A Soul To Steal (27 page)

“The story,” Buzz replied. “You refer to Lord Halloween’s murders, but you don’t mention his name. He won’t like it.”

“Well, I guess he can always write a letter to the editor,” Quinn said, hoping for a laugh. “’To the editor: I may be a psychotic madman, but I would appreciate your using my full name.’”

Buzz didn’t laugh.

“You think this is funny?” he said. “It’s not. He has ways of making his wishes known and though they involve notes, they aren’t exactly publishable.”

“I’m just kidding around.”

“He isn’t a joke,” Buzz said.

“Look, even if the guy wanted his name printed, that’s a reason not to do it,” Quinn said. “We don’t pander to madmen.”

Buzz waved his hand in disgust.

“Spare me the good journalism speech,” Buzz said. “If you don’t print his name, you wind up dead. You aren’t much good to anyone then.”

“Why are you so obsessed with him anyway?” Quinn asked.

“Who wouldn’t be?” Buzz asked. He looked around him. “He is ruthless, inventive, creative and intelligent. If you don’t study up on him, he might catch you napping.”

“I’ve done my research,” Quinn said.

“Have you really?” Buzz asked. “Then I’m surprised you didn’t mention his name.”

“It wasn’t me, it was Kyle,” Quinn said. “He wrote most of it. I even suggested putting the nickname in there, but he thought it was too ‘provocative.’ This from a guy who thinks wrestling is high art.”

“Yes, well, as I said, he has ways of making his point known,” Buzz said.

“I know, like mailing a head to Sheriff Brown,” Quinn said. “I’ll be careful.”

 “You’ll be dead,” Buzz said.

Buzz started to walk away before Quinn remembered. He burst out laughing and Buzz looked confused and then angry.

“No, Buzz,” Quinn said. “It’s a line from Star Wars, remember? Luke says, ‘I’ll be careful’ to some dude in the bar and then the guy says, ‘You’ll be dead.’”

“It’s not funny, Quinn,” Buzz said. “It isn’t like he hasn’t targeted reporters before—ones just as talented as you.”

“Hold up a second,” Quinn said. “What reporter did he target?”

But Buzz was starting to walk away in disgust. When Quinn caught up with him, he wheeled around.

“Everyone likes to make fun of me,” Buzz said. “You say I’m paranoid. And I am. But did you ever think I have reason to be? Tim was just a young reporter when he started here, but he was amazingly talented. I was a little envious, actually.”

“Tim?”

“Anderson,” Buzz said. “He came in just like you. Left college, wanted to write. Worked on the sports desk for two years and started doing general assignments. About a year before Lord Halloween showed up, Laurence moved him to the crime beat. And he was great at it.”

Quinn wasn’t laughing anymore.

“What happened?”

Buzz paused. He had a far away look on his face as if he wasn’t just remembering being back in 1994, but he was actually there.

“He started getting letters,” Buzz said. “I’m not sure when. It could have even been before the first murder.”

“What did they say?”

“I don’t know,” Buzz said. “Nobody here knows but Laurence and Ethan. Tim only ever shared them with those two.”

“But they were from Lord Halloween?”

“Oh yes,” Buzz said. “Most definitely.”

“Do you know anything about what they contained?”

Buzz shook his head.

“Don’t you think I wanted to know?” he asked. “I tried everything I could to get a copy, or see if Tim would talk. But the letters were promptly handed over to police. Ethan said we could never publish them.”

Quinn got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Lord Halloween didn’t approve?”

“No, he didn’t,” Buzz said. “I know that…”

His voice trailed off. He was staring into space.

“You know that what?”

“Tim begged to publish those letters, Quinn,” Buzz said. “I don’t mean he asked, I mean he literally begged. Laurence and he had giant fights about it, but…”

“Laurence just did what Ethan wanted.”

“Same as it ever was,” Buzz said, and nodded.

“What happened to Tim?”

“I really don’t know,” Buzz said. “One day he just didn’t show up for work. You won’t find him on any official list of Lord Halloween’s victims. But I know he’s dead.”

“Why? Maybe he just freaked and ran away?”

“You couldn’t keep a guy like him away from writing,” Buzz said. “He was born to do it, just as you were. He had a great beat and was a star reporter. He wouldn’t have left.”

“Sometimes people do funny things when their life is on the line,” Quinn said.

“He angered Lord Halloween,” Buzz said. “Then he disappeared. You tell me what is more likely. That is one killer with a lot of follow through.”

Quinn thought of the blood in the basement, the reports of a ghost in the building. Maybe Lord Halloween killed Anderson here and hid the body? He shivered at the thought of someone lying down in the press room, screaming for help. But if the press was running, there would have been no one to hear. He could have died surrounded by people that might have helped him, but just couldn’t hear him.

“I need those letters,” Quinn said. “If Lord Halloween is back, I need to know more about him.”

Buzz looked at him.

“The police have all of them,” he said. “Technically.”

“What do you mean, technically?”

Buzz looked around the office. There was still no one around. He leaned into Quinn’s face.

“I think Laurence kept copies,” Buzz said. “I don’t know for sure, but I saw him copy one of them late at night. Ethan would not have approved. But he doesn’t keep them in his office.”

“How do you know?” Quinn asked.

Buzz smiled and shrugged.

“You broke in, didn’t you?” Quinn asked.

Buzz shrugged again.

“Still, if he copied one…”

“There’s a good bet he copied others,” Buzz said. “Stay on your toes, Quinn. If Lord Halloween writes you a letter, I would make your own copy first. And I’d print it.”

“If they let me,” he said.

With that, Buzz walked off again. Quinn went back to his desk and sat down.

He put his head in his hands. When he looked up, Kate was staring at him. She looked pale, almost sick. He wasn’t sure when she arrived. He got up and walked over to her.

“What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t sleep well,” she replied. “I feel like I haven’t slept in days.”

“I know the feeling,” Quinn said. “When I do sleep, all I have are nightmares.”

“Believe me, I understand,” she said. “What was that little pow-wow about?”

Quinn filled her in on the brief and tragic career of Tim Anderson.

“So he’s the blood in the basement?” she asked.

“It’s a good guess, but it isn’t conclusive,” Quinn replied.

“We need those letters,” she said.

“But how are we going to get them?” Quinn asked. “I doubt Laurence will admit he has them—if he even still does.”

“We can find a way,” Kate said, and Quinn did not like the look on her face. Not one bit.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “If it is Lord Halloween, he’ll make another move soon. He’ll want more attention then he got here. And it’s less than two weeks to Halloween.”

Rebecca stood at the door of the conference room and called everyone into the staff meeting. Both Kate and Quinn went inside.

*****

That afternoon, Kate, Janus and Quinn sat in the coffee shop down the street.

“You want to do what?” Quinn asked. “Are you insane?”

“Well, can you think of a better way?” Kate asked.

“Than breaking into Laurence’s house?” Quinn responded. “We could just ask him, you know.”

“And he’ll deny they exist,” she responded. “You’ve got exactly one person who saw him making a copy—and that’s Buzz. Is he the most credible source?”

“How do we know they are even at his house?” Quinn asked.

“Cause they aren’t in his office,” Kate responded.

“How could you possibly…”

Quinn’s voice dropped off. He looked at the two of them. He had wondered why Kate had insisted on bringing Janus along. And now he knew. Only Janus would have been crazy enough to go along with this plan.

“You broke into his office, didn’t you?” Quinn asked, looking at Janus.

“Broke in is such a strong term,” Janus said with a smile. “I prefer active investigatory intrusion.”

“Are you two nuts?” Quinn said. “He is your boss. Your boss. If he had caught you, you both would have been fired. ”

“I had a cover story,” Janus said.

“Which was what?”

There was a long pause.

“I needed a stapler,” Janus said.

Quinn put his head on the table and softly but repeatedly banged it against the ceramic stone. It felt strangely soothing. My job will be the first thing to go, he thought. He looked up and they were both staring at him. Janus at least had some vaguely apologetic look on his face, as if he were aware that some line had been crossed. Kate, on the other hand, just looked determined.

“And is that going to be your cover story when we break into his actual house?” Quinn said. “When the police show up, we’re going to tell them that the three of us really needed staplers?”

“No, I was going to go with we all were tweaked out on ecstasy and thought we were throwing a party there.”

Quinn returned to banging his head on the table.

“It’s the only way,” Kate said.

“The only way?” Quinn asked, and laughed. “Again, we could ask him. I’m just throwing out a crazy idea that instead of breaking into a house—a home I might add that we don’t even know has the letters, much less where to find them—we could just confront him and demand he give over the letters.”

“And when he says no?” Kate asked.

“Have you met Laurence?” Quinn said. “He doesn’t say no. Traveling salespeople probably come from miles around because he is physically incapable of saying no. If he were drowning, he wouldn’t say no to more water.”

“I don’t think so,” Kate said.

“I’ve known him for years,” Quinn said. “You’ve known him for like 20 minutes. Come on.”

“She’s right,” Janus said.

Quinn pointed his finger at Janus.

“You just want an excuse to break in somewhere,” he said. “You’ve been wanting to do that for ages. Remember that Cascades bar?”

Janus just shrugged.

“She’s right and you know it,” he said. “Laurence can’t say no, but he can pretend the letters don’t exist. And that’s what he’ll do.”

“We are taking way too much on faith here,” Quinn responded. “That he really did copy the letters, that he has kept them all these years, and that they are sitting at his house.”

“We have to start somewhere, Quinn, or are we just going to be wait for Lord Halloween to find us?” Kate said.

“What if they tell us nothing? They didn’t tell the police much, did they?”

Still, within two hours, Quinn found himself along with Kate and Janus outside of Laurence’s house. He had a modest enough place just outside Leesburg. Quinn didn’t know for sure, but he thought Laurence must have moved recently. The house looked relatively new and had that cookie-cutter look that most of the developers were going for.

The nice thing about the outskirts of Leesburg was that they had so much surrounding woodland still left. The three journalists positioned themselves in Laurence’s back yard and scoped out the house.

“It’s all dark,” Quinn said.

He thanked God it was October and the sun was starting to go down so early. Somewhere he could hear a dog bark and he hoped it wasn’t making noise because of them—or that Laurence owned it. At least now they could lurk around without anyone seeing them. Quinn couldn’t see why Lord Halloween enjoyed that aspect of his work. Instead of feeling invisible, he was worried any minute he might be seen or, knowing Virginia residents, shot at.

“So who’s going in?” he asked.

He shouldn’t have bothered. Once they confirmed that Laurence wasn’t home yet, Janus was already moving to approach the house.

“Does he even know where he’s going?” Quinn asked.

Kate shrugged.

They watched Janus approach the backdoor. It was a nice double door opening out to a patio. Janus tripped a motion-detecting floodlight, but clearly didn’t seem worried about it. He stood there, standing out.

“This isn’t going to work,” Quinn said.

“Could you please try and be a little positive?”

“Well, I didn’t bring up the part where we all get fired and go to jail. I thought that was pretty positive.”

Janus had pulled something out of his pocket—Quinn at first thought it was going to be his lighter, the one he carried with him everywhere. Instead it appeared to be a tool of some kind. He was using it on the door. Within seconds, the door came open.