The Anniversary Man

by R.J. Ellory

  ′None of them were twenty-seven, that′s why,′ Irving said. ′He needed a twenty-seven-year-old, and he took the clothes with him. Her own clothes could be somewhere, but more than likely he took them away after he′d killed her.′

  ′And this is a serial?′ Vincent asked. ′How many have there been already?′

  ′So far, as best we know, your hooker would make it a total of eight.′

  Vincent whistled through his teeth. ′What the hell is this? This guy trying for the record?′

  Irving smiled. ′Not a prayer, my friend. Right now I′m reading about some charmer who was supposed to have done fifty-three.′

  ′Well, okay, better you than me. I′m gonna go do the birthday party if that′s okay with you.′

  The call ended.

  Irving leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, tried to stay focused on what was happening.

  Mia Grant, the East River girls, James Wolfe, the two boys in the trunk, the dead girl under the Queensboro Bridge, and now Carol-Anne Stowell.

  He leaned forward and picked up the pages that had been delivered that morning. He scanned through them again, found the highlighted section.

  Irving knew who had delivered the pages, and why. The thing that he could not understand was how rapidly the connection had been made. The girl was found at six, would have been on the radios about seven, seven-thirty, and by nine-thirty John Costello had identified the killing, found a website, printed off the relevant pages, and delivered them to the Fourth.

  He reached for the telephone to call the City Herald, and then he stopped. He wondered whether the delivered documents could give him probable cause for a formal interrogation, for visiting the Winterbourne Hotel and talking to the rest of Costello′s freak show. It was, after all, the second Monday of the month.

  SEVENTEEN

  It took a while, but they figured it out.

  Editorial director of The New York Times, a veteran journalist called Frank Raphael, knew there was something awry when the letter came. It was the 9/11 anniversary, and the mailroom was on alert. The New York Times had always had its share of crazies and creeps, but on such a day it paid to hire extra staff, to put anything greater than letter-thickness through the metal detector, to employ two extra guys with an x-ray machine. It was a sorry state of affairs, but it was now the way of the world.

  The letter came in with the regular post. It was opened by a girl called Marilyn Harmer, and when she saw the measured, almost perfect symbols, something triggered in the back of her mind. She set the letter down as carefully as she could, took one of the clip-top baggies provided, and slid the letter and its envelope inside. She called security, handed over the document, and waited.

  It arrived on Frank Raphael′s desk at six minutes past ten that morning, and by ten twenty-two he had three other editors, two columnists, a staff photographer and a political correspondent standing behind him and peering over his shoulder, all of them feeling that sense of awkward dismay that came with unidentified fear.

  ′Anyone know how many there were?′ Raphael asked.

  ′In all, I think there were twenty-one.′

  Raphael looked up at one of the assistant editors, mid-thirties, sharp as a blade. Name was David Ferrell.

  ′You know something about this?′ Raphael asked, and then he seemed to become aware of how many people were behind him. ′For God′s sake, will you people sit down or fuck off?′

  They moved quickly. The staff photographer left the office, the remainder took seats around the wide meeting-room table.

  ′Not a great deal,′ Ferrell said. He took a seat to Raphael′s right. ′I think there were twenty-one letters, started in mid-′69, ended in April of ′78. Then there were about half a dozen other things called the Riverside Writings, and then there was a message left on the car door of one of the victims at Lake Berryessa.′

  Raphael frowned. ′How the fuck do you know this shit? Jesus, man, you scare me sometimes.′

  Ferrell smiled. ′Just interested, nothing more. I′m sure as hell not an authority.′

  ′Okay, so we have a copycat here. Maybe this is the same cipher, who the fuck knows, but from what I remember it sure as shit looks like it.′

  ′So who do we call?′ Ferrell asked.

  Raphael shrugged his shoulders. ′Hell, I don′t know, call the Chief of Police maybe . . . what′s the protocol on such things?′

  ′It′s gotta be a fake,′ Ferrell said. ′Consensus of opinion is that this guy is long since dead.′

  ′Whatever . . . so call the captain of the nearest precinct. Which is that?′

  ′The Second,′ Ferrell replied.

  ′So call him and tell him we are the proud recipients of the first Zodiac letter in twenty-eight years.′

  Second Precinct Captain Lewis Proctor knew Bill Farraday - professionally rather than socially - but well enough to recognize his name when a call had come through to the Chief of Police. Proctor had been in a mid-quarterly review meeting with Chief Ellmann when Farraday had called regarding some proposed collaboration between the Fourth and the Ninth.

  ′You know Farraday?′ Ellmann had asked him when the call was over.

  Proctor nodded. ′Some.′

  ′He′s after a cross-precinct investigation, some whacko replicating previous serials.′

  That was all that had been said, but when David Ferrell called from The New York Times that Monday morning, an alarm bell rang in back of Proctor′s head.

  First call he made was to Bill Farraday, told him the news. Farraday was quiet for some time.

  ′You want to go down there?′ Proctor asked him.

  ′You going?′

  ′Doesn′t need two of us.′

  ′I′ll take someone,′ Farraday said. ′If it looks like anything I′ll come back to you.′

  ′Appreciated, Bill.′

  The call ended. Farraday paged Irving, found he was half a block away getting lunch.

  Irving was in Farraday′s office within fifteen minutes.

  ′We′re taking a trip to The New York Times offices,′ Farraday told him. ′They received a letter . . . looks like a Zodiac letter.′

  Irving′s eyes widened. ′You′re fucking with me.′

  ′I′m not, but seems like someone is,′ Farraday replied.

  ′This might not be related.′

  ′None of it might be related. We don′t know, do we? We have to go take a look. Some guy at The Times called Proctor at the Second, Proctor called me, I called you. This is what′s known as delegation. We go take a look. We find out if there′s any connection.′

  Irving thought to mention the documents that had arrived earlier that morning from John Costello about Arthur Shawcross and the Genesee River killings. He stayed his hand - just for now.

  It was after midday by the time they reached The Times building. Editor Frank Raphael greeted them, was told why people had come from the Ninth and not the Second. He called David Ferrell through, who came with the letter and envelope in the baggie and a copy of Robert Graysmith′s book Zodiac.

  ′I′ve deciphered the letter,′ Ferrell said. ′The entire code is in this book, pretty much . . .′

  He handed the original letter to Farraday, the translation to Irving.

  Farraday, unfamiliar with the Zodiac letters, scanned the neatly printed symbols.

  Irving took the deciphered copy and read it out loud.

  ′I have been asked, Did I kill? Yes, too many times for any one person to do. I have been a god unto myself. I′ve been the judge, the jury and the executioner. I, dear people, have murdered, butchered and totally destroyed fifty-three human beings in my lifetime. Why?′

  Irving paused, looked up at Farraday, at Frank Raphael. The tension in the room was palpable.

  ′Go on,′ Raphael said quietly.

  Irving turned back to the letter:

  ′Picture in your mind: I was taught to sit for hours at a time and not move; I was taught t
o seek out and destroy the enemy as I perceived them to be.

  ′The prostitutes I am accused of killing were the enemy to me in their own fashion, because they can kill with social diseases and AIDS and get away with it. Do I regret it, I have been asked? My answer is, I very much regret it, to the point of wondering why I was chosen to carry out this assignment.

  ′The United States government taught me how to kill; what it did not teach me was the desire not to do so. I still get those feelings - but the pills I am now on dampen them to the point of calming me down. Why not before?

  ′Why am I like I am? Study it - seek the answer before too many people get killed. I am like a predator, able to hunt and wantonly destroy at any given time or moment. I have been pushed and threatened, but somehow the pills stop or slow down the desire to fight. I know that when I do fight there will be no control - I′ll be the predator again.

  ′Most people tell me I will die in prison. (So what.) Do you have a choice of when and where you will die? Many people believe that when they die they will go to heaven. Not so. Your soul waits to be called: Read your Bible if that is what you believe in. As for me, I will live again and go on to the next transition. I am a spiritualist. Death is but a transition of life. The people I have killed are in their next transition. They will live again, but in a much better way than the one they left behind.

  ′Every man, woman or child from ten years of age and up is able to kill knowingly. Many of you humans portray me as mad-crazy. This is your free will. What you think may not be so.

  ′Look to the heavens, I came from there. So did you but you won′t admit it. My time is near in this transition. I will move on shortly, I feel what I feel. If every man, woman and child had the same as everyone else, then crime and war would be nonexistent.

  ′Remember: watch the heavens, we are coming to rescue you from you.

  ′I am, or am I?′

  Irving looked up at Bill Farraday, at Frank Raphael and David Ferrell.

  ′Fuck,′ Raphael said.

  ′So what do you know about this guy?′ Farraday asked.

  Ferrell leaned forward. ′I studied quite a bit about it for a research project I was doing a couple of years ago. I don′t know a great deal, but from what I can see the letter has been written in the same style, cramped, blue felt-tip pen, some of the letters trailing down on the right-hand side. Whoever did this put double postage on the front of the envelope. That was another common trait. Zodiac used to put words on the outside of the envelope requesting that whoever delivered the letters did so in a hurry. Left-hand margins and the text are ruler-straight, as if he used a lined piece beneath as a guide. Zodiac wrote on a paper called Eaton bond. Have no idea if what you have there is the same, but it′s seven and a half by ten which is the same size. He began every letter with the phrase ′′This is the Zodiac speaking′′, which our letter-writer has not done, but then there is an explanation for that—′

  Ferrell paused.

  ′So?′ Raphael prompted.

  ′There was something about it that reminded me of something. I checked out a few of the phrases in the letter on the net, and I found out whose letter it was.′

  ′Whose letter?′ Farraday asked. ′What d′you mean?′

  ′Whoever sent this just transcribed an existing letter into Zodiac code and then sent it to us. It′s not a Zodiac letter at all, it′s a letter from another serial killer.′

  ′Name?′ Farraday asked.

  ′Arthur John Shawcross—′

  ′Oh God,′ Ray Irving exclaimed. ′The Genesee River killings.′

  Farraday turned, surprised. ′Ray?′

  ′Shawcross,′ Irving said. ′We got a Shawcross replica this morning . . . Eric Vincent at the Seventh.′

  ′This morning . . . how the hell do you know about it already?′

  Irving reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out the folded pages. He spread them out on his knee, and then handed them to Farraday.

  ′What′s this? Where did these come from?′

  ′Long story,′ Irving replied.

  Farraday nodded, rose to his feet. ′We′re going to take this letter with us,′ he told Raphael. ′This is part of something a lot bigger.′

  ′Understood,′ Raphael said, ′but we need a story, Captain Farraday.′

  Farraday smiled drily. ′Don′t know that this is a story you want.′

  ′This is The New York Times . . . the story we don′t want doesn′t exist.′

  ′This is not a small matter,′ Farraday replied. ′This is more than likely going to the Chief of Police. After that . . . well, after that I don′t know what′ll happen.′

  ′You can′t just take the thing, it was sent to us.′

  ′You want me to get a storm going?′ Farraday asked. ′I can do the DA phone call now, or we can have an agreement here, Mr Raphael.′

  Raphael shook his head. ′Do what you have to,′ he said resignedly, ′but we want whatever story comes out of it as an exclusive.′

  ′Police department doesn′t give exclusives, you know that.′

  ′So first up on the press conference, however this thing comes out.′

  ′If it comes out.′

  ′So if it comes out we get first call on the conference, agreed?′

  Farraday extended his hand and they shook.

  The captain said nothing until he and Irving reached the lobby, and then he slowed up and stopped. ′Who was at the Ninth?′ he asked.

  ′Lucas, Richard Lucas.′

  ′And this thing this morning?′

  ′Eric Vincent at the Seventh.′

  ′Anyone else?′

  ′Patrick Hayes at the Third and Gary Lavelle at the Fifth - a triple homicide in the first week of August.′

  ′Get them all together,′ he said. ′Call them all, tell them to come to us. We have to talk about this.′

  ′Vincent I might not be able to get,′ Irving said. ′He went off-shift this morning, has his kid′s birthday.′

  ′Tell him there′ll be other birthdays . . . we need everyone involved in this before the rest of the city finds out what the fuck is going on.′

  EIGHTEEN

  By the time everyone had been contacted it was close to three in the afternoon. Irving had stayed in Farraday′s office, had told him what he knew about the sequence of killings, the dates, the anniversaries, about Karen Langley and John Costello. By one-thirty Chief of Police Anthony Ellmann realized something was going on. There was a brief call to Farraday, another to each of the captains at the relevant precincts. Each were given their instructions: there would be a meeting at the Fourth Precinct house at five that afternoon. No-one would be late. Deputy Coroner Hal Gerrard would be there, though Chief Ellmann himself would not attend; he had a meeting with the Mayor on an unrelated matter, but he wanted a full debrief in writing before close of business that day. Farraday had been assigned as co-ordinator until further notice. Once a specific course of action was decided upon, Chief Ellmann would review resources and reassign as he felt necessary. Their immediate task was to determine if indeed there was a pattern and connection to these killings and, if so, to pool their forensic and investigative results, establish a critical path analysis, propose a means and method by which the perpetrator or perpetrators would be arrested and secured for arraignment. All of this without creating any liability regarding the execution of their usual duties, the resolution of any other ongoing cases. Simple in theory; in reality - as was always the case - an entirely different matter.

  Farraday cleared out the homicide department offices. He removed all partitions from the open-plan area, had three tables pushed together, sent for whiteboards and an overhead projector.

  Close to half past four the Fourth Precinct became a confusion of activity as people were directed from the lobby. Uniforms had been assigned as ushers for the arriving detectives and CSAs, and files were ferried by the armful from the backs of vehicles and up the stairs to the third floor.

>   The attending CSA for each of the relevant cases arrived one by one, the assigned detectives also, and Ray Irving had already established a focal point for their discussion. At the head of the table he had stationed a large whiteboard, and on it had written the names of the current victims, alongside them the names of the original killers whose crimes appeared to have been replicated. Present - if not in body, but certainly in spirit - were some of the most extreme and sadistic serial killers that the U.S. had ever known. Beneath their names Irving had written their respective dates of birth and, where relevant, of execution; and in the case of those still within the federal penitentiary system, their last-known place of incarceration. Despite having access to the federal database, Irving had found it surprisingly difficult to determine the location of some of these people, but not Shawcross - ironic, considering he was the last man represented. Shawcross would not have been included had it not been for the discovery of Carol-Anne Stowell that morning and John Costello′s subsequent delivery of documents to Irving. Arthur John Shawcross, Irving had learned, welcomed correspondence from anyone, and made his prisoner number and his address at Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg easily available on numerous websites. Even as the detectives gathered, Shawcross was languishing in a cell no more than eighty miles from where they sat.

  Additionally, Irving had taken the initiative and copied the draft newspaper article, placing a copy ahead of each chair at the meeting. It was the first thing that the collective attendees read, and it was Karen Langley′s article that established the foundation of their meeting.

  Bill Farraday, unfamiliar with the protocol of such a meeting, nevertheless directed the proceedings. He fielded initial doubts regarding the article, dealt with the fusillade of questions that followed, and grounded the potentially heated debate that would otherwise have ensued by determining the parameters within which they were working.

  Farraday rose from his chair and took steps toward the whiteboard.