The Scarecrow (37 page)

I leaned forward and whispered.

“What about the jet?”

“You don’t have to whisper. The jet is no longer an issue.”

“I hope you got it in writing.”

“I got what I needed.”

I nodded. I knew the score. She had used what leverage she had to make a deal.

“So let me guess, they want it to read that an agent identified Freddy Stone as the Unsub, not someone they had just run out
of the bureau.”

She nodded.

“Something like that. I am now assigned to dealing with you. They’re not going to let you inside the tape, Jack. It’s a recipe
for disaster. You remember what happened with the Poet.”

“That was then and this is now.”

“It’s still not going to happen.”

“Look, can we get out of this cube? Can we just take a walk where there are no hidden cameras or microphones?”

“Sure, let’s walk.”

She stood up and went to the door. She knocked with a two-and-one pattern and the door was opened immediately. As we stepped
into the narrow hallway that led to the front of the bus and the exit, I noticed Bantam was behind the door. I knocked the
two-and-one pattern on it.

“If only I had known the combo,” I said. “I could’ve been out of here an hour ago.”

He found no humor in my comment. I turned away and followed Rachel out of the bus. Outside I could see that the warehouse
and the alley were still nests of bureau activity. Several agents and technicians were moving about, collecting evidence,
taking measurements and photos, writing notes on clipboards.

“All these people, have they found anything we didn’t find?”

She smiled slyly.

“Not so far.”

“Bantam said the bureau was swarming other locations—plural. What other locations?”

“Look, Jack, before we talk we need to be straight on something. This isn’t a ride-along and you’re not embedded. I am your
contact, your source, as long as you hold the story for a day the way you offered.”

“The offer was based on full access.”

“Come on, Jack, that’s not going to happen. But you have me and you can trust me. You go back to L.A. and you write your story
tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything I can tell you.”

I moved away from her down the sidewalk toward the alley.

“See, that’s what I’m worried about. You will tell me everything that you can tell me. Who decides what you can tell me?”

“I will tell you everything I know.”

“But will you know everything?”

“Jack, come on. Stop with the semantics. Do you trust me? Isn’t that what you said when you called me up out of the blue last
week from the middle of the desert?”

I looked in her eyes for a moment and then back to the alley.

“Of course I trust you.”

“Then that’s all you need. Go back to L.A. Tomorrow you can call me every hour on the hour if you want and I will tell you
what we’ve got. You will be up to speed until the moment you put the story in the paper. It will be your story and nobody
else’s. I promise you that.”

I didn’t say anything. I stared into the alley, where there were several agents and techs dissecting the black trash bags
we had found. They were documenting each piece of garbage and debris like archaeologists at a dig in Egypt.

Rachel grew impatient.

“Then do we have a deal, Jack?”

I looked at her.

“Yes, we have a deal.”

“My one request is that when you write it, you identify me as an agent. You don’t mention my resignation or its withdrawal.”

“Is that your request or the bureau’s?”

“Does it matter? Will you do it or not?”

I nodded.

“Yes, Rachel, I’ll do it. Your secret is safe with me.”

“Thank you.”

I turned away from the alley to face her.

“So what’s happening right now? What about the other locations Bantam mentioned?”

“We also have agents at Western Data and at the home of Declan McGinnis in Scottsdale.”

“And what’s McGinnis have to say for himself?”

“Nothing so far. We haven’t found him.”

“He’s missing?”

She shrugged.

“We’re not sure whether he’s voluntarily or involuntarily missing, but he’s gone. And so is his dog. It’s possible that he
did some investigating on his own after the agents visited Friday. He might have gotten too close to Stone, and Stone reacted.
There’s another possibility, too.”

“That they were in it together?”

She nodded.

“Yes, a team. McGinnis and Stone. And wherever they are, they’re together.”

I thought about it and knew it was not without precedent. The Hillside Strangler turned out to be two cousins. And there were
other serial killer teams before and after. Bittaker and Norris came to mind. Two of the most heinous sex killers to ever
walk the planet somehow found each other and became a team in California. They tape-recorded their torture sessions. A cop
once gave me a copy of one such session that took place in the back of a van. After the first scream of panic and pain, I
turned the thing off.

“You see, Jack? This is why we need time before the media fire-storm. Both men had laptops and they took those with them.
But they also had computers at Western Data and we have them. We’ve got an EER team coming in from Quantico. They’ll be on
the ground by—”

“Ear?”

“ E-E-R. Electronic Evidence Retrieval team. They’re in the air now. We’ll put them on the system at Western Data and see
what we can learn. And remember what we already learned today. That place is wired for sight and sound. The archived recordings
should be able to help us as well.”

I nodded. I was still thinking about McGinnis and Stone working together as a tag team of murderers.

“What do you think?” I asked Rachel. “You think it’s one Unsub or two?”

“I’m not ready to say for sure yet. But I think we’re talking about a team here.”

“Why?”

“You know the scenario we spun the other night? Where the Unsub comes to L.A., lures Angela to your house, then kills her
and flies to Vegas to follow you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the bureau checked every airline flying out of LAX and Burbank to Vegas that night. Only four passengers on the late
flights bought tickets that night. Everybody else had reservations. Agents tracked and interviewed three of them and they
were cleared. The fourth, of course, was you.”

“Okay, then he could have driven.”

She shook her head.

“He could have driven but why send the GO! package overnight if you were driving to Vegas. You see? Sending the package overnight
only works if he was flying over and was going to pick it up, or if he was sending it to somebody.”

“His partner.”

I nodded and started pacing in a circle as I riffed on this new scenario. It all seemed to make sense.

“So Angela goes to the trap site and alerts them. They read her e-mail. They read my e-mail. And their response is that one
goes to L.A. to take care of her and one goes to Vegas to take care of me.” “That’s how I’m seeing it.”

“Wait. What about her phone? You said the bureau traced the call the killer made to me on her phone to the airport in Vegas.
How did the phone get to—”

“The GO! package. He sent your gun
and
her phone. They knew it would be a way of further tying you to her murder. After your suicide, the cops would find her phone
in your room. Then when it didn’t work out as planned, Stone called you from the airport. Maybe he just wanted to chat, or
maybe he knew it would help set the idea that there was one killer out there who had gone from L.A. to Vegas.”

“Stone? So you’re saying McGinnis went to L.A. for Angela, and Stone went to Vegas for me.”

She nodded.

“You said the man with sideburns was no older than thirty. Stone is twenty-six and McGinnis is forty-six. You can disguise
appearance but one of the hardest things to do without being obvious about it is to disguise age. And it’s much harder to
go younger than older. I’m betting your man with the sideburns was Stone.”

It made sense to me.

“There’s another thing that indicates we’re dealing with a team here,” Rachel said. “It was right in front of us the whole
time.”

“What’s that?”

“A loose end from the Denise Babbit killing. She was put in the trunk of her own car and it was abandoned in South L.A., where
Alonzo Winslow happened upon it.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So if the killer worked alone, how did he get out of South L.A. after he dropped off the car? We’re talking late at night
in a predominantly black neighborhood. Did he take a bus or call a cab and wait on the curb? Rodia Gardens is about a mile
from the nearest Metro stop. Did he just walk it, a white man in a black neighborhood in the middle of the night? I don’t
think so. You don’t end a murder as well planned as this with that kind of getaway. None of those scenarios makes much sense.”

“So whoever dropped her car off had a ride out of there.”

“You got it.”

I nodded and went silent for a long moment while I thought of all the new information. Rachel finally interrupted.

“I’m going to have to get to work, Jack,” she said. “And you need to get on a plane.”

“What is your assignment? I mean, besides me.”

“I’m going to work with the EER team at Western Data. I need to get over there now to get things ready.”

“Did they shut that place down?”

“More or less. They sent everybody home except for a skeleton crew to keep systems operating and to help with the EER team.
I think Carver in the bunker and O’Connor on the surface, maybe a few others.”

“This is going to put them out of business.”

“We can’t help that. Besides, if the CEO of that company and his young cohort were dipping into stored data to find victims
for their shared kill dreams, then I think their customers are entitled to know that. What happens after that happens.”

I nodded.

“I guess so.”

“Jack, you gotta go. I told Bantam I could handle this. I wish I could hug you but now’s not the time. But I want you to be
very careful. Get back to L.A. and be safe. Call me for anything and, obviously, call me if you hear from one of these men
again.”

I nodded.

“I’m going back to the hotel to get my stuff. You want me to leave the room for you?”

“No, the bureau’s paying my way now. When you check out, can you just leave my bag with the front desk? I’ll check back in
there later.”

“Okay, Rachel. And you be careful yourself.”

As I turned to head to my car, I slyly reached out and squeezed her wrist. I hoped the message was felt loud and clear; we
were in this together.

Ten minutes later the warehouse was in my rearview mirror and I was on the way back to the Mesa Verde Inn. I was on hold with
Southwest Airlines, waiting to book a flight back to L.A., but I could not concentrate on anything other than the idea that
the Unsub was actually two killers acting in unison.

To me, the idea of two people meeting and acting on the same wavelength of sexual sadism and murder more than doubled the
sense of dread such dark things conjured. I thought of the term Yolanda Chavez had used during the tour of Western Data.
Dark fiber
. Could there be anything as deep and dark in the fiber of one’s being as the desire to share such things as what had happened
to Denise Babbit and the other victims? I didn’t think so and the thought of it chilled me to the center of my soul.

T
he three agents comprising the FBI Electronic Evidence Retrieval team had commandeered the three workstations in the control
room. Carver was left pacing behind them and occasionally looking over their shoulders at their screens. He wasn’t worried
because he knew they would find only what he wanted them to find. But he had to act like he was worried. After all, what was
happening here was threatening the reputation of Western Data and its business across the country.

“Mr. Carver, you really need to relax,” Agent Torres said. “It’s going to be a long night and your pacing back and forth like
that will only make it longer—for you and us.”

“Sorry,” Carver said. “I’m just worried about what this is all going to mean, you know?”

“Yes, sir, we understand,” Torres said. “Why don’t you—”

The agent was interrupted by the sound of “Riders on the Storm” coming from the pocket of Carver’s lab coat.

“Excuse me,” Carver said.

He pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and answered it.

“It’s me,” Freddy Stone said.

“Hi, there,” Carver said cheerily for the benefit of the agents.

“Have they found it yet?”

“Not yet. I’m still here and it’s going to be a while.”

“I go ahead with the plan then?”

“You’ll just have to play without me.”

“This is my test, isn’t it? I have to prove myself to you.”

He said it with a slight note of indignation.

“After what happened last week, I’m happy to sit this one out.”

There was a pause and then Stone changed directions.

“Do those agents know who I am yet?”

“I don’t know but there’s nothing I can do about it right now. Work comes first. I’m sure I’ll be available next week and
you can take my money again then.”

Carver hoped his lines fell within the bounds of poker talk for the listening agents.

“I’ll meet you later at the place?” Stone asked.

“Yes, my place. You bring the chips and beer. See you then. I gotta go.”

He ended the call and dropped the phone back into his pocket. Stone’s hedging and indignation was beginning to concern Carver.
A few days ago he was begging for his life; today he didn’t like being told what to do. Carver began to second-guess himself.
He probably should have ended it in the desert and put Stone in the hole with McGinnis and the dog. End of story. End of threat.

He could still do it. Later tonight maybe. Another two-for-one opportunity. It would be the end of the line for Stone and
a lot of other things. Western Data would not be able to withstand the scandal. It would close and Carver would move on. By
himself. Like before. He would take the lessons he had learned and begin again somewhere else. He was the Changeling. He knew
he could do it.