Steven James - The Knight

“Yes, sir.”

“If anything goes down, anything at all, call me. Got it?”

A nod.

A sad kind of tension crept into the hall, wrapped around us, then Kurt said to me, “I can’t just stand around here. Walk with me to my car.”

We started for the stairs and I asked him if he’d had any luck with the sketch artist last night.

He shook his head. “I wasn’t here. Reggie brought him in, but apparently Kelsey wouldn’t meet with him, and Bennett had nothing new for us to go on. Oh yeah, Missing Persons found out half an hour ago that no one has seen Father Hughes, one of the priests from St. Michael’s, since Tuesday. Apparently, he sent a text message to some relatives in Baltimore, told them he was coming, but never arrived. I’m letting Missing Persons look into it for now. They’re keeping me posted.”

“He disappeared on Tuesday?” I said softly.

“Yeah, I know. The timing fits for story number two from The Decameron. I tried calling you this morning to tell you, but your line was busy.”

All at once I realized that Kurt still didn’t know I’d spoken with the killer. “You aren’t going to believe this. John called me.”

“What!”

“I was so focused on seeing if Kelsey was OK that I-”

“Did you get a recording of it?”

“No. Cybercrime is doing a backtrace on it, but I doubt they’ll find anything. I’m betting our guy used a prepaid and tossed it.”

“So what did he say?”

“Taunted me. Hinted at Bennett’s cause of death. I’ll transcribe the conversation. We can circulate it to the team, see if it rings any bells with anyone.”

“You can remember it?”

“Yes.”

“The whole thing? Word for word?”

“Yes.”

A slight pause. “OK.” The stairwell was just ahead. “One more thing: the warrant for the library records is still going through, but we did find out that DU offers two courses on Renaissance Humanist literature. Only college in the state that does. Both classes cover The Decameron. The instructor is an English prof who also teaches a few classes in the journalism department. No one from the suspect list took his classes, but a number of people from the Denver News did: Rhodes, Amy Lynn Greer, at least a dozen others.”

“The prof’s name isn’t John, by any chance?”

We descended the steps.

“No. Adrian, Adrian Bryant. But he doesn’t look good for this. He was out of town yesterday, speaking at a conference in Phoenix, so he couldn’t have been the guy you chased at the ranch.”

Arriving at the first floor, we walked past the nurse’s station. “Do we have actual confirmation that he was there, or just anecdotal?” I asked.

“We’re working on that.” The automatic exit doors slid open in front of us.

We stepped outside.

The day was getting colder. The sky, darker.

Kurt gave his watch a quick glance. “I gotta head home. Cheryl’s not too happy about my hours this week.”

As sensitively as I could I said, “So how are things? Any better?”

He wasn’t quick to answer. “They are what they are.” I heard deep remorse in his voice. Then he took a deep breath. “Anyway, I’ll call Jake and Cheyenne; fill ’em in. Don’t forget, we meet at HQ at one o’clock. I know how much you love briefings, and this one’s extra special. Jake’s going to run down the psychological profile of the-”

“Please don’t say UNSUB.”

My comment brought a small but welcome smile. “Killer. So I’ll see you there?”

I didn’t reply.

“Pat?”

“I’m thinking.”

I realized that, given the choice between sitting through a briefing led by Jake Vanderveld and swimming through a pond full of leeches, I’d be looking for my bathing suit. But I didn’t mention that. It didn’t seem like the polite thing to say.

“OK, I’ll see you at one. That should give me enough time. There’s something I want to look into.”

“What’s that?”

“The newspaper articles pinned to the wall at the ranch house all concerned Richard Devin Basque. Since John obviously knows about Basque, I want to find out if Basque knows about John.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’m going to have a little chat with my old friend.”

Ten minutes after leaving the hospital, I was in my office in the federal building. I turned on my computer’s video chat camera, phoned Ralph, and told him that I needed to do a video conference with Basque. As soon as I’d explained why, he said, “I’ll take care of it. I’m about ten minutes from the jail. I’ll get things rolling; call you back in twenty.”

He called me back in twelve.

“It’s good to go,” he said. “I didn’t mention the subject matter, though. I figured you could bring that up.”

“Good. What about Basque’s lawyer?”

“He said he doesn’t have anything to hide; that he doesn’t want her there. He already signed a waiver.”

Basque was so addicted to control that I wasn’t surprised he didn’t want Ms. Eldridge-Gorman sitting next to him, telling him what to say.

“It’s a power trip for him,” I said to Ralph. “Just knowing that I’m asking for his time probably makes him feel important.”

“Is that profiling I’m hearing from you, Pat?”

“That’s not profiling. It’s called induction.”

“Sounds like profiling to me.”

“It’s not profiling.”

“Pat the Profiler. That’s gonna be your new nickname. Wait till I send out the memo.”

“Could we just focus on the case here?”

Then, through the phone, I heard the sound of a door opening. “Wait,” Ralph said. “I gotta go. They’re ready.”

“I wasn’t profiling,” I said, but he’d already hung up.

Anticipating that I might want to take notes during my conversation with Basque, I positioned a notepad next to my keyboard, directed the camera on my face, and then clicked “record” so I could keep a digital record of our conversation.

By the time I was done getting ready, I heard my computer beep. A gray jail cell wall appeared on the monitor.

Ralph’s head filled the screen. Then the image swung to the left as he centered the computer’s camera on an empty chair. He looked into the camera again. “Almost got it, Pat the Profiler.”

“Could you tilt your head to the side?” I said. “I’m getting an awful lot of glare on this end.”

“Ha. Very funny. Laugh all you want.” His face appeared again. He slid his hand across his head. “It drives Brineesha crazy.”

“Just buy me some sunglasses.”

The image of Ralph’s face was grainy, and because of the delay between the audio and video, I guessed they were using someone’s older, slower laptop. Then I heard the rattle of leg irons and Ralph said, “Here he comes.”

There was a moment of blurry movement as Ralph moved back, then Basque situated himself on the chair and faced the camera.

Today, Basque wore an orange prison jumpsuit and not the hand-tailored clothes he’d worn at the trial, and for some reason that brought me a small degree of satisfaction. The door clanged shut as Ralph left.

“Hello, Richard,” I said.

“Agent Bowers.” Even though he was handcuffed, he looked as confident and at ease as ever. “I’d like to thank you again for saving my life. I wouldn’t be here today if you hadn’t responded so quickly.”

My natural response to a comment like that would have been to say, “You’re welcome,” but I held back and simply said, “Yes.”

“Did they find out how Celeste’s father was able to load the gun before it was brought into the courtroom?”

“They’re looking into it.”