“Yeah, I agree. You definitely do. I wonder who he ‘models’ himself after? You got any ideas?”
“No, but I bet Alex will.”
Bree hung up, then tried Alex and Sampson. She reached voice mail for both of them and left the same message: “Hey, it’s me. Something just came up. Another posted message from our Audience Killer, now signing off with the shortened form ‘DCAK.’ I’m moving on it as soon as I have an address. I hope one of you will get this before then, but I’m lining up a backup unit in the meantime. Call me ASAP.”
Bree knew she’d work better with her partners than with a couple of uniformed cops, but the second she had a name and address, it would be go time.
DCAK wanted to know her better—well, he just might get his wish soon.
Chapter 51
I SAW THE LIGHT on my phone flashing, but I didn’t answer calls during therapy sessions. So I let it go for the moment, and then I worried about it.
“Who was that I saw on my way in here?” Anthony Demao was asking. I had to juggle my clients’ schedules around some to accommodate my new lifestyle. “Another cuckoo clock like me?”
I smiled at Anthony’s usual irreverence. “Neither of you is cuckoo. Well, maybe a little.”
“Well, she may be crazy, a little crazy, but she sure is good-looking. She gave me a smile. I think it was a smile. She’s shy, right? I can tell.”
He was talking about Sandy Quinlan, my schoolteacher patient. Sandy was attractive, a good lady, maybe a little cuckoo, but who wasn’t these days?
I changed the subject. Anthony certainly wasn’t here to talk about my other patients. “Last time, you started to tell me about your army unit’s push toward Basra,” I said. “Can we talk about that today?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “That’s what I’m here for, right? You fix cuckoo clocks.”
After Anthony Demao left, I checked my voice mail. Bree. I caught up with her on her cell.
“Good timing,” she said. “I’m in the car with Sampson. We’ll come get you. Guess what? It looks like you were right again. Must get boring.”
“What was I right about?”
“Copycat. On the G.W. Parkway with those kids. That’s what DCAK says, anyway. Says he did FedExField but not the two murders on the overpass.”
“Well, he would probably know.”
I met Bree and Sampson on Seventh Street and climbed into the back of her Highlander. “Where are we going?” I asked as she pulled out in a hurry.
Bree explained as she drove, but I had to interrupt her halfway through. “Hold on, Bree. He used your name? He knows about you too? What are we doing with that?”
“Nothing, for now,” she said. “I’m feeling pretty special, though. How ’bout you? You feeling honored?”
Sampson shrugged at me in a way that said he’d already had the same conversation with her and obviously with the same result. Bree showed no fears, at least I’d never seen any.
“By the way,” Bree said, “he claims he models himself after people. Any ideas on that?”
“Kyle Craig,” I said. It just came out. “Let me think about it some.”
Kitzmiller had provided Bree with the name Braden Thompson, a systems analyst with a firm called Captech Engineering. We double-parked outside Captech’s dull, modern-looking building, then took the elevator up to the fourth floor.
“Braden Thompson?” Bree asked the receptionist, and held up her MPD badge and card.
The woman picked up her phone, her eyes still on Bree’s creds. “I’ll see if he’s available.”
“No, no. He’s available, trust me. Just point the way. We’ll find him. We’re detectives.”
We walked calmly and quietly through the bustling office but didn’t make any less of a scene for it. Secretaries’ heads turned, office doors opened, and workers checked us out as if we were here with the take-out food.
A white plastic plaque etched with Thompson’s name marked a windowed office on the north side of the building. Bree opened the door without knocking.
“Can I help you?” Braden Thompson was about what you’d expect for somebody working here: paunchy, fortysomething white guy in a short-sleeved shirt and tie, possibly a clip-on.
“Mr. Thompson, we’d like to talk with you,” Bree said. “We’re Metro Police.”
He looked past her at me and Sampson. “All three of you?”
“That’s right.” Bree was inscrutable. And the truth was, none of us wanted to miss this interview. “You’re an important guy.”
Chapter 52
“BRADY, IS EVERYTHING OKAY?” a high-pitched female voice asked Thompson from behind us.
“It’s fine, Ms. Blanco. I don’t need any help. Thank you, Barbara.” He motioned for us to come inside. “Close the door, please.”
As soon as we were alone with him, his voice went up a step too. “What are you people doing? This is my place of business.”
“Do you know why we’re here?” Bree asked.
“I know exactly why you’re here. Because I exercised my First Amendment rights. I didn’t break any laws, and I’d like you to leave. Now. You all remember the way to the door?”
Sampson stepped forward. “Brady, is it?” He looked over the things on Thompson’s desk as he continued. “I was just wondering how your bosses here might feel about that creepy little Web site of yours. You think they’ll be cool with it?”
Thompson pointed an index finger at him. “I haven’t done anything illegal. I’m well within my rights.”
“Yeah,” Sampson said. “That really wasn’t my question, though. I just wondered how your employer might feel about SerialTimes.net.”
“You have no right to use that information if I haven’t broken the law.”
“In fact, we do,” I put in. “But we’re assuming we won’t have to, because we’re assuming you’re going to tell us where that message came from.”
“First of all, Detective, I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to. DCAK’s not an idiot, okay? Haven’t you figured that out for yourselves by now? And second, I’m not fifteen years old. You’ll have to do better than you’re doing. A lot better.”
“Do you mean like a subpoena for your home system?” Bree asked. “We can do that.”
Thompson adjusted his glasses and sat back now, beginning to like the position he was in. I could see why. I wasn’t sure that we could get a subpoena for his home system, much less arrest him. “Actually, no. Assuming you don’t have your subpoena with you—probably because you were just too damn eager to get over here—I can make sure that my server doesn’t have anything more than Peanuts cartoons on it by the time you get there. And I don’t even have to leave this chair to do it.”
He looked up at us, calm as could be now. “You obviously don’t know much about information transfer.”
“Do you know what the hell is going on out there in the real world?” I finally said. “Do you have any interest in seeing someone like that murderer stopped?”
“Of course I do,” he snapped back. “Stop insulting my intelligence and think about it for a second. The big picture? Constitutional rights—your rights, my rights—hinge on exactly this kind of thing. I have the right to do everything I did, and I don’t just mean that morally. It’s your job to uphold the Constitution, Detectives, and it’s our job, as citizens, to make sure that you do. See how it works?”
“See how this works?” Sampson lunged, but we caught him in time. Everything on one side of Thompson’s desk went flying.
Brady stood up, a bit brazen even, as Sampson stared at him. “I think we’re done here,” he said.
But Sampson wasn’t. “You know what—”
“Yes,” Bree said. “We’re done, Brady. For the moment, anyway. We’re leaving.”
As we turned to go, Thompson spoke again, more conciliatory than before. “Detectives? You obviously think my little posting is real or you wouldn’t be here. Will you just tell me if it has something to do with the iconography?”
This guy was a true fan, a real freak. He couldn’t help himself, could he?
Bree couldn’t help herself either. With the door halfway open and a small crowd of office workers gathered behind her, she turned to face Braden Thompson.
“I can’t comment on that, sir. Not at this time. But let me reassure you that we won’t mention your Web site, SerialTimes.net, anywhere outside this office unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Bree smiled at Braden Thompson, then lowered her voice. “Keep on living, fucker.”
Chapter 53
PISSED OFF AT THE WORLD in general, and at Braden Thompson in particular, the three of us showed up at the Daly Building. We didn’t get very far before Superintendent Davies headed us off. “Over here,” he barked, then turned and walked back to his office. “The three of you, now.”
We looked at one another, not liking the vibe.
“Why do I feel like I’m about to get detention and miss football practice?” Sampson muttered.
“Yeah,” Bree said, “and cheerleading practice too. Oh, wait, I wasn’t ever a cheerleader.”
Bree and I wiped the smirks off our faces before we went in.
“Can you explain this?” Davies flipped a newspaper around on his desk.
There was a story above the fold in the Post’s metro section, “Audience Killer Copycat Theory Surfaces.”
I wasn’t surprised by the headline so much as reminded about how fast these stories can spread and get out to the press.
Bree answered for the group. “We just learned about it this morning ourselves. Even right now we’re coming from—”
“Don’t give me a lot of explanations, Detective Stone. In my book, that’s only a step up from an excuse. Just do something about it.” He twisted his neck a few times, as if he were trying to undo the pain we’d put there.
“Excuse me, sir,” Bree said. “This isn’t the kind of information we can control. Not once it’s been—”
Davies cut her off again. “I don’t need a lesson in damage control. I need you to take care of the mess. This is Major Case Squad. Your superiors aren’t a safety net. You need to respond to the problems before I ask you to respond to them. Do you understand me?”
“Of course I understand you,” Bree said. “I don’t need a lesson in damage control either. Apparently, neither does DCAK.”
Suddenly, Davies smiled, and it was totally unexpected. “You see why I like her?” he asked Sampson and me.
Yeah, I was pretty sure that I did.
Chapter 54
THERE WAS NO NEW PART for DCAK to play today, no gruesome murder planned. So the killer was just being himself. He decided to go online again before dinner, couldn’t resist hearing about himself. And he wasn’t disappointed.
The message boards on the Internet were full of chatter about DCAK! True, much of it was tabloid or fantasy stuff, but that didn’t matter. The point was, they were talking.
SerialTimes didn’t have anything new. Neither did Sicknet or SKcentral. That made sense. His fans were waiting for his next move.
Finally he clicked into a couple of the chats. It was good to be among “his people” at the end of a long day. He even used a first name here, as a “gift” to them. Not that anyone would know that he did, but the contact felt more personal. Besides, he was into dropping clues.
In his honor, of course.
AARON_AARON: What’s up, DCAK lovers?
GINSOAKED: Copycat, duh. Where you been?
AARON_AARON: No shit, duh. What else? Anybody? Anything?
REDRUM5: Been quiet. Busy weekend. He deserves some rest, right? Any day now, bet. Watch his smoke!!!!
DCAK-FAN: How do you know so much?
REDRUM5: I don’t. Just a theory of mine. Just my opinion. Okay with you?
AARON_AARON: Maybe he’s been busy already today.
DCAK-FAN: Busy, like what?
The killer sipped the white wine he’d poured for himself, a nice chardonnay. He deserved it. He didn’t like to brag, but then again, that’s not what this was. More like stepping into the light. Or having a curtain call after a brilliant performance.
AARON_AARON: Okay, what if he copycatted himself? Think about it for a sec.
GINSOAKED: You mean, like, he did the parkway and FedExField and then said he didn’t do it?
AARON_AARON: Yeah, exactly. What if?
GINSOAKED: Freakin’ brill.
ADAMEVE: I’m all over that too.
REDRUM5: No way. Did you read the public file? Any of you?
AARON_AARON: So what? I wouldn’t put it past him. This dude is a total master mindfucker. I’m sure we won’t be able to guess what’s coming next. Hey, by the way, what does everybody think about that dude Kyle Craig getting out of stir early?
DCAK-FAN: K.C. is so yesterday, man. Who cares?
The killer looked up from his computer. He was being summoned.
“Dinner’s ready! Come and get it or I’ll throw it away.”
Chapter 55
THE PRESS CONFERENCE SCHEDULED for this afternoon was Bree’s first as lead investigator on a murder case anywhere near this size. She’d spoken with reporters plenty of times, just not a room filled with every media type in the city and several national outlets too—which was what we were expecting today. At least that.
“Will you go up there with me?” she asked. We were working over the prepared statement in her office. “The press knows you, and the public has seen you before. I think it’ll send the right signal to keep things a little calmer.”
I looked up from the draft in front of me. “Yeah, sure. If that’s what you want.”
“Yeah, that’s what I want. Okay, I’m nervous,” Bree said next, surprising me with the admission.
“You’ll do great,” I told her, because I believed it to be true. “Introduce me at the beginning, and then you’ll have a seamless pass-off if there’s anything you want me to take. I’ll just be there for backup.”
Bree finally grinned. “Thanks. You’re the best.”
Right, and isn’t that what got me involved in this mess?
But then she gave me a big hug and whispered, “I love you. And I look forward to paying the debt. I really look forward to that.”
We got to our improvised pressroom at four thirty, plenty of time to make the six o’clock news, which was the whole idea. Every seat was already taken, plus there were reporters and cameras gathered in a U around the perimeter. “Dr. Cross! Detective Stone!” the photographers called out our names, trying to get a good shot.
“Never let ’em see you sweat,” I said to Bree.
“Too late for that.”
She stepped to the podium, introduced me, and began her statement without using notes. She’s smooth, good at this, I thought, very poised and confident. The press liked her too. I could tell that right away.
I stood to the side, just close enough to be in Bree’s peripheral vision when the questions came.
The first couple were softballs that she handled easily. No hits, no runs, no errors.
Tim Pullman from Channel Four got in the first toughie. “Detective, will you now confirm the existence of a copycat killer? Or is it just conjecture?”
The question made me wonder if he had even listened to her initial statement, but Bree patiently went over it all again.
“Tim, the evidence points that way—toward a copycat—but we’re not in a position to rule anything in or out conclusively, pending further investigation of the message that was sent. We’re on it. The FBI is involved too. Everybody is working overtime, believe me.”
“When you say message, do you mean the posting on SerialTimes?” someone yelled out from the back.
“That’s right, Carl. Like I said a minute ago. If you were listening?”
The same reporter continued, undeterred by Bree’s mild zinger. He was a short redheaded man whom I recognized from one of the cable channels. “Detective, can you explain how this Web site has remained online despite the strenuo
us objections of the victims’ families? What’s with that?”
We hadn’t actually been briefed on this—the families—so I watched Bree closely, ready to jump in if she wanted me to. That would be her call.
“We’re trying to leave open the possibility of dialogue with all suspects in these killings. We’d welcome their direct communication, and for the sake of resolving this as quickly as possible, we’ve decided not to close any established channels. Including the Web site.”
“Why the hell not? Why not close it down now?” An angry shout came from the back of the room. Heads and cameras swiveled around. I caught sight of a man, Alberto Ramirez. Oh, brother! It was his daughter Lydia who had been killed on the parkway overpass.
Chapter 56
THE GRIEVING FATHER’S VOICE was tight but unwavering. “What about what’s best for my daughter Lydia? And for her poor mother? And her three sisters? Why do we have to be subjected to that kind of filth after everything else that’s happened to our family? What’s the matter with you people?”
No reporter jumped in with another question, not while the father had the floor. This was as good for them as it was bad for the MPD.
“Mr. Ramirez,” Bree said. I was glad that she recognized the slain girl’s father and used his name. “We’re all terribly sorry for your loss. I would like to meet with you about this matter immediately after the press conference—”
Some invisible barrier of restraint and protocol broke then, and a barrage of questions came firing at Bree from every direction.
“Is it the policy of the MPD to disregard community input?” asked some young wise guy from the Post.
“How do you plan to keep additional copycats from cropping up?”
“Is Washington safe for anyone right now? And if not, why not?”
I thought that I knew what we ought to do next. I leaned in toward Bree with a slightly exaggerated finger to my watch. “Time’s up,” I whispered by way of advice. “Feeding time at the zoo is over.”