Authors: Michael Connelly
I’m a changeling, see me change. I’m a changeling, see me change.
Torres turned from his screen and looked at Carver. Carver checked himself. Had he been humming?
“Poker night?” Torres asked.
“Yeah. Sorry for the intrusion.”
“Sorry you’re missing your game.”
“That’s okay. You guys are probably saving me fifty bucks.”
“The bureau is always happy to help out.”
Torres smiled and the other agent, the woman named Mowry, smiled, too.
Carver tried to smile but it felt phony and he stopped. The truth was, he had nothing to smile about.
I
stayed in my hotel room the whole evening, writing most of the next day’s story and repeatedly calling Rachel. The story
was easy to put together. I first talked to my ace, Prendergast, about it and wrote up a budget line. I sent that in and then
started constructing the story. Though it was not going to run until the next news cycle, I already had the main components
well in hand. Beginning the following morning I would gather the latest details and just stick them in.
That is, if I was given any new details. What had been a mild dose of paranoia bloomed into something larger when my hourly
calls to Rachel’s cell went unanswered and the messages unreturned. My plans for the evening—and the future—hit the rocks
of doubt.
Finally, just before eleven o’clock, my cell phone rang. The caller ID said Mesa Verde Inn. It was Rachel.
“How’s L.A.?” she asked.
“L.A.’s fine,” I said. “I’ve been trying to call you. Didn’t you get my messages?”
“I’m sorry. My phone died. I was on it so much earlier. I’m back at the hotel now and just checked in. Thank you for leaving
my bag with the desk.”
The dead phone explanation sounded plausible. I started to relax.
“No problem,” I said. “What room did they put you in?”
“Seven seventeen. What about you, did you go back to your house after all?”
“No, I’m still at the hotel.”
“Really? I just called the Kyoto and they put me through to your room but I got no answer.”
“Oh. It must have been when I went down the hall to get ice.”
I stared at the bottle of Grand Embrace Cabernet I had gotten from room service.
“So,” I said, to change the subject, “are you in for the night, then?”
“Jeez, I hope so. I just ordered room service. I suppose I’ll get called back out if they find something at Western Data.”
“What do you mean, there are still people in there?”
“The EER team is still there. They’re guzzling Red Bull like it’s water and working on into the night. Carver’s with them.
But I couldn’t go the distance. I had to get some food and sleep.”
“And Carver’s just going to let them work through the night?”
“Turns out the scarecrow is a night owl. He takes several midnight shifts every week. Says he gets his best work done then,
so he’s cool with staying.”
“What’d you order to eat?”
“Good old comfort food. A cheeseburger and fries.”
I smiled.
“I had the same thing, but skipped the cheese. No Pyrat rum or wine?”
“Nope, now that I’m back on the bureau per diem, no alcohol allowed. Not that I couldn’t use it.”
I smiled but decided to get down to business first.
“So what’s the latest update on McGinnis and Stone?”
There was a hesitation in her response.
“Jack, I’m tired. It’s been a long day and I’ve been in that bunker for the last four hours. I was hoping I could eat my dinner,
take a hot bath and we could just leave business for tomorrow.”
“Look, I’m tired, too, Rachel, but remember I let you push me out of the way on the promise you would keep me informed. I
haven’t heard from you since I left the warehouse and now you’re telling me you’re too tired to talk.”
Another hesitation.
“Okay, okay, you’re right. So let’s get this over with. The update is that there is good and bad news. The good news is that
we know who Freddy Stone really is and he’s not Freddy Stone. Knowing his real identity will hopefully help us run him down.”
“Freddy Stone’s an alias? How’d he get by the supposedly vaunted security screening at Western Data? Didn’t they check his
prints?”
“The thing is, company records show Declan McGinnis signed off on hiring him. So he could have greased it.”
I nodded. McGinnis could have gotten his partner in murder into the company, no sweat.
“Okay, so who is he?”
I opened my backpack on the bed and took out a notebook and pen.
“His real name is Marc Courier. That’s Marc with a
c
. Same age, twenty-six, with two felony arrests in Illinois for fraud. He skipped three years ago before trial. They were
identity theft cases. He got credit cards, opened bank accounts, the whole nine yards. His history indicates he’s a gifted
hacker and vicious troll with a long history of digital breaches and assaults. He’s a bad guy and he was right there in the
bunker.”
“When did he come to work for Western Data?”
“Also three years ago. It looks like he split Chicago and almost immediately ended up in Mesa with the new name.”
“So McGinnis already knew him?”
“We think he recruited him. You know, it always used to be an amazing thing when two like-minded killers would hook up. You
would think, What are the chances? But the Internet is a whole new ball game. It’s the great intersection, for things good
and bad. With chat rooms and websites devoted to any fetish and paraphilia imaginable, we have people with similar interests
hooking up every minute of the day. We are going to see more and more of this, Jack. Where they take it out of fantasy and
cyberspace and into the real world. Meeting people with shared beliefs helps justify those beliefs. It emboldens. Sometimes
it’s a call to action.”
“Did the name Freddy Stone belong to somebody else?”
“No, it looks like it was fabricated.”
“Any history of violence or sex offenses back in Chicago?”
“When he was arrested three years ago in Chicago, his computer was seized and they found a lot of porn. I am told it included
a few Bangkok torture films but he wasn’t charged with anything. It’s too hard to make a case because the films carry disclaimers
that they’re all actors and nothing is real, even though it most likely is real torture and pain.”
“What about stuff with leg braces, that sort of thing?”
“Nothing like that on the record but we’ll look into all of that, believe me. If the link between Courier and McGinnis is
abasiophilia, we will find it. If they met in an iron maiden chat room we will find it.”
“How’d you make Courier’s ID?”
“The handprint stored on the biometric reader on the entrance to the server farm.”
I finished writing and checked my notes, looking for my next question.
“Will I be able to get a mug shot of Courier?”
“Check your e-mail. I sent one before I left. I want you to see if he looks familiar.”
I pulled my laptop across the bed and logged on to my e-mail. Her message was on top of the pile. I opened the photo and stared
at a mug shot of Marc Courier from his arrest three years before. He had long dark hair and a scraggly goatee and mustache.
He looked like he would fit in seamlessly with Kurt and Mizzou in the bunker at Western Data.
“Could it be the man from the hotel in Ely?” Rachel asked.
I studied the photo without answering.
“Jack?”
“I don’t know. It could be. I wish I had seen his eyes.”
I studied the photo for a few more seconds and then moved on.
“So you said you had good and bad news. What’s the bad news?” “Before he split, Courier planted replicating viruses in his
own computer in the lab at Western Data and in the company archives. It chewed through almost everything by the time it was
discovered tonight. The camera archives are gone. So is a lot of the company data.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means we’re not going to be able to track his movements as easily as we had hoped. You know, when he was there, when he
wasn’t, any sort of connections or meetings with McGinnis, that sort of thing. E-mails back and forth. It would have been
good to have.”
“How did that go unnoticed by Carver and all the safeguards they supposedly have in place there?”
“The easiest thing in the world to pull off is an inside job. Courier knew the defense systems. He built a virus that navigated
around them.”
“What about McGinnis and his computer?”
“Better luck there, I am told. But they started on that late tonight, so I won’t know more until tomorrow when I go in. A
search team was at his house all night as well. He lives alone, no family. I heard they found some interesting stuff but the
search is ongoing.”
“How interesting?”
“Well, I don’t know if you want to hear this, Jack, but they found a copy of your book on the Poet on his bookshelf. I told
you we’d find it.”
I didn’t reply. I felt a sudden heat on my face and neck and was silent while I considered the idea that I had written a book
that might have in some way been a primer for another killer. It was by no means a how-to book but it certainly outlined how
profiling and serial killer investigations were carried out by the FBI.
I needed to change the subject.
“What else did they find?”
“I haven’t seen this yet but I am told they found a complete set of ankle-to-thigh leg braces designed for a woman. There
was also pornography dealing with the subject.”
“Man, this is one sick son of a bitch.”
I wrote a few notes about the findings, then flipped back through the pages to see if anything prompted another question.
Between what I knew and had seen and what Rachel was telling me, I would have a hell of a story for the next day.
“So Western Data is completely closed down, right?”
“Pretty much. I mean, the websites that are hosted at the company are still operating. We froze the colocation center, though.
No data is going in or out until the EER team completes its assessment.”
“Some of the clients, like the big law firms, are going to go ape shit when they find out the FBI has custody of their stored
files, aren’t they?”
“Probably, but we’re not opening any stored files. At least not yet. We are just maintaining the system as is for the time
being. Nothing in or out. We worked with Carver on a message that went out to all clients to keep them informed. It said that
the situation is temporary and that Carver, as a representative of the company, was observing the FBI investigation and ensuring
the integrity of the files, yada, yada, yada. That’s the best we can do. If they go ape shit, then I guess they go ape shit.”
“What about Carver? You checked him out, right?”
“Yes, he’s clean, all the way back to MIT. We need to trust somebody inside and I guess it’s him.”
I was silent as I wrote a few final notes. I had more than enough to write the story the next day. Even if I couldn’t get
through to Rachel, I was sure my story would lead the paper and draw national attention. Two serial killers for the price
of one.
“Jack, you there?”
“Yeah, I’m just writing. Anything else?”
“That’s about it.”
“You’re being careful?”
“Of course. My gun and badge are being overnighted to me. I’ll be locked and loaded tomorrow morning.”
“Then you’ll be all set.”
“I will. Can we finally talk about us now?”
I was suddenly speared through the chest with anxiety. She wanted to get the work-related discussion out of the way so she
could get to what she really wanted to say about our relationship. After all the unanswered phone calls, I didn’t think it
was going to be good news.
“Uh, sure,” I said. “What about us?”
I got up off the bed, ready to take the news standing up. I walked over to the bottle of wine and picked it up. I was staring
at it when she spoke.
“Well, you know, I didn’t want this to be all business.”
I felt a little better. I put the bottle down again and started to loosen the spear.
“Me, too.”
“In fact, I was thinking… I know this is going to sound crazy.”
“What is?”
“Well, when they offered me my job back today, I felt so… I don’t know, elated, I guess. Vindicated in some way. But then
when I got back here by myself tonight, I started thinking about that thing you said when you were joking around.”
I couldn’t remember what she meant so I played along.
“And?”
She sort of laughed before answering.
“And, well, I think it really could be kind of fun if we tried it.”
I was racking my brain, wondering if this had something to do with the single-bullet theory.
What was it I had said?
“You really think so?”
“Well, I don’t know anything about business or how we would get clients, but I think I’d like working with you on investigations.
It would be fun. It’s already been fun.”
Now I remembered. Walling and McEvoy, Discreet Investigations. I smiled. I pulled the spear out of my chest and slammed it
point-first into the hard ground, staking a claim like that astronaut who put the flag on the moon.
“Yeah, Rachel, it’s been nice,” I said, hoping my cool bravado masked my inner relief. “But I don’t know. You were pretty
upset when you were facing life without a badge.”
“I know. Maybe I’m kidding myself. We’d probably end up doing divorce work and that’s gotta kill the soul over time.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it’s something to think about.”
“Hey, I’ve got nothing lined up. So you won’t hear me objecting. I just want to make sure you don’t make a mistake. I mean,
is everything suddenly forgiven there with the bureau? They just gave you your job back and that’s that?”
“Probably not. They’ll lie in wait for me. They always do.”
I heard the knock on her door and the muffled voice of someone calling out, “Room service.”
“My dinner’s here,” Rachel said. “I gotta go.”
“Okay. I’ll see you later, Rachel.”