Jack of Spades

by James Hankins

  Spader looked at the message, clearly directly to him, and his mind flashed back to a message from more than a year ago, also written in innocent blood, also addressed to him. That message was conceived and written by Eddie Rivers. There was no doubt. This message was written by Jeffrey Golding, in his own blood, but who had conceived it was still a mystery. Someone seemed to want Spader to believe that maybe, just maybe, it was written by Rivers himself.

  “And after you wrote the message and pinned the card to the wall?” he asked Golding.

  “He tossed me a bottle and a white cloth. It was chloroform, one of the officers told me.”

  “I’m sure it was. So he had you use it on yourself?”

  “I didn’t want to, but he swore he wouldn’t hurt Emily or Danny if I did. But he said he’d kill them both if I didn’t do it. So I did. I mean, I thought the gun was real, right? So I poured the stuff on the rag, put the cap back on like he said, and breathed it in until everything went black.”

  “Then he kept the gun pointed at me,” Emily said, “and told me to pick up the phone by the TV and call nine-one-one, and to leave the phone off the hook but not to say a single word. I made him swear he wouldn’t hurt Danny, that he wouldn’t go near him. He did, he swore it, and I believed him. It helped, I guess, that he was letting me call nine-one-one. Anyway, I believed him, that he wouldn’t hurt Danny. Not that I had a choice.”

  “No,” Spader said. “You didn’t.”

  “So I said a prayer, then used the chloroform and put myself to sleep.”

  Golding said, “The next thing we know, we wake up and there are cops in the house. They found the gun on my chest. Danny was in his room, scared but not hurt.”

  Spader made another note. “And you said the intruder was Caucasian, you thought?”

  “I saw that much before I…closed my eyes.”

  Spader nodded. “But neither of you recognized him? By his voice, maybe, under the mask? Did he sound at all familiar, like maybe someone you know or have met?”

  “His voice sounded just like that fucking cartoon character,” Golding said.

  “Maybe there’s something else you can tell me about his voice, though. Unusual word choices? Diction? Speech pattern?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Would you say he sounded intelligent? Or did he sound, I don’t know, a little simpler? Less educated?”

  “If I had to guess,” Mrs. Golding began, “I’d say he was intelligent. Probably educated. Wouldn’t you, Jeff?”

  Golding kept his eyes on Spader. “Yeah, I’d say so, I guess.”

  “Okay. That’s helpful. Now, can you think of anything else he said that might help us?”

  “Nothing,” Golding said, shaking his head.

  Mrs. Golding had her head tilted to the side, her eyes looking down and to her left. Her brow furrowed. “Mrs. Golding? Do you remember something?”

  “Yes. Yes, I think I do. It might not mean anything, but he sounded as though his father hadn’t been good to him.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” Golding said, “I remember now. He said I was a good father, then he didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then he said something like, ‘not at all like my father,’ or something like that.”

  “Is that helpful?” Mrs. Golding asked.

  “It might be,” Spader said. “I don’t know yet. But good job remembering that. That’s the kind of little thing that can break a case open for us. Anything else?”

  Golding shrugged.

  “Okay, now I know you described him as stocky, but how about the way he carried himself? Or his mannerisms? Was there anything at all that was familiar about him? Anything to make you think you might know him or have seen him somewhere?”

  They shook their heads again.

  “You said he knew your names.”

  Golding nodded. “He did, but I have no idea how.”

  “Okay, thanks. You both did great. You were very helpful.”

  Spader gave them his card and asked them to call if they thought of anything else, anything at all, no matter how insignificant it might seem to them. They promised to do so. Spader said good-bye and got up to leave. He had almost reached the hallway leading to the front door when he turned. Golding was staring blankly into the middle distance. His wife sat beside him, just inches away, but there was no contact between them and Spader knew those inches might as well have been miles. Her unsure hand hovered for a moment near his before it dropped into her own lap.

  Spader thought about telling Golding that he was lucky, that two of Galaxo’s prior victims had lost their lives and all three had lost body parts, but he looked at the big man, and at the pictures on the wall, and the distant look in his eyes, and at the way he was leaning slightly away from his wife, and he thought, somehow, Golding wouldn’t consider himself all that lucky.

  “Mr. Golding,” he said, “for what it’s worth, you did the right thing. You protected your family. I don’t know if my opinion means anything to you, but I think you’re a hell of a good man.”

  “Just a stupid pellet gun,” Golding said. “I didn’t have to…. And it wasn’t even loaded.” He got up from the sofa, walked out the French doors, and dropped into a patio chair. His head fell forward into his hands. Spader nodded to Mrs. Golding and left the house.

  ELEVEN

  “And Golding just did it?” Wilkins said. “Really?”

  “He did,” Spader said.

  “Jesus, I’d never have done that.”

  “Bullshit. And if it’s not bullshit, then you’re a fucking coward.”

  The other members of the task force looked up from their sandwiches in mild surprise. One of those faces belonged to a new member of the task force, joining them from the Wakefield PD, in whose jurisdiction Golding was assaulted. Spader wasn’t eating, though he’d ordered sandwiches for the meeting because he’d called it for lunchtime. But he wasn’t hungry.

  “What’s that?” Wilkins asked. He had a bite of a BLT in his mouth, half the sandwich in his hand, and a piece of shredded lettuce hanging from the corner of his bottom lip.

  “I said you’re full of shit. You see a gun to the head of the woman you love, you do whatever you have to do to save her. To save her from death or mutilation. And if you don’t, you’re a fucking coward.”

  “Jesus, John, relax. All I’m saying is—”

  “I know what you’re saying and you’re full of shit. Golding would have chosen to die rather than do what he did if all he was risking was his own life, but he thought about his wife and his kid and he did what he had to do to save them. He’s a fucking hero, Wilkins. And if you say you wouldn’t have done the same, then you’re a liar or a selfish coward. And take that fucking lettuce off your lip, will you? It’s disgusting.”

  Wilkins removed the offending lettuce, flicked it onto his paper plate, and stared at Spader. “The fuck’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.” Spader drew a breath. “Sorry. Just eat up and listen for now, okay?” He finally took a bite of his own sandwich. Tuna salad, with diced celery and onions mixed in. Not bad, but he still wasn’t hungry.

  Wilkins shook his head and returned to his lunch while Spader filled them all in on the rest of what he’d learned from the Goldings during their interview two days earlier. Some of them had heard a little about it, but because the members of the task force were all busy with their various tasks, Spader had decided to hold off on this meeting until today, hoping they’d come up with something to add to the big steaming pile of nothing he’d come up with in the way of solid leads. Also, he waited until he received an updated profile from the FBI that incorporated facts relating to Galaxo’s most recent activity.

  When he finished, he turned to the bulletin board behind him. Along with notes, maps, a picture of the ever-smiling Galaxo, and other pictures, were photos of each of Galaxo’s four victims, with Yasovich, the first, on the left and Golding on the right. Written beneath each was the victim’s pertinent informati
on and notes particular to that victim’s crime.

  “Obviously,” Spader said, “Galaxo’s last crime is a big departure for him. It has to change our thinking, of course. First of all, he didn’t take a body part this time. Didn’t personally harm any of the three members of the Golding family, though he made Golding cut himself so he could write the message to me in his blood. But it’s significant that Galaxo didn’t do the cutting himself, because it means that maybe he’s not just getting off on inflicting pain, like we thought he might be.”

  “But he did inflict a hell of a lot of emotional pain on Golding, I bet,” Amanda Cassel said.

  “I saw Golding afterward, and yes, he was in pain. But it’s different. And it changes everything for us.”

  “Is Galaxo…” Wilkins hesitated and Spader feared another ill-timed joke from the resident comedian. “Is he getting less violent? And if so, wouldn’t that be really unusual for a serial killer?”

  “It would be,” Spader said, “though I don’t think ‘serial killer’ is the right label for him. First of all, I think you technically need three separate kills to be called a serial and our guy’s only got two notches on his belt. Second, it looks like killing might not even have been his intention with the two who died. But, yeah, I see what you’re saying. It would be strange to see someone get less violent, rather than more so, as his crimes pile up. But the more I think about it, I’m not sure it’s totally accurate to say here that the crimes are all getting less violent. It might be a matter of opinion, but I can’t say for sure that his cutting off Lisbon’s feet—he was the second victim, of course—was less violent than his cutting out Yasovich’s tongue three weeks earlier. It may be, but I’m not sure. After that, though, he only took an ear, then inflicted no physical damage on Golding. It’s a strange pattern.”

  “You could almost say there’s not really a pattern at all,” Fratello added.

  “I suppose so. He certainly added a few new wrinkles. First, he used a gun.”

  “It was a pellet gun, though,” someone noted, “and it wasn’t loaded.”

  “Still, he never showed a gun before. Also, his approach was totally different. He didn’t come in at night and knock the Goldings out right away with a stun gun or chloroform. Instead, he got into the house while they were awake, got their son in his arms, used that leverage to get the wife under his control, then used the threat to the wife to get Golding to do what he made him do. And when he was finished, he had the wife call nine-one-one instead of doing it himself, then had them knock themselves out with the chloroform instead of doing it for them.”

  “And no one was bound with duct tape,” Dunbar added, “which we thought he was getting off on.”

  “Plus,” Spader said, “the biggest difference, of course—there was the sexual abuse of Golding.”

  “And the message he left you,” Fratello said as he absently tapped a cigarette against the table top, “with the playing card.” Spader nodded. “Sounds almost like a different perp.” Spader nodded again.

  “You think maybe some guy, maybe some gay guy who wanted to force a straight guy to blow him, decided to copycat? Throw on a Galaxo mask and use the threat of the area’s newest serial bad guy to get a little action?”

  “We certainly can’t rule out a copycat,” Spader said, “but we need to consider, too, that this was, in fact, our guy. Otherwise, we could be ignoring valuable insight into him. And there are similarities in the MOs, of course. He still gave the victims choices—after changing his mind on the initial choices he offered. Remember, we kept the choice angle out of the press, so a copycat shouldn’t have known about that. There are always leaks, of course—and I’m not saying anyone in this room—but he shouldn’t have known about that. Another similarity is the use of chloroform. And the mask and black running suit, of course. So there’s enough there for us to think it’s probably our guy, though we won’t forget there’s a chance it was someone else posing as our guy.”

  “I just don’t get it,” Fratello said. “Why the blowjob? Assuming it’s not a copycat, why would Galaxo change things up like that? And send you that message.”

  “You may have just answered your own question,” Spader said. “To send me a message. There’s a chance that’s all the Golding incident was about. Maybe he just wanted to show us—to show me—that he’s in control, he can do anything he wants.”

  “What’d it say again?”

  Spader dropped his eyes to his notes, though the bloody message was burned into his memory. “It read, ‘Are my new tricks hard to swallow?’ The playing card was a common brand, by the way, no prints, sold in a million places. No way to trace it anywhere.”

  Dunbar spoke up. “So you think he visited Golding just to send you that message?”

  “I’m not saying it’s what I think. I’m just saying it’s a possibility. He wants us to know, wants me to know, that he’s the one with the power. He can hurt or not. Take a body part or not. It’s his choice. He can make a man perform orally on him if he chooses. He’s in total control.” A few around the table nodded. Spader added, “Now, that’s just one explanation for what happened to Golding and for the message to me. It could just as well be the case that he did what he did to Golding for other reasons, reasons of his own that we just don’t understand yet. Maybe he’s got a plan we just don’t see. Maybe there’s a connection between the victims we still haven’t found.”

  They had discussed earlier in the meeting the fact that Jeffrey Golding didn’t seem connected to any of the other victims, just as there didn’t seem to be a connection between any of the victims to each other. The only similarities were that, like the others, Golding was male and lived in a single-family dwelling in a suburban area. Other than that, there seemed to be no pattern to Galaxo’s victims. Pendleton hadn’t ever heard of Yasovich or Lisbon before they became Galaxo’s victims, and Golding told Spader the same thing about all three victims who preceded him.

  Spader pulled copies of stapled pages from his canvas briefcase and handed them to Dunbar, who took one set and passed the rest on. As they made their way around the table, Spader said, “You all received already a copy of the FBI’s initial profile on Galaxo. Two days ago I faxed Special Agent Dwight W. Daniels the particulars of the Golding incident and e-mailed him the relevant pictures. Agent Daniels apparently skipped his late-night channel surfing since then and put the time in on a revised profile, which he faxed me this morning and which you now have in your hands. You can read it later. Right now, I’ll touch on the highlights, the way the latest crime affected Daniels’s profile.”

  Spader referred to the document as he spoke. “Assuming it was Galaxo himself who visited the Goldings and not a copycat, the suspect is still exhibiting a need to dominate and control. Though he didn’t physically damage anyone, his forcing Golding to fellate him—that’s Daniels’s word—is consistent with wanting to be hands-on, which Daniels still believes indicates that the suspect likely works with his hands rather than behind a desk. Galaxo’s statement that Golding was a good dad, nothing like his own father, is consistent with Daniels’s earlier opinion that Galaxo has issues with his father.”

  “All the vics are male, so far,” Wilkins said. “Any chance Galaxo is seeing them as father figures and doing all those terrible things to them while imagining he’s doing them to his old man?”

  “It’s a theory I’ve been considering. Daniels even lays out the same basic idea, stating it’s a possibility. Still doesn’t lead us right to the guy, but it might be insight into his psyche.”

  “Anything else from Special Agent Dwight W. Daniels?” Dunbar asked.

  “That’s about it.”

  “Can we go back to the message he left at the Golding house?” Cassel said. “The one about his new tricks being tough to swallow. At the meeting a week ago we talked about the possibility that Galaxo is actually Eddie Rivers, right? So couldn’t it be Rivers telling you that he’s back and trying new things?”

  Spader was q
uiet for a moment. “Well, of course I considered that. What I think, though, is that whoever Galaxo is, he’s trying to make us believe Rivers is our guy. By referring to ‘new tricks,’ we’re supposed to assume Rivers no longer likes to cut people’s legs off, that he’s branched out into other areas of torture, both physical and psychological.”

  “Isn’t that possible?”

  Spader started to respond, stopped himself, thought about a better way to reply, then said, “Sure it is, and we won’t rule out Rivers as a suspect. But I think it’s highly unlikely he’s our guy. My guess is, Galaxo either planned from the beginning to make his crimes look a little similar to Rivers’s so we’d waste resources running off in the wrong direction, or after he got started—and maybe after the case was assigned to me—he saw an opportunity to muddy the waters and took advantage of it.”

  Fratello said, “But we’re definitely not taking Rivers off the table for this, right? Because somebody saw one of our alerts and called in a tip a little while ago. Said he saw a man fitting Rivers’s description three days ago—the day of the Golding attack—about four in the afternoon, at a gas station off Route Ninety-Five, just south of Wakefield.”

  Spader looked up quickly. Fratello was twirling his cigarette between his fingers.

  “Which is where the Goldings live, right?” Rick Monteleone added.

  Spader said, sharply, “Someone said they saw somebody matching Rivers’s description at a gas station a few miles from Golding’s house? When the hell were you gonna tell me that?”

  “I just did. They gave me the tip right before the meeting. I sent a couple of troopers out there with his picture. They’ll call when they know anything. Relax, Spader, we’re on the same side here.”

  Spader took a breath. “First of all, it probably wasn’t even Rivers at that gas station. Rivers was a pretty normal-looking joe. Second, it could well have been our perp, Galaxo himself, who called in the tip. It’s pretty convenient, don’t you think? Someone happens to see Rivers near the scene of the crime, just hours before? An anonymous caller, no less. Makes our guy, who probably made the call, look innocent.”