Thr3e (29 page)

The Riddle Killer was remarkably elusive. The last three days were no exception. Sam was in Texas, flushing out something that had her hopes high. No doubt she’d come waltzing in tomorrow with a new theory that would set them back to square one. Actually, the CBI agent was beginning to grow on her, but jurisdiction had a way of straining the best relationships.

As it turned out, no one had seen a stranger around the library. And no one had seen Kevin. The front desk receptionist would have remembered Kevin—he was an avid reader. Short of bypassing the security system, of which there was no evidence, the likelihood of anyone entering the library unseen was small. Carl had been in the closet yesterday morning and there’d been no bomb, which meant Slater had found a way in since then, either at night or under their noses, unrecognized. How?

An hour after the explosion, Jennifer sat across from Kevin in a small Chinese restaurant and tried to distract him with small talk while they ate. But neither of them was good at small talk.

They went back to the warehouse at nine, this time armed with high-powered halogens that lit up the interior like a football field. Kevin walked through the scene with her. But now it was nearing midnight, and he was half-asleep on his feet. Unlike the library, the warehouse was still silent. No police, no ATF, only FBI.

She hadn’t bothered to tell Milton about the incident at the warehouse. She would as soon as she was done with it. She’d explained the situation to Frank, and he’d finally agreed to her reasoning, but he wasn’t happy with it. He was getting an earful from a dozen different sources. The governor wanted this tied up now. Washington was starting to apply pressure too. They were running out of time. If another bomb went off, they might take the case from her.

Jennifer glanced at Kevin, who leaned his head back against the wall in the reception area, eyes closed. She entered a ten-by-ten office storage room where they were compiling evidence for delivery to the lab. Under other circumstances, she would probably be doing this back at her desk, but Milton would be breathing down her neck. Besides, proximity favored the storage room, so Galager had transferred what he needed from the van and set up temporary shop here.

“Any conclusions, Bill?”

Galager leaned over a drawing of the warehouse floor plan, on which he’d painstakingly redrawn the footprints as they appeared.

“Best as I can tell, Slater entered and left through the fire escape. We have a single set of footprints coming and going, which correlates with the testimony. He walks up and down the hall a half-dozen times, waiting for Kevin to show, descends the stairs at least twice, springs his trap, and ends up in this room here.” He tapped the room next to Kevin’s hiding place.

“How did he lock the door? He shut it with the string, but Sam told me it was open when they first arrived.”

“We can only assume that he had the lock rigged somehow. It’s feasible that with a hard knock the lock could engage.”

“Seems thin,” Jennifer said. “So we have him entering and leaving through the fire escape. Kevin enters and leaves through the front door. What about the footprints themselves?”

“When all is said and done, there are only four clear prints, all of which we’ve casted and photographed. Problem is, they’re all from the hallway and the stairs where both Kevin and Slater walked. Same size. Same basic shape. Both hard-soled and similar to what Kevin is wearing—impossible to visually determine which is which. The lab will break it down.”

Jennifer considered his report. Sam hadn’t entered the building, which was good thinking. But she hadn’t seen Slater come or go either.

“What about the recording?” Galager had already transferred the data to a tape, which he had in a small recorder on the table.

“Again, the lab will have to tell us what they can come up with, but it sounds clean to me. This is the first recording from the hotel room.” He punched the play button. Two voices filled the speaker. Slater and Samantha.

“There, that’s better, don’t you think? The game won’t last forever; we might as well make this more interesting.”

Low and gravelly. Breathy. Slater.

“What good is a game that you can’t lose? It proves nothing.”

She recognized Sam’s voice. The tape played to the end of the conversation and clicked off.

“Here’s the second recording, made while we were here earlier this evening.” Galager punched it up. This time it was Kevin and Slater.

Kevin:
“H . . . hello?”

Slater:
“H . . . hello? You sound like an imbecile, Kevin. I thought I said no cops.”

The recordings were clear and clean. Jennifer nodded. “Get them to the lab with the footprints immediately. Any word yet on the dagger tattoo or the blood work from the warehouse?”

“Blood’s too old for anything but type. They’re having trouble even with that, though. Twenty years is a long time.”

“So it is twenty years old?”

“Best estimate, seventeen to twenty. Follows his confession.”

“And the type?”

“They’re having a hard time typing it. On the other hand, we do have something with the tattoo. A parlor in Houston says they have a large man with blond hair who comes in on occasion. Same tattoo as the one Kevin drew us. Says he’s never seen a tattoo like it except on this man.” Galager grinned deliberately. “The report came in about an hour ago. No current address, but the parlor says the man was in last Tuesday around ten o’clock.”

“In Houston?” That’s where Sam had gone. “Slater was in Houston last week? Doesn’t sound right.”

“Houston?” Kevin asked behind her. They turned to see him standing in the door. He walked in. “You have a lead in Houston?”

“The tattoo—”

“Yeah, I heard. But . . . how could Slater be in Houston?”

“Three-hour flight or a very long day’s drive,” Galager said. “Possible he’s going back and forth.”

Kevin’s brow furrowed. “He has a dagger tattoo? What if this guy turns out to be the boy, but not Slater or the Riddle Killer? You pick him up and now he knows about me, where I live. All I need is another wacko after me.”

“Unless this guy lives in a cave,” Galager said, “he’s heard the confession and seen your face on television. There’s a chance he
is
Slater. And there’s an even better chance that Slater is the boy. We have a man threatening you who all but admits that he’s the boy; a boy who has reason to threaten you, identified with a very unique tattoo. And now we have a man with the same tattoo. Circumstantial, I realize, but it sounds pretty plausible to me. We make busts on less.”

“But can you put someone behind bars with that?”

“Not a chance. That’s where the physical and forensic evidence comes in. As soon as we have a suspect in custody, we measure him up against the evidence we’ve gathered, which is substantial. We have Slater’s voice on tape. We have his shoe print. We have several bombs, all of which were made somewhere. We have six bugs—all this in three days. A virtual windfall in cases like this. I’d say Slater’s getting sloppy.”

And more so today than yesterday.
“He’s at least pushing the pace,” Jennifer said. “Getting caught doesn’t seem to concern him. Which isn’t good.”

“Why?” Kevin asked.

She looked at his haggard face. A blade of grass from the library lawn was still stuck in his shaggy hair. His blue eyes looked more desperate than enchanting now. He didn’t tap his foot or rake his hair as frequently. The man needed rest. “Based on his profile, my guess is that he’s closing in on his objective.”

“Which is what?”

Jennifer glanced at Galager. “Good work, Bill. Why don’t you wrap it up and call the locals?” She took Kevin’s arm and led him out. “Let’s take a walk.”

Two of the streetlights nearest the warehouse were either shut down on energy conservation timers or burned out. A cool ocean breeze drifted over Long Beach. She’d shed her jacket and wore a sleeveless gold blouse with a black skirt—it was actually a bit chilly at this hour.

She crossed her arms. “You okay?”

“Tired.”

“Nothing like fresh air to clear the mind. This way.” She led him toward the fire escape in the back.

“So, what is Slater’s objective?” Kevin asked again, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets.

“Well, that’s a problem. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. On the surface it seems simple enough: He wants to terrorize you. Men like Slater do what they do for a variety of reasons, usually to gratify some twisted need they’ve grown into over many years, but almost without exception they prey on the weak. Their focus is on their own need, not on the victim.”

“Makes sense. And Slater’s different?”

“I think so. His objective doesn’t seem to be himself as much as you. I mean you specifically.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Take your typical serial offender. Say a pyromaniac bent on burning down houses. He doesn’t care whose house it is as long as it fits his needs. He needs to see the flame engulfing this structure—it excites him and gives him a feeling of power beyond his reach in any other way. The house is important—it has to be a certain size, maybe a certain build, maybe a symbol of wealth. In the same way a sex offender might prey on women he considers appealing. But his focus is on himself, not the victim. The victim is almost incidental.”

“And you’re saying that Slater hasn’t chosen me for what I can do for him, but for what he can do to me. Like he did with your brother.”

“Maybe. But this is playing out differently than Roy’s murder. The Riddle Killer filled his thirst for bloodshed by killing Roy and killing him quickly. Slater is playing with you, over three days now. I’m beginning to question our initial assumption that Slater and the Riddle Killer are the same person.” The Riddle Killer didn’t seem to know his victims, other than Roy, whom he’d selected for her benefit. She rubbed her arms against the cold.

“Unless all that was just a cover-up for what he’s doing now. Unless extracting revenge for what I did to him was the game all along.”

“That’s the obvious assumption. I’m not sure anymore. Revenge would be a simple matter. Assuming Slater is the boy you locked up, he could have found a hundred opportunities over the years to extract his revenge. His most obvious course would have been to hurt or kill you. I don’t think Slater’s interested in killing you. Not anytime soon, anyway. I think he wants to change you. He wants to force your hand somehow. I don’t think the game’s the device; I think the game’s the objective.”

“But that’s crazy!” Kevin stopped and put both hands into his hair. “What is there about me? Who? Who would want to . . . to force my hand?”

“I know it doesn’t all fit yet, but the sooner we narrow down Slater’s true motivation, the higher our chances of getting you out of this mess.”

They were at the back, by the fire escape. A ladder reached up to the second floor and curved into a window. Jennifer sighed and leaned against the tin siding.

“Bottom line is that if I’m right, then the only way to understand Slater’s true motivation is to understand you, Kevin. I’ve got to know more about you.” He was pacing, staring at the concrete, hands still in his hair.

“I want to know about the house,” she said.

“There’s nothing to know about the house,” he said.

“Why don’t you let me judge that?”

“I can’t talk about the house!”

“I know you don’t think you can, but it may provide our best clues now. I know it’s hard—”

“I don’t think you have a clue about how hard it is! You didn’t grow up there!” He paced and smoothed his hair frantically, and then flung his arms wide. “You think any of this means anything? You think this is reality? A bunch of ants running around the globe, hiding their secrets in their deep dark tunnels? We
all
have our secrets. Who’s to say that mine have anything to do with anything? Why don’t the rest of the ants have to crawl out of their tunnels and broadcast their sins to the world?”

Kevin was baring himself, and Jennifer needed him to do just that. Not because she would ever exploit him, but because she needed to understand his secrets if she hoped to help him.

And she did hope to help him. More now than a day ago, even if Slater wasn’t her brother’s killer after all.

“You’re right,” she said. “We’re all fallen, as my priest used to say. I’m not interested in your sin. I wasn’t even in favor of the initial confession, remember? I’m interested in you, Kevin.”

“And who am I?” He was desperate. “Huh? Answer me that. Who am I? Who are you? Who is anybody? We are what we do! We are our secrets. I
am
my sin! You want to know me, then you have to know my sin. Is that what you want? Every little dirty secret out on the table so that you can dissect it all and know Kevin, the poor tormented soul?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“You might as well have, because it’s true! Why is it fair that I should spill my guts when the pastor next-door has as many nasty secrets as I do? Huh? If we want to know him, we have to know his secrets, is that it?”

“Stop it!” Her anger surprised her. “You’re
not
your sin! Who ever told you that lie? Aunt Balinda? I’ve seen you, Kevin. You asked me what my profile for you was. Well, let me be more specific. You are one of the kindest, gentlest, most interesting, appealing men I know. That’s who you are. And don’t insult my intelligence or my feminine discernment by dismissing my opinion.” She took a breath and a guess. “I don’t know what Slater’s up to, or why, but I guarantee you’re doing exactly what he wants you to do when you start to believe that you’re trapped. You’ve come out of that. Don’t go back.”

She knew by his blink that she was right. Slater was trying to pull him back to the past, and the thought so terrified him that he was breaking down. Which was exactly how Slater would accomplish his objective. He would trap Kevin in his past.

Kevin stared at her, stunned. It occurred to her then, looking back into his wide eyes, that she didn’t merely like Kevin, she cared for him deeply. She had no business caring for him; she didn’t even
want
to care for him, not in that way. Her empathy had risen to the surface, unbidden. She’d always been a sucker for the downtrodden. She had always had a soft spot for men who were hurting in some way. Now her soft spot had found Kevin.