The Poet (1995)

  "You think perhaps Beltran was the boy's molester?" Backus asked.

  "It's possible. I think that's what my source was driving at but he won't put it on the line. Everybody's dead. It was written off. They're not going to go public with a story like that. Not with one of their own and sheriff being an elective office."

  I watched Backus nod his head.

  "That's to be expected."

  There was silence for a few moments.

  "Ted, Steve, this is all very interesting," Backus said. "But how does it fit? Is it just an interesting offshoot or are you seeing something there?"

  "We're not sure ourselves. But if you say Beltran was a molester, a pedophile no less, and add that he was put down with a shotgun that somebody knew was on the top shelf of the closet because he knew Beltran, then we are getting into an area I think we should explore further."

  "I agree. Tell us, what else did your source know about Beltran and Best Pals?"

  "He said he was told that Beltran had been with Best Pals for a long time. He'd been with a lot of boys, we assume."

  "And that is where you will pursue this, correct?"

  "We'll hit it hard in the morning. Nothing we can do with it tonight."

  Backus nodded and put a finger to his mouth in a contemplative gesture.

  "Brass?" Backus said. "What do you think of all of this? How would that play with the psychopathology?"

  "Children are a string all through this. So are homicide cops. We just don't have a handle yet on what this guy is all about. I think this is something that should be pursued vigorously."

  "Ted, Steve, do you need more bodies?" Backus asked.

  "I think we're set. We've got everybody in the Tampa FO wanting in on this. So what we need, we can take from there."

  "Excellent. By the way, have you talked to the boy's mother about her son's relationship with Beltran?"

  "We are still trying to track her as well as Beltran's sister. Remember, it's been three years. Hopefully, we'll get to them tomorrow after Best Pals."

  "Okay, then, how about Baltimore? Sheila?"

  "Yes, sir. We spent most of the day re-covering the ground of the locals. We talked to Bledsoe. The theory he had on the Polly Amherst case from the start was that they were looking for a molester. Amherst was a teacher. Bledsoe said he and McCafferty always thought that she might've stumbled onto a molester on the school grounds, was abducted, strangled and then butchered as a means of disguising the true motivation of the crime."

  "Why did it have to be a molester?" Rachel asked. "Could she have stumbled onto a burglar, a drug deal, anything else?"

  "Polly Amherst had third-period recess watch on the day she disappeared. The locals interviewed every child who had been in the yard. A lot of conflicting stories but a handful of kids remember a man at the fence. He had stringy blond hair and glasses. He was white. Sounds like Brad wasn't too far off with his description of Roderick Usher. They also said this man had a camera. That was about the extent of the description."

  "Okay, Sheila, what else?" Backus asked.

  "The one piece of physical evidence recovered with the body was a strand of hair. Bleached blond. Natural color is reddish brown. That's about it for now. We are going to work with Bledsoe again tomorrow."

  "Okay. Chicago's next."

  The rest of the reports contained nothing noteworthy in terms of identifying or adding to the growing database on the Poet. The agents were mostly covering ground the locals had already trod and they were finding nothing new. Even the report from Denver contained mostly old information. But at the end, the agent on the line said that an examination of the gloves worn by my brother was conducted and a single blood spot was found in the fur lining of the right-hand glove. The agent asked whether I was still willing to call Riley and ask her to allow an exhumation. I didn't answer because I was in a daze thinking about what the indication of hypnotism meant my brother's last moments were like. Asked again, I said I would call in the morning.

  As an afterthought the agent concluded his report by saying he had shipped the GSR swabs from my brother's mouth to the lab in Quantico.

  "They run a pretty good ship here, boss, and I don't think we'll get more than what they found."

  "Which was?" Backus asked, careful not to look at me.

  "Just the GSR. Nothing else."

  I didn't know what I felt when I heard those words. I guess there was relief but it was no proof that anything did or did not happen. Sean was still dead and I was still haunted by thoughts of what his last moments and thoughts had been. I tried to shove it aside and concentrate on the conference call. Backus had asked Brass to update everyone on the victimology and I had missed most of the report.

  "So we are discounting any correlation," she was saying. "Aside from the possibilities mentioned earlier in Florida, I'm saying they are picked at random. They didn't know each other, they never worked together and the paths of all six never crossed. We've found out that four of them went to some kind of bureau-sponsored homicide seminar at Quantico four years ago, but the other two didn't and we don't know if the four who did go ever even met or talked to each other at the seminar. All of this doesn't include Orsulak in Phoenix. We haven't had time yet to do a track on him."

  "So if there is no correlation, we are to assume they are chosen by the offender simply because they take the bait?" Rachel asked.

  "I think that's correct."

  "So he must stand by and watch and see his prey for the first time after the bait kill."

  "Again, correct. All of these bait cases received heavy local media attention. He could've seen each of the detectives for the first time on TV or in a newspaper photo."

  "No physically archetypal attraction involved."

  "No. He simply takes whoever gets the case. The lead detective becomes the prey. Now, that is not to say that after that selection, he may not find that one or more of these subjects were more attractive or fulfilling to his fantasy. That can always happen."

  "What fantasy?" I asked, struggling just to keep up with what Brass was saying.

  "Is that Jack? Well, Jack, we don't know what fantasy. That's the point. We are coming at it from the wrong direction. We don't know the fantasy that motivates this killer and what we are seeing and guessing about are the parts. We may never know what rocks his world. He's down from the moon, Jack. The only way we'll really ever know is if he decides to tell us someday."

  I nodded and thought of another question. I waited until it was clear no one else had anything.

  "Uh, Agent Brass-I mean, Doran?"

  "Yes?"

  "You might've already said this, but what about the poems? Do you have any more of an idea how they fit?"

  "Well, they are obviously being used in exhibition. We noted this yesterday. This is his signature, and though he obviously wants to elude capture, at the same time his psychology is such that he just has to leave a little something that says, Hey, I was here. This is where the poems come in. As for the poems themselves the correlation is that they all are or can be read as being about death. There is also the theme that death is a portal to other things, other places. 'Through the pale door,' I believe, is one of the quotes he used. What it may be is that the Poet may believe he is sending these men he has killed to a better world. He is transforming them. It's something to think about when we consider the pathology of this individual. But once again, we come back to the instability of all our conjectures. It's kind of like we are looking through a full trash can to try to find out what somebody ate for dinner last night. We don't know what this man is doing and we won't until we have him."

  "Brass? Bob again. What are you reading on the planning of these crimes?"

  "I'll let Brad answer that."

  "This is Brad. Uh, we're calling this guy a modified traveler. Yes, he is using the whole country as his canvas but he is staying put for weeks and sometimes months at a time. This is unusual in our prior profiling. The Poet is not a hit-and-run killer. He h
its and then he stays around for a while. We are to expect that during this period the hunter watched the hunted. He must come to know his victim's routines and nuances. Possibly, he even strikes up a passing acquaintance. That's something to look for. A new friend or acquaintance in each detective's life. Maybe a new neighbor or guy at the local bar. The situation in Denver also suggests that he may come at them as a source, someone with information. He may be using a combination of these approaches."

  "Which leads to the next step," Backus said. "After contact."

  "Power," Hazelton said. "After he gets close enough to these victims, how does he take control? Well, we assume he has some kind of weapon that initially allows him to take theirs, but there is something more. How does he get six, now seven, homicide detectives to write out lines of poetry? How does he avoid a struggle in every one of these cases? At the moment, we are exploring the possibility of hypnosis combined with chemical enhancers taken from the victim's home. The McEvoy case is the anomaly. Setting it aside and looking at the others, there is probably no one among us who has an empty medicine cabinet. And there probably isn't a cabinet among the bunch that doesn't have some prescription or store-bought medication that wouldn't serve as an enhancer. Obviously some things work better than others. But the point is, if this scenario is correct, the Poet is using the things made available to him by the victims. We are looking at this hard. That's it, for now."

  "Okay, then," Backus said. "Any other questions?"

  The room and phone speaker remained silent.

  "Okay, people," he said, leaning forward, his hands on the table and his mouth close to the phone speaker. "Your best work. We really need it this time."

  Rachel and I followed Backus and Thompson to the Hyatt where Matuzak had reserved rooms. I had to check in and pay for my room while Backus checked in and got keys for the other five, which the government would pay for. Still, I got the discount the hotel regularly gave the FBI. It must have been the shirt.

  Rachel and Thompson were waiting in the lobby lounge where we had decided on a drink before dinner. When Backus gave her one of the keys, I heard him say that she was in room 321 and I committed it to memory. I was four doors away in room 317 and I was already thinking about the night ahead, about closing that gap.

  After a half hour of small talk Backus stood up and said he was going to his room to review the day's reports before heading out to the airport to pick up Thorson and Carter. He turned down an offer to join us for dinner and headed toward the elevator. A few minutes later, Thompson split, too, saying he wanted to read through the autopsy report on Orsulak in detail.

  "Just you and me, Jack," Rachel said when Thompson was out of earshot. "What do you feel like eating?"

  "I'm not sure. What about you?"

  "Haven't thought about it. I know what I want to do first though . . . That's take a hot bath."

  We agreed to meet in an hour for dinner. We rode the elevator up to our floor in a silence couched in sexual tension.

  In my room, I tried to take my mind off Rachel by connecting my computer to the phone line and checking my messages in Denver. There was only one, from Greg Glenn asking where I was. I answered it but doubted that he would see it until he came back into work on Monday. I then sent a message to Laurie Prine asking her to search for any stories on Horace the Hypnotist that might have run in the Florida newspapers in the last seven years. I asked her to ship any notes she got to my computer basket but said it was no hurry.

  After that I showered and changed into my new clothes for my dinner with Rachel. I was ready twenty minutes early and I thought about going down and seeing if there was a drugstore nearby. But then I thought about the impression it would give Rachel if things worked out and I came to her bed, a condom already in my pocket. I decided against the drugstore. I decided to play things as they came.

  "Did you see CNN?"

  "No," I said. I was standing in the doorway of her room. She went back to the bed and sat down to put her shoes on. She looked refreshed and was wearing a cream-colored shirt with black jeans. The TV was still on but it was a story about the clinic shootings in Colorado. I didn't think that was what she was talking about.

  "What did it say?"

  "We were on. You, me and Bob coming out of the funeral home. Somehow they got Bob's name and put it on the screen."

  "Did it say he was BSS?"

  "No, just FBI. But it doesn't matter. CNN must've taken the feed off the local channel. Wherever he is, if our guy saw it, we could have a problem."

  "How come? It's not that unusual for the FBI to take a look at cases like this. The bureau's always sticking its nose in."

  "The problem is it plays to the Poet. We see it in almost all of the cases. One concept of the gratification these kinds of killers seek is seeing their work on TV and in the papers. In a way it allows them to relive the fantasy of the incident. Part of that infatuation with the media extends to the pursuers. I get the feeling that this guy, the Poet, knows more about us than we do about him. If I'm right, then he's probably read books on serial killers. The commercial dreck and even some of the more serious work. He may know names. Bob's father is in many of them. Bob himself is in some. So am I. Our names, photos, our words. If he saw that on CNN and recognized us, then he'll assume we are right behind him. We may lose him now. He might go under."

  Ambivalence won the night. Unable to decide what or where we wanted to eat, we settled for the hotel's restaurant. The food was okay but we shared a bottle of Buehler cabernet that was perfect. I told her not to worry about the government per diem because the newspaper was paying. She ordered cherries jubilee for dessert after I told her that.

  "I get the feeling that you'd be happy if there were no free media in the world," I told her when we were slowing down on the dessert. The implications of the CNN report had dominated the conversation during dinner.

  "Not at all. I respect the media as a necessity in a free society. I don't respect the irresponsibility that you see more often than you don't."

  "What was irresponsible about that report?"

  "That one was marginal but it bothers me that they used our images without bothering to ask what the ramifications could be. I just wish that sometimes the media would concentrate on the larger picture or story, rather than go for the immediate gratification every time."

  "Not every time. I didn't blow you people off and say I'm writing my story. I went long-term. I went for the larger story."

  "Oh, very noble, coming from somebody who extorted his way into the investigation."

  She was smiling and so was I.

  "Hey," I protested.

  "Can we talk about something else? I'm tired of all of this. God, I'd love to just be able to lie back and forget about it for a while."

  There it was again. Her choice of words, the way she looked at me as she said them. Was I reading it correctly or only reading what I wanted to read?

  "Okay, forget about the Poet," I said. "Let's talk about you."

  "Me? What about me?"

  "This stuff going on with Thorson is like a TV sitcom."

  "That's private."

  "Not when you guys are staring daggers across the room all the time and you're trying to get Backus to take him off the case."

  "I don't want him off the case. I just want him off my back and I don't want him out here. He always finds a way to sneak in and try to take over. You watch."

  "How long were you married?"

  "Fifteen glorious months."

  "When did it end?"

  "Long time ago, three years."

  "That's a long time for hostilities to linger."

  "I don't want to talk about this."

  But I sensed she did. I let a little time go by. The waiter came and refilled our coffee cups.

  "What happened?" I asked softly. "You don't deserve to be unhappy like that."

  She reached up and tugged gently on my beard, the first time she had touched me since ramming my face into the bed b
ack in Washington.

  "You're sweet." She shook her head. "It was just the wrong thing for both of us. Sometimes, I don't even know what we saw in each other. It just didn't work."

  "How come?"

  "Just because. It was a just-because type of thing. Like I said, we both had a lot of baggage. His was heavier. He'd worn a mask and I didn't see all the rage behind it until it was too late. I got out as soon as I could."