She stopped short. I got the impression Delaney wanted to say more, but knew she couldn’t. There was an intensity to both of these women. If Harper had a theory on a case, she’d run her legs into the ground to see where that theory led. She was quick thinking and had a physical energy that seemed to flow into everything she did. There was fire in Harper. Whereas it appeared that Delaney was more of a deep thinker. Someone who quietly ponders. Like a hard drive, buzzing to solve a problem.
Harper stayed quiet. I didn’t speak. We were passively prompting Delaney for more. She didn’t give us anything. I knew she would try and get as much information as she could without giving us anything. Harper knew it too. This was standard FBI practice.
“I need to see the dollar bill you mentioned,” said Delaney.
“We only have photos,” said Harper.
“Do you have them with you?” said Delaney.
Harper nodded, and to emphasize her position she placed both hands flat on the desk. Sat still. I tried to stay out of it. This was a game Harper knew how to play.
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.
Eventually, Delaney shook her head and smiled.
“Can I see them? I can’t help you otherwise,” she said.
“Let’s make a deal. We’ll show you the photos. If they’re relevant – you give us what you have. Everyone puts their cards on the table.”
“I can’t do that. I’m involved in a highly sensitive investigation and—”
I got up noisily, letting the chair legs scrape along the tiled floor. Harper moved an inch off her chair when Delaney put up a hand.
“Wait. I can tell you some of the details. Not all. But only if I think it’s relevant. I don’t know what case you’re working, and if the dollar doesn’t fit then I don’t need to know. Please, sit down. Let me see the photos and if it’s what I’m looking for I’ll cut you in as much as I can.”
I exchanged a glance with Harper. We both sat down. I opened up the case beside me took out the laptop and fired it up. I found the photos of the dollar bill butterfly, twisted the laptop around so we could all take a look.
Delaney took all of five seconds before she said, “No, doesn’t look like this is related. Do you have any photos of the bill unfolded?” she said.
My heart sank a little. I could see Harper deflate in front of me. Her shoulders sagged and her chin dropped to the table.
I let out a sigh. For a second, I had a little hope that this might be something that would tell me Bobby Solomon was innocent.
“Sure,” I said. I hit the trackpad, flicked over two screens and let Delaney take a look. Harper muttered, “Sorry, at least we’ve closed a dead end.”
I nodded, then Delaney caught my attention. The skin around her eyes and forehead tightened. Her lips moved silently as she brought her eyes closer and closer to the screen. She reached over, leaned down behind the desk. She came back up with an artist’s sketch pad. It looked old and worn. The pages had curled up at the edges. She flicked it open, found a page somewhere in the middle of the pad and eagerly looked back at the screen.
“I need to know everything about the case you’re working. Right now,” she said.
Harper said, “What? You’ve found something?”
She ignored Harper, drew a pencil from her bag and began marking the sketch pad. She was looking closely at the screen, then returning her attention to the pad and scribbling. She ignored Harper’s question, and shot one back of her own.
“What’s your working knowledge of serial killers?” said Delaney.
I felt a chill creep over my skin.
“Only what I’ve read in newspapers. Not much,” I said.
“Usually white males, twenty-five to fifty, loners, socially inept, below average intelligence and often suffering from some form of psychotic illness,” said Harper.
It fit with what little I knew about it. I rose up a little on my chair, and saw Delaney scribbling at an olive leaf on a sketch of the great seal of the United States in her pad. She raised her head again, and I saw her pencil hover over the clutch of arrows as her lips moved. She was counting. Her pencil dropped to the page and she started scribbling again.
“Almost everything you’ve just said is wrong,” said Delaney. “In BAU we call them repeaters. They can be from any ethnic group. Any age, within reason. A lot of them are married with a big family. You could live next to one and never know it. The poor social skills and low intelligence are reasonable assumptions, but not always the case. Most evade capture for a long time due to their victim selection. Most victims of repeaters have never met their killer before. Even a dumb repeater can operate for years before the cops catch up to them. But then there’s the one per cent. They have highly developed social skills, their IQ is off the scale and whatever it is in their heads that makes them kill can be successfully hidden from even their closest friends. We don’t catch their kind too often. Best example would be Ted Bundy. And contrary to what you’ll see on TV – these killers don’t want to get caught. Ever. Some will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure they stay out of jail, including masking their kills. Others, while they still don’t want to get caught, secretly want someone to acknowledge their work.”
Delaney flipped the screen around. She’d zoomed in on the reverse of the bill, around the great seal. The discoloration I’d seen on the dollar, and ignored, now took up the whole screen. There were what looked to be three ink marks on the design of the seal. One on an arrow. One on an olive leaf, and one on the star closest to the top of the cluster, on the left, above the eagle’s head.
“What are we looking at?” I said.
Delaney twisted around her sketch pad and pushed it toward us. It was a drawing of the great seal, with some of the olive leaves, and arrowheads, and stars above the eagle shaded in with pencil.
I looked back at the screen. An olive leaf, an arrowhead and a star had been marked with red ink on the butterfly bill found in Carl’s mouth.
“I’ve seen these markings on a dollar three times before. I marked them on this sketch,” said Delaney. “One we found, folded up and placed between the toes of a dead mother-of-two. The other was placed on a bedside table of a cheap motel beside a murdered van salesman. The last one I saw was in the dead hand of a restaurant owner. I think this is a pattern: a signature from a one-per-cent-er. Whatever case you’re looking at might be linked to one of the bogeymen of the behavioral analysis unit. I think he could be the most sophisticated serial killer in the Bureau’s history. No one has seen him. All we have are markings on a bill so some analysts don’t even think he exists, but the analysts who do, well, they call him Dollar Bill. So you two had better tell me everything about your case, right now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kane took the bible in his right hand and read the oath on the card as if he meant every word. The clerk took the bible from him, Kane stated his name like he was asked and then took a seat on the stand.
Carp and his jury consultant, Novoselic, huddled together and whispered. Eventually, after the judge cleared his throat, Carp got to his feet and asked a question. It didn’t matter to Kane what question he was asked. He knew how to answer it for Carp. He knew what defense attorneys were looking for in a juror.
“To your knowledge, is there anything that would preclude you from serving on this jury?” said Carp.
It was a bullshit question. Kane knew it. He expected that Carp knew it too. They just wanted to see what he’d do.
Kane let his eyes wander to the side. He paused. Blinked a few times. Then he looked back at Carp and finally said, “No. Not that I can think of.” The answer wasn’t important. What was important was that Kane let the defense see him think. Kane knew that a juror who was considered a thinker would find favor with the defense and wouldn’t necessarily upset the prosecution.
“Thank you. The defense accepts this juror,” said Carp.
Pryor turned around in his seat, spoke to an assistant DA behind him. The conversation p
roved brief. Pryor stood and eyeballed Kane, who in turn listened to the resting noises from his fellow jurors. A jury was a living, breathing thing. Sure, they were all individuals. Yet put them together and they became a beast. A beast that Kane had to tame.
It had been three, maybe four seconds since Pryor stood up. To Kane, it felt like minutes. The room grew quiet. The rustling of papers ceased. The white noise that emanated from a crowd dimmed. Pryor examined Kane. Their eyes met for the briefest of moments. Not even half a second. And yet in that fragment of time something passed between them. It felt to Kane like both men came to an understanding.
“Your Honor,” said Pryor, “the prosecution has no questions and we wish to reserve our position at this time.”
The judge told Kane to take a seat in the jury stand. He stood, exited the witness stand and made his way back to the chairs reserved for the jury. He sat in the first row, almost at the end.
A further hour passed, with the defense and the prosecution jettisoning fifteen more potential jurors. Like he did with Kane, Pryor reserved his position on seven more jurors. Kane looked around the stand, and with the extra chairs, there were twenty jurors seated.
Pryor dismissed another juror who’d had a background as a child actor, and might have some loose connection to Bobby Solomon.
Pryor didn’t sit back down. Instead he looked at the full jury stand. He took his time, and examined all twenty of them. Then he picked up his notepad and approached the judge.
“Your Honor, the prosecution can thank Mrs. McKee, Mrs. Mackel, Mr. Wilson and Mr. O’Connor for their services. They are no longer required. The prosecution is content that we have a jury.”
A man with salt-and-pepper hair stood up to the right of Kane, four seats along, and began to make his way out of the line of chairs. The man was able to skim past the knees of the other jurors, who were female and smaller, but Kane had to stand and move out of the row to let him past. The tall woman on Kane’s left stood to the side to let Kane and the dismissed juror out from the front row.
“All jurors move as far to their right as possible. Budge up, folks,” said Judge Ford.
The man brushed past Kane. When Kane turned back to the stand, he found the tall woman had taken his seat. She’d moved back into the line of chairs, before Kane, and moved to the right, along with the other jurors who were obeying the judge’s orders. The woman glanced up at Kane and smiled politely as he sat down in the seat she had been warming for the past half-hour. Kane did not return her gesture. She was in her fifties with auburn hair and wore a pale-blue sweater. The last of the women that Pryor had dismissed from the jury left the row behind Kane.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you are our jury,” said the Judge. “The first six of you in the back row, and the first six in the front row are jurors.”
Kane looked around.
“Starting from your right, that is,” said the judge. “The other four of you, the lady and two gentlemen in the back row, and the gentleman in the front row are our alternates.”
The tall woman had taken more than just Kane’s chair. She had taken his place on the jury. She looked pleased. Kane was now an alternate. He would watch the trial. He wouldn’t get access to the jury room. He wouldn’t get a vote on the jury. All because of the tall woman next to him.
Kane watched the clerk swear in the jury, assigning each of them a number. Kane was given the number thirteen. The other alternates behind him were fourteen, fifteen and sixteen.
The judge gave them a warning. Don’t read newspapers. Don’t watch the news. Purge all media commentary from your lives. Then the judge swore in the jury keeper, a court officer who would look after the jury – making sure they obeyed the rules.
The tall woman in the sweater, who had taken Kane’s place, Juror twelve, tilted back her head and whispered to Kane, “It’s fascinating, isn’t it?”
Kane simply nodded.
She spoke in a New Jersey accent. Kane could smell that morning’s cigarettes on her breath. It reminded him of his mother. Kane tried to focus on those memories. Anything to stop him thinking about his failure to get a seat on the jury. If he thought of all the preparation …
All blown away now. Like ash in the wind.
The judge spoke, breaking the rising anger inside Kane.
“Counselors, we had set aside two days for jury selection. We’ve got our jury early. I suggest we don’t waste the court’s time any further. This trial begins in the morning,” said Judge Ford.
“We’re ready, Your Honor. My client is eager to have his good name cleared, so that the police department can find the real killer,” said Carp.
The judge’s eyebrows shot up, as he threw Carp a look. Kane knew that Solomon’s lawyers would take any chance they could get to tell the jury their client was innocent. Kane guessed that some jurors would start to believe that if they heard it often enough.
The court officer who acted as jury keeper led them out of the courtroom one by one, into a cold beige corridor. Kane lined up behind the woman in the sweater and stopped. A female court officer was going down the line, handing out forms and pamphlets to the jurors on how they could keep their bosses happy, and how they claimed their jury fee.
The woman in the blue sweater put her back to the wall, fixed Kane with a fake smile and held out a hand. Even though the smile was fake, Kane could sense the boundless, chintzy energy that radiated from her. She was the kind of woman who bakes cakes for the elderly and then tells the old person how grateful they should be and how much work went into the cake.
“I’m Brenda. Brenda Kowolski,” she said.
Kane shook hands with her. Gave her his false name.
“This is my first time on jury duty. I’m really excited. I know we can’t talk about the case, but I just wanted to tell someone how amazing it is to me to be able to pay something back to the city. You know what I mean? Jury duty is part of being a good citizen, I think.”
He nodded.
The court officer gave a form and a pamphlet to Brenda, and then Kane.
“Any questions about the form speak to me. We don’t pay for or validate parking. Be back here at eight thirty in the a.m., tomorrow, please. Have a nice day,” said the officer.
Kane took the leaflet and the form and waved goodbye to Brenda as he walked away. It had been a long day for Kane. So much had gone right. And yet he hadn’t made the jury. He thought about slicing his arms that night with one of his knives. Not to kill. To cut. To feel the strange, prickling sensation of the tip of the blade slicing through the top layer of his skin. No pain. Just the warmth from his own blood on his skin.
“Bye for now. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Brenda.
Kane stopped, swiveled back to Brenda. He put on a broad smile, winked and said, “Not if I see you first.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
For a long time, neither Harper nor I knew what to say. If what Delaney had just said was correct, then Bobby Solomon was an innocent man. And Ariella and Carl were victims of a serial killer.
The press would love it.
My heartbeat quickened at the thought of it. We could subpoena Delaney and all her files. She could do her trick with the dollar, show the jury the pattern. She was an experienced, high-ranking FBI analyst. This was Bobby’s ticket to walk. I wanted to call Carp right away, but something at the back of my mind held me firm in my seat. Not yet. Get more. I needed to cool it, but I was too damn excited. Harper couldn’t keep the grin off her face. Her call had paid off. Big time.
“We can tell you everything,” I said, “for a price. Our client goes on trial this week. We need to subpoena you and your files. We’re gonna need you to testify in court to what you just told us,” I said.
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” said Delaney.
“What?” said Harper. She then thumped the flat of her hand on the table, making the laptop bounce.
At first I thought the fed was just holding out. She needed information from us. We nee
ded her testimony. This was a negotiation. Then I realized it wasn’t a negotiation. Delaney couldn’t testify to what she’d told us. And there was no way we could get a court order to compel her testimony.
“It’s a live investigation, isn’t it?” I said. Delaney pursed her lips and nodded.
“You can’t discuss it in open court, and we can’t make you. You’d be broadcasting what you know, and what you don’t know, straight to the killer,” I said.
“Right. Now, I need to know what case you’re working,” said Delaney.
She hadn’t really given us anything. No names. No real details. A few ink marks on dollar bills. It wasn’t enough. I felt sure there was more to it. Something else linking these murders. It had to be more than a few spots of ink. Even if Delaney could testify, it would take more than that to convince a jury. As it stood, we had enough for a good headline – but no story.
“We can’t reveal confidential client information,” I said.
“Bullshit. If your case is linked to my investigation – then maybe I’m the best hope you’ve got of getting your client off. Withholding information from me isn’t in your client’s best interests.”
“And what guarantee do we have that you’ll help our client?” I said.
“None, but it’s the only shot you’ve got.”
“No, it’s the only fresh lead you’ve got. I thought we had a deal. You need a name. We need three,” I said.
Delaney threw her elbows on the desk, cupped her face with her hands and sighed.
“I can’t let you have access to my case files, but I can leave this sketch on the desk for sixty seconds,” she said.
I reached into my pocket, drew out a roll of bills, peeled off a one and started copying the marks on the sketch directly onto the dollar.
“I can’t show you the files on Annie Hightower, Derek Cass, or … now what was the other one called?” she said, searching the ceiling with her eyes.
I got the picture.
Thirteen_The serial killer isn’t on trial. He’s on the jury Page 12