Dead and Gone

by Tina Glasneck

  She was also too tired to argue. She nodded. He rushed off to get towels and generally get his room in order. Within fifteen minutes, they were both asleep.

  LH File: Letter #8

  Date Oct. 23, 1994

  Investigation Status: Closed

  Contents: Classified

  Dear Tim,

  I think it’s about time we used each other’s Christian names, don’t you? That last article—that was what I wanted all along. Was that so hard? The police are inept, no one can find me, and I’m killing with impunity. If that doesn’t frighten the huddled masses, I don’t know what will.

  I confess I thought our partnership was a failure, but here we are, finally working together. I’m sure the police are thrilled. Maybe you don’t want to hand this letter over? Just a suggestion, but how long do you think it is before they begin to suspect you? Think about it: Maybe you’re just a reporter who wants attention. Maybe you’re writing these letters to yourself. You could even have multiple personalities and not know it. Sure, it’s crazy, but the police are desperate, Tim. How long before they go looking for a scapegoat? Hey, it can even be the same reporter that called them names. Think of how excited they would be.

  Is your blood pumping yet, Tim? I could help them, you know. I know where you live, I know where you eat, I know everything about you. I’ve even been in your room while you slept. Bet you didn’t know that, did you? I came to kill you, but thought better of it. You’re good at what you do. I’m good at what I do. There should be room in the world for two people of talent, don’t you think?

  But our time is fading. By Oct. 31, my time here will be up—at least for this year—and you… You could be in jail. Or dead. Or just mentally unhinged. Part of this is up to you. Your next article should hit the police even harder. They have suspects, I will tell you that. My favorite is Charles Holober, a paranoid schizophrenic that lives in Ashburn. The guy keeps dead fish in his drawer, Tim. He’s married, but there are all kinds of domestic trouble. He even cut her.

  Or there is always Mike Taylor down in Sterling. He’s been arrested for armed burglary twice in the past 10 years, so he knows how to get into houses. He could be their man.

  This county is filled with sickos and psychos, fools and fall guys. They’ll find someone that fits their bill. It won’t be me, but I can pretend, Tim. I know a lot about pretending.

  And so do you, it seems. I’ve seen your brave face to the public. I also know how you begged your bosses to help you. But you are starting to feel it, aren’t you? The burn, the weariness, the feeling that it will all be for nothing. She’s dead and you can’t bring her back. This story is making your career, but the price you are paying is your soul. Do what I want and you are nothing but a hack. Refuse me and you are nothing but a corpse.

  So let’s go out with a bang, shall we? Hit the police even harder, Tim. Pull no punches. Waste no ink. Let’s see what you really are.

  Yours Sincerely,

  Lord Halloween

  15

  Thursday, Oct. 19

  Quinn and Kate were careful not to walk into the office at the same time, lest they start any rumors. Quinn had rustled up some breakfast, drove them both to Starbucks, then let Kate arrive a good 15 minutes before he walked into the office.

  Still, as soon as he walked through the door, he could see Janus smirking. He caught Quinn near the vending machine where, after finishing his overpriced espresso, he was heading for a Coke.

  “So how did it go?” Janus asked. “You noticed I got out of there pretty quickly. I was hoping maybe a little adventure got the blood pumping and you two…”

  “Please silence the porn movie in your head,” Quinn said. “We were exhausted. We went to sleep.”

  “Yeah, but she stayed over right? You cuddled a little bit, right? Right?”

  Janus stared at Quinn for a moment.

  “You didn’t even cuddle, did you? Seriously, dude, everything was right. There was action, drama, a hint of romance—this always works.”

  “In the movies, Janus,” Quinn said. “In the real world, these things tend to tire you out.”

  But in the back of his mind, he wondered if that was true. They were both exhausted, but hadn’t he continued to feel that spark during their evening together? Should he have made a move? He remembered something then, a voice saying, “Don’t hesitate.” Who had told him that?

  “Thanks so much for bringing this up,” Quinn said.

  Janus clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Next time, make a move,” Janus responded.

  “Make a move on what?” Kate asked, walking up to them both.

  Quinn had to give Janus credit. If he had intended to embarrass Quinn, he could have easily done so. Hell, he could have simply let an awkward silence reign. Instead he immediately said, “He should have grabbed more files when he had the chance.”

  “Come on, he did great,” Kate said. “I thought we weren’t going to find anything.”

  With that, the three of them returned to their desks and began to work. They had divided up their investigation into Lord Halloween. Kate was cross-referencing previous victims with their addresses and occupations in an attempt to figure out if any had been killed in the Chronicle building and if any were connected to Tim Anderson.

  Quinn, meanwhile, was interrupted by Laurence to have a brief conversation in his office about the company’s sexual harassment policy. Glaring at Janus when he finally returned to his desk, Quinn started looking through old clips of Anderson’s and doing some Internet research to find out if the reporter was still alive. One thing was clear: Anderson was not on the official victim’s list. He wasn’t even officially labeled missing. So whatever had happened, no one had made it public.

  Since neither was supposed to be doing their investigation during work hours, they both also had to keep handling their normal workload, with Quinn writing up his story on the ghost hunter while Kate finished off the piece on Madame Zora.

  After a few hours, Quinn was growing increasingly frustrated. He had gone to the library and managed to find microfiche on the Loudoun Chronicle and read Anderson’s work. Quinn thought it was some of the best writing he had ever seen. Anderson should have easily made his way beyond the Chronicle to the Post or even The New York Times. But in a search of LexisNexis later, Quinn found no by-line by that name or others like it. Assuming Anderson was alive, he hadn’t kept writing—at least not under his own name.

  He was probably dead, Quinn thought. But something about that last letter from Lord Halloween made him wonder about that. The letter had said Anderson passed some kind of test. It had warned him to leave, but it hadn’t threatened to kill him. Additionally, Lord Halloween was anything but subtle. If he had killed Anderson, wouldn’t he have left a calling card? He did with everyone else.

  But if Anderson had left, where had he gone? What was he doing? And if it wasn’t his blood in the basement of the building, whose was it?

  An idea popped into Quinn’s head. He got up suddenly from his desk and wandered over to where Alexis was.

  “Alexis, I was wondering if you could help me out?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said, turning in her chair to face him. “What’s up?”

  “That story you did a couple months ago on how teachers are cracking down on kids who use the Internet to copy term papers,” Quinn said. “You mentioned someone was selling software to help catch them. How did it work?”

  Alexis was clearly excited. She often felt like she was considered the unimportant part of the paper, but clearly Quinn was reading her work. It mattered to him.

  “It’s sold over the Internet,” she said. “It’s just software that detects patterns in a document and looks for it elsewhere. So if a kid copied a term paper from the Internet, it would catch that immediately.”

  “But could it also find phrases? Something that literally wasn’t the same exact document?”

  “Yes,” she said. “At least, I think that’s the idea
.”

  “Great,” Quinn said. “Where can I buy it?”

  Kate and Quinn met again for dinner that evening and he had trouble taking his eyes off Kate. When he showed up at the hotel, he hadn’t been expecting her to dress up. But she came downstairs looking amazing. He had suddenly felt embarrassed about his own appearance.

  He chose the King’s Court Tavern right near the center of town and Quinn was surprised when Kate asked for a romantically lit table in the far corner. Then he figured it out: it was much better to discuss their investigation without being overheard. When the waiter had finished taking their drink orders, Quinn started.

  “So I did some digging,” he said. “Thomas Fillmore.”

  Kate gave him a blank look.

  “Should the name mean anything to me?”

  Quinn looked around to ensure no one else could hear.

  “That’s Tim Anderson,” he said. “He goes by Thomas Fillmore. Lord Halloween let him live.”

  “How the hell do you know that? And why does that name sound familiar?”

  “Let’s start at the beginning. I think Lord Halloween let Tim go, but also told him to get lost. So he does. But where does he go? And what is he going to do?”

  “He could go anywhere or do anything,” Kate responded.

  “Go anywhere? Yes. Do anything? I don’t think so,” Quinn said. “If you looked at his writing, it’s exceptional. I think I’m pretty good, but this guy was much, much better. I’m sure Lord Halloween put him off journalism for some period of time, but in 12 years, is the guy liable to give it up altogether?”

  “He could go into PR,” she said.

  “Not a guy like this,” Quinn said excitedly. “This is his talent. I’ve met people who are good at a couple things, but never one who is exceptional at more than one. Frankly, I don’t know what I would do if I left journalism and PR is not a viable option for me. So wherever Tim went, it’s a safe bet he’s a reporter.”

  “And Fillmore is a reporter?”

  “He’s now the editor of the Bluemont Gazette in West Virginia,” Quinn said.

  “Hasn’t that paper won a few awards?” she said.

  Quinn put his finger to his nose. “Bingo,” he said.

  “There are more than two good writers in the world,” Kate said.

  “I paid $30 to buy some software that helps track down kids that are cheating in school. You know, they don’t write that paper on Great Expectations, but instead just download it from the Internet? The software tracks phrases, even writing style, to help a teacher figure out if something is plagiarized. So it also can be used to scout through newspaper articles looking for someone who is ripping off someone else. If that’s true, Fillmore is the biggest copycat of Anderson I’ve ever seen.”

  “How so?”

  “Every writer establishes a style and we tend to fall back on the same turns of phrase, over and over. Anderson was dramatic but concise. In 1994, he wrote a story about the victim of a shooting that started: ‘Violence was the thing that Carlos Ramirez fled from in El Salvador to start a new life in the United States, but it caught up with him on Friday night.’ In 2003, Fillmore wrote this: ‘Violence has been a factor in the life of Harry Davids since he was a teenager, but it finally caught up with him on Saturday night.’”

  “Not conclusive,” Kate said, but she was looking excited.

  “No, but do you know how many matches I had by loading up Anderson’s old articles into the software? Throughout the country, I got as many as two hundred to three hundred hits on a single reporter using the same kinds of phrases. That’s not that weird, because not everything is unique. With Fillmore, that number is two thousand, five hundred and sixty-one. That’s how many hits come out. Call it a writing signature.”

  Kate looked up at him.

  “Quinn, you are a genius,” she said. She leaned across the table and kissed him again. This time, the kiss seemed to linger for a second or two longer.

  “Where is Fillmore now?”

  “Still sitting in Bluemont, less than two hours’ drive,” Quinn said.

  “Why wouldn’t he go further away?” Kate asked. “I would think he’d be in New Zealand by now.”

  Quinn paused. “You are a fine one to talk,” he said.

  “But I’m…” she stumbled. “Actually, it’s a good point. I don’t know why I’m here either.”

  “Maybe he just couldn’t get away,” he said.

  “Or maybe he’s Lord Halloween,” Kate said.

  Quinn whistled. “What makes you say that?”

  “Come on, he writes letters to himself, that’s not so hard,” Kate said. “One of the last letters even suggests as much.”

  “He’s drawing attention to himself,” Quinn said.

  “And Lord Halloween lived for that,” Kate said. “Anderson is a key to this puzzle. There is no doubt about it. Either he is Lord Halloween, or there is something very specific he wanted from Anderson.”

  But Quinn remembered something he couldn’t quite place. Hadn’t someone told him to look “for the victim that still lives?” For the life of him, however, he couldn’t place who had told him that. He had a hunch that Fillmore wasn’t the killer, however.

  “Either way, it sounds like a field trip is in order,” Quinn said.

  “Agreed,” she said. “You have weekend plans?”

  “I do now.”

  After dinner, Quinn prepared to walk her home again.

  “I need to stop by work first,” she said as they got outside. It was just around the corner from the restaurant.

  “You’ll be back there again tomorrow,” he said.

  “I know, but I left some stuff I wanted to read over tonight,” she said. “Fillmore still sounds familiar to me. I want to look at some of my research and see if I’ve come across the name before.”

  They arrived at the Chronicle and Quinn pulled out his key.

  The office was dark and seemed foreboding at night. Neither Quinn nor Kate mentioned it, but both hurried through the reception area, past the advertising section and into the editorial room.

  Kate stopped.

  “Did you hear something?” she asked.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Quinn replied. He looked around. All the offices were dark, lit only by a faint light from the front reception area. “Let’s grab your stuff and get out of here. I don’t want to be more creeped out than I already am.”

  They paused a moment, heard nothing and she headed for her desk. She started rustling around.

  “Quinn, turn on the light on my desk, will you?” she asked as she opened up her file drawer.

  Quinn fumbled for the switch on the desk, found it and flipped on the light.

  He glanced at the computer area and saw some print-outs on the left-hand side. There was a post-it note stuck to one.

  He picked up the stack.

  “Is this it?” he asked. “It looks like you labeled this stack.”

  He held up the stack to the light and froze.

  The note wasn’t a label.

  “I don’t think I labeled it,” she said, shutting the file drawer and looking up at the papers.

  “Oh my God,” he said.

  She read the note over his shoulder.

  “He was here,” she said. “And he knows.”

  The post-it note was simple: “See you soon, Trina.”

  Both of them looked at each other and then around the office.

  “He could still be here,” Quinn said quietly. “We should get out of here. Right now.”

  She grabbed his arm and reached into her purse. She pulled out a gun.

  “Fuck,” he said. “I didn’t know you…”

  She put a finger to her lips and the two carefully moved back toward the front door. They moved slowly, waiting for any sound, and she held the weapon out in front of her. They passed through the advertising section and Quinn thought he saw movement on the side.

  But when he looked again, it was only his shadow on the
wall.

  Quinn looked to the front, while she kept an eye out behind them. Quinn felt like they were moving too slow. He fought down the urge to grab her and bolt toward the door.

  At the reception desk, both jumped as the phone at the front rang. Kate pointed the gun at it.

  “It’s past 10 o’clock,” Quinn said. “Who the hell would be calling?”

  “Pick it up,” Kate said.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.

  “Pick it up,” Kate said.

  Quinn slowly reached over the desk and did so. He stared at the receiver and picked it up.

  “Loudoun Chronicle,” he said. “Hello.”

  There was no answer. At first, he wondered if it was a hang up. But then he distinctly heard the sound of breathing on the other end.

  “Who is this?” he asked.

  No response.

  He walked around the desk and looked at the phone more carefully.

  He dropped the phone, grabbed Kate and the two of them ran out the door.

  “What did he say?” Kate demanded, still holding the gun in her hand as they ran down the street.

  “Nothing,” Quinn replied.

  “Then why are we running?”

  “It was an internal call,” Quinn said. “He was in there.”

  Quinn and Kate fled into the darkness.

  16

  Friday, Oct. 20

  Quinn woke up stiff from sleeping on the couch all night. He looked at the clock. It was barely past 5 in the morning. He was not surprised.

  Last night’s adventure had him so wired he had taken more than three hours to fall asleep. And even in his dreams, he seemed to be keeping a close eye on the door.

  Kate was in his bedroom—the two of them having mutually decided that it was best to stay together. Quinn wasn’t sure to whose advantage that was. She had a gun and seemed to know how to use it. Of course, she was also the one being hunted.