Michael Connelly - The Scarecrow

“And you can’t give me any idea what this is all about?”

“It’s about Carver, so don’t ask questions like that. Just make the excuse and meet me. Don’t tell anyone that I’m here or what you’re really doing.”

She didn’t respond and I grew impatient.

“Rachel, will you be there or not?”

“That will be fine,” she finally said. “I’ll talk to you then.”

She clicked off the call.

In another five minutes I was at Hightower Grounds. The place had obviously been named for the old desert observation tower that rose behind it. It looked like the tower was closed now but it was festooned on top with cell repeaters and antennas.

I went in and found the place almost empty. A couple of customers who looked like college students sat by themselves with laptops open in front of them. I went to the counter and ordered two cups of coffee and then set my computer up on a table in a corner away from the other customers.

After I picked up the two cups I had ordered, I doused mine liberally with sugar and milk and returned to my table. Through the window I checked the parking lot and saw no sign of Rachel. I sat down and took a sip of steaming coffee and connected to the Internet through the coffee shop’s free WiFi.

Fifteen minutes went by. I checked messages and thought about what I would say to Rachel-if she showed up. I got the page of scarecrow images up on my screen and was ready to go. I was down to reading the receipt that had come with the coffee.

Free WiFi with every purchase!

Check us out on the net

www.hightowergrounds.com

I crumpled it and threw it toward a trash can and missed. After getting up and putting in the rebound, I opened my throwaway and was about to call Rachel again, when I finally saw her pull into the lot and park. She came in, saw me and diverted directly to my table. She was holding a piece of paper with coffee orders written down on it.

“The last time I went out for coffee I was a rookie agent at a hostage negotiation in Baltimore,” she said. “I don’t do this, Jack, so this better be good.”

“Don’t worry, it is. I think. Why don’t you just sit down?”

She did and I pushed the cup of black coffee across the table to her. She didn’t touch it. She was wearing sunglasses but I could see the deep line of purple under her left eye. The swelling of her jaw was completely gone now and the split in her lip was hidden beneath her lip gloss. You had to look for it to see it. I had been wondering if it would be proper to lean over and try to hug or kiss her but took the hint from her all-business demeanor and kept my distance.

“Okay, Jack, I’m here. What are you doing here?”

“I think I found the signature. If I’m right, McGinnis was just a cover. A fall guy. The other killer is the Scarecrow. It’s got to be Carver.”

She stared at me for a long moment, her eyes revealing nothing through the shades. Finally, she spoke.

“So you jumped on a plane, frequent flier that you are, to come over here and tell me the man I’m working beside is also the killer I’ve been chasing.”

“That’s right.”

“This better be good, Jack.”

“Who’s back in the bunker with Carver?”

“Two agents from the EER team, Torres and Mowry. But never mind them. Tell me what’s going on.”

I tried to set the stage for what I would show her on the laptop.

“First of all, I was bothered by a question. What was the plan in abducting you?”

“After seeing some of the video recovered in the bunker, I don’t want to think about that.”

“Sorry, wrong choice of words. I don’t mean what was going to happen to you. What I mean is why you. Why take so big a risk to go after you? The easy answer is that it would create a large distraction from the central investigation. And that is true, but at best it would be a temporary diversion. Agents would start pouring into this place by the dozens. Pretty soon you wouldn’t be able to run a stop sign without getting pulled over by the feds. Diversion over.”

Rachel followed the logic and nodded in agreement.

“Okay, but what if there was another reason?” I asked. “You have two killers out there. A mentor and a student. The student tries to abduct you on his own. Why?”

“Because McGinnis was dead,” Rachel said. “There was only the student.”

“Okay, then if that is true, why even make the move? Why go after you? Why not get the hell out of Dodge instead? You see, it isn’t adding up. At least with the way we’ve been looking at it. We think grabbing you was a diversionary move. But it really wasn’t.”

“Then what was it?”

“Well, what if McGinnis wasn’t the mentor? What if he was meant to look like he was? What if he was just a fall guy and abducting you was part of a plan to secure the real mentor? To help him get away.”

“What about the evidence we recovered?”

“You mean him having my book on his bookshelf and the leg braces and porno in the house? Isn’t that kind of convenient?”

“That stuff wasn’t left lying around the house. It was hidden and only found after an hours-long search. But never mind all of that. Yes, it could have been planted. I’m thinking more about the server in Western Data we found that was full of video evidence.”

“First of all, you said he isn’t identifiable on the videos. And who is to say he and Courier were the only ones with access to that server. Couldn’t the evidence on there have been planted just like the stuff at the house?”

She didn’t respond right away and I knew I had her thinking. Maybe she had thought all along that things were hanging too easily on McGinnis. But then she shook her head like this didn’t add up either.

“It still doesn’t make sense if you’re claiming the mentor is Carver. He didn’t try to get away. When Courier was trying to grab me, Carver was in the bunker with Torres and…”

She didn’t finish. I did.

“Mowry. Yes, he was with two FBI agents.”

I watched the realization come to her.

“He would have a perfect alibi because two agents would vouch for him,” she finally said. “If I disappeared while he was with the EER team, he would have an alibi and the bureau would be almost certain that it was McGinnis and Courier who had grabbed me.”

I nodded.

“It would not only put Carver above suspicion, it would keep him right in the middle of your investigation.”

I waited only a second for her to respond. When she didn’t, I pressed on.

“Think about it. How did Courier know what hotel you were in? We told Carver when he asked us during the tour. Remember? Then he told Courier. He sent Courier.”

She shook her head.

“And last night I even said I was going back to the hotel to get room service and to go to sleep.”

I spread my hands as if to say the conclusion was obvious.

“But this isn’t enough, Jack. It doesn’t add up to Carver being-”

“I know. But maybe this does.”

I turned the computer so she could see the screen. I had the page of scarecrow images up on Google. She leaned over and looked at it first, then pulled the computer all the way over to her side of the table. She worked the keyboard and blew the images up, one by one. I didn’t need to say anything.

“Denslow!” she suddenly said. “Did you see this? The original illustrator of Wizard of Oz was named William Denslow.”

“Yeah, I saw that. That’s why I’m here.”

“It still doesn’t connect directly to Carver.”

“It doesn’t matter. There’s a lot of smoke here, Rachel. Carver connects to a lot of it. He had access to McGinnis and Freddy Stone. He had access to the servers. We also know he has the technical skills we’ve seen all through this.”