Private Sector

by Brian Haig

“Ten blocks from the two dead officers. A man named Harold Boticher. His throat was slashed, and his wallet and car keys were stolen. His body was found in a Dumpster, like Anne Carrol’s.”

  The implication was obvious. “Did they get the make of his car?”

  “Make, model, and tag numbers.” That explained why the room emptied.

  Spinelli commented grumpily, “It’s a fuckin’waste of time. He’s already got himself another.”

  He was right, of course. Perversely, Spinelli and I both appeared to be getting a bead on this guy. The FBI was still running everywhere he wanted them to go.

  And right on cue, Dudley Do-Right came cruising around a corner, trailed by three of his stooges. Special Agent Meany was waving his arms and barking instructions, and the three agents were scribbling notes and nodding obsequiously. I mean, it was just too frigging obvious that this jerk was trying to impress his former belle with what a busy, roundly admired, take-charge kind of guy he was.

  He suddenly glanced in our direction, like he had just noticed us, then sent his three aides scurrying. He approached, shaking his head, oozing with concern, and said to Janet, “My God, honey, that

  was a very dumb thing you did. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  Honey? Had I missed something here?

  Janet replied, “That’s not the way it looked at the time. We had him, George. He was within three feet of me. I fired two shots at him.”

  His hands were all over her arms again. “I understand. And I admire your courage. Really . . . I don’t blame you.” He glanced at me and said, “I blame the idiots who let you expose yourself. You were responding to your grief . . .” Still looking at me, he said, “Why didn’t you call me? You needed advice from someone you could trust. Don’t do anything again without checking with me. That’s an order, honey.”

  Well, fuck you, George.

  “There wasn’t time,” Janet said. “We had a narrow window of opportunity, and we didn’t want to lose him.”

  “I understand.” His hands moved to her shoulders and he looked into her eyes and added, “But I don’t want to lose you. Not now . . . not again. Now that we’ve resolved our little problem, I. . . well, I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Yuck. I mean, there’s a murderous maniac out on the streets, and I’m stuck with this asshole in a live episode of Days of Our Lives. Turn the channel, please.

  But Janet appeared to buy his malarkey, and replied, “Well, I’m fine, George.” She then asked him, “What are the odds of catching him?”

  “Hard to tell. I’ve put out a multistate alert. I’ll be directing the search from the Boston Field Office. Also, I’ve distributed the composite sketch you provided—that’s an edge I didn’t have before.” He paused a moment, his expression turned all oozy and charming, and he said, “You know, I can’t believe you had the coolness and presence to study him that closely. You are really something, babe.”

  Geez. I’ve had tiffs with some formers, and of course you have to work it a little if you want to get back into their good graces and panties. But there’s a point where you give your whole sex a bad name. Meany was working her too hard. And I wondered why.

  And as if that wasn’t enough, his expression turned grave, and he added, “Honey, I don’t want to worry you, but there’s a chance he’ll come after you again. We think he fled the city, but you can never be sure. You’re the only living witness who can ID him in a courtroom.” He paused, like this pained him greatly, then said, “You know the standard procedure in these things.”

  Janet was already shaking her head. “I’m not going into protective custody, George.”

  “But—”

  “No. Don’t even think about it.”

  He studied her face a moment. “Oh, come on. It would make things easier for all concerned.”

  She stared back at him.

  As much as I hated to agree with George on anything, I said, “Do what he says. He’s right.”

  She said to both of us, “We all know I cannot be forced into this program. This asshole is not going to chase me into protective custody.”

  I opened my lips, but she cut me off: “No—Subject closed.”

  I looked at her and tried to figure out what was going through her head. Playing Parcheesi with a bunch of Fibbies in a hotel room for a month or two was bad, but dying was very, very bad. Unless . . . well, unless Janet wanted this guy to strike again. To draw him back to her, she had to remain accessible and vulnerable.

  Anyway, Meany was shaking his head, saying, “I knew you’d say that.”

  “Well then, you’re right.”

  “But you will be guarded and protected until the picture clarifies. Refusal is not an option.” She did not say yes;nor did she refuse.

  He continued, “Remember Bob Anderson from my old office? He’ll stay with you until I can spare more agents. But at the moment, with this search, I just can’t.”

  Janet said, “Thank you, but I’ll be fine, George. Sean and Danny are here also.”

  He smiled knowingly. “Right. I’ll get Bob to ask the Boston PD to back him up.”

  Boy, George was racking up big-time points.

  Then his beeper went off, he yanked it off his belt, studied the screen, scrunched up his forehead, and said, “Got a fast-breaking emergency here, babe. The New York State Police think they’ve just spotted the stolen car on the New York Thruway. They’re initiating a chase.” And off he raced.

  Something about George really bothered me. Well, a lot about George bothered me, but something, I don’t know, something I couldn’t put my finger on, really bothered me. I was sure he was very smart, and all those awards and promotions implied some level of professional competency, right? But why couldn’t Meany and his people see the astounding brilliance of the detective work Spinelli and I had done? False modesty aside, maybe he had such a hard-on for me, he couldn’t admit I was right.

  Or maybe the answer was simpler. The FBI is a bureaucracy— which is both its strength and its Achilles’ heel—and when the powers that be have publicly stated that the killer is the same ponytailed runt who was such a big hit in L. A. , ambitious guys like Meany know it’s a bad career move to contradict the big guys. What they do is wait for their bosses to change their minds before they can change their own minds.

  Anyway, we all three walked out together, and, lo and behold, we were met at the building’s entrance by a young, gawky-looking kid in a lumpy gray suit.

  I guess he recognized Janet because he approached her with a big smile, and said, “I don’t know if you remember me . . . Special Agent Bob Anderson. I worked on that Shelton case you prosecuted a few years ago.”

  Janet smiled, too. “Of course. I had you on the stand, didn’t I?”

  “That was me.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “I’m really sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Well, I. . . gosh, that defense attorney . . .”

  “I remember,” Janet said. “That can happen.”

  Bob looked down at his feet. “The way he peppered me with all those questions . . . and kept misquoting me—”

  “Put it behind you, Bob.” She glanced at me and added, “Sometimes, mistrials just happen.”

  Bob said, “I guess.”

  Spinelli’s eyebrows were ever so slightly raised. We were both staring at Bob, and sharing the same thought.

  I suppose it was possible Meany had picked his best and brightest to go after the killer on the theory that the best way to protect Janet was to eliminate the threat. A less charitable interpretation might be that Meany wanted to bag the country’s most notorious asshole, become famous, and jump another peg up the career ladder. If that meant his former lover got whacked because the biggest fuckup in the Boston office had been assigned to protect her, success sometimes requires sacrifice. Right?

  “Call me Bob, by the way,” the kid said to Spinelli and me. “I like to keep things loose and informal. But make no mistake, I’m in
charge. Do everything I say, and everything’s going to be just fine.”

  Spinelli rolled his eyes.

  Anyway, Janet directed Bob to Aunt Ethel’s house. The traffic was heating up, and Bob was an overcautious driver, which is lousy tradecraft when your passenger’s a target, not to mention it dragged out our trip to nearly forty minutes. But as we climbed out of the Crown Victoria in front of the house, I looked up and down the street, for some reason bothered by something. What? Janet and Spinelli were already up the steps and opening the door, Bob had his hand stuffed inside his jacket, and I couldn’t shake the feeling.

  Janet turned around and asked me, “What is it, Sean?”

  “Uh . . . nothing.” But there was something.

  Anyway, we entered the house of Aunt Ethel, where Elizabeth, Carol, and Aunt Ethel mobbed Janet, and, predictably, there was a lot of hugging and kissing, which is another of those Men are from Mars, Women from Venus things. And then they drew Janet into the kitchen, where they made her recount how it went, which I really didn’t want to overhear.

  Spinelli, Bob, and I loitered in the living room, while I tried to put my finger on what bothered me. Also, I needed to find a way to chat with Janet regarding the firm of Culper, Hutch, and Westin, but without Bob listening in.

  Incidentally, Bob had moved immediately to the window, and was standing full-square in the middle of the plate glass, hands on his hips, and his jaw thrust forward. This was for the benefit of the killer, I guess, like he’d see this badass profiling in the window and jump on the next flight to Brazil or something. I hoped Bob was wearing his bulletproof vest.

  I said to Spinelli, “Hey, Danny, you see Aunt Ethel’s porcelain collection yet? As a porcelain aficionado yourself, I’m sure you’ll be impressed.”

  “What? . . . I’m not interested in the old broad’s fuckin’—”

  I jerked him toward me. “Check the unicorn with a dick on it.”

  Well, my hint was subtle enough, but he did pick up on it, and he followed me until I got him out of Bob’s earshot, where I whispered, “Occupy the kid. I need to slip out back with Janet.”

  He looked at me curiously. “Why?”

  “Later.”

  “Nah. You’ll explain now.”

  I noticed Bob looking over his shoulder at us, and I said, “Don’t screw with me on this.”

  He rubbed his chin. “You know somethin’. I smell it. And you ain’t sharin’.”

  “Look, Spinelli . . . help me out here.”

  “You owe me. You promised I get this guy. I wanta know everything.”

  Well, what could I do? I promised, “I’ll tell you everything.” But my fingers were crossed.

  He stared at me a moment, then sauntered over to Bob, saying, “So, kid, how long you been in?”

  Content that he would keep Bob occupied with cop talk, I slipped into the kitchen. I told Elizabeth and Carol to keep chattering, and then drew Janet out the back door.

  We ended up on a tiny back porch, where Janet said, “What’s this about?”

  “It’s time for our discussion.” But I was being cautious, and I looked around for a moment and saw the cars parked on the street, and I suddenly realized what had been niggling at my brain. I said, “The killer . . . he stole a car, right?”

  “It appears so.”

  “How did he get to Boston in the first place?”

  “Plane, train, boat, car, swam, hiked, parachuted in. Have I missed anything?” I shook my head and she said, “At this moment, they’re showing his composite at every terminal in the city.”

  “So they should.”

  Janet was sharp, though, and quickly concluded, “You’re suggesting he came in a rental car?”

  “And he would’ve parked it nearby . . . for his getaway.”

  She finished that thought, saying, “But after what happened at the river, he couldn’t come back here.”

  So we began walking, through the backyard, then out to the street, where we started checking license plates. Rental cars tend to be fairly new, well-kept, clean, and shiny. Plus, if he’d driven up from D. C. , the car should have out-of-state plates.

  I moved to the other side of the street, and Janet stayed on the near side. We walked swiftly up the block, then took a right and did the cross street. We did the next block over, and the next. It was a residential neighborhood and early afternoon, and there weren’t that many cars. Also, Janet reminded me that because of Boston’s car theft rates, the smart citizens respond by buying inexpensive, crappy eyesores, which are cheaper to insure and less attractive to thieves. And in fact, most of the cars I saw were junkheaps.

  We were moving quickly and we marked a few cars as possibilities, but they all had in-state plates. The third block over, I spotted a fairly new, forest green Ford Taurus with Pennsylvania plates. Virginia or D. C. plates seemed more logical, but this car was parked within twenty feet of a street corner, in fact, forward of the legal parking distance. If it was a getaway car, this was a smart stunt, because nobody else could park in front and hem it in. But this is America, where every privilege comes with a price—like a ticket on the windshield. I yanked the ticket off and noted it had been issued five hours before.

  So, the right kind of car, in the right kind of place, and it had sat there the right amount of time. I waved at Janet and she jogged over. A swift inspection revealed a thin valise lying on the rear floor of an otherwise empty car.

  The right and proper thing to do in this situation was call the Boston PD and have them dispatch a squad car. We’d have to wait for the cops, they’d have to call the DA’s office, legal cause would have to be established, a lawyer would have to go see a judge, the judge would have to be persuaded to issue a search warrant, and around and around we go.

  In any regard, the .22 in Janet’s pocket apparently had a mind of its own. It was really weird, the way it somehow leaped out of her pocket, and then flew through the air and slammed its own butt against the driver’s side window, which shattered inward. Well, what can you do?

  Janet appeared shocked. “Damn it, Sean, I’m a city prosecutor and you just broke the law.” As she issued this warning she was eagerly unlocking the doors and scrambling into the backseat.

  I clambered in behind her. She already had the valise open and carefully withdrew two manila folders, pinching them with her shirt sleeves to avoid fingerprints. She dropped the first folder on the seat and the contents spilled out.

  “That’s me,” she said, pointing at a large black-and-white photo.

  “Good picture, too,” I replied. And indeed it was, as were three more shots of her, taken from various angles, in different backgrounds and lighting, with her wearing a variety of outfits. Janet had obviously been under observation for a period of at least several days.

  “Do you recall when you wore those clothes?”

  She studied the photos and pointed at one. “Incredible. I wore that pantsuit before I went to D. C.” She paused. “The same day Lisa died.”

  We jointly pondered that fact a moment.

  Beneath the pictures were three or four printed sheets, and we spread them around using our elbows and shirt sleeves. The pages were neatly typed and paginated, with proper spelling, flawless punctuation, and so forth. The killer appeared to be one of those anal-retentive assholes who always did three more pages than the teacher asked for. I never trusted that type. Future serial killers—all of them.

  Two pages were filled with carefully organized personal data about Janet: home address, phone number, automobile type and license number, family members, historical information, and so on. Nearly everything on these sheets could be obtained from public sources, though the sheer quantity of information indicated somebody who knew where to look and how much he could get.

  But the next page did not appear to have been taken from public sources.

  I pointed at a list of names and asked her, “Who are they?”

  “Close friends.” She looked horrified. She pointed at a
few entries on the bottom of the page. “My dry cleaner . . . my gym. . . my doctor . . . the deli where I usually get lunch.”

  Janet swept her file sheets aside, then allowed the contents of the second folder to drop onto the seat.

  The first item to spill out was a photograph of an extraordinarily good-looking man in a gray pinstriped Brooks Brothers suit, climbing into a green Jaguar sedan.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  A LONG MOMENT PASSED WHERE JANET AND I AVOIDED VERBAL AND EYE CONtact. It was somewhat of a jolt to discover my name on this ass-hole’s to-do list. It was unexpected, for one thing. Also, I’d seen this guy in action, and while I’d like to say I handled this news with my normal aplomb, in fact I felt a rumble of fear in my chest.

  But shock aside, all kinds of pieces suddenly began tumbling into place. We both needed a moment to think about this.

  She rifled through two more pictures, graciously allowing me a moment to think about updating my life insurance. I was wearing the same gray pinstriped suit, so presumably all the photos were taken on the same day. There was a mere half sheet of personal data: address, phone number, car type, license number, place of employment, and so on. The information on me was notably skimpier than her sheets—nothing about family, personal habits, or favorite haunts.

  “I wore that suit only two days ago,” I mentioned after I got my emotional sea legs back.

  “You’re a starter project. He’s building his profile on you.”

  “I see that, but why am I on his list?”

  “Before we get to that, I’ll tell you what this confirms—he’s not the L. A. Killer. Nor a sex maniac. At least, not just a sex maniac.”

  “Agreed. But why me?”

  She correctly understood that my question wasn’t rhetorical, that we had stumbled onto something very important, if we only knew what. She leaned back against the seat and hypothesized, “Sean, I make my living convicting murderers. They come in all stripes, and are driven by countless motivations. Sometimes they don’t know why they’re killing. A voice inside their head tells them to, it’s a rite of passage into a gang, or the Mafia. Sometimes it’s a response to boredom or rage.”