Rage Factor (32 page)

“Hey!” From across the room. “This one here’s passed out. Passed right out.”

“He’s been out of it since we tied him up.” Sissy spat the words. Ignoring the ache of her own knee where Carlson had kicked her, she booted a carton out of her way. “This is no time to turn squeamish. We have a job to do here.”

“The job’s finished.” The bright hard eyes had not wavered. “We’ve done enough. Keep this up and we’re as bad as they are.”

“That’s not true.” Sissy fought the rage that made her want to lash out at her friends. They mustn’t turn on one another. Together, they were God’s Fist. “We administer justice, we don’t attack innocent people.”

“We’ve gone beyond justice.”

The worm with the bloody mouth moaned. Sissy’s foot twitched with the need to knock out the rest of his miserable teeth. “God’s justice is an eye for an eye. These two have only begun to pay.”

“They’ve paid and we’re finished. Let’s get out of here.”

“Hey, listen to me over here! This guy’s not breathing, I tell you. I think he’s dead,
DEAD!”

“Don’t be silly.” Sissy was out of patience. “Of course he’s breathing.”

“He’s not. He’s
not breathing!”

“You’re getting hysterical.” Sissy strode to Gary Ingles’ side, her injured knee smarting, and laid a hand on his wrist. No pulse. On his throat. Nothing. “How long has he been like this?”

“I don’t know … I just … Oh, jeez, we’ve got to call an ambulance!”

The other one shoved Sissy aside and pressed a hand at Ingles’ throat. “Cut him loose.” Catching Ingles’ jaw, she leaned down and breathed into his mouth.

“Stop that,” Sissy said. “If he’s dead, so be it. Raymond Ramirez is dead, too. And how many others?”

“I said
cut him loose!”

Sissy watched her bleeding-heart friend turn Ingles on his back and continue breathing for him.

“One of you take over,” the woman said between breaths, “while I try to start his heart.”

“Oh, jeez, I couldn’t. I can’t!” The whine rose another octave. “Let’s dial 911. Get someone here who knows what they’re doing.”

Sissy stepped back, disgusted. “Nobody’s calling 911. The man’s a killer and a rapist. He deserves to die.”

“Eh?” Sid Carlson roused from his own stupor and sputtered through his ruined mouth. “Wha’s goan on?”

“Shut up!” Sissy took three swift strides and kicked him between the eyes. It’d be fine with her if they were both dead.

A rapid treble voice rang down the hallway as Dixie and Sarina approached the office of Ramón Alvarez, Graphologist.

“What are you telling me now?” he demanded. “First, you say you’re depressed, so small, and descending, almost weeping off the page. Now, you bounce all over, up and down, up and down.”

This time the graphologist was not yelling into his phone, but down at his desk, apparently at a page of handwriting. His door was propped open by a plastic basset hound that barked mechanically as Sarina’s steps vibrated the floor. When Dixie rapped on the door with her cane, Ramón waved them over to the desk.

“Look at this. This handwriting wants me to think a patient has been cured. Does this look cured to you?”

Though Dixie hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, she peered intently at the page of writing. Sarina had brought her rod puppet to work on, but appeared to find
Ramón’s conundrum more interesting. She squeezed in behind Dixie.

The handwriting on the page bent left, then right, then left again.
My time here has been very productive
… read the first line. The irregular form had extra-large descending strokes on the
y
and
p.

“This patient is
not
cured. Could I forgive myself if his mother took him from the hospital and then he tried to off himself again? I could not forgive that.”

“You can detect suicide tendencies in this writing?” Dixie was impressed. She hadn’t realized graphology was that precise.

“You don’t see it?” Ramón thumped the paper, exasperated. He pushed the first page aside to reveal another, this one with small, tightly formed letters that descended to almost nothing at the end of a sentence. The two styles didn’t seem as if they could be written by the same individual. “There!” He tapped the longest line with his stumpy finger.

“I don’t have your keen eye, Ramón. Did you get a chance to look at the samples I brought yesterday?”

“Oh!” He waggled his head side to side. “Another imposter!”

Shuffling his folders, he produced one with
FLANNIGAN
printed boldly on the front. He spread the folder open. The top fax was of the first card Joanna received from the stalker, with the note:
GOD BLESS YOU, JOANNA. THE MESSAGE IN YOUR NEW MOVIE HAS GIVEN ME REASON TO LIVE.

“Such sweet words, ‘God bless you.’ But such angry strokes. Look!”

Dixie looked. Couldn’t see what he meant. He turned the page upside down, as he had the day before.

“Angry! You see these downstrokes? Heavy, made with great, angry pressure.” He fanned the remaining faxes. “And this one.”

The fax he indicated was the one that threatened Sarina:
NO MORE MEN, JOANNA! IF YOU HAVEN’T THE STRENGTH TO
PRESERVE YOUR PURITY, I MUST HELP YOU. YOUR DAUGHTER WILL SACRIFICE FOR YOUR SINS
.

“Angry! But these—” He flipped through the remaining faxed greeting cards. “Do you see anger here?”

Dixie had to admit the writing on these pages was much more consistent, though the downstrokes still appeared heavier, slightly wider, than the cross strokes. She could understand the stalker being furious when writing the Sarina note, but not that first message. And if he was angry when writing the first one, what calmed him down for the next two?

“Could the writer be unstable? Mentally ill?”

Ramón waved the notion aside. “Who can say? Insecure? Yes. Hot-tempered? Definitely. But from this I would not say someone is nuts.”

“So what else
can
you tell me?”

Ramón lifted all five faxes from the file and fanned them like a deck of cards.

“He has—” The graphologist stopped and looked at Dixie. “You do realize I don’t mean ‘he’ precisely? We cannot determine sex or age from handwriting.”

“Yeah.” Dixie knew that from past cases, but Ramón always reminded her.

“He has no connections, which would fool some analysts, thinking he purposely printed the notes to disguise the writing. But this does not fool Ramón. I believe he always prints with no connections. To disguise the writing, he used his offhand.”

“Of hand?”

“Left, if he’s right-handed.” Dixie nodded, and Ramón continued. “No connections says he is a fussbudget. You know that word?”

“Yeah. He’s into details, wants everything perfect.”

“Good! Yes, he wants perfection, maybe is even a bit artistic. And look here, the capital letters in the middle of sentences. Do the words ‘message’ and ‘given’ have more importance
to him than ‘reason’ or ‘live’? I think not. This one is under extreme emotional pressure. Or he is lying.”

Dixie examined the words. She had not actually thought of the letters as capitals, because they were only minutely larger than the others, but she could see now what Ramón meant.

“And this hook on the T-bar? Determined! This one will not be easily diverted from a cause.”

Dixie probed for ten more minutes, but only a few points Ramón made seemed useful. The words “movie” and “daughter” and “sacrifice” were written more carefully than others, and these words all appeared in the “angry” notes. Also in these two notes, the words were widely spaced, but the letters were crammed closely together, which Ramón considered a sign of the writer’s stress or tension.

When Dixie explained the difference between the faxed notes and the two cards Sarina had provided, Ramón’s interest instantly escalated.

“How did you trace the letters, young lady? There’s no seeing through this heavy card.”

“Simple. I scanned one of the messages. The last one was still around when I heard Mother tell Marty I’d be going with her to Houston. Like I don’t have a life! Then I extrapolated the letters I didn’t have and printed out the messages on a two-part form Marty’s secretary uses. The top page of the form has this transfer stuff on the back.”

“So then you positioned this transfer just right and traced over the letters with a—what, a ballpoint?” He ran his finger lightly over the red lettering.

“Pencil.
Very
lightly, otherwise it made indentions and the blue carbon, or whatever, showed through the red felt tip.” Sarina shrugged. “I had to practice a few times.”

“Then this
pastose
, this flowing ink, is
your
work?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I will tell you something about yourself.” Ramón’s chin lifted with his usual conceit. He knew damn well he was good. “Without seeing your own handwriting, not even a signature,
I say you are sensual. I say you are very imaginative, warm, and pleasure-loving. You enjoy intense experiences. An artist, and perhaps a bit self-indulgent?”

Sarina’s mouth dropped only a little. “Can you tell me if I’m going to make my first big movie before I’m eighteen? Spielberg did it before eighteen.”

Scowling at her mother’s list, Sarina sullenly chose the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center for her one concession to culture. Dixie mentally applauded the choice. They’d likely be the only two people on the trails on a brisk February morning. Luckily, the gates opened early.

Sarina breezed past the native specimens in the indoor botanical hall with scarcely a glance, spotting some stationery in the gift-shop window she wanted to pick up later for Joanna—probably to prove they’d been doing the things laid out for them. Most of the outdoor plants were winter skeletons. They walked three of the five miles of trails before the kid found something that actually interested her. A green froth of ancient ferns, live oak trees dipping their low-hanging, moss-laden branches near the water, a cool mist enveloping everything, the scene conveyed prehistoric earth like nothing Dixie had ever seen.

While Sarina sketched, Dixie found a rock to perch on. A pale sun promised to break through the overcast later, but at present the mild breeze over the water held an uncommonly sharp bite, even for February. Wriggling her butt to a more comfortable position on the rock, she powered her cell phone on. She’d resisted carrying the damn thing for months, but it’d proven so useful in the past few days, killing time in movie theaters and winter gardens, that she might actually kiss Belle Richards for insisting she anchor it to her belt. She dialed Brenda’s home phone number: no answer. Dixie had pretty much given up on buttonholing her friend about the Avenging Angels, but she did need to confirm their self-defense class at Ryan’s school later that morning. Glancing
at her watch, she punched in the office number. Julie Colby answered, sounding rushed.

“Brenda phoned in a message earlier,” Julie said. “She has some personal errands to take care of before lunch—guess that includes your class. She really likes teaching those kids. I know she’ll miss it, now that you’re—well, you
are
getting that cast off soon, I hope. Can’t be comfortable.”

Dixie assured her the cast would be off before the week was out, ended the call, and immediately dialed Les Crews at Quantico, hoping he wasn’t out of town. He often lectured in criminal justice programs across the country. Or out sick—

“Les! Dixie Flannigan. Hope you have a minute to talk.”

“Fuck you, Flannigan.”

Whoa!
The man was often abrupt, even rude, but … “Hey, Les, if this is not a good time—”

“What the hell’s that piece of shit package you sent here?”

“My note—”

“Said you have a stalker. You want me to tell you who, where, what color his eyes are, what the sonofabitch eats for breakfast. I
read
your goddamn note. I don’t like smartass pranks taking up my time.”

Pranks?
“Les, what’s going on? I sent a few stalker notes. Thought you might see something in the wording that would help us. That’s it. If you don’t have time—”

“You’re telling me you didn’t know they came right out of one of my papers?”

“What?”

“
Loving Pursuit: The Faith Burrows Stalker.
I sent you the goddamn paper five years ago.”

No wonder the words had rung false when she’d read them. Dixie had been working a sex offense case, and Les Crews sent the stalking paper in a stack of similar but more specific material on sex offenders.

She pulled out her pocket notebook and started scribbling.

“Sorry, Les. One of the messages seemed familiar, but I didn’t place it.”

“Hell, when the Burrows case broke, and the stalking laws were getting a boost, that paper was published everywhere—including photographs of the goddamn letters Eckers wrote.”

Crews sounded placated, more or less. And the case was coming back now. Eckers had been one of the stalkers convicted and sentenced in Arizona, right after voters made stalking a felony.

Hearing the
whir
of a camera’s motor drive, Dixie looked around for Casey James. Dixie had phoned the reporter before leaving home that morning and asked if she’d bring copies of the shots she’d taken on Joanna’s set Tuesday afternoon. Casey sat on a tree branch near ground level, elbow on a
KEEP OFF
sign. She was photographing Sarina.

“Les, a copycat
stalker?
Is that possible?”

“‘You
must overcome your weakness, Faith. Your weakness is men.’
Does that sound close enough to you?”

Almost identical. Only, Joanna’s stalker had said “illness.” This was one of the notes Ramón had indicated was not written in anger. “How about the others?”

Dixie could hear the profiler’s labored breathing and remembered he’d stopped smoking years ago, doctor’s orders. She wondered if he’d started again. After a few seconds, evidently reading the copies she’d sent, he muffled the phone and cleared his throat.

“Here’s one:
‘If you haven’t the strength to preserve your purity, I must help you. Your daughter will sacrifice for your sins.’
The Burrows letter read:
‘If you haven’t the strength to protect our unity, your children will sacrifice for your sins
.’ Eckers maintained that he and Burrows were ‘two halves of the same soul,’ star-crossed lovers or some shit. Should’ve seen the crap we pulled out of his spare bedroom—animal skulls filled with black candle wax, acupuncture needles he’d been using to pierce his own skin. Sonofabitch even took pictures, him standing nude with three hundred needles sticking out of him. Sick goober bastard.”