The Poet (32 page)

“What can you tell me about the substance?” Thompson asked.

“Some kind of animal-fat extract. There’s pulverized silicon in it, too. It’s in the forensic report that you’ve got in that file, too.”

I thought I saw Thompson glance at Backus and then away, a tacit admission of knowledge.

“You know it?” Grayson asked, seeming to catch the impression.

“Not offhand,” Thompson said. “I’ll get the specifics from the report and have the lab in Quantico run it on the computer. I’ll let you know.”

“What was the third reason?” Backus asked, quickly leaving the subject.

“The third reason came from Jim Beam, Orsulak’s old partner. He’s retired now.”

“That’s his name, Jim Beam?” Walling asked.

“Yeah, the Beamer. He called me up from Tucson after he heard about Bill and asked if we’d recovered the slug. I said sure, we dug it out of the wall behind his head. Then he asked me if it was gold.”

“Gold?” Backus asked. “Real gold?”

“Yes. A golden bullet. I told him no, it was a lead slug like all the others in his clip. Like the one we dug out of the floor, too. We’d figured that the floor shot was the first one, a get-up-the-courage shot. But then Beamer told me it was no suicide, that it was murder.”

“And how did he know this?”

“He and Orsulak went back a lot of years and he knew that Orsulak occasionally … hell, there probably isn’t a single cop who hasn’t thought about it at one time or another.”

“Killing himself,” Walling said, a statement, not a question.

“Right. And Jim Beam tells me that one time Orsulak showed him this golden bullet that he got from somewhere, he didn’t know, a mail-order catalog or something. And he says to Beamer, ‘This is my golden parachute. When I can’t take it no more, this one’s for me.’ So what Beam was saying was no golden bullet, no suicide.”

“Did you find the golden bullet?” Walling asked.

“Yeah, we found it. After we talked to Beam we found it. It was in the drawer right next to his bed. Like it was kept nearby in case he ever needed it.”

“So that convinced you.”

“In totality, all three things leaned it way over toward homicide. Murder. But like I said, I wasn’t convinced of anything until you walked in here and told your story. Now I got a hard-on for this Poet the size of-sorry for the offense, Agent Walling.”

“None taken. We all have a hard-on for him. Was there a suicide note?”

“Yes, and that’s the thing that made it so hard for us to call it a homicide. There was a note and damn if it wasn’t in Bill’s writing.”

Walling nodded that what he had just said was no surprise.

“What did the note say?”

“It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It was like a poem. It said-well, hold on here. Agent Thomas, let me borrow that file a sec.”

“Thompson,” Thompson said as he handed it over.

“Sorry.”

Grayson looked through some pages until he found what he wanted. He read it out loud.

” ‘Mountains toppling evermore / Into seas without a shore.’ That was it.”

Walling and Backus looked at me. I opened the book and started paging through the poems.

“I remember the line but I’m not sure where.”

I went to the poems that the Poet had already used and started reading quickly. I found it in “Dream-Land,” the poem used twice before, including the note left on my brother’s windshield.

“I got it,” I said.

I held the book out so Rachel could read the poem. The others crowded around her as well.

“Son of a bitch,” Grayson muttered.

“Can you give us a rundown on how you think it happened?” Rachel asked him.

“Uh, sure. Our theory is whoever this doer was, he came in and surprised Bill in his sleep. With Bill’s own gun. He made him get up and get dressed. That’s when Bill parted his hair wrong, I mean, he didn’t know what was going to happen or maybe he did. Either way, he leaves us a little sign. From there he’s taken out into the living room, put in the chair and the doer makes him write out that note on a piece of paper torn outta his own notebook he keeps in his coat pocket. Then he pops him. One in the mouth. Puts the gun in Bill’s hand, puts the slug into the floor and you’ve got gunshot residue on the hand. The doer’s outta there and we don’t find poor Bill for three days.”

Grayson looked over his shoulder at the body, noticed it was being unattended and looked at his watch.

“Hey, where’s the guy? he said. “Somebody go get him and tell him we’re through. You’re through with the body, right?”

“Yes,” Thompson said.

“We have to get him ready.”

“Detective Grayson,” Walling said. “Was there a specific case that Detective Orsulak was currently pursuing?”

“Oh, yeah, there was a case. The Little Joaquin case. Eight-year-old kid abducted last month. All they found of him was his head.”

Mention of the case and its brutality brought a moment of silence in the room where the dead were prepared. Before that moment I had no doubt that Orsulak’s death was related to the others, but after hearing of the crime against the boy I felt an unwavering certainty and the anger that was becoming so familiar to me foaming in my guts.

“I assume everyone is going to the funeral?” Backus said.

“That’s right.”

“Can we arrange a time to meet again? We would like to see the reports on the boy, Joaquin, as well.”

They set the meeting for nine o’clock Sunday morning at the Phoenix Police Department. Grayson apparently felt that if it was on his turf he might be better able to hang on to a piece of it. But I had a feeling that the Big G was about to move in and sweep him aside like a tidal wave hitting a lifeguard stand.

“One last thing, the press,” Walling said. “I saw a TV truck outside.”

“Yeah, they’ve been all over this, especially when they …”

He didn’t finish.

“When they what?”

“Well, somebody sort of put it out on the police frequency that we were meeting the FBI here.”

Rachel groaned and Grayson nodded as if he expected it.

“Look, this absolutely has to be contained,” Rachel said. “If any of what we just told you men gets out, the Poet will go under. We’ll never catch the man who did that.”

She nodded at the corpse and a few of the cops turned to make sure it was still there. The undertaker had just stepped into the room and was lifting the hanger containing Orsulak’s last suit. He was looking at the assemblage of investigators, waiting for them to leave so that he could be alone with the body.

“We’re about out of here, George,” Grayson said. “You can start.”

Backus said, “Tell the media that the FBI’s interest was purely routine and that you will continue to handle the investigation as a suspected homicide. Don’t act like you are sure of anything.”

As we were walking back through the lot to the government cars, a young woman with bleached-blond hair and a grim look on her face came up to us with a microphone, a cameraman in tow. Holding the mike to her own mouth she asked, “Why is the FBI here today?”

She turned the microphone and pointed it directly under my chin for the response. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I had no idea why I was chosen but then realized it was the shirt I wore. The FBI seal on the breast pocket apparently assured her that she was talking to the bureau.

“I’ll answer that,” Backus said quickly and the microphone went to his chin. “We came at the request of the Phoenix Police Department to make a routine examination of the body and to hear details of the case. It is expected that our involvement ends here and further questions should go to the police. We have no further comment, thank you.”

“But are you convinced that Detective Orsulak was the victim of foul play?” the reporter persisted.

“I’m sorry,” Backus said. “You’ll have to refer your questions to the Phoenix police.”

“And your name is?”

“I’d rather keep my name out of it, thank you.”

He brushed by her and got into one of the cars. I followed Walling to the other. In a few minutes we were out of there and driving back toward Phoenix.

“Are you worried?” Rachel asked.

“About what?”

“The exclusivity of your story.”

“I’m getting there. But I’m hoping she’s like most TV reporters.”

“And how are they?”

“Sourceless and senseless. If she is, then I’ll be okay.”

26

The field office was in the federal courthouse on Washington Street, just a few blocks from the police department where we would meet with the locals the next day. As we followed Mize and Matuzak down a polished corridor to a conference room, I sensed anxiety in Rachel and I thought I knew what it was. By traveling with me, she had been unable to be in the other car when Thompson filled Backus in on what he had learned from the body.

The conference room was far smaller than the one we had used in Quantico. When we entered, Backus and Thompson were already seated at the table and Backus held a phone to his ear. He covered the mouthpiece when we entered and said, “Guys, I’m going to need to talk to my people alone for a few minutes. Uh, what you could do is get some cars if you can. We’ll also need to reserve rooms somewhere. Six rooms, it looks like.”

Matuzak and Mize looked like they had just gotten word that they were demoted. They nodded glumly and left the room. I didn’t know where that left me, if I was invited or excluded, since I really wasn’t one of Backus’s people.

“Jack, Rachel, have a seat,” Backus said. “Let me finish up and I’ll have James bring you up to date.”

We took seats and watched and listened to the one-sided phone conversation. It was clear Backus was listening to messages and responding to them. Not all seemed to have something to do with the Poet investigation.

“Okay, what about Gordon and Carter?” he said after the messages were apparently finished with. “What’s the ETA? That late? Damn. Okay, listen, three things. Call Denver and have them go to the evidence in the McEvoy case. Tell them to check the insides of the gloves for blood. If they find blood, tell them to start exhumation proceedings … Right, right. If it’s a problem call me right away. Also, tell them to see if the police took GSR swabs from the mouth of the victim and if they did, have it all sent to Quantico. That goes for all the cases. The third thing is James Thompson will be FedExing to the lab from out there. We need substance identification ASAP. Same with Denver, if it comes. What else? When’s the conference call with Brass? Okay, we’ll talk then.”

He hung up and looked at us. I wanted to ask what he meant by exhumation but Rachel spoke first.

“Six rooms? Is Gordon coming out here?”

“He and Carter are coming here.”

“Bob, why? You know-“

“We need them, Rachel. We are hitting critical mass on this investigation and things are moving. At the most, we are now ten days behind this offender. We need more bodies to make the moves we’re going to have to make. It’s that simple and that’s more than enough said about it. Now, Jack, did you have something to say?”

“That exhumation you are talking about …”

“We’ll talk about that in a few minutes. It will become clear. James, tell them what you found on the body.”

From his pocket Thompson pulled four Polaroid photos and spread them on the table in front of Rachel and me.

“This is the left palm and index finger. The two on the left were taken with the one-to-one. The other two are ten times magnified.”

“Perforations,” Rachel said.

“Right.”

I didn’t see them until she had said it, but then I recognized the tiny punch holes in the lines of the skin. Three in the palm, two in the tip of the index finger.

“What is it?” I asked.

“On the surface it looks like nothing more than pinpricks,” Thompson said. “But there is no scabbing or closing of the wounds. They occurred close to time of death. Shortly before or possibly after, though there wouldn’t be much of a point to it after.”

“Point to what?”

“Jack, we’re looking for ways this could have been done,” Backus said. “How could veteran, tough cops be taken like this? Control is what we are talking about. It’s one of the keys.”

I waved a hand toward the photos.

“And what does this tell you?”

“That and other things may indicate hypnosis was involved.”

“You’re saying this guy hypnotized my brother and these others into putting a gun in their mouths and pulling the trigger?”

“No, I don’t think it’s that simple. You have to remember that it is quite difficult to use hypnotic suggestion to override the self-preservation instinct in an individual’s mind. Most experts say it’s flatly impossible. But if a person is susceptible to hypnotism, that person can be controlled to varying extents. He can be made docile, manageable. It’s only a possibility at this point. But we have five perforations on this victim’s hand. A standard method of testing for hypnotic trance would be to prick the skin with a pin after placing the suggestion that there will be no pain. If the patient reacts, the hypnosis is not working. If he shows no signs of feeling the pain, he is under trance conditions.”