, really—so now I spend most of my days behind a desk. But there’s lot of important stuff that needs to get done in-house. I like my job.”
They planted the blank paper on the desk. Officer Milton evened out the pile, and slid it back into its manila folder.
“My badge went missing and I should’ve reported it. That’s what they call hubris. But for the life of me I can’t figure out why he chose me to steal from. There were hundreds of cops at the service. Why choose me? For that matter, why choose you? There were hundreds of reporters there too. You and me—we’re in the same boat, Miss Toro.”
Officer Milton sat down and let out a long sigh. Lilly sat down near him.
He picked up the sketch, let out a brief chuckle, then put it down.
“It was ego,” she said, finally.
“What was?”
“When he approached me,” Lilly continued, “when out of everyone in the crowd I suddenly became the one with the inside information…I figured he liked the way I looked. And suddenly I was in! I was embedded with Tom Piper on a hunt for a serial killer! I did check, by the way. I called the station to check his bona fides. I gave them your badge ID. ‘Yes, ma’am, Ray Milton is an officer here. Would you like us to transfer you to his desk?’ I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Neither did I,” Ray Milton said, “and yet here we are.”
“What are they going to do to you?”
The cop shrugged. “Whatever it is, I’ll accept it. My family? They’ll accept it. You got a family?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you close with them?”
Lilly paused. “No.”
“That’s a shame. I don’t know what I’d do without my family. But different strokes for different folks, I guess, right?”
Lilly nodded, looked away.
“The fact is, Miss Toro, they can’t charge us with a crime. We didn’t break any laws. Being stupid ain’t illegal. I let my guard down. But they can make us sweat. Leave a blank file to tease you with. Mess with your head. And I just know come April I’m going to be audited.”
“It’s not fair.” This time, her words came quieter. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” The conviction in her voice was as empty now as, well, as a blank sheet of paper.
Officer Milton pushed himself to his feet. Once more, he held out his hand.
“Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself.”
This time she shook it. The policeman cocked his head goodbye, and left.
Time passed.
Lester Stuart prided himself on being a one-suitcase type of guy, so when he got the call from his son Rafe, he unearthed Old Blue from the closet, set her on his queen-size, spun the three-digit combination (7-2-7—his and Eunice’s anniversary), and tugged her open. Old Blue’s hinges needed oil, and her inner cloth lining had a bit of mildew, but otherwise, she was shipshape. Not bad for a thirty-four-year-old piece of luggage ordered from a Sears catalog.
It’s not that Lester couldn’t afford a new model. A lifetime of hard work in the vending machine business had made him a wealthy man. And it’s not that he was miserly with his funds. He just loathed waste. Why buy a new suitcase/car/house when his current one worked just fine?
He started with his socks and briefs. They always went in the suitcase first. They were foundation garments, after all, so they should form the foundation here. There was the right way to do a thing and the wrong way to do a thing and only fools (like his daughter-in-law Esme) chose the wrong way.
When he heard what had happened to her in Amarillo, he wasn’t surprised. The girl was a loose cannon. He’d said as much to Rafe, many times, scotch in hand. “It’s because she doesn’t have any parents,” he’d opine. “She’s rudderless, so she goes where the wind takes her, even if it’s smack dab into a storm.” But the boy married her anyway. At least Rafe had had the sense (with some financial prodding from the old man) to move his family to Long Island. But a leopard doesn’t change its spots, and Esme remained a loose cannon and now she was in critical care in Texas and Rafe was flying down to be with her, and Lester, as always, was doing what needed doing. That meant packing up Old Blue for an indefinite stay at their house in Oyster Bay. Sophie needed babysitting, and he was just the grandfather for the job.
After his socks and briefs, the next layer Lester added was pants. Lester was a fan of jeans. They were durable, reliable and matched just about everything. He folded two faded pairs of Levi’s on top of his underwear. The third he would wear on the trip. On top of his jeans went two button-down plaid shirts. Next came his toiletries, which he stuffed into a sealable freezer bag; his mud-dappled Nikes; and his heart medication, which he placed next to the bag of toiletries. Lastly: a very old paperback of Leaves of Grass, inscribed by Eunice. It was the first gift she ever bought for him, and no matter the destination, it always had a place in Old Blue, right at the top.
The suitcase shut without effort. Lester was ready to go.
He’d already asked his neighbor Gus Francis to collect his mail while he was gone. Gus, who was a retired army colonel, lost his wife around the same time Lester lost Eunice. Every weeknight, they shared a pint in Gus’s kitchen. Weekends belonged to family.
Lester secured Old Blue in the trunk of his Cadillac, started up its engine (still ticking at almost 190,000 miles), and commenced his three-hour road adventure through the wintry southeast corridor of New York State. His musical accompaniment on the journey, via CD player, was Bob Dylan. A love of twentieth-century music—the only quality he shared with that flibbertigibbet daughter-in-law of his.
In fact, she first met his son through one of her many acts of careless spontaneity. They retold the story of their first date at their wedding, and how the reception hall had laughed and cheered! Eunice laughed and cheered! Lester played along with the rest. It would have been ungentlemanly to scowl during his son’s wedding toast.
“It’s all because,” said Rafe, “of a personal ad.”
The groom proceeded to reach into the left pocket of his tuxedo jacket and remove the ad, clipped and laminated. The wedding guests listened on in rapt attention. Esme, seated beside him at the head table, blushed.
“SWF,” he read. “Twenty-eight, in search of intelligent life in the universe. Partial to earthlings. Bonus points for spontaneity, creativity and equal-mindedness. Must enjoy traveling!”
He smiled down at his new bride and slipped the ad back into his pocket.
“Except I’m not the one who responded to the ad. I was neck-deep in my dissertation at GW. Those last six months, I don’t think I even glanced at a newspaper. Fortunately, I had a roommate.”
Rafe pointed to Table 1. Donnie Washington, former roommate and current best man, stood up (and up and up—he clocked in at six-nine) and took a bow.
“You still owe me!” called Donnie. “I’m still single!”
The crowd laughed. Donnie sat back down.
Rafe continued:
“Donnie responded to the ad. Left a message. Two days later, he and our travel-loving SWF scheduled a date. They agreed to meet that Saturday at a coffeehouse on K Street called the Lemon Yellow. The night before, Donnie ordered takeout. I got chicken and broccoli. He got the shrimp and pork chow mein. And food poisoning.”
Lester surveyed the crowd. His son had them on the edge of their seats. Apparently all that experience in the lecture hall made him quite the orator. Lester admired his boy’s technique—even if he objected to the speech’s loathsome content.
“Donnie didn’t have the girl’s number. You see, when you put a personal ad in the paper, the contact information is for a switchboard at the newspaper. It helps to guard a person’s privacy. Donnie and the SWF had exchanged anonymous messages. He had no way of contacting her directly to postpone the date, but he was in no condition to be more than three feet from a toilet at all times. So he asked me to go in his stead, explain the situation to the mystery woman, and reschedule their date. And I went.”
Rafe looked down at Esme, and clasped her hand in his.
“When I left the apartment that night, I was nervous. You got to understand—by this time I was living and breathing my dissertation. Just the act of driving to anywhere but campus was a big change. I chalked my anxiety up to that. But maybe I knew. Maybe some part of my subconscious was aware of how important the next couple hours were going to be. I showed up at the Lemon Yellow at a quarter to nine…and there she was.”
Was it romantic? Sure. So was Romeo and Juliet, and that ended splendidly, eh? Lester sipped down his champagne. Since Esme didn’t have a family, Eunice had convinced him to foot the bill for this soirée. Talk about adding insult to injury!
“She said in her message to Donnie that he’d be able to recognize her when he arrived because she’d be wearing her FBI Academy sweatshirt. What she didn’t say was how beautiful she was. I walked into the Lemon Yellow and she was sitting on one of those funky old sofas you get at a yard sale—that’s the kind of place this was. She was sitting on one of those funky old sofas and she was listening to music on her CD player. I sat down beside her and asked her what she was listening to. And what was it? The Sex Pistols! The official band of love at first sight.”