The Poet (1995)

by Michael Connelly

  As a police reporter I was a tourist of the macabre. I moved from murder to murder, horror to horror without blinking an eye. Supposedly. As I walked back in through the lobby toward the bank of elevators I thought about what this said about me. Maybe something was wrong with me.

  Why was the spot where Hinckley waited important to me?

  "Jack?"

  I turned around at the elevators. It was Michael Warren.

  "Hey."

  "I called your room . . . I thought you might be around."

  "I was just taking a walk. I was beginning to give up on you."

  I said it with a smile and a lot of hope. This moment would determine a lot of things for me. He was no longer in the suit he had on at his office. It was blue jeans and a sweater. He had a long tweed coat over his arm. He was following the pattern of a confidential source, coming in person rather than leaving a possible phone record.

  "You want to go up to the room or talk down here?"

  He moved toward the elevator saying, "Your room."

  We didn't speak in the elevator of anything of consequence. I looked at his clothes again and said, "You've already been home."

  "I live off Connecticut on the other side of the beltway. Maryland. Wasn't that far."

  I knew that was a toll call and that was why he hadn't called first. I also figured that the hotel was on the way from his house to the foundation. I was beginning to feel the small tick of excitement in my chest. Warren was going to turn.

  There was a damp smell in the hallway that seemed to be the same in every hotel I had ever been in. I got out my card key and let him into my room. My computer was still open on the little desk and my long coat and the one tie I had brought with me were thrown across the bed. Otherwise, the room was neat. He threw his coat on the bed and we took the only chairs in the room.

  "So what's going on?" I asked.

  "I did a search."

  He started to take a folded paper out of his back pocket.

  "I have access to main computer files," he said. "Before I left for the day, I went in and searched the field reports for victims who were homicide detectives. There were only thirteen. I have names, departments and dates of death here on a printout."

  He offered me the unfolded page and I took it from him as gently as if it were a sheet of gold.

  "Thank you," I said. "Will there be a record of your search?"

  "I don't really know. But I don't think so. It's a pretty wide-open system. I don't know if there's a security trace option or not."

  "Thank you," I said again. I didn't know what else to say.

  "Anyway, that was the easy part," he said. "Going through the protocols in file storage, that's going to take some time . . . I wanted to know if you'd want to help. You'd probably know better than me which ones were important."

  "When?"

  "Tonight. It's the only time. The place will be closed up but I have a key to file storage because sometimes I have to dig out old things for media requests. If we don't do it tonight the hard-copy files may be gone tomorrow. I have a feeling the FBI isn't going to like them sitting up here, especially knowing you asked for them. They'll come and grab them first thing tomorrow."

  "Is that what Ford said?"

  "Not exactly. I heard it through Oline. He talked to Rachel Walling, not Backus. He said she's-"

  "Wait a minute. Rachel Walling?"

  I knew the name. I took a moment but then I remembered she was the profiler who had signed the VICAP survey Sean had submitted on Theresa Lofton.

  "Yes, Rachel Walling. She's a profiler down there. Why?"

  "Nothing. The name's familiar."

  "She works for Backus. Sort of the liaison between the center and the foundation on the suicide project. Anyway, Oline says she told Ford she's going to take a look at all of this. She might even want to talk to you."

  "If I don't talk to her first." I stood up. "Let's go."

  "Listen, one thing." He stood up. "I didn't do this, okay? You use these files as an investigative tool only. You never publish a story that says you had access to foundation files. You never admit that you even saw a file. It could be my job. Do you agree?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Then say it."

  "I agree. To all of it."

  We headed toward the door.

  "It's funny," he said. "All those years procuring sources. I never really realized what they were risking for me. Now I do. It's kind of scary."

  I just looked at him and nodded. I was afraid if I said anything he'd change his mind and go home.

  On the way to the foundation in his car, he added a few more ground rules.

  "I am not to be a named source in your story, okay?"

  "Okay."

  "And any information from me cannot be attributed to a 'foundation source,' either. Just a 'source familiar with the investigation,' okay? That gives me some cover."

  "Okay."

  "What you're looking for here are names that might be connected to your guy. If you find them, fine, but later on you don't have to report on how you got them. Do you understand?"

  "Yeah, we've been over this. You're safe, Mike, I don't give up sources. Ever. All I'll do is use what we get here to get other confirmation. It'll be the blueprint. It's no problem."

  He was quiet for a few moments before doubts must have crept into his mind.

  "He's going to know it's me, anyway."

  "Then why don't we stop? I don't want to jeopardize your job. I'll just wait for the bureau."

  I didn't want to do that but I had to give him the option. I wasn't that far gone yet that I'd talk a guy into losing his job just to get information for a story. I didn't want that on my conscience. There was enough there already.

  "You can forget the FBI as long as it's Walling's case."

  "You know her? She tough?"

  "Yeah, one of those as hard as nails with fingernail polish on. I tried shooting the shit with her once. She just shut me down. From what I hear from Oline, she got divorced or something a while back. I guess she's still in her 'men are pigs' mode and it's looking permanent to me."

  I held up saying anything. Warren had to make a decision and I couldn't help.

  "Don't worry about Ford," he finally said. "He may think it's me but he won't be able to do anything about it. I'll deny. So, unless you break the agreement, he'll have nothing but his suspicions."

  "You've got nothing to worry about with me."

  He found a spot on Constitution a half block from the foundation and parked. Our breath was coming out in thick clouds when we got out. I was nervous, whether or not he thought his job was in danger. I think we both were.

  There was no guard to be fooled. No staff members working overtime to surprise us. We got in the front door with Warren's key and he knew right where we were going.

  The file storage room was about the size of a double-wide garage and was taken up by rows of eight-foot steel shelves stacked with manila files with different colored tabs.

  "How're we going to do this?" I whispered.

  He took the folded printout from his pocket.

  "There's a section on the suicide study. We look up these names, take the protocols to my office and copy the pages we need. I left the copier on when I left. Won't even have to warm it up. And you don't have to whisper. There's nobody here."

  I noticed he said "we" one too many times but I didn't say anything about it. He led me down one of the aisles, his finger out and pointing as he read the program headings printed on the shelves. Eventually, he found the heading for the suicide study. The files had red tabs on them.

  "These here," Warren said, raising his hand to point.

  The files were thin, yet they took up three complete shelves. Oline Fredrick had been right, there were hundreds. Each red tag protruding from a file was a death. There was a lot of misery on the shelves. Now I had to hope that a few of them didn't belong there. Warren handed me the printout and I scanned the thirteen names.


  "Out of all of these files only thirteen were homicide cops?"

  "Yeah. The project has accumulated data on over sixteen hundred suicides. About three hundred a year. But most are street cops. Homicide dicks see the bodies but I guess for them the misery is over by the time they get there. They're usually the best and the brightest and the toughest. Seems like less of them eat the gun than the cops out on the beat. So I only came up with thirteen. Your brother and Brooks in Chicago also came up but I figured you have that stuff."

  I just nodded.

  "They should be alphabetical," he said. "Read me the names on the list and I'll pull the files. And give me your notebook."

  It took less than five minutes to pull the files. Warren tore blank pages from my notebook and marked the spots in the stacks so they could be slipped back in quickly when we were done. It was intense work. It wasn't meeting a source like Deep Throat in a parking garage to help take down a president but my adrenaline was flowing anyway.

  Still, the same rules applied. A source, no matter what his information is, has a reason, a motive, for putting himself on the line for you. I looked at Warren and couldn't see the true motive. It was a good story but it wasn't his story. He got nothing from helping other than knowing he had helped. Was that enough? I didn't know but I decided that at the same time that we were entering this sacred bond of reporter and secret source, I had to keep him at arm's length. Until I knew the true motive.

  Files in hand, we walked quickly down two hallways until we got to room 303. Warren suddenly stopped and I almost rammed into him from behind. The door to his office was open two inches. He pointed to it and shook his head, signaling that he hadn't left it that way. I raised and dropped my shoulders, signaling back that it was his call. He leaned an ear toward the crack and listened. I heard something, too. It sounded like the crunching of papers, then a swishing sound. I felt a cold finger moving over my scalp. Warren turned back to me with a curious look on his face when suddenly the door swung inward and open.

  It was like dominoes. Warren made a startled move, followed by me and then the small Asian man who stood there in the doorway with a feather duster in one hand and a trash bag in the other. We all took a moment to get our normal breathing going again.

  "Sorry, mister," the Asian man said. "I clean your office."

  "Oh, yeah," Warren said, smiling. "That's fine. That's good."

  "You left copy machine on."

  With that, he carried his goods down the hallway and used a key attached by a chain to his belt to get into the next office down. I looked at Warren and smiled.

  "You're right, you're no Deep Throat."

  "You're no Robert Redford. Let's go."

  He told me to close the door, then turned the compact photocopy machine back on and moved around behind his desk, files in hand. I sat in the same chair I had been in earlier in the day.

  "Okay," he said. "Let's start going through them. There should be a synopsis section in each protocol. Any kind of note or other significant detail should be there. If you think it fits, copy it."

  We started going through the files. As much as I liked him, I didn't like the idea of letting him decide in half of the cases if they fit into my theory. I wanted to look at all of them.

  "Remember," I said, "we're looking for any kind of flowery language that might sound like literature or a poem or whatever."

  He closed the file he was looking at and dropped it on the stack.

  "What?"

  "You don't trust me to do this."

  "No. I just . . . I want to make sure we're both on the same wavelength about this, that's all."

  "Look, this is ridiculous," he said. "Let's just copy them all and get out of here. You can take them to your hotel and go through them there. It's quicker and safer. You don't need me."

  I nodded and realized it was the way we should have done it all along. For the next fifteen minutes he operated the copier while I took the protocols from the files and replaced them after they were copied. It was a slow machine, not made for heavy use.

  When we were done he turned off the machine and told me to wait in the office.

  "I forgot about the cleaners. It might be better if I just take these back to storage, then come get you."

  "Okay."

  I started looking through the copied protocols while he was gone but was too nervous to concentrate on them. I felt like running out the door with the copies and getting away before anything could go wrong. I looked around his office to try to pass the time. I picked up the photo of Warren's family. A pretty, petite wife and two kids, a boy and a girl. Both of preschool age in the photo. The door opened while the frame was still in my hand. It was Warren and I felt embarrassed. He paid no notice.

  "Okay, we're ready."

  And like two spies we snuck out under cover of darkness.

  Warren was silent almost all the way back to the hotel. I think it was because his involvement was over and he knew it. I was the reporter. He was the source. It was my story. I felt his jealousy and desire. For the story. For the job. For what he'd once been and had.

  "Why'd you really quit, man?" I asked.

  This time he dropped the bullshit.

  "My wife, family. I was never home. One crisis after another, you know. I had to cover them all. Finally, I had to make a choice. Some days I think I made the right one. Some days I don't. This is one of those that I don't. This is a hell of a story, Jack."

  Now I was silent for a while. Warren drove into the hotel's main entrance and headed around the circle to the doors. He pointed through the windshield to the right side of the hotel.

  "See down there? That's where Reagan got it. I was there. Fuckin' five feet from Hinckley while we were waiting. He even asked me what time it was. Almost no other reporters were out there. Back then, most of them didn't bother staking his exits. But they did after that."

  "Wow."

  "Yeah, that was a highlight."

  I looked over at him and nodded seriously and then we both laughed. We both knew the secret. Only in a reporter's world would it be a highlight. We both knew that probably the only thing better than witnessing a presidential assassination attempt as a reporter was witnessing a successful assassination. Just as long as you didn't catch a bullet in the crossfire.

  He pulled over at the door and I got out and leaned my head back into the car.

  "You're showing your true identity there, pal."

  He smiled.

  "Maybe."

  16

  Each of the thirteen files was thin, containing the five-page protocol questionnaire supplied by the FBI and the foundation, and usually just a few more pages of ancillary notes or testimonials to the pressures of the job from colleagues of the deceased.

  Most of the stories were the same. Job stress, alcohol, marital difficulty, depression. A basic formula for the police blues. But depression was the key ingredient. In almost all of the files depression of one sort or another was reported as attacking the victim from inside the job. However, only a handful mentioned that the victims were troubled by any specific case, unsolved or otherwise, that they had been assigned to investigate.

  I did a quick read-through of the conclusion segment of each of the protocols and quickly eliminated several of the cases from my investigation because of varying factors ranging from the suicides being witnessed by others to their taking place under circumstances precluding a setup.

  The remaining eight cases were going to be more difficult to whittle down because each, at least in the summary remarks, seemed to fit. In each of these cases there was some mention of specific cases burdening the victim. The burden of an unsolved case and the quotes from Poe were really all I had as far as a pattern went. So I stayed with it and made it the standard by which I judged whether these eight remaining cases could be part of a series of false suicides.

  Following this as my own protocol led to the dropping of two more cases when I found references to the suicide notes. In each, the vict
im wrote to a specific person, a mother in one, a wife in the other, and asked for forgiveness and understanding. The notes contained nothing resembling a line of poetry or, actually, any kind of literature. I dropped them and then I had six.