Steven James - The Knight

“I’m sure they are.” He paused, folded his handcuffed hands on his lap. “Does this chat concern the recent string of murders in Denver that I’ve been hearing so much about?”

“It does.” After the attempt on his life I should have guessed he’d be following the news. “I think you might be able to help us find the killer.” I stopped for a moment and evaluated whether or not to say it. Went ahead: “He reminds me of you, Richard.”

Basque was silent. Finally he nodded slightly. “So, I’m guessing it isn’t motives you’re interested in. What are we hoping to find out here today?”

“He knows about you. We found newspaper clippings of your crimes. He collected them.”

Basque straightened up. “Clippings?”

“Yes. I’m wondering if he ever contacted you.”

Like so many serial killers, Basque had reached celebrity status among a certain aberrant segment of society. From my pretrial briefing with Assistant State’s Attorney Vandez, I knew that thousands of people had written to Basque over the past thirteen years. Last I’d heard, nine women had asked him to marry them when he was released.

I figured I’d give Basque one small clue to see if it helped jog his memory. “This killer, he likes Renaissance literature.”

I’ve only met a few people in my life with a memory as sharp as Basque’s, and now it looked like he was mentally sorting through all of those thousands of letters he’d received in order to identify the man I was referring to. At last, a look of recognition crossed his face. “Giovanni.”

That’s Boccaccio’s first name, the Italian form of John.

“Tell me what you know,” I said.

“Well for starters, I don’t know who he is. Giovanni’s almost certainly not his real name. I never wrote him back.” Basque was as consummate a liar as he was a killer, and even though he sounded like he was telling the truth I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. He must have noticed my skepticism. “You can confirm it with the warden,” he said. “Giovanni wrote to me six times, I never replied.”

I would contact the warden as soon as I could, but for now I wanted to find out as many details as possible from Basque himself.

“What did he write to you about?”

Basque wet his lips, stared directly into the camera, and said, “You.”

My heartbeat seemed to stop for a split second, and when it picked up again it was faster than usual. “What did you say?”

“Giovanni wrote to me about an FBI agent he was recruiting to play a crucial part in his story. Someone he was planning to bury alive at the climax. Someone he admired.”

I shook my head. “That’s not enough. It could be any number of people.” I could see the gears turning in his mind. It appeared there was something he wasn’t telling me. “What else?”

He tapped a finger slowly against his leg. “I’ll help you if you do something for me.”

“I’m not here to cut deals.”

“Hear me out. It’s not a deal like you think. It’s a favor.”

I was tempted to end the call immediately, but then remembered that nothing I’d done so far had slowed down John-or Giovanni or whatever his name was. He always seemed to be one step ahead, just like Basque had been thirteen years ago in the months leading up to the slaughterhouse. In the months so many women died.

Cold, whispering lips.

Basque’s victims.

And now, Giovanni’s.

So many innocent people, calling to me from their graves.

Basque stared at me from the cell in Chicago, waiting for my reply.

At last I said, “What’s the favor?”

“When you return to the stand tomorrow and Priscilla asks you about what happened in the slaughterhouse…” He paused.

I’d been trying not to think about the trial, and I didn’t like being reminded that I’d be there in less than twenty-four hours.

“Go on.”

“Don’t tell the truth,” Basque said.

His words stunned me. “What?” I stared at the grainy picture on my computer screen and tried to decipher Basque’s expression. Couldn’t.

“When she asks you whether or not you assaulted me, don’t tell the truth.”

“I won’t lie on the stand.”

Why is he asking you to do this?

“You’ve considered it, haven’t you?” Basque said. “I think you have. I’m just asking you to do what you want to do, what your gut tells you to do.”

Cheyenne’s words about following gut instincts immediately came to mind, especially since Basque’s comments struck uncomfortably close to home. “If that’s your only condition then this conversation is over-”

“He’s coming for you, Patrick.” Basque leaned forward and his voice seemed to carry a note of genuine concern. “He’s playing with you. Be careful. He’s got a twist waiting for you at the end that you’d never expect.”

“I’ll take my chances. Good-bye, Richard.”

“I’ll be praying for you. Remember, Exodus 1:15-21. Remem-ber-”

I ended the call. I wasn’t in the mood for Basque’s games. I wasn’t in the mood for any of this.

As I was saving the video and uploading it onto the task force’s online case files, I felt a wave of anger.

Then confusion.

Then something else. Something deeper and more primal-a desire for revenge, for a rough and final justice to be meted out against Giovanni and Basque. And against all who would mock the dying or take innocent life.

And with those feelings, I sensed myself slipping, tumbling toward something I did not want to become. I remembered a time a few months ago when Tessa had asked me if I was like them, like the people I hunt, and I’d had to admit to myself that there’s only a thin line that separates me from them. A single act. A single choice.

Remember who you are, Pat.

Remember.

I stared at my office wall: my diplomas, my awards.

You’re Special Agent Patrick Bowers with the Federal Bureau of Investigation… the man who caught Richard Devin Basque… criminologist, investigator, author…

My mind tried to dictate my resume, but the words in my head were cut off abruptly when my eyes landed on the spine of Christie’s diary resting on my bookshelf.

And I remembered the most important part of who I am: You are Tessa Bernice Ellis’s stepfather.

I crossed the room and gazed at the worn, leather spine of the diary-it wasn’t one of those small diaries with pages the size of note cards but was the same size as a hardback novel.

Christie was the one who’d first gotten me interested in mysticism and philosophy, and in the last two years I’d read everything I could get my hands on by Guyon, de Fenelon, Merton, and a dozen others. I’d placed Christie’s diary between The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila and Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, two of my favorites.

I ran my finger along the spine.

The wedding picture of me and Christie sat on the shelf just below the diary. We’d gotten married at a small chapel in Central Park and then stepped outside to have this picture taken. And now, as I looked at her smiling face, I felt the same strange mixture of thankfulness and loss I always feel when I see her.

Christie had chosen Tessa to be her maid of honor. That’s how close they were. That’s how much they meant to each other.

I took the diary from the shelf.

And I left to give it to my stepdaughter.

Unit #14

Safe-Lock Self-Storage

5532 Dayton Street

Denver, Colorado

Giovanni dropped six rats into the aquarium that contained his three remaining Western Diamondback rattlesnakes.

The rats tried to climb the glass.

But the snakes closed in.

Over the next fifteen minutes he let the snakes feed while he extracted the bufotenin from the skin and parotid glands of the ten toads he’d killed, dissected, and pinned out on the board in front of him.