Burning Man (24 page)

“I have never referred to myself as a prophet. It is others that have given me that title.”

“These three had all swallowed your end-of-the-world drivel hook, line, and sinker. I heard them talking up your favorite buzzwords like ‘Götterdämmerung,’ and ‘Ragnarok,’ and ‘the twilight of the gods.’ They also said something about settling the score.”

“I had nothing to do with the attack on you.”

“Their leader said my death would debunk the very notion that there is such a thing as good and evil. That sounds like your blather.”

“I find all of that interesting.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“Do you blame Christ for his many so-called followers that have killed in his name?”

“I’d be more comfortable if you compared yourself to Adolf Hitler.”

“My point is that if these want-to-be disciples were trying to act in my name, they were not directed by me. I am very selective in the followers I choose.”

“What? They need to have a pulse?”

“Many are called but few are chosen.”

“I am going to nail my attackers,” I said. “The ringleader had some distinctive tattoos. You better hope he doesn’t implicate you.”

“I am guilty only of being a visionary.”

“Spreading ignorance doesn’t even make you a false prophet.”

Haines continued to stare at the bruising on my neck. “I suppose I should be flattered that they tried to avenge me as well as pay homage to my handiwork.”

“When you strangled your victims, were you playing out some kind of bondage fantasy?”

“Is that one of the questions those Quantico miscreants prepared for you?”

“Is that a yes?”

“Why do you shill for the Behavioral Science Unit?”

“Since you won’t talk to the FBI, I ask questions on their behalf.”

“And you think that serves a purpose?”

“You were a meteorologist.”

“I
am
a meteorologist.”

“You studied weather patterns. For a time your specialty was hurricanes. You worked on trying to understand what caused hurricanes to form, and when they did form you tried to predict their paths. The profilers are doing many of the same things you
did. They accumulate data and try and figure out why certain individuals act as they do.”

“So, I’m a hurricane, is that it?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. The similarity starts and stops at a lot of hot air.”

Before my partner and I captured Haines, he had been known in the media as the Santa Ana Strangler. After he was arrested a new nickname had caught on, one that was proving more popular than the original. Most people now called him the Weatherman, a nickname Haines detested. While it was true that he had been a weatherman on television for two years, he thought the title demeaning. As Haines was quick to point out, he was a trained meteorologist with many years of experience in the field.

I liked it that the nickname of the Weatherman nettled him. At his trial, he had helped bring the name upon himself. After his guilt was pronounced by the jury, Haines had stood up and sung the song “Stormy Weather.” He didn’t quite do the Billie Holiday version, choosing to alter the lyrics to suit his own situation, but the effect was absolutely chilling. As the judge tried to regain control of his courtroom, Haines assumed a weatherman persona, complete with hand gestures and facial emphasis. Pointing to an imaginary screen, he said, “You can see we have an intense low-pressure area forming all over the Southland, and with it you can expect
killer
winds. If I were you, I’d shut your windows and lock your doors, because the big, bad wolf is about to blow.”

And then, even as the bailiff was dragging him away, Haines did his imitation of the wolf blowing down a house, which caused more screams in the courtroom.

He was always a good meteorologist, though. Later that day there were heavy winds throughout Los Angeles: Haines knew his stormy weather.

Instead of being put off by my comments, he said, “The FBI brain trust would like to establish that I was a bed wetter, started fires, and abused animals, their famous holy trinity for serial
murderers. You can cross those three questions off your list, as none apply.”

“When did you first start to have thoughts about killing women?”

“Why do you ask? Are you troubled by such thoughts?”

“You keep projecting onto me. We’re nothing alike. You remind me of the kid who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy from the court because he was an orphan.”

“Is that what passes for wit among gendarmes these days?”

“No, what really makes us laugh is seeing pictures of you behind bars.”

The behaviorists at the FBI would have been aghast at my interviewing technique. They had given me courses on how to “engage” Haines. I was supposed to be stroking his ego, not putting pins into it. They had stressed how I couldn’t be judgmental or challenging, and that the best way to proceed was to quietly listen. Tough shit.

“Since you’re trying to get Brownie points from the FBI,” Haines said, “here’s a little tidbit for you. My lawyer is putting together an appeal. His claim is that I suffer from seasonal affective disorder. As has been well documented, all of my excesses occurred during Santa Ana conditions in the late fall and winter. He believes I became depressed because of the lack of light, and that this resulted in my temporary insanity.”

My cough into my hands sounded amazingly like the word “bullshit.”

“If my lawyer has his way, I’ll be reclassified from a serial murderer to a seasonal murderer.”

“I could do without that weather report.”

“You don’t like the forecast?”

“Not when the climate doesn’t agree with me.”

I looked down at my notebook and read another one of the FBI questions: “Did you suffer any physical injury, or was there a traumatic event that occurred, prior to when you first murdered?”

“Oh, that’s right. You want a precipitating event that prompted my fall from grace. Why, yes, as a matter of fact something did happen. I attended my prom and some nasty girls dropped a bucket of pig’s blood on me.”

I deviated from the prepared questions: “Do you enjoy horror novels?”

“No, I detest stupid questions. However, I will offer an answer to your FBI handlers that might help them crack the Haines enigma: rosebud.”

I gave Haines a hard look. It just made his smile grow.

“Do you wish you’d killed me?” he asked.

“No. If I had, my partner would have died.”

“I was prepared for anything with two legs. It was the four legs that got me. How is my friend Sirius?”

“Do you put bullets in all of your friends?”

“Haines nodded. That happened in the heat of battle, Detective. And I still bear the scars where he put the bite on me. But none of that matters. Something happened to all of us that day. We bled together and burned together and came out on the other side together. I am convinced there was an amalgamation of beings.”

“Do you hate cats now like you hate women?”

“Whatever gave you the ridiculous idea that I hate women?”

“Maybe I’m wrong, but eleven murders suggest just an itsy-bitsy bit of antipathy toward them.”

Haines waved away my theory and said, “We’ve had enough of this charade, haven’t we? Why don’t you put away your prop?”

“It’s called a piece of paper, not a prop, and on it are the questions I came to ask.”

“It’s called your excuse to come and see me. We know why you’re really here, though.”

“We do?”

“We’ve been dancing around the subject for months, but you’ve been afraid to bring it up. I’ve watched your struggles. Do you fear it’s your Pandora’s box?”

“I think you’re confused. This isn’t the confessional.”

“Isn’t it? We shared something in that canyon, didn’t we?”

“We probably don’t see eye to eye on this, but I wouldn’t call being shot by you
sharing
. That’s kind of like passing on an STD and referring to it as sharing love.”

“Do you have your own name for what occurred?”

“In police parlance it’s called an arrest.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“So what is it that you think happened to us?”

“We were surrounded by fire, and the smoke was everywhere. It was so hot our flesh was burning right off, but then in a blink of an eye everything changed.”

“The wind shifted.”

Haines shook his head. “I have studied weather patterns for all of my adult life. What happened cannot be explained in meteorological terms.”

“We got lucky.”

“You decided on our route based on how to get to Neverland. And right after that the light showed us the way; a silver path opened up for us.”

“It was probably a random pattern of embers falling from the fire.”

“Embers?” He put his incredulity on display. “And I suppose that what we did was merely fire walk over those embers. Those were strange embers indeed. They gave off light but they didn’t burn.”

“I’ll tell Tony Robbins he should get some of those for his next fire walk.”

“We escaped death by walking on a silver pathway that went straight through the fire and allowed for a way out.”

I thought of Sister Frances. She had experienced a miracle. I didn’t want to think that I had. “Maybe the fire had already burned through. Maybe it blazed a trail for us.”

“We were delivered from that fire.”

“What happened was a fluke of nature, a confluence of unrelated events that allowed for our escape.”

“I don’t think you believe that.”

“Suit yourself.”

“We made it to Neverland together, and our triumvirate is secret sharers of what occurred.”

“Are you having a jailhouse conversion? I always find it amazing how cons get that old-time religion, especially while sitting on death row. Did you have a vision from Saint Quentin himself?”

“I have not had such a conversion, and besides, this prison was not named after Saint Quentin.”

“Then who was it named after?”

“A Miwok warrior named Quintin.”

“How did an Indian warrior became a saint?”

“He didn’t. Sainthood was added when the people of Quintin jumped on the saint bandwagon, wanting to name their city after a saint like San Francisco, San Mateo, or San Jose. I don’t think Quintin would have approved of his posthumous title. While alive, he supposedly refused to convert to Christianity. I find that story much more interesting than the usual tripe attributed to the other Saint Quentin, except the accounts of his torture and beheading. Those are always interesting.”

“Speaking of the usual tripe, should I be contacting your lawyer? Your finding Jesus might fly better than your seasonal affective disorder murderer ploy.”

“Jesus is not what I have found, but I do believe I was delivered from death because my work here is not finished.”

“What work? You are a fucking serial murderer. Oh, excuse me: seasonal murderer.”

Haines only smiled. “You’ll see. It’s only a matter of time before I am delivered from this prison.”

“That’s only going to happen when they wheel you away with a body tag on your toe.”

“Judging by your cuts and bruises, I think you’re the one that should be more concerned about that tag hanging from your toe.”

“Shall I tell the Feds that you’re expecting God to deliver you out of here?”

“Who said anything about God?”

“I need a shower. You want to answer some more of my questions so I won’t feel this visit was a waste of time?”

“You know it was anything but a waste. We’re finally learning how to be honest with one another.”

“If that’s the case, I can see the merits of being dishonest.”

“You’re already well acquainted with such merits. Do you worry that you damned yourself to perdition by lying after you were sworn in at the trial and offered your testimony?”

“I didn’t lie.”

“You never read me my rights, but you said you did.”

“You’re wrong.”

What I was saying was another lie. I knew all too well that I had neglected to inform him of his rights on the day of his capture.

“If you say so,” he said.

“I say so.”

Because I wanted to make sure Haines was convicted, I had told several lies on the witness stand, something I hadn’t done before or since. Haines’s sworn version of his capture was the truth, but the jury had thought he was the liar. They hadn’t believed that I had threatened to murder him, and that I had come close to doing so more than once, because I had denied doing any such thing.

“Are we done here?”

“Not quite yet,” he said. “You said the man directing your attack had tattoos. Can you describe them? Or better yet, can you draw them?”

“Why are you interested?”

“Humor me.”

I thought for a few moments and then took a pen to my piece of paper. “One of the tattoos looked like a red
A
,” I said, “or an inverted
V
with a line running well beyond the edges. The red figure stood out because it was surrounded by a circle of black.”

The Weatherman nodded and said, “Typical poseur. That red
A
is a symbol for anarchy. But what self-respecting anarchist would advertise in such a way?”

I was busy trying to draw the other tattoo, but wasn’t having the success that Detective Nguyen had. “There were a lot of squiggles in the second tattoo,” I said. “They were coming out of an eye, or a circle.”

Haines looked at my drawing, gave it some thought, and then extended his hand and asked, “May I?”

I gave him my pen, although that went against prison rules. He changed my design, making my lines look more like elongated
Z
s, and asked, “Did it look more like that?”

When I nodded he said, “Black sun.”

“What’s a black sun?”

“There are old and new meanings. In ancient times it meant one thing, but the Nazis made it something else. Today it’s usually viewed as an antisun, or burned-out sun. Some think of it as a black hole.”

“So it’s more of your chaos?”

“Not mine; the world’s chaos.”

“My visits with you are always so uplifting.”

“I feel the same way. Same time and same place next month? We have so much yet to talk about.”