Michael Connelly - The Poet

She reached over and did her finger drag through my beard. I caught her hand as she dropped it away and held it for a moment.

"Do you think the intensity of what we're doing and what we're involved with is causing this?" I asked.

"As opposed to what?"

"I don't know. I'm just asking."

"I know what you're saying," she said after a long moment. "I have to admit I've never made love to anybody thirty-six hours after the first time I'd ever seen him in my life."

She smiled and it sent a beautiful thrill through me.

"Me neither."

She leaned toward me and we kissed again. I turned and we rolled into a from-here-to-eternity kiss. Only our beach was the old bedspread in a ratty old hotel room three decades past its prime. But all of that didn't matter anymore. Soon I was moving my kisses down her neck and then we made love.

We couldn't both fit in the bathroom or the shower so she went first. As she showered I lay in bed thinking about her and wishing for a smoke.

It was hard to tell because of the sound of the shower but at one point I thought I heard a light knock on the door. Alerted, I sat up on the edge of the bed and started pulling on my pants as I stared at the door. I listened but heard nothing again. Then, I distinctly saw the doorknob move, or thought I did. I got up and moved to the door, pulling up my pants, and tilted my head to the jamb to listen. I heard nothing. There was a peephole but I was reluctant to look through it. The light was on in the room and if I looked through the peephole I would block it, possibly letting whoever was out there know that someone was looking at him.

Rachel cut the shower off at that point. After a few moments of no noticeable sound from the hallway I moved to the peephole and looked. There was nothing out there.

"What are you doing?"

I turned. Rachel stood by the bed, attempting to show modesty with the tiny towel that came with the room.

"I thought I heard someone knock."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know. There was no one there when I looked. Maybe it was nothing. All right if I take a shower?"

"Sure."

I stepped out of my pants and while walking past her stopped. She dropped her towel, exposing her body. She was beautiful to me. I stepped over and we held each other for a long moment.

"Be right back," I finally said and then headed into the shower.

Rachel was dressed and waiting when I came out. I looked at my watch, which I had left on the bed table, and saw it was eleven. There was a battered old television in the room but I decided not to suggest watching the news. I realized I hadn't eaten dinner but still wasn't hungry.

"I'm not tired," she said.

"Neither am I."

"Maybe we could find a place for a drink after all."

After I dressed, we quietly left the room. She looked out first to make sure Backus or Thorson or anybody else wasn't lurking about. We encountered no one in the hallway or the lobby and outside the street seemed deserted and dark. We walked south to Sunset.

"You got your gun?" I asked, half kidding and half serious.

"Always. Besides, we've got our people around. They probably saw us leave."

"Really? I thought they were just keeping an eye on Thomas."

"They are. But they should have a good idea who is on the street at any given time. If they're doing their job."

I turned and walked backward for a few steps, staring back up the street at the green neon sign for the Mark Twain. I surveyed the street, the cars parked along both sides. Again, I saw no shadows or silhouettes of the watchers.

"How many are out there?"

"Should be five. Two on foot in fixed positions. Two in cars, stationary. One car roving. All the time."

I turned back around and pulled the collar of my jacket up. It was colder outside than I had expected. Our breath came out in thin clouds, mingled together and then disappeared.

When we got to Sunset I looked both ways and saw a neon sign over an archway a block to the west that said CAT amp; FIDDLE BAR. I pointed that way and Rachel started walking. We were silent until we got there.

Going through the archway we entered an outdoor garden with several tables below green canvas umbrellas but they were all empty. Past these and through the windows on the other side we could see what looked like a lively and warm bar. We went in, found an empty booth on the opposite side from the dartboards and sat down. It was an English-style pub. When the barmaid came around Rachel told me to go first and I ordered a black and tan. Rachel then did the same.

We looked around the place and small-talked until our drinks arrived. We clinked glasses and drank. I watched her. I didn't think she'd ever had a black and tan before.

"The Harp is heavier. It always stays at the bottom, the Guinness on top."

She smiled.

"When you said black and tan, I thought that was a brand that you knew. But it's good. I like it but it's strong."

"One thing the Irish know is how to make a beer. The English have to give them that."

"Two of these and you'll have to call for backup to get me back."

"I doubt it."

We lapsed into a comfortable silence. There was a fireplace in the rear wall and the warmth from its fully engulfed fire extended across the room.

"Is your real name John?"

I nodded.

"I'm not Irish but I always thought Sean was Irish for John."

"Yes, it's the Gaelic version. Since we were twins my parents decided… actually my mother."

"I think it's nice."

After a few more drinks from my glass I started asking questions about the case.

"So, tell me about Gladden."

"There isn't a whole lot to tell yet."

"Well, you met him. Interviewed him. You must have a feeling for him."

"He wasn't exactly cooperative. His appeal was still pending and he didn't trust us not to use what he said to disrupt that. We all took turns trying to get him to open up. Finally, I think it was Bob's idea, he agreed to talk to us in the third person. As if the perpetrator of the crimes he was convicted of was somebody else."

"Bundy did that, too, right?"

I remembered that from a book I had read.

"Yes. And others as well. It was just a device to assure them that we were not there to make cases against them. Most of these men have tremendous egos. They wanted to talk to us but they had to be convinced they were safe from legal reprisals. Gladden was like that. Especially since he knew he had a valid appeal still pending."

"It must be a rare thing that you have a prior relationship, no matter how small, with an active serial killer."

"Yes. But I have a feeling that if any one of the people we interviewed was set loose like William Gladden, we'd end up hunting for them as well. These people don't get better, Jack, and they don't get rehabbed. They are what they are."

She said it like a warning, the second such intimation she had made. I thought about it a few moments, wondering if there was more she was trying to tell me. Or, I thought, was she really warning herself?

"So what did he say? Did he tell you about Beltran or Best Pals?"

"Of course not, or I would have remembered when I saw Beltran's name on the victim list. Gladden didn't mention names. But he did give the usual abuse excuse. Said that he was assaulted sexually as a child. Repeatedly. He was at the same age as the children he later victimized in Tampa. You see, that's the cycle. It's a pattern we often see. They become fixated on themselves at the point in their own lives when they were… ruined."

I nodded but didn't say anything, hoping she would continue.

"For a three-year period," she said, "from ages nine to twelve. The episodes were frequent and included oral and anal penetration. He didn't tell us who the abuser was other than to say it was a nonrelative. According to Gladden, he never told his mother because he feared this man. The man threatened him. He was a figure of some authority in his life. Bob made some follow-up calls about it but never got anywhere with it. Gladden wasn't specific enough for him to track it. Gladden was in his twenties by then and the period of abuse had been years earlier. There would've been statute-of-limitations problems even if we had pursued it. We couldn't even find his mother to ask her about it. She left Tampa after his arrest and all the publicity. We, of course, can now surmise that the abuser was Beltran."