Michael Connelly - The Scarecrow

I shrugged. I had accurately reported what Courier had said. I would leave it to the experts to determine if it was the truth. If they wanted to put a picture of McGinnis in every post office in the country, that was fine with me.

“Can I go back to L.A. now?”

“You’re free to go. But if anything else comes to mind, you call us. Likewise, we’ll call you.”

“Got it.”

He didn’t shake my hand. He just opened the door. When I stepped out of the bus, Rachel was waiting for me. We were in the front parking lot of the Mesa Verde Inn. It was close to five in the morning but neither of us seemed very tired. The paramedics had checked her out. The swelling was already beginning to subside but she had a badly cut and bruised lip and a contusion below the corner of her left eye. She had refused a transport to a local hospital for further examination. The last thing she would do at this point would be leave the center of the investigation.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“I’m okay,” she said. “How are you?”

“I’m fine. Bantam said I’m clear to take off. I think I’ll catch the first flight back to L.A. ”

“You’re not going to stay for the press conference?”

I shook my head.

“What are they going to say that I don’t already know?”

“Nothing.”

“How long do you think you’ll be here?”

“I don’t know. I guess until they wrap things up. Which won’t happen until we know all there is to know.”

I nodded and checked my watch. The first flight to L.A. probably wouldn’t be for another two hours.

“You want to go get breakfast somewhere?” I asked.

She tried to crinkle her lips to show disdain for the idea but the pain foiled the effort.

“I’m not that hungry. I just wanted to say good-bye. I need to get back to Western Data. They found the mother lode.”

“Which is what?”

“An unaccounted-for server that both McGinnis and Courier had been accessing. It’s got archived videos, Jack. They filmed their crimes.”

“And both of them are in the videos?”

“I haven’t seen them but I am told they are not readily identifiable. They wear masks and shoot at angles that mostly show their victims, not them. I was told that in one of the videos, McGinnis is wearing an executioner’s hood-like the one worn by the Zodiac.”

“You’re kid-Wait a minute, he’d have to be sixty-some years old to be the Zodiac.”

“No, they’re not suggesting that-you can buy the hood in cult stores in San Francisco. It’s just a sign of who they are. It’s like having your book on the bedside. They know history. And it shows how much fear plays a part in their program. Scaring their victims was part of the rush.”

I didn’t think you needed to be an FBI profiler to understand that. But it brought to mind how truly horrible the last moments of their victims’ lives were.

I once again remembered the audiotape of the Bittaker and Norris torture session in the back of the van. I couldn’t listen then. I almost didn’t want the answer to the question I had now.

“Is Angela on film?”

“No, she was too recent. But there are others.”

“You mean victims?”

Rachel glanced over my shoulder at the door to the FBI bus and then back at me. I guessed that she might be talking out of turn, no matter the deal I supposedly had.

“Yes. They haven’t looked at everything yet but they have at least six different victims. McGinnis and Courier were doing this a long time.”

Now I wasn’t so sure I wanted to leave. The bottom line was that the bigger the body count, the bigger the story. Two killers, at least six victims… If it was possible for the story to get bigger than it already was, then it had just happened.

“What about the braces? Were you right about that?”

She nodded solemnly. It was one of those times that being right wasn’t such a good thing.

“Yeah, they made the victims wear leg braces.”

I shook my head as if to ward off the thought of it. I checked my pockets. I had no pen and my notebook was back up in my room.

“You have a pen?” I asked Rachel. “I need to write this down.”

“No, Jack, I don’t have a pen to give you. I told you more than I should have. At this point it’s just raw data. Wait till I have a better handle on everything and then I’ll call you. Your deadline isn’t for another twelve hours, at least.”

She was right. I had a full day to put the story together, and the information would develop through the day. Besides that, I knew that when I got back to the newsroom, I would face the same issue as the week before. I was part of the story again. I had killed one of the two men the story was about. Conflict of interest dictated that I wouldn’t be writing it. I was going to sit with Larry Bernard once again and feed him a front-page story that would echo around the world. It was frustrating but by now I was getting used to it.

“All right, Rachel. I guess I’ll go up and pack my stuff, then head to the airport.”

“Okay, Jack. I’ll call you. I promise.”

I liked that she promised before I had to ask. I looked at her for a moment, wanting to make a move to touch and hold her. She seemed to read me. She took the first step and pulled me into a tight embrace.

“You saved my life tonight, Jack. You think you’re getting out of here with just a handshake?”

“I was sort of hoping there would be more than that.”

I kissed her lightly on the cheek, avoiding her bruised lips. If Agent Bantam or anybody else behind the smoked black windows of the FBI mobile command center was watching, neither one of us cared.

It was almost a minute before Rachel and I separated. She looked into my eyes and nodded.

“Go write your story, Jack.”

“I will… if they let me.”

I turned and walked toward the hotel.

All eyes were on me as I walked through the newsroom. It had spread as quickly as a Santa Ana wind through the newsroom that I had killed a man the night before. Many probably thought I had avenged Angela Cook. Others may have thought I was some sort of danger freak who put myself in harm’s way for the thrill of it.

As I approached my cubicle the phone was buzzing and the message light was on. I put my backpack on the floor and decided I would deal with all the callers and messages later. It was almost eleven o’clock, so I walked over to the raft to see if Prendo was in yet. I wanted to get this part over with. If I was going to give my information to another reporter, I wanted to start giving it up now.

Prendo wasn’t in but Dorothy Fowler was sitting at the head of the raft. She looked up from her computer screen, saw me and did a double take.

“Jack, how are you?”

I shrugged.

“Okay, I guess. When’s Prendo coming in?”

“Probably not till one. Are you up to working today?”

“You mean, do I feel bad about the guy who fell down the stairwell last night? No, Dorothy, I’m actually okay with that. I feel fine. As the cops say, NHI-no human involved. The guy was a killer who liked to torture women while he raped and suffocated them. I don’t feel too bad about what happened to him. In fact, I sort of wish he has been conscious the whole way down.”

“Okay. I think I understand that.”

“The only thing I don’t feel good about right now is that I’m guessing I don’t get to write the story, right?”

She frowned and nodded.

“I’m afraid not, Jack.”

“Déjà vu all over again.”

She squinted her eyes at me like she was wondering if I realized the inanity of what I had just said.

“It’s a saying. Yogi Berra? The baseball guy?”

She didn’t get it. I could feel the eyes and ears of the newsroom on us.