The Competition (20 page)

We found Mikayla Cutter
on the front porch shivering under her long down coat, her face swollen and blotchy with grief. I’d expected her to be holed up in her bedroom, where she wouldn’t have to see the swarm of cops and reporters, but she was staring past it all, into the farther reaches of the Valley. Mikayla glanced at us, then turned back to her vigil. “He can’t be far, can he?” Her voice was small and far away.

“No,” I said. I reached out and squeezed her arm. “We’re going to do everything we can to get him home as soon as possible, I promise.”

Mikayla bit her lip and nodded as tears leaked out of the sides of her eyes. We wove our way through the police line toward Bailey’s car. By the time we hit the freeway, the fog had lifted and left behind a fresh, clean blue sky. “We’d better get our shrinks in on this.”

Bailey nodded. “And we need to tell Dr. Malloy about the letter.”

I stared down the freeway at the sea of red taillights. We’d hit a nasty traffic snarl dead center. With the threat of another shooting hanging over our heads, no clue where to find the killers, and now Evan’s disappearance, being trapped in traffic was so agonizing it made my stomach churn. “Can this goddamned case get any more bizarre?”

Bailey winced. “Must you? Really?”

She was right. I definitely should know better than to tempt fate with a question like that.

As we inched along, I thought about where Evan might have gone. “Are the unis digging into Evan’s background?”

“Of course.”

“God, if anything happens to him…”

“Don’t go there. We’ll find him. We have to.”

“But when Logan hears he’s running—”

“I said, don’t go there.”

Logan knew Evan better than we did, which meant the odds that he’d find Evan before we did were pretty damn good. And he’d never have a more risk-free chance to kill Evan. By running away, Evan had managed to put himself in a thousand times greater peril.

It felt like a knife was twisting in my stomach. I wrapped my arms around my torso and tried to catch my breath. We should have given Evan protection. If we’d had a car posted in his driveway, this would never have happened. I should’ve insisted on it. This was my fault, all my fault.

Bailey grabbed my arm. “I told you to stop it. We had no way of knowing Evan would pull a stunt like this—”

“The shrinks warned us he was unstable. Hell, all these kids are off-kilter right now. We should’ve had someone sit on his house.”

“We were trying, remember? Besides, it wouldn’t have helped. Evan’s window faced the backyard. The cop wouldn’t have seen a thing.” Bailey sighed. “There’s only so much we can do.”

I could hear the logic in what Bailey said. It just didn’t change the way I felt. But I also knew I didn’t have the luxury of wallowing in my guilt. We had two killers out there bent on committing an atrocity that might well eclipse Oklahoma City. Finding Evan was a job for the Valley Division, who knew the territory best. Evan couldn’t have gotten far. Not on foot. Besides, the biggest threat to Evan was Logan. Capturing him was the best protection we could give Evan right now.

I forced myself to focus on the matter at hand. Even if we were right about Shane being the second shooter, we hadn’t had any tips worth diddly-squat regarding his whereabouts. Same for Logan.

“What drives me nuts is, I think we’re right about them still being close by.” I folded my arms and stared out the window. “With their faces all over the news, and all our manpower, how come no one has seen them?”

Bailey sighed. “I know.”

Logan’s parents had been questioned ad nauseam about where he might be hiding. Nothing had panned out. Bailey and I tossed ideas back and forth till we were nearly downtown, but the maddening truth was that with no leads of any substance, we were just churning.

I pulled out my cell phone. “I’m going to set up a meeting with the shrinks to give them the update.” Though by the time we saw them, they’d undoubtedly already have heard about it on the news. “Maybe they’ll have some bright ideas.”

“See if we can meet at Jenny’s,” Bailey said.

The Bradbury Building where Jenny had her office was an iconic landmark. With its old-fashioned cage lift, art deco decor, and zigzagging wooden staircases, it had the kind of historic charm that sadly was rare in Los Angeles. But more important, it was a quieter, more private place to meet.

I made the calls and found both doctors ready and willing to meet there in half an hour.

Twenty-five minutes later
we were climbing the first flight of stairs. We didn’t want to wait for the elevator. The second floor was occupied by Internal Affairs, and Bailey glowered at the door as we walked past it and headed for the stairway to the fourth floor. I was tired after having been yanked out of bed at six a.m., but we’d been cooped up in the car for so long that the climb felt good. The door to Jenny’s office stood open, so we walked in.

Jenny had wisely carried through the art deco motif with a mahogany reception desk, a large fern in the corner, and an Oriental rug. She even had a wood ceiling fan. A nice touch. Michael was already there, sitting in one of the comfy-looking overstuffed chairs that surrounded a circular table a few feet away from Jenny’s desk. Jenny sat across from him. They both held steaming mugs of coffee. The classic leather couch, complete with headrest pillow and blankets folded at the foot, occupied the wall to our right. “So you guys still use those?” I nodded toward the couch.

“Some patients prefer it, believe it or not,” Jenny said. She gestured to a burr-grinding Cuisinart in the bookcase near the table. “Can I interest you…?”

We gratefully accepted, and I thanked them for coming in on a Saturday.

Michael held up a hand. “Please. I think we both knew our nights and weekends would be kaput on this case.”

When we were all settled in, Bailey asked if they’d heard about Evan running away. They had.

Michael frowned. “It does and doesn’t surprise me. We’ve spoken about how destabilizing this trauma has been for all the students. But Evan has the unique burdens of guilt and fear that we’ve discussed before. Given all of his stressors, that Evan would run away is not that surprising—”

“Or if he’d become completely reclusive it wouldn’t have shocked me either,” Jenny said. “But this does increase the pressure to find Logan. I agree, Evan’s flight could give Logan exactly the kind of free shot he might’ve hoped for.”

“But Logan and his buddy might be too busy with their next hit to worry about tracking Evan down,” I said.

“Their next hit?” Michael said. “You have some evidence of future plans?”

Bailey told Michael about the letter. His eyes widened. “My God.” He set down his mug and rubbed his face. But when he lowered his hands, his face was still pale. “I’ve never heard of a thing like this before. It’s…incredible.” He stared into his coffee mug. After a few moments, he looked up. “These shooters—or at least your writer—obviously wants recognition. He wants to be famous. But if their identity is revealed, they’ll be caught. And as you said, they’re not done yet. So since he can’t get public recognition for himself, he gets it vicariously by attaching to you through this letter. I’d expect that until these shooters are ready to stop, you’ll get more such letters. You agree, Jenny?”

“Seems likely. The only reason to write that letter is to make sure they get the ‘credit’ for future attacks, so no one will think it’s the work of a copycat—”

“Well, not the only reason,” Michael said. “In writing the letter he also gets to play with your head, Rachel. Torturing and manipulating someone who’s famous is a trophy unto itself. So he gets a twofer.”

“I agree,” Jenny said. “As I said before, this letter writer is a psychopath, and they’re typically fixated on power and control—”

“Which only reinforces the likelihood that the other party is the weaker one, the follower,” Michael said. “A pleaser who participates in the killing in part to perform for the leader.”

I stared out the window, which gave a view of the side of a building. “Is it possible they might choose to stop at some point, just try to escape?”

“Very doubtful,” Michael said. “I predict they’ll keep going until they see capture is imminent. Then, they’ll either commit suicide or force a police officer to kill them. They’ll want to go out in a blaze of so-called glory.”

Jenny nodded. “I don’t believe they intend to survive this.”

“That willingness to die,” I said. “For me, that’s one of the hardest parts to get. You talk about a ‘blaze of glory’…but they won’t be around to enjoy it. It almost feels like they don’t realize that dead is dead.”

Jenny and Michael exchanged a look. “Jenny and I have a slight disagreement about this,” he said. “I think mortality isn’t real to teenagers—particularly boys. It might be yet another by-product of the undeveloped frontal lobe connections. And criminals with a homicidal pathology like these shooters take it one step further. Orchestrating their own death is the ultimate form of power and control. But beyond that, regardless of age, their focus is on the moment. They fill their minds with the thrill of their homicidal plans and all the notoriety they’re going to receive. They’re not thinking about their own demise.”

“I definitely agree teenagers have a tendency to think they’re made of rubber,” Jenny said. “Until something really bad happens, they don’t grasp their own vulnerability. So death is abstract to them. Something that happens to others, not them. But in the case of these killers, I don’t think it’s just a failure to grasp the reality of their own death. I think they place little value on life in general. Including their own.”

“We talked about the fact that this case bears similarities to Columbine,” I said. “Obviously, they knew about that shooting, so is it likely they studied other shootings as well?” It had occurred to me they might aim for similar targets so they could keep proving how much “better” they were than those shooters.

“Oh, of course,” Jenny said. “I’m sure they studied many others of that ilk: the Virginia Tech shooter, the Aurora shooter, and so forth. Just as Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, studied Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer. And as Harris and Klebold studied other mass murderers—among them, Timothy McVeigh. In this way they’re similar to celebrity stalkers.” She gestured to the coffeepot. “Refill?” We all accepted.

“Celebrity stalkers?” I asked. “But they don’t commit suicide like the school shooters—”

Jenny nodded. “No, not usually. And the school shooters typically write about their crimes for quite a while before committing them, and the celebrity stalkers don’t necessarily—though they do often write to their celebrity targets. All that’s true. But those distinctions are relatively superficial. At their emotional core, they have some important things in common.”

Michael tapped my arm. “That’s why the letter was addressed to you, Rachel. You’re the one everyone saw on television—”

“Right,” Jenny said. “So fame is a motivating factor for both classes of criminals. And in neither instance do the killers really intend to escape. It would defeat a key goal, which is to become famous. Mark David Chapman, John Lennon’s killer, remained at the scene reading a copy of
The Catcher in the Rye.
And Robert Bardo, who killed Rebecca Schaeffer, fled the scene, but all he did was run home. He got caught and confessed that same day. By the way, he carried
The Catcher in the Rye
with him when he did the shooting, in imitation of Chapman. No, there’s no question these two classes of criminals have some commonalities. Just as those celebrity stalkers are looking for vicarious fame, so too are these school shooters. The big distinguishing factor is that this type of mass murderer is primarily seeking power and control, proof of his superiority. For him, fame is a welcome by-product because it advertises his ‘prowess.’”

“But I want to interject here,” Michael said. “We’re not equating your shooters—or at least the letter writer—with someone like that Aurora shooter. As I recall, there was some evidence that the Aurora shooter suffered a true mental illness—as opposed to your letter writer, who obviously has a personality disorder.”

“Right,” Jenny said. “It’s fairly rare that the mentally ill act out violently toward others. And certainly not in a planned attack like this. That’ll be an important point to make for the jury if we get to trial—”

“
When
we get to trial,” Bailey said firmly.

We all nodded, but it was more a gesture of faith than belief.

Jenny pulled out a binder that had been lying open on the table. “I’ve been reviewing the most recent articles published on young mass killers—”

“Including your own?” Michael looked at Bailey and me. “She’s published two of the leading articles on the subject.” He saw the surprise on our faces and nodded. “Jenny’s not the world’s greatest self-promoter.”

Jenny waved him off and continued. “And if you want to know more about the celebrity stalker mentality, you might want to consult with Gavin de Becker.”

I smiled. “I know Gavin, and if you’ll pardon the irony, I’m a big fan.” Gavin de Becker was the world’s foremost authority on stalking, and he’d been incredibly helpful to me when I handled my first stalking murder shortly after I’d joined Special Trials.

“Anyway,” Jenny continued, “like the celebrity stalkers, these mass murderers study and copy each other. And, as in your case, even compete with one another.”

A wave of revulsion washed over me at the thought of this despicable “competition.” “It’s amazing to me that two psychos like this wound up finding each other.”

“I’m not sure they’re necessarily cut from the same cloth,” Michael said.

I flashed on the murder case back in the twenties involving Leopold and Loeb. Two very different personalities who’d committed a killing neither one would have done alone. They too were invested in proving their superiority. “Then you think it was the combination of two different kinds of crazy that led to this?” I asked. “That none of this would’ve happened if the two puzzle pieces hadn’t found each other?”

“I think it’s very likely,” Michael said. “But we’ll need a lot more information before we go there.”

“And we have more pressing issues right now,” Jenny said. “Rachel, I think you were already headed in this direction: I suggest we focus on the sites of other publicly notorious mass shootings as the next possible targets. I’ll compile a list for you and note those I think would be most attractive to these shooters. It will be generic since we don’t have much personal information but…”

I nodded. “It’s better than nothing.” I looked down at my half-empty cup of coffee. “You both seem very certain these guys plan to die rather than be captured.”

Jenny nodded.

“Most definitely,” Michael said.

I’d thought that was fine by me. But now, hearing that’s what they wanted, I swore to myself that I’d find a way to make sure they never got their “blaze of glory.” I wanted them caught and caged like the rabid animals they were.