Michael Connelly - Blood Work

“So far.”

“Okay, now let’s just assume that the shooter took it. Like I said, I talked to the hospital and the fire department, and it hasn’t showed up anywhere. So let’s assume he took it.”

He opened his hands and held them up, waiting. Winston reluctantly nodded her agreement.

“So then let’s look at that from two angles. How? And why? The first one is easy. Remember the video. He shot her and let her rebound off the counter and then fall back into him and then down to the floor, outside the view of the camera. He could take the earring then without being seen.”

“You’re forgetting one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“The Good Samaritan. He wrapped her head up. Maybe he took it.”

“I thought about that. It’s not beyond possibility. But it’s less likely than it being the shooter. The Good Samaritan is the random player in this. Why would he take it?”

“I don’t know. Why would the shooter?”

“Well, like I said, that’s a question. But look at the item that was taken. A religious icon, good luck charm. She wore it every day. It was a personality signature, its personal significance more important than its monetary value.”

He waited a beat. He had just given her the setup. Now came the closing pitch. Winston was fighting on this but McCaleb hadn’t lost sight of her skills as an investigator. She would see what he was saying. He was confident he would convince her.

“Someone who knew Gloria would know the significance of the earring. Similarly, someone who was close to her, who had studied her over a period of days or longer could pick up on it as well.”

“You’re talking about a stalker.”

McCaleb nodded.

“In the acquisition period. He watches her. Learns her habits, sets his plan. He’d also be looking for something. A token. Something to take and to remember her by.”

“The earring.”

He nodded again. Winston started pacing around the small room, not looking at McCaleb.

“I’ve got to think about this. I’ve got… let’s go someplace where we can sit down.”

She didn’t wait for a reply. She opened the door and left the room. McCaleb quickly ejected the tape, grabbed his bag and followed. Winston led him to the meeting room in which they had talked the first day McCaleb had come to see her about the case. The room was empty but smelled like a McDonald’s restaurant. Winston hunted around, found the offending trash can under the table and escorted it out into the hallway.

“People aren’t supposed to eat in this room,” she said as she closed the door and sat down.

McCaleb took the seat across from her.

“All right, what about my guy? How does James Cordell fit in? First of all, he’s a guy. The other’s a girl. Plus, there was no sex. This woman wasn’t touched.”

“None of that matters,” McCaleb said quickly. He had been anticipating the question. He had done nothing but think about the questions and their possible answers during the drive out with Buddy Lockridge from the marina. “If I’m right, this would fall into what we called the power kill model. Basically, it’s a guy who is doing it because he can get away with it. He gets off on that. It’s his way of thumbing his nose at authority and shocking society. He transfers his problems with a particular situation-whether it’s a job, self-worth, women in general or his mother in particular or whatever-onto the police. The investigators. From tweaking them, he gets the jolt in self-worth that he needs. He derives a form of power from it. And it can be sexual power, even if there are no obvious or physical sexual manifestations in the actual crime. You remember the Code Killer out here a while back? Or Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer in New York?”

“Of course.”

“Same thing with both of them. There was no sex in each crime itself but it was all about sex. Look at Berkowitz. He shot people up-men and women-and ran away. But he came back days later and masturbated at the scene. We assumed the Code Killer did the same thing but if he did, our surveillances missed him. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t have to be obvious, Jaye, that’s all. It’s not always the obvious wackos who carve their names in people’s skin.”

McCaleb watched Winston closely, leery of talking above her. But she seemed to understand his theory.

“But it’s not only that,” McCaleb went on. “There’s another part to this. He gets off on the camera, too.”

“He likes us seeing him do it?”

McCaleb nodded.

“That’s the new twist. I think he wants the camera. He wants his work and his accomplishments documented, seen and admired. It increases the danger to him and therefore increases the power reflection on him. The payoff. So to get that situation, what does he do? I think he picks up on a target-he chooses his prey-and then watches them until he has their routine and he knows when it takes them into places of business where the cameras are. The ATM, the market. He wants the camera. He talks to it. He winks at it. The camera is you-the investigator. He’s talking to you and getting off on it.”

“Then maybe he doesn’t choose the victim,” Winston said. “Maybe he doesn’t care about that. Just the camera. Like Berkowitz. He didn’t care who he shot. He just went out shooting.”

“But Berkowitz didn’t take souvenirs.”

“The earring?”

McCaleb nodded.

“You see that makes it personal. I think these victims were chosen. Not the other way around.”

“You’ve thought this all out, haven’t you?”

“Not everything. I don’t know how he chose them or why. But I’ve been thinking about it, yeah. The whole hour and a half it took us to get out here. Traffic was bad.”

“Us?”

“I have a driver. I can’t drive yet.”

She didn’t say anything. McCaleb wished he hadn’t mentioned the driver. It was revealing a weakness.

“We have to start over,” McCaleb said. “Because we thought these people were chosen at random. We thought the locations were chosen, not the victims. But I think it’s the other way around. The victims were chosen. They were prey. Specific targets that were acquired, followed, stalked. We’ve got to background them. There’s got to be an intersection. Some commonality. A person, a place… a moment in time-something that hooks them either to each other or our unknown subject. We find-”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute.”

McCaleb stopped, realizing his voice had been rising in fervor.

“What souvenir was taken from James Cordell? Are you saying the money he took from the ATM is a token?”

“I don’t know what was taken but it wasn’t the money. That was just part of the robbery show. The money wasn’t a symbolic possession. Besides, he took it from the machine, not Cordell.”

“So then, aren’t you jumping the gun?”

“No. I’m sure something was taken.”

“We would have seen it. We have the whole thing on video.”

“Nobody picked up on it with Gloria Torres and that was on video, too.”

Winston turned in her chair.

“I don’t know. This still seems like a-let me ask you something. And try not to take it too personal. But isn’t it possible that you’re just looking for what you always looked for before, when you were with the bureau?”

“You mean, like am I exaggerating? Like I want to get back to what I was doing before and this is my way of doing it?”

Winston hiked her shoulders. She didn’t want to say it.

“I didn’t go looking for this, Jaye. It’s just there. It is what it is. Sure, the earring might mean something else. And it might not mean anything at all. But if there is anything I know about in this world, it is this kind of thing. These people. I know them. I know how they think and I know how they act. I feel it here, Jaye. The evil. It’s here.”