Michael Connelly - The Poet

"I'm only telling you what we know, Jack. If he's as smart as we think he is, then he probably has several ID packages. They wouldn't be hard to come by. We have the Phoenix field office working on a subpoena for Hertz. We want Breedlove's complete renting history going back three years. He's a Hertz Gold customer no less. Again it shows how smart he is. Most airports, you get off the plane, walk to the Gold lot and your name is on the board. You go to your car and the keys are in it. Most of the time you don't even have to talk to any clerks. You just get in your car, show your license at the gate and you are out of there."

"Okay, what about the other thing? You said there were two leads to Gladden."

"The Best Pals. Ted Vincent and Steve Raffa in Florida finally got hold of Beltran's records with the organization this morning. He'd been Best Pal to nine young boys over the years. The second one he sponsored, this is going back something like sixteen years, was Gladden."

"Jesus."

"Yeah. It's all starting to fall together."

I was silent for a few moments as I considered all of the information she had revealed. The investigation was advancing at exponentially increasing speed. It was seat-belt time.

"How come the field office out here didn't pick up on this guy? He's been in the paper."

"Good question. Bob's going to have a heart-to-heart with the SAC about that. Gordon's flag landed last night. Somebody should've seen it and put two and two together. But we did it ourselves first."

A typical bureaucratic snafu. I wondered how much sooner they'd have been on to Gladden if someone in the L.A. office had been a little more alert.

"You know Gladden, don't you?" I said.

"Yes. We had him during the rapist interviews. I told you about that. Seven years ago. He and Gomble, among others at that hellhole in Florida. I think our team-Gordon, Bob, me-spent a week down there, we had so many candidates for interviews."

I was tempted to bring up Thorson's call to the prison's computer but thought better of it. It was enough just to get her to talk to me again like a human. Telling her I had rifled through the hotel bills was no way to ensure that she would continue. This dilemma also created a problem in regard to nailing Thorson. For the time being I would have to sit on his hotel phone records as well.

"You think there is any connection between Gomble supposedly using hypnotism and what you are seeing on the Poet cases?" I said instead. "Think maybe Gomble taught him his secret?"

"Possibly."

She had regressed to the one-word reply.

"Possibly," I repeated, a thin line of sarcasm in it.

"Eventually, I'll go to Florida to talk to Gomble again. And I'm going to ask him that. Until I get an answer one way or the other, it's possibly. Okay, Jack?"

We pulled into an alley that ran behind a row of old motels and shops. She finally slowed down to the point where I let go of the armrest.

"But you can't go to Florida now, can you?" I asked.

"That's up to Bob. But we're close to Gladden here. For the time being I think Bob wants to put everything we have into L.A. Gladden's here. Or he's close. We can all feel it. We've got to get him. Once we have him, then I'll worry about the other things, the psychological motivation. We'll need to go to Florida then."

"Why then? To add data to the serial killer studies?"

"No. I mean, yes, there's that, but primarily we'll go for the prosecution. Guy like this, he's got to go the insanity route. It's his only choice. So that means we'll have to build a case on his psychology. One that shows he knew what he was doing and he knew right from wrong. The same old thing."

Prosecution of the Poet in a courtroom had never entered my mind. I realized that I had assumed that he would not be taken alive. And this assumption, I knew, was based on my own desire that he not be allowed to live after this.

"What's the matter, Jack, you don't want a trial? You want us to kill him where we find him?"

I looked at her. The lights from a passing window flicked across her face and for a moment I saw her eyes.

"I hadn't thought about it."

"Sure you have. Would you like to kill him, Jack? If you had a moment with him and there were no consequences, could you do it? Do you think that would make up for things?"

I didn't like discussing this subject with her. I sensed more than just a passing interest from her.

"I don't know," I finally answered. "Could you kill him? Have you ever killed anyone, Rachel?"

"Given the chance, I'd kill him in a heartbeat."

"Why?"

"Because I've known the others. I've looked in their eyes and know what's back there in the darkness. If I could kill them all I think I would."

I waited for her to continue but she didn't. She pulled the car to a stop next to two other matching Caprices behind one of the old motels.

"You didn't answer the second question."

"No, I've never killed anyone."

We went in through a back door into a hallway painted in two tones; dingy lime to about eye level, dingy white the rest of the way up. Rachel went to the first door on the left and knocked and we were let in. It was a motel room, one that would have passed as a kitchenette in the sixties, when it was last refurbished. Backus and Thorson were there waiting, sitting at an old Formica table against the wall. There were two phones on the table that looked as if they had just been added to the room. There was also a three-foot-high aluminum trunk standing on one end with its lid open to reveal a bank of three video monitors. Wires ran out the back of the trunk, along the floor and out the window, which was opened just enough to allow them through.

"Jack, I can't say I'm happy to see you," Backus said.

But he said it with a wry smile on his face and he stood up and shook my hand.

"Sorry," I said, not really knowing why. Then, looking at Thorson, I added, "I didn't mean to blunder into your setup but I was given some bad information."

The thought of the phone records went through my mind again but I dismissed it. It was not the right time.

"Well," Backus said, "I have to admit we were trying a little misdirection there. We just thought it would be best if we could work this out without any distractions."

"I'll try not to be a distraction."

"You already are," Thorson said.

I ignored him and kept my eyes on Backus.

"Have a seat," he said.

Rachel and I took the two remaining chairs at the table.

"I assume you know what is happening," Backus said.

"I assume you're watching Thomas."

I turned so I could see the video monitors and for the first time studied the view each one had. The top monitor showed a hallway not unlike the one outside the room we were in. Several doors going down both sides. All of them closed and with numbers on them. The next tube showed the exterior of a motel front. In the blue-gray haze of the video I could just make out the words on the sign above the door. HOTEL MARK TWAIN. The bottom monitor showed an alley-side view of what I assumed was the same hotel.

"Is this where we are?" I asked, pointing at the display.

"No," Backus said. "That is where Detective Thomas is. We're about a block away."

"Doesn't look very nice. What are they paying these days in this town?"

"It is not his home. But the detectives at Hollywood Station often use the hotel to stash witnesses or sleep over if they're working twenty-hour days on a case. Detective Thomas chose to stay there rather than at home. He has a wife and three children at home."

"Well, that answers my next question. I'm glad you told him he was being used as bait."

"You seem measurably more cynical than when we last met this morning, Jack."

"I guess that's because I am."

I looked away from him and checked out the video setup again. Backus spoke to my back.