Michael Connelly - The Scarecrow

“Well, she wrote a story on Monday about the cold case squad popping somebody for a twenty-year-old murder. Maybe somebody over there could say something. Try Rick Jackson or Tim Marcia. Those are the guys she spoke to. Also, Richard Bengston. Try him.”

She wrote the names down.

“Thanks, I’ll check it out.”

“Good luck. I’ll be around if you need me.”

She left me then and I turned back to Angela’s desk and looked again at the flowers. The glorification of Angela Cook was in high gear now and I was part of it with that quote I had just given GoGo.

Call me Mr. Cynical, but I couldn’t help wondering if the bouquet of carnations and daisies was somebody’s legitimate show of mourning, or if the whole thing had been staged for a photo that would be put in the next morning’s edition.

An hour later I was sitting with Larry Bernard in the conference room normally reserved for news meetings. We had my files spread across the big table and were going step by step through the moves I had made on the story. Bernard had brought his A game. He was diligent about understanding my decisions and acute in his questions. I could tell he was excited about being the lead writer on a story that would go out across the country, if not around the world. Larry and I went back a long ways-we had worked together at the Rocky in Denver. If anybody got to run with my story, I was begrudgingly glad it was him.

It was important to Larry to get official confirmation from the police or FBI on the things I was telling him. So to his side he had a legal pad on which he wrote a series of questions he would later take to the authorities before writing his story. Because of that need to get to the task force before writing, Bernard was all business with me. There was very little small talk and I liked that. I didn’t have any small talk left.

My throwaway phone buzzed in my pocket for the second time in fifteen minutes. The first time, I hadn’t bothered to pull it out and I let it go to message. Larry and I had been in the middle of a key point of discussion and I didn’t want the intrusion. But whoever called hadn’t left a message, because I didn’t get a follow-up voice-mail buzz.

Now the phone was buzzing again and this time I pulled it out to check the caller ID. The screen showed only a number but I readily recognized it because I had called it a few times in the past couple of days. It was Angela Cook’s cell number. The number I had called after hearing that she was missing.

“Larry, I’ll be right back.”

I got up from the table and left the conference room while clicking on to the call. I headed toward my cubicle.

“Hello?”

“Is this Jack?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“This is your friend, Jack. From Ely.”

I knew exactly who it was. There was that same empty-desert twang in his voice. Sideburns. I sat down at my desk and leaned forward to help insulate the conversation from any nearby ears.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“To see how you’re doing,” he said.

“Yeah, well, I’m doing fine, no thanks to you. In the hallway at the Nevada, why’d you stop? Instead of sticking with the plan, you just walked on by.”

I thought I heard a low chuckle on the line.

“You had company and I wasn’t expecting that, Jack. Who was she, your girlfriend?”

“Something like that. And she messed up your plan, right? You wanted to make it look like suicide.”

Another chuckle.

“I can see you are very smart,” he said. “Or are you just telling me what they’ve told you?”

“They?”

“Don’t be silly, Jack. I know what’s going on. The cat’s out of the bag. There are a lot of stories being written for tomorrow’s paper. But none of them with your name on it, Jack. What’s up with that?”

That told me he was still floating around inside the Times’ data system. I wondered if it would help the task force run him down.

“You there, Jack?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“And it looks like you have no name for me yet, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“Aren’t you all going to give me a name? We all get names, you know. The Yorkshire Ripper. The Hillside Strangler. The Poet. You know about that one, right?”

“Yeah, we’re giving you a name. We’re calling you the Iron Maiden. How do you like that?”

This time I heard no chuckle in the silence that followed.

“Are you still there, Iron Maiden?”

“You should be careful, Jack. I could always try again, you know.”

I laughed at him.

“Hey, I’m not hiding. I’m right here. Try again, if you’ve got the balls.”

He was silent, so I laid it on thicker.

“Killing these defenseless women, that takes a lot of balls, doesn’t it?”

The chuckle was back.

“You’re very transparent, Jack. Are you working off a script?”

“I don’t need a script.”

“Well, I know what you’re doing. Talking with a lot of bluster and bravado to bait the trap. Hoping I’ll come to L.A. and go for you. Meantime, you have the FBI and the LAPD watching and ready to jump in and catch the monster just in the nick of time. Is that it, Jack?”

“If that’s what you think.”

“Well, it won’t work that way. I’m a patient man, Jack. Time will pass, maybe even years will go by, and then I promise we’ll meet again face-to-face. No disguise. I’ll return your gun then.”

His low chuckle came again and I got the impression that wherever he was calling from, he was trying to keep his voice and laugh down and not draw attention. I didn’t know if it was an office or a public space but he was keeping himself contained. I was sure of it.

“Speaking of the gun, how was that going to be explained? You know, that I flew to Vegas but then somehow had my gun and killed myself with it? Seems like a flaw in the plan, doesn’t it?”

He outright laughed this time.

“Jack, you are not in possession of all the facts yet, are you? When you are, then you will understand how flawless the plan was. My one mistake was the girl in the room. I didn’t see that coming.”

Neither did I but I wasn’t saying so.

“Then I guess it wasn’t so flawless, was it?”

“I can make up for it.”

“Look, I’m having a busy day here. Why are you calling me?”

“I told you, to see how you are. To make your acquaintance. We’re now going to be linked forever, aren’t we?”

“Well, while I’ve got you on the line, can I ask you a few questions for the story we’re putting together?”

“I don’t think so, Jack. This is between you and me, not your readers.”

“You know, you’re right. The truth is, I wouldn’t give you the space. You think I’m going to let you try to explain your sick fucking world in my newspaper?”

A dark silence followed.

“ You, ” he finally said, his voice tight with anger. “You should respect me.”

Now I laughed.

“Respect you? How about, Fuck you. You took a young girl who had nothing but-”

He interrupted me by making a noise like a muffled cough.

“Did you hear that, Jack? Do you know what that was?”

I didn’t respond and then he made the sound again. Muffled, one syllable, quick. Then he did it a third time.

“Okay, I give up,” I said.

“That was her, saying your name through plastic when there was no air left.”

He laughed. I said nothing.

“You know what I tell them, Jack? I say, ‘Breathe deep and it will all be over a lot faster.’ ”

He laughed again, long and hard, and made sure I heard it all before abruptly hanging up. I sat there for a long time with the phone still pressed against my ear.

“Sssst.”