Spree
Page 31
A young soldier’s last wishes.
… if your eyes are on this page it is because mine have been closed. At least, I trust they have and I have not been left staring at some mosquito-infested foreign sky and will scare the life out of some kid from a dirt-poor village who comes along and finds my rotting remains.
If you’re a fellow soldier, then I hope I have died in honor and taken some less honorable fucks with me. Man, there are so many of them. Killers of kids and women. Cowards that come from the shadows and attack those without weapons, those with only good in their blood.
If you’re a buddy, you’ll know I’m drunk while writing this—you have to be, right?—but you’ll also know I mean every word. I’m not sure I believe in God, but I believe in doing good. I’m not sure I believe in Judgment Day, but I’m happy to be judged for the way I live. I’ve got a lot to learn but I already know freedom is worth fighting and dying for—my freedom and that of those I care for, and of those who cannot fight or care for themselves. It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak. The responsibility of the free to break the chains of those who are slaves.
I have no regrets. Life’s been simply beautiful. Sunshine in the morning. Stars at night. Snow on the mountains. A wind out at sea carrying a boat in full sail. Never a day without food or drink. These are miracles enough. It would have been good to have found love. It sure as hell isn’t at the end of the barrel of a gun and I haven’t so far spotted it through any field glasses. Who knows, maybe if there’s a life after this one I’ll find someone special, someone willing to put up with me and my odd ways—before you say it, yeah, I know, she’d have to be exceptionally special.
If you’re reading this and I don’t know you, then I guess it might well mean that I’ve been killed in a city, maybe even by accident or natural causes rather than an act of war. If that’s the case, then I apologize up front because I’m gonna ask a big favor of you. Do it for me and maybe some stranger may one day do a great kindness for you.
There’s a little money put aside in a bank account and my lawyer has instructions to unfreeze it for you. His name and number are at the bottom of this page. It should be enough to make sure you’re not out of pocket.
I’d like to be cremated. Then I want my ashes to be put in a candle lantern and launched high into the night at sea, from the tip of the Terranea Trail where it hits the curve of Pelican Cove, so I can float out across the North Pacific and roam far and wild. As I suspect you might be the only person standing there, I ask that you stay until the light has drifted so far that you can’t see it anymore. It sounds odd, but I like the idea of someone looking out for me during those last moments.
Whoever you are, thank you.
If there’s a God, may he or she bless you and protect you.
Jake Mottram Soldier and Future Traveler of the Skies
Angie let out the long breath she’d been holding. They’d spent a weekend together at a spa near the Terranea Trail, and they’d stood together on the very spot he’d written about. He’d pointed to the sky and said as a kid one of the care workers had told him angels stuffed clouds with dreams and all you had to do was identify one that looked like you and everything you ever wanted would come true.
Since that moment they’d always watched the clouds together.
22
South Sepulveda Boulevard, LA
Four hours’ sleep. That was all Shooter had managed.
The hotel he’d spent the night in was a small Best Western with paper-thin walls. It was jammed with noisy tourists and businessmen with expense accounts attending dinners and events at the Olympic Conference Center. The early crew had been rushed off their feet coping with them and Shooter had difficulty finding a discreet parking place for Januk’s old Ford.
He pulled back dusty drapes and morning light got sifted through even dustier gray nets. Instinctively, Shooter checked the street before he showered and dressed.
Today was a big day, so he’d brought along one of his finest suits, a brown pinstripe that wouldn’t look amiss on Wall Street, a sharp white shirt with a cutaway collar and an understated chocolate and cream silk tie. Brown brogues and a faded leather briefcase completed the fashionable executive look.
He spent the next hour reading the newspapers he’d ordered and a complimentary copy of the Economist he’d found on a coffee table in the room. When he was done, he took a stroll in the now blazing sun. Not very far. In fact, a walk of exactly half a mile.
In less than fifteen minutes he was inside the air-conditioned luxury of the Olympic, thirty thousand square feet of event and banqueting space spread across three floors. He knew most of it intimately. He’d been here a month before, similarly dressed, and had collected floor plans from the customer service desk, under the ruse of possibly staging a conference.
Shooter made his way to the second floor. He passed the Capitol Room and entered the foyer near the Imperial Ballroom and its function kitchen. Along the main wall were restroom facilities, including a baby changing room. He checked he wasn’t being watched and slipped inside. There was an area to lay a child on, a sink to wash in and a shelf of complimentary products. Under the sink was a panel for plumbing maintenance. Shooter used a cuff link to unfasten the four folding screws. Inside the dark and dusty space was a black leather case. He replaced it with his brown one and fixed the panel back in position.
Minutes later, he returned to the public areas. An electronic board told him the location of the event he was interested in and where the attending delegates were having lunch.
He made his way to the Regency Terrace and asked a waitress on the door to find a specific delegate for him and ask him to come outside to sign some papers. He held up the black case and stressed the urgency.
The young woman checked her seating plans and drifted away.
Shooter stepped back out of view. From behind a pillar he watched her head to a table almost at the back of the room. She spoke to a man in an expensive dark green suit. He got to his feet and obediently followed her. He was tall, early fifties, dark hair turning white at the sides, a little flab jostling his pale green shirt over an expensive black leather belt.
Shooter had gotten the ID he’d wanted. He slipped away from the restaurant, passed the cloakroom and hid himself among a bank of people using pay phones at the north end of the conference hall.
He stayed there for the next fifteen minutes. At ten to two, everyone started back into the four-hundred-seater hall. Shooter scanned the hordes. Dozens of people were hanging around in the corridors, swapping business cards and hurriedly making final calls before the afternoon session started.
The man in the green suit appeared. He veered away from the hall and headed to the men’s room.
So did Shooter.
23
Douglas Park, Santa Monica
Once Chips left for the office, Angie rearranged her living area. It was no longer home. It was a murder incident room with soft furnishings.
She took down an oil painting she and Jake had bought. Printouts of locations and stills of crime scenes replaced the impressionistic view of the Himalayan peak they’d climbed last year.
Her elegant glass dining table became a crowded desk. Instead of flowers, she’d set up a printer, laptop, phone, notebook, files and a jug of purified water—an attempt to eliminate her caffeine intake.
Angie settled down and marshaled her thoughts. She was convinced Jake’s killer was the man responsible for the attacks on the mall, and maybe even the school trip to the strawberry fields, though she was still struggling to find anything forensic to link them. Chips had transcribed Jake’s press conference address and sent her a private email. Working through it was top of her priority list.
She read the transcript several times. Selected sections. Copied and pasted them onto a separate document so she could see the remarks in isolation. Thirteen lines had references that disturbed her.
… I have come across many enemies in my time, but only
the most evil of creatures strikes at civilians in a way as cowardly as this…
… these are acts that rank as the most despicable I have ever witnessed…
… the mind behind these acts is a cowardly, spineless, gutless one…
… has no place in our society…
… the lowest of the low…
… the kind of person parents would disown…
… the kind that society is most ashamed of…
… the creature responsible for these homicides…
… the worst criminals in prison would consider him too vile to be allowed a cell alongside them…
… such an abomination…
… you will be hunted to the ends of the earth…
… nowhere you can hide…
… dead or alive, you will face justice.
Danielle Goodman had clearly sought to destroy the feelings of power and fame that the UNSUB would have been experiencing as the whole country began talking about and fearing him. But the strategy was crudely inflammatory. She’d tried to explode his self-worth, and if he had any sense of mission, to divert him from it. Most probably, she’d expected him to post a letter to a newspaper explaining his grievances and justifying himself. This would have led to personality clues and maybe even forensic hints as to his whereabouts. Instead, the stupid woman had tipped him over the edge. Pressed a psychotic trigger. Made him react violently instead of verbally.
The thirteen lines Angie had isolated fell into two main categories—insults and warnings. Lines one to ten were insults, lines eleven to thirteen warnings. She was sure the stressor, the very thing that enraged him enough to kill, lay in those first ten lines.
Angie subdivided them into generalizations and specifics. References to “creature,” “lowest of the low,” et cetera, were generalizations. Many of those were prosaic insults that got hurled around by all kinds of groups about all kinds of people. She was sure the key lay in the specifics—lines three, six and nine. Angie reviewed them again:
3.… the mind behind these acts is a cowardly, spineless, gutless one…
6.… the kind of person parents would disown…
9.… the worst criminals in prison would consider him too vile to be allowed a cell alongside them…
Only line three stood out. It questioned his masculinity, his principles and power. Shooting strangers with a high-powered weapon and bombing mourning families were undoubtedly cowardly acts, but that hadn’t been how the UNSUB had seen them. To him they’d somehow been justified and glorious.
She picked up a copy of the UNSUB’s picture from the mall footage, taped it to her wall and stood back.
The young black man she stared at was around six foot, maybe a little too heavy for his size, but looked as though he was big and tough enough to handle himself. He seemed at odds with the image of someone who could be enraged by being called a coward. He looked as though he’d take something like that in his stride. Had no doubt been called much worse out in the hood.
Annoyingly, her cellphone rang. She was in no mood for distractions, especially if they came in the form of more well-meaning people offering condolences.
Caller display showed it was Chips.
She picked it up. “Hi.”
He knew better than to ask how she was doing. “I’ve just heard that Agent Costas talked to Connor Pryce and the LAPD has pulled a suspect in the mall case.”
Angie felt her heart jump.
“It’s supposed to be hush-hush,” added Chips, “but it’s the only thing anyone’s talking about round here.”
24
The Olympic Conference Center, LA
The businessman in the smart green suit waited patiently in the restroom. A cubicle to the right came free and he glanced at his watch as he drifted in.
He was about to close the door and relieve himself of too much lunchtime wine when it banged hard in his face. He stumbled backward holding his head. By the time he’d stopped himself falling over the john, Shooter had raised a silenced pistol from beneath the cover of the briefcase. “Sit the fuck down and give me your watch and wallet.”
The delegate forgot about the bump to his face. He sat and clicked the steel Rolex off his wrist.
Shooter bolted the door behind him. “Put it on the floor at your feet.”
He did.
“Now your wallet.”
The dapper green jacket flapped open and a calfskin billfold came out along with a matching cardholder. He started to put them down.
“Get your driver’s license out and hold it up for me to see.”
The man pulled the card and made to pass it over.
Shooter waved the pistol. “Just hold it up.”
He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.
Shooter read the name. “Sean Thornton. Your wife’s Mary, right?”
The question drew a frown.
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary.” He enjoyed seeing the shock on the man’s face. “Only Mrs. Thornton wasn’t contrary, was she?”
“I don’t understand.” Fear showed in his eyes. “What’s this about? What’s it to do with my wife?”
“Everything.” Shooter dipped into the briefcase and took out a roll of seal-lock plastic bags. He passed two over. “Put your money, watch, wallet and whatever’s in your pockets in there.”
Thornton let out a sigh. Being robbed in a restroom was embarrassing as well as peculiarly scary. He’d heard about a spate of West Side stickups in expensive hotel parking lots but hadn’t expected boldness like this. Desperate times apparently bred desperate crooks. He filled the bags. “You want them sealed?”
Shooter nodded.
Thornton lined up the click-together edges and sealed them tight.
Shooter produced a roll of duct tape. “There are precut strips on there. Pick them off with your fingers. Put one over your mouth and another over your eyes.”
He hesitated.
Shooter gestured with the pistol. “Do it quickly! Then I’ll be gone. This will be over in less than five.”
Thornton turned the roll in his hands until he found an edge he could get a thumbnail under. He pulled off a strip and his eyes narrowed as he smeared it over his mouth.
“And the second one.”
He dug some more. Peeled off another length of tape. It snagged his eyebrows and he tried not to stick it too tight.
Shooter stepped forward and pressed it snug.
Thornton tried to push him away.
Shooter smashed the pistol handle onto the top of his skull.
There was a muffled grunt of pain and he rocked on the seat of the john.
Shooter waited and listened. Someone came into the restroom. He urinated and whistled. A sink tap ran. A hand dryer blasted hot air. Doors flapped closed.
Then came silence.
Shooter pulled a folded plastic sheet from his briefcase and quickly tented himself. He put the gun to Sean Thornton’s head.
Then he shot him.
Twice.
The red mess that spread across the white-tiled toilet walls persuaded him a third bullet wasn’t necessary.
He rolled the plastic sheet up, slid it into a third seal-lock bag and put it into his briefcase.
He was almost done.
Just one more box to tick.
Shooter ripped a long length of toilet tissue from the hanging roll. He made a thick pad and in a single sweep wiped the spattered wall, firstly downward at forty-five degrees, then upward so it formed a perfect tick.
25
LAPD HQ, LA
Ruis Costas had expected the phone call.
Just not so soon.
“Angie, I don’t know a lot.” He sought to head her off early. “Seems Jake and Pryce met the night he was murdered and discussed a suspect, the one that’s now in custody.”
“You there now?”
“Yeah, I am. The guy’s insisted on lawyering up and Pryce’s in with someone from the DA’s office.”
“Can you ask him t
o call me? I could help with this. Interrogation strategy is one of my specialties.”
“Angie, you’re not even supposed to be ringing me, let alone trying to work this case or any others.”
“Hey, if that’s Jake’s killer, I want in on the interview. Please don’t let me be squeezed out of that.”
“It won’t be my call, Angie. Hell, it’s unlikely I’ll even get in there.” He really felt for her. “I know you think the same guy’s responsible, but we can’t make that leap yet. We have to let Pryce—”
Angie jumped in. “It’s him, Ruis. Danielle’s words provoked him. She had Jake belittle him and then threaten him with justice—‘dead or alive.’ It was like he was calling him out.”
He tried to calm her down. “Good luck with using that argument in court. I can just see the DA saying, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, there are no forensic links to the suspect but our psychologist has a red-hot theory.’ ”
She ignored his sarcasm. “Will you ask Pryce if I can sit in?”
“No, Angie, I won’t.”
“Please, Ruis. As Jake’s friend and hopefully mine, too.”
There was a pause. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t. I was there, remember, when McDonald sent you home. She’s spoken to Crawford and they’ve both warned me not to help you—I shouldn’t even be having this conversation.”
She was shocked. “What’s wrong? Have you already put in for Jake’s job? Is that it? You don’t want to rock the boat and ruin your chances?”
“That’s unfair.”
She thought about it. “You’re right. I’m sorry, that was an awful thing to say. But hell, can’t you see I’m desperate here? Come on, as a friend, bend the damned protocol and ask Pryce to call me.”
He was angry. She was manipulating him but he understood why. Understood he’d probably do the same thing if their roles were reversed. “I’ll think about it.”
The line went dead.
Angie slammed her phone down on the table. She wondered if O’Brien knew about the suspect, whether he was also seeing links between Jake’s death and the other murders.