Kelley Armstrong - Exit Strategy

“Yeah,” Jack said, rounding the corner with the coffees. “It’s about him.”

“You’re going after him?”

Jack passed me my mug. “Someone’s gotta. Feds are clueless. They’ll round up every pro…except the killer.”

“From what I hear they already are, which is why I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a week now. You’ve been ignoring me.”

“Wasn’t ignoring you. Busy. Setting this up.”

She leaned forward. “So who’s in? No, let me guess. Felix, Angel, Quinn-but only because you need him for his contacts. You didn’t ask Sid and Shadow, did you?”

When Jack didn’t answer, she rolled her eyes. “You did. I don’t know how you can put up with those two. Not a full deck between them.”

“But they’re good. All that counts. Angel’s out. Got picked up.”

“By the police? On what charges?”

“Jaywalking.”

“Don’t be smart. You know what I mean. Angel’s as careful as they come and if he’s been charged with one of his old hits-”

“Then we’re all in shit. That’s the point. Now, about Manson…”

“Well, I can certainly tell you everything you need to know about Charles Manson. But if you’re chasing down this alley because your killer uses a silly quote-”

“ Newsweek says there’s more,” I said. “According to their sources, the Feds have uncovered a possible connection between the killer and Charles Manson.”

Evelyn looked at Jack. “What does Quinn say?”

When Jack didn’t answer, she swore under her breath. “You’re investigating a case where federal investigators have an important lead, and you haven’t even asked Quinn about it yet?”

“Who’s-?” I began, then remembered Evelyn’s list of names. “He’s one of the other pros working this, right? How would he-?”

“Manson, Evelyn,” Jack said. “What do you know?”

Charles Manson was a career criminal of the lowest order. During those rare times in his teens and twenties when the state wasn’t paying his room and board, he pimped and drug-dealt his way through life. It seemed Manson never committed a crime for which he didn’t do the time. You’d think these early signs of ineptitude would make a guy sit back and go, “Hmmm, maybe I’m not cut out to be a criminal mastermind after all.” Apparently not.

Manson was a classic predator. He knew how to sniff out the weak and tell them what they wanted to hear. By 1969 he had over two dozen followers, most of them teenage girls. The second greatest question of loyalty after “Would you die for me?” is “Would you kill for me?” In August 1969, Manson put his followers to that test. First, four of them killed Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Parent, Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring. The next day, three killed Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary. On April 17, 1971, Manson returned to jail, where he remains.

When she was done explaining, Evelyn sipped her now-cold coffee. “If I had to guess at the connection, I’d look at hero worship.”

“I hope by ‘hero’ you don’t mean Manson,” I said.

“Even after all these years, Charles Manson receives more mail than any inmate in the system. At the time of the crimes, it was even worse. Some underground papers hailed him as a revolutionary, a martyr of the people and for the people. A cult of Manson still exists today, if you know where to look for it.”

“You think one of them-?”

Evelyn cut me short with a wave. “No, no. Losers and lunatics.”

She stood, walked to her bookcase, pulled out a volume and tossed it between Jack and me. I picked it up. Helter Skelter, by Vincent Bugliosi.

“Manson’s minions didn’t try to hide anything,” she said. “Even the cops couldn’t fuck up this case and, believe me, they seemed to be trying their damnedest. Those murders have nothing to do with this Helter Skelter killer. Opposite ends of the spectrum.”

“Fine,” Jack said. “Just background anyway. More important? Criminal connections. Third victim has a record. Who else?”

“And you want me to look that up for you out of the kindness of my heart? You aren’t bringing me the best damn job in a decade, picking my brain and walking away. I want in.”

“Already got a team-”

“And not one of them wouldn’t welcome me if you asked. Now go make lunch. I have work to do.”

Jack asked whether I was hungry, and when I said I wasn’t, he ignored Evelyn’s complaints that she was, and ushered me outside for “some air.”

I could hear dogs around the back, but couldn’t see them through the fence. The wind was icy and I buttoned my jacket, but didn’t complain, knowing he’d brought me out here to talk privately.

He led me to the front of a midsize car I presumed belonged to Evelyn, and we sat on the hood. He patted his jacket pocket, as if looking for his cigarettes, then made a face.

“Played that wrong,” he said. “Should apologize.”

“I won’t say otherwise.” I glanced at him. “I wish you’d told me about her. Getting down here, presuming you’re the only one who knows about me…”

“Wish you hadn’t come?”

I stared at the fence for a minute. “No. Had I known, I definitely would have wanted to meet her, to put a face to a threat. But…it makes me uncomfortable.”

“Figured that. Hard to tell. You’re good at hiding it.”

“So after you met me, you told her I wasn’t a suitable-”

“Never said that.”

“You told her to forget about me, which you knew she’d take to mean I wasn’t suitable. And this thing about ‘stealing’ me…I’m not exactly a theft-worthy contact. That means you didn’t want me connecting with Evelyn. Why?”

“Evelyn bores easily. Always looking for projects. You were new. Didn’t need her shit. Now?” He shrugged. “Up to you.”

Jack made sandwiches for lunch while I helped. He didn’t ask what Evelyn wanted, just walked in and started fixing them. The kitchen was as immaculate and well ordered as the living room. It was stocked with staples, but low on perishables, giving the sense that Evelyn ate out more than she cooked. What perishables I saw were all of the “graband-eat” variety, like fruit, breads and cold cuts-things for snacks and quick lunches.

As we ate, Evelyn told us what she’d dug up. Kozlov’s early record showed a few sporadic arrests, but no convictions. That changed when a twenty-one-year-old liquorstore clerk had refused to sell to Kozlov. Already staggering drunk, Kozlov broke a bottle and slashed the young man. Kozlov ran. The kid bled to death. The DA had argued for murder, but Kozlov’s lawyer plea-bargained down to a ten-year manslaughter term. After his parole, he hadn’t been heard from again until he wound up dead on his living room floor.

With the others, we didn’t get so lucky. When the first victim, college student Alicia Sanchez, had been killed, one paper speculated a drug connection, claiming Sanchez had been racking up frequent-flier miles at local drug hangouts. It was later revealed that she had attended exactly one campus party where several students, excluding Sanchez, were arrested for marijuana possession. Victim number two, Carson Morrow, had been arrested on loitering charges following a sit-in protest during his own college days. The charges were later dropped. Attending a pot party and a protest rally-neither classifies as a hanging offense.

“So the easiest link is out then,” I said. “But if it was that obvious, the Feds would already be on it. We need to look wider-unreported criminal activity or…” I looked down the list. “Given that most of these don’t seem like criminal types, a direct link might not be the answer.”