Steven James - The Knight

Her mother had just started writing about a guy named Brad who was one year ahead of her in school when Tessa heard Martha’s thin, wispy voice float up the stairs. “What can I make you for lunch, dear?”

“I’m not hungry,” she called back.

Tessa liked Martha. Patrick had told her one time that his mother had grown up in Georgia, learning to be a proper Southern lady, so Tessa realized she probably wasn’t too thrilled about her step-granddaughter’s eyebrow ring, black fingernail polish, tattoo, and love of death metal, but still, Tessa had never felt judged by her and had always respected her for that. Despite their differences, they got along surprisingly well.

Tessa heard footsteps on the stairs.

Martha wasn’t exactly spry, and Tessa didn’t like the idea that she was making her come up the stairs just to convince her to eat something, so she left the diary on the bed, walked down the hallway, and plopped on the top stair. “Seriously,” she told her. “I’m good.”

Martha was halfway up the stairs. “Tessa, dear, you need to eat.” Martha was a frail, delicate woman with snow-white hair, yet some one whom Tessa had noticed possessed the kind of strength that’s hard to measure.

And even though Tessa really wanted to get back to the diary to find out what happened between her mother and Brad, she didn’t want to be rude. “OK, sure, just whatever you’re having.”

“Meatloaf all right, then?”

Tessa stared at her, expecting her face to give away that she was kidding, but Martha just looked at her innocently. Finally, Tessa said, “In the Bible, weren’t Adam and Eve vegetarians? Wasn’t that the original plan-that humans wouldn’t kill to live? And Daniel the lion-den-guy too? Wasn’t he-”

A slight finger in the air. “Point taken.” Martha gave her an I’m-proud- of-you look. “So, leafloaf, then?”

“Sure, yeah. Leafloaf,” she said. “Thanks.” Coming from Patrick, “leafloaf” would have sounded like a lame attempt at humor, but from Martha it just seemed sweet.

Then Martha gave her a light smile and descended the steps again, and Tessa returned to the diary to find out if her mother and Brad ever hooked up.

Fifteen minutes after leaving his house, Dr. Bryant pulled into the parking lot of the Denver News building.

“So,” Cheyenne said. “Bryant is an expert on Boccaccio, he owns a sword collection, was unaccounted for yesterday, the head in the pot of basil was sent to this building, he drives over here as soon as we’re done talking to him, and remember? Kurt mentioned that Bryant had Amy Lynn in class.”

“Yes,” I said. “My interest is definitely sparked.”

Clock check-we had twelve minutes before the briefing at HQ, and despite my reluctance to attend, I knew we needed to be there. “We have to go, but let’s get a car over here; have a couple officers keep an eye on the professor.”

Cheyenne pulled out her cell, and I aimed the car toward police headquarters.

Jake was connecting his computer to the wall monitor when Cheyenne and I arrived at the conference room. In addition to Jake, I saw three of the officers who’d been helping us with the case, two FBI agents, and Reggie Greer. Kurt hadn’t arrived yet.

A printed copy of Jake’s psychological profile lay on the table in front of each of the twelve chairs. As Cheyenne and I took our seats, Captain Terrell, Kurt’s boss and the fan of profiler TV shows, stepped into the room and sat beside Jake. The captain was a severe-looking man with short, choppy hair. A cloud of Old Spice cologne trailed behind him as he passed.

Cheyenne leaned close to me, nodded toward him, and whispered, “They say it takes more muscles to frown than to smile.”

I kept my voice low. “You’re saying his face likes a good workout?”

She winked. “Good. You’re keeping up with me.”

“Great minds,” I whispered.

Then I overheard Captain Terrell ask Jake if he was ready. Jake nodded. “Good to go.”

The captain cleared his throat, and everyone settled into their chairs. “First, I want to thank you all for coming in on a weekend,” he said. “As you know, the Denver Police Department is always looking for ways to better serve its constituents, so we’re honored and privileged to have two federal agents working closely with us on this case.” He gave me and Jake a slightly forced nod.

Then he leaned both of his hands against the table. “So let’s cut to the bone-this psycho has got to be stopped. We have at least seven deaths on our hands, and this thing is turning into a freakin’ PR nightmare. The DPD is gonna put every available resource we have behind finding this guy.”

He picked up one of the photocopies of Jake’s profile. Waved it at us. “And Special Agent Vanderveld is the man who’s gonna help us do it.” Then he gave him the floor. “Jake.”

Evidently, Captain Terrell had a shade more confidence in Jake’s investigative abilities than I did. I flipped open my copy of the profile, began my obligatory perusal.

Jake stood. “Thank you, Captain.” He pointed to the printed profiles. “I won’t read what you have in front of you, but I would like to highlight a few points.” He tapped a button on his laptop, and an FBI logo appeared on the screen.

“We’re dealing with someone who was able to find a man on the FBI’s most wanted list, then subdue and kill him even though that man was a trained assassin.” He clicked his laptop again, and an image of Sebastian Taylor’s face appeared.

I looked around.

No one else seemed to notice that what Jake had just said, although it sounded insightful, was entirely self-evident. Just a restatement of information we already knew.

“The UNSUB is a male Caucasian, thirty to thirty-five years of age. The crime scenes show a mixture of organized and disorganized behavior.”

Saying that behavior is a combination of organized and disorganized might be an accurate description, but it’s completely useless in zeroing in on a suspect. I could see this was going to be a very long briefing.

“He’s not your typical sexually motivated homicidal killer. He is divorced at least once and might have lived with his mother after college.”

With every one of Jake’s statements I could feel my temperature rise higher. This was precisely what I didn’t like about profiling-conjecture based on guesswork rather than facts. Considering solely the evidence that’d been left at the crime scenes so far, how could anyone possibly tell that the offender lived with his mother after college? It was ridiculous.

Jake went on, “I recommend direct confrontation with the suspect during interrogation. Ask him questions such as, ‘How many other people have you killed?’ ‘Where did you stash Chris Arlington’s body?’ ‘Where did you get the idea to reenact the crimes from The Decameron?’”

“Excuse me,” Cheyenne said.

“Yes?”

“Wouldn’t it be more prudent at this point to focus our energies on getting someone into custody than designing an interrogation strategy?”

Oh yes. A woman after my own heart.

Jake smiled, but I could tell it wasn’t really a smile. “We need to be prepared for whatever comes our way, Detective. The more we understand this killer, the better our chances of catching him and getting him to confess. My goal is to be as thorough as possible.”

By the look on Cheyenne’s face I suspected she was about to lay into him, but I intervened. “Jake,” I said. “Cheyenne and I just spoke with the professor who teaches about The Decameron at DU. He seemed to think Boccaccio sees himself in the role of a knight bringing lovers together with loss, grief, or death. You may cover this in your written profile, but what do you make of the Boccaccio connection?”