On the screen, the man—our subject, the killer, perhaps the most evil man to roam this earth—remains on the phone, his face angled slightly downward as he speaks and as he listens, occasionally putting his left hand over his left ear.
“Bad luck for us, he’s talking on a phone,” says Sophie.
“It’s not luck,” says Books. “He knows where the security camera is. He’s concealing himself as much as he can without being obvious about it.”
Our subject moves through the crowd, remaining at right-profile to us for a time. We lose him periodically for a couple of beats as he wades through people, but then he turns and, for a moment, faces the camera almost completely as he heads to the rear of the tavern—toward the bottom of the screen.
“Pause,” I say, as Sophie is already in the process of doing that very thing.
The screen freezes, occasionally twitching. It’s the best shot we’re going to have of him, but it isn’t much. Facing directly toward us, but still the head bowed down slightly while he talks (or pretends to talk) on the phone, the bill of his cap concealing basically his eyes, leaving only his nose, mouth, and chin.
“Yeah, he knows where the camera is,” Books says again. “Keep running it, Soph.”
Soph, I note, a fleeting thought. Not Sophie.
When the screen comes back alive, our subject keeps his head down and moves toward Curtis Valentine’s position. For the first time, we can clearly see a bag that our subject is carrying, slung over his left shoulder, no doubt containing his bag of goodies—the educated guess would include an ice pick, surgical instruments, a canister of gas and gas mask, maybe a Taser, probably a firearm.
Just as our subject reaches the right corner of the screen, he raises his head up and, as best as I can see, ends his phone call and begins to address Curtis.
But then he’s gone, out of the camera’s view.
“Damn,” I say.
“You can keep watching if you like,” says Denny, “but he doesn’t reappear until they leave at five oh three p.m. And don’t get your hopes up.”
Sophie fast-forwards the video to that time. When Curtis Valentine leaves with our subject, Curtis is on the right. Our subject is now walking away from us, and for good measure, has turned to his right to talk to Curtis—leaving us to look at the back of his head and his baseball cap and Windbreaker. As the two men move through the bar toward the front door—the top left of the screen—our subject manages to keep his face turned away from the camera’s eye, and looks quite natural while doing so.
“He’s good,” says Books.
“We already knew that. Sophie, can you go back to the frontal shot we had?”
The screen scrambles, everyone moving backward at rapid-fire speed. It brings back memories of old video footage from my infancy, of my father teaching Marta and me how to walk when we were a year old, a video we watched ten years later at Christmas. There was my dad, coaxing us along, then letting go of our hands to leave us on our own, twins flailing forward with heavy, awkward steps like drunken sailors, before each of us fell backward on our fannies. I remember watching all of this with Dad, Mom, and Marta, and Dad rewinding the tape over and over again at a high speed, so Marta and I were staggering forward, then falling, then standing up and walking backward toward Daddy’s hands. We howled as Dad ran that VHS tape backward and forward repeatedly, kids whose buttons Daddy knew how to punch, the light dimmed in our family room, while I sipped eggnog (Marta hated eggnog, but I loved it), the warmth of the crackling fire and the comfort of those same Christmas stockings we had for our entire childhood, hanging by the chimney with care.
“There,” says Books.
The screen freezes, sputtering at us. Sophie tries to zoom in, but with the low quality of the picture, too close makes it even blurrier. She works it back and forth until she’s found the best shot of our subject she can.
The eyes are impossible to see in any meaningful way. But it’s not a total loss. The curve of his face, the elongated, delicate nose. Even with the Windbreaker, there is some indication of his build, a slope to his shoulders, a narrow frame. It’s something. Each of us is digesting it now, wondering if we’d be able to recognize this man if we ever saw him in person.
Yes, I decide for myself, but that’s my stubbornness talking. Who knows if our subject is really bald? Who knows if he truly has a protruding gut? Knowing this man as we now do, it’s inevitable that he’s at least somewhat in disguise. Put some blond hair on him, remove the glasses, add a suit and tie, remove a fat-belly suit, and he could probably walk past all of us.
I mean, hell, let’s say it—he could probably wear the exact same outfit he’s wearing in this video and walk right past us. Because he looks exactly like he wants to look: an ordinary thirty-something guy. An unremarkable, unmemorable man.
A man who is normal. A man who is harmless.
55
BOOKS PUSHES himself away from the desk where the computer is perched, a bit of frustration in his expression. Denny had warned us there wouldn’t be much to this video, but still we couldn’t help raising our hopes, the first chance to see our subject in person. The adrenaline now begins its slow, disappointed drain.
“We’ll have the techies get on this right now, see if we can upgrade the picture quality,” he says, breathing out a sigh, letting his nerves settle. “But I don’t think this will be good enough for facial recognition.”
He’s right. I don’t have great familiarity with facial-recognition technology—the IAs, or intelligence analysts, who do homeland security work have far more experience—but I’ve worked with it enough to recognize its limitations. A profile shot of the subject won’t get us far, and even with this frontal image, we don’t have his retina or complete shots of many of the other landmarks—eyes, the full nose, cheekbones. Nor is there any way of picking up his skin texture, be it a creamy-smooth complexion or something ruddier.
He just didn’t give the camera a good enough peek at him.
Books rubs his face with both hands. “We got search warrants this morning for Curtis Valentine’s computers,” he says. “We should have them by day’s end. So very soon we’ll know the name of the person Curtis was scheduled to meet—the name our subject used. We’re making progress, people.”
I make a noise, a bit of cynicism. But Books is right—it was only two days ago that the Bureau officially recognized these fires as homicides, and yes, we’re now starting to produce results.
If only we’d moved faster, I say to myself, not for the first time or even the tenth time. It’s a familiar refrain running through my mind—all of this delay has led to more and more deaths.
I look back at the frozen screen, to the blurry black-and-white snapshot of our man. He’s almost mocking us, coming so close within the range of the camera but not allowing a good frontal shot, knowing precisely the angle of—
Wait a minute.
“He was here before,” I say. “You said it yourself, Books—he knew where the video camera was the moment he walked in.”
“He wasn’t in earlier this day,” says Denny. “We looked at the footage all day.”
“Then the day before,” I say.
“Could be,” says Books, slowly nodding. “Yeah, sure, could be.”
I jump from my chair and move into the open space of the room. I’m a pacer when I get excited, as if my mind can’t move forward unless my legs do, too.
“He came in and staked out the place. He probably sat at the wraparound bar at the front, got himself a good look around. Probably dressed completely differently.”
Books looks at Denny.
“I’m on it,” he says. “I don’t know if they’ve retained video that far back. We were pretty lucky they still had the August twenty-ninth footage. But I’ll check right now.”
Denny opens his cell phone and walks out of the room. Books catches my eye and gives me a solemn nod.
“We’re making progress,” he says. “Just a matter of time before someth
ing big breaks.”
“Good, because it’s just a matter of time before he kills again,” I say. “Like, today or tomorrow.”
56
* * *
“Graham Session”
Recording # 13
September 14, 2012
* * *
Say it, Nancy. Say it for all of my friends to hear.
[Editor’s note: sounds of a woman’s voice, inaudible.]
You believed me. You actually believed that I was selling Girl Scout cookies when I came to the door. Now if that isn’t proof of my proficiency, I don’t know what is!
Okay, to be fair, I did a little aw-shucks routine and said that my daughter was home with the flu, and she had this deadline to make her quota, so was it okay if I just sold them for her? And I did have a box of Thin Mints with me.
Ah, what a day! The sun is out, the birds are chirping, the leaves are changing, the air is clean and crisp, and Nancy and I are getting to know each other quite well. How could I not be happy? Of course I’m happy.
Where does that Mary-Mary-quite-contrary get off, anyway, telling me that I look troubled? She doesn’t know anything about me. Something in your eyes, she said. Like you’re wishing for something you don’t have. What in the world would I wish for that I don’t already have? I have my health, thank goodness. I love what I do. And I’m absolutely perfect at it. What else is there in life?
You have any thoughts on this, Nancy? Probably hard to talk with the gas mask on. Well, don’t worry, it’s almost over for you. Just a little bit—
[Editor’s note: a whistling sound.]
Oh, hey! Do you hear that sound, Nancy? Don’t go away, I’ll be right back!
She’s a nice gal, this Nancy. Very pleasant and gentle. She had a baby at a young age, so her boy’s in college but she’s only a bit over forty. Divorced and unattached. A spinster. Do people still use that term, spinster?
Nancy’s biggest fear in life is that her boy, Joseph, won’t find someone special. She says that he has trouble with commitment. He had a rough time during high school, apparently, with drugs and a couple of arrests for shoplifting. Her ex-husband is part of the problem, not doing his duty on the child-support front and not spending much time with young Joey. But things are looking up for Joey, and he’s hoping to be an addiction counselor someday.
By the way, not to harp on this, but if anybody’s troubled, it’s Mary-Mary-quite-contrary. When I met her, she’d just been on a blind date. A woman who is so lonely that she’s willing to go on a date with someone she’s never even met is calling me troubled?
I’m not troubled.
Go ahead, I can almost hear you saying it. He’s projecting his sadness. He makes himself feel better by making others hurt. Their pain is his medicine.
Sorry, no. But thanks for playing! What do we have for the losers, Johnny? First, a copy of the DSM-IV, courtesy of our sponsor, the American Psychiatric Association. At the APA, remember: if you have a problem, we’ll invent a word for it.
And that’s not all! Next, they’ll receive a copy of Dr. Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, featuring cathartic revelations on penis envy and castration anxiety and Oedipal desire. Let Dr. Freud solve your problem today! And if he can’t, worry not! He’ll just blame it on unresolved sexual feelings toward your mother.
Nancy, Nancy! I’m back. You remember our friend the kettle? Now, sit still, dear. I’m afraid this is going to hurt.
[END]
57
I HEAR the sound of typing on the other end of the phone call. Then Sergeant Roger Burtzos of the New Britain Police Department says to me, “Okay, Ms. Dockery. I’ve got your clearance here. So tell me again what you want?”
“The fire in your town tonight.”
“Yes, what about it?”
“I want you to dispatch someone to the scene—”
“We already have officers dispatched.”
“Okay, fine. Have them ask the firefighters about the number of victims in the house and their specific location within the house.”
A pause. I don’t know if he’s writing this down or if he’s expressing his annoyance with me.
“And tell them to interview neighbors to confirm with them the number of people who live at that house.”
“All right, Ms. Dockery. Will do.”
“I need the information as soon as you can get it.”
“Understood.”
It’s my third call like this tonight, after hearing of residential fires on breaking-news alerts or first-responder websites. We know that our subject sets two fires a week in the area he visits during his “Fall Tour.” We want to identify that first fire as quickly as possible so we’re in position when the second one happens. Whether anything good will come of it is another question, but it’s worth a shot.
So I’m trying to spot these fires in real time. Back when I was a one-woman operation, I was calling police departments the day after, or sometimes several days after. Now I’m doing it as soon as I learn of the fire.
It is nearing midnight, the final minutes of Friday. My attention span is waning. My eyes feel heavy. My limbs are sore. I’m about three levels past sleep-deprived, somewhere between catatonic and zombie-like.
But I have to be on my game. Because tonight has to be the night. Working backward, it has to be tonight. He never kills on Sunday, as we know. Usually his second kill in the given week is Saturday. Which means the first one is earlier in the week, usually Thursday, sometimes Wednesday (like Luther Feagley and Tammy Duffy in Nebraska), but no later than Friday. So it has to be tonight.
I push myself away from my desk on the eighth floor of the FBI field office in Chicago. I stretch my back and shake out my hands.
In the next office over, Books has just returned from Joelle Swanson’s former townhouse in suburban Lisle. “Anything good?” I ask.
He shrugs. “There was no forced entry,” he says. “So he somehow conned his way into her house. Just like he did with Curtis Valentine. This guy must be a charmer.”
I shudder at the thought, but Books is probably right.
My cell phone rings. The caller ID is blocked, which tells me it’s law enforcement. Take your pick on jurisdiction: I’ve called, thus far tonight, police departments in New Britain, Connecticut; Fergus Falls, Minnesota; and Cambria, California.
“Ms. Dockery, it’s Sergeant Burtzos from New Britain PD.”
Well, that was fast. “Yes, Sergeant?”
“Turns out my guys at the scene already knew the information. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.” I’m back in my office now, hands poised over the keyboard.
“Her name is Nancy McKinley. She lives alone. She is divorced with a son, Joseph, who goes to college in Hartford.”
“Okay…” I hold my breath.
“She’s dead,” he says. “They were way too late. Her body was badly burned in the fire.”
Getting closer…
“She was found dead in her bedroom.”
Closer still. “On the bed itself?” I ask.
“On the—well, lemme ask.” In the background, I hear the sergeant on the radio with the officers at the scene. I can hear the response, squawking over a radio; then Sergeant Burtzos comes back on the phone and confirms it.
“She was lying in her bed,” he says.
“And the fire’s origin?” I ask.
“Well, they said it’s only preliminary at this point,” says Sergeant Burtzos. “The fire’s still raging. But they think it started right there in the bedroom.”
I move the phone away from my mouth and shout, “Books!” over my shoulder.
Then I bring the phone back to my mouth. “Sergeant,” I say, “I want you to listen to me very carefully.”
58
“I’M SORRY,” says Sergeant Burtzos through the speakerphone. “We’re short-staffed on a good day, and it’s past midnight now. I couldn’t possibly summon the manpower any time soon.”
Books an
d I look at each other. This is what we figured.
“Maybe the state police?” Burtzos suggests. “They’re usually the ones to do roadblocks.”
Books shakes his head. “We couldn’t do it fast enough, and we wouldn’t know the boundaries. We don’t know where he’s going next. That’s okay,” he says. “Listen, Sergeant, can you put us through to the officers at the scene?”
“I can do that, I can do that. Give me your number.”
Three minutes later, the direct line on my office phone rings. I push speaker and answer.
“This is Officer Janet Dowling,” says the voice through the speakerphone.
“This is Special Agent Harrison Bookman, Officer. And I have with me Emmy Dockery, an analyst with the Bureau. Can you hear me okay?”
“I’m inside my patrol car right now, so yeah.”
“Officer, is there a crowd there at the scene?”
“Not as much as there was when the fire was roaring. But yeah, there’s a crowd. Maybe two dozen people?”
“Give me your cell number, if you would. I want to send you something.”
Ten years ago, the idea that you could transmit an image by phone was unimaginable. Now it’s annoying if it takes more than ten seconds.
“Okay, got it. Didn’t come through real clear, though.”
“That’s because it isn’t clear. This is security-camera footage. Best we can do. The subject is a male Caucasian, a bit under six feet tall, maybe bald in this picture at least, average build, probably early- to mid-thirties.”
“Got it.”
“Take a look through the crowd, Officer. And can someone take a picture of the crowd?”