Michael Connelly - The Poet

"Is that Jack? Well, Jack, we don't know what fantasy. That's the point. We are coming at it from the wrong direction. We don't know the fantasy that motivates this killer and what we are seeing and guessing about are the parts. We may never know what rocks his world. He's down from the moon, Jack. The only way we'll really ever know is if he decides to tell us someday."

I nodded and thought of another question. I waited until it was clear no one else had anything.

"Uh, Agent Brass-I mean, Doran?"

"Yes?"

"You might've already said this, but what about the poems? Do you have any more of an idea how they fit?"

"Well, they are obviously being used in exhibition. We noted this yesterday. This is his signature, and though he obviously wants to elude capture, at the same time his psychology is such that he just has to leave a little something that says, Hey, I was here. This is where the poems come in. As for the poems themselves the correlation is that they all are or can be read as being about death. There is also the theme that death is a portal to other things, other places. 'Through the pale door,' I believe, is one of the quotes he used. What it may be is that the Poet may believe he is sending these men he has killed to a better world. He is transforming them. It's something to think about when we consider the pathology of this individual. But once again, we come back to the instability of all our conjectures. It's kind of like we are looking through a full trash can to try to find out what somebody ate for dinner last night. We don't know what this man is doing and we won't until we have him."

"Brass? Bob again. What are you reading on the planning of these crimes?"

"I'll let Brad answer that."

"This is Brad. Uh, we're calling this guy a modified traveler. Yes, he is using the whole country as his canvas but he is staying put for weeks and sometimes months at a time. This is unusual in our prior profiling. The Poet is not a hit-and-run killer. He hits and then he stays around for a while. We are to expect that during this period the hunter watched the hunted. He must come to know his victim's routines and nuances. Possibly, he even strikes up a passing acquaintance. That's something to look for. A new friend or acquaintance in each detective's life. Maybe a new neighbor or guy at the local bar. The situation in Denver also suggests that he may come at them as a source, someone with information. He may be using a combination of these approaches."

"Which leads to the next step," Backus said. "After contact."

"Power," Hazelton said. "After he gets close enough to these victims, how does he take control? Well, we assume he has some kind of weapon that initially allows him to take theirs, but there is something more. How does he get six, now seven, homicide detectives to write out lines of poetry? How does he avoid a struggle in every one of these cases? At the moment, we are exploring the possibility of hypnosis combined with chemical enhancers taken from the victim's home. The McEvoy case is the anomaly. Setting it aside and looking at the others, there is probably no one among us who has an empty medicine cabinet. And there probably isn't a cabinet among the bunch that doesn't have some prescription or store-bought medication that wouldn't serve as an enhancer. Obviously some things work better than others. But the point is, if this scenario is correct, the Poet is using the things made available to him by the victims. We are looking at this hard. That's it, for now."

"Okay, then," Backus said. "Any other questions?"

The room and phone speaker remained silent.

"Okay, people," he said, leaning forward, his hands on the table and his mouth close to the phone speaker. "Your best work. We really need it this time."

Rachel and I followed Backus and Thompson to the Hyatt where Matuzak had reserved rooms. I had to check in and pay for my room while Backus checked in and got keys for the other five, which the government would pay for. Still, I got the discount the hotel regularly gave the FBI. It must have been the shirt.

Rachel and Thompson were waiting in the lobby lounge where we had decided on a drink before dinner. When Backus gave her one of the keys, I heard him say that she was in room 321 and I committed it to memory. I was four doors away in room 317 and I was already thinking about the night ahead, about closing that gap.

After a half hour of small talk Backus stood up and said he was going to his room to review the day's reports before heading out to the airport to pick up Thorson and Carter. He turned down an offer to join us for dinner and headed toward the elevator. A few minutes later, Thompson split, too, saying he wanted to read through the autopsy report on Orsulak in detail.

"Just you and me, Jack," Rachel said when Thompson was out of earshot. "What do you feel like eating?"

"I'm not sure. What about you?"

"Haven't thought about it. I know what I want to do first though… That's take a hot bath."

We agreed to meet in an hour for dinner. We rode the elevator up to our floor in a silence couched in sexual tension.

In my room, I tried to take my mind off Rachel by connecting my computer to the phone line and checking my messages in Denver. There was only one, from Greg Glenn asking where I was. I answered it but doubted that he would see it until he came back into work on Monday. I then sent a message to Laurie Prine asking her to search for any stories on Horace the Hypnotist that might have run in the Florida newspapers in the last seven years. I asked her to ship any notes she got to my computer basket but said it was no hurry.

After that I showered and changed into my new clothes for my dinner with Rachel. I was ready twenty minutes early and I thought about going down and seeing if there was a drugstore nearby. But then I thought about the impression it would give Rachel if things worked out and I came to her bed, a condom already in my pocket. I decided against the drugstore. I decided to play things as they came.

"Did you see CNN?"

"No," I said. I was standing in the doorway of her room. She went back to the bed and sat down to put her shoes on. She looked refreshed and was wearing a cream-colored shirt with black jeans. The TV was still on but it was a story about the clinic shootings in Colorado. I didn't think that was what she was talking about.

"What did it say?"

"We were on. You, me and Bob coming out of the funeral home. Somehow they got Bob's name and put it on the screen."

"Did it say he was BSS?"

"No, just FBI. But it doesn't matter. CNN must've taken the feed off the local channel. Wherever he is, if our guy saw it, we could have a problem."

"How come? It's not that unusual for the FBI to take a look at cases like this. The bureau's always sticking its nose in."

"The problem is it plays to the Poet. We see it in almost all of the cases. One concept of the gratification these kinds of killers seek is seeing their work on TV and in the papers. In a way it allows them to relive the fantasy of the incident. Part of that infatuation with the media extends to the pursuers. I get the feeling that this guy, the Poet, knows more about us than we do about him. If I'm right, then he's probably read books on serial killers. The commercial dreck and even some of the more serious work. He may know names. Bob's father is in many of them. Bob himself is in some. So am I. Our names, photos, our words. If he saw that on CNN and recognized us, then he'll assume we are right behind him. We may lose him now. He might go under."

Ambivalence won the night. Unable to decide what or where we wanted to eat, we settled for the hotel's restaurant. The food was okay but we shared a bottle of Buehler cabernet that was perfect. I told her not to worry about the government per diem because the newspaper was paying. She ordered cherries jubilee for dessert after I told her that.