Dead Man Running

by Steve Hamilton

  The vehicle backed up, spinning its tires and sliding sideways so that now all three of us were lit up in the headlights.

  “We have a bond for your arrest!” Maureen said to our fugitive, who’d already stepped out of his truck and was now trying to climb back inside. He kicked out at her with a booted left foot, catching her in the stomach and sending her back into the snow. I grabbed the door and held it open with one hand, reached in for him with the other.

  That was when another man caught me from behind. I threw an elbow, pure instinct at that point, figuring it must be one of the fugitive’s buddies jumping me. I felt the impact all the way up my arm, then sensed the man stumbling away from me. As I turned to face him, he had already brought out a Glock from his belt. I didn’t know the exact model, but the important thing was he had it pointed right at my chest. I heard the other truck’s door closing, the engine starting.

  “FBI,” the man with the gun said. “Do not move.”

  “That’s a fugitive!” I said. “Stop him!”

  But it was already too late. The truck spun its way back out of the driveway, the tires whining against the ice as it slid back onto the road. I caught sight of him behind the wheel, for one perfect split second, as he gave me the middle finger and then flipped the truck into drive and tore away.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” I said. A black man with a smooth, shaved head, he still had the gun leveled at me, so I made a point of keeping both hands where he could see them. Maureen was up on one knee now, catching her breath and brushing herself off. Another man appeared behind her, white and much older than the one who’d grabbed me. I noticed for the first time that the two men were dressed in identical windbreakers.

  “You just let a drug dealer get away,” Maureen said, pushing away the older man’s hand when he tried to help her up. “Who are you guys?”

  “We’re looking for Alex McKnight,” the older man said.

  I looked back and forth between them. They were both shivering in their windbreakers, comically underweight for a UP winter.

  “What the hell is going on here?” I said. “Put that gun away.”

  The older agent came close to me. As he looked me in the eye, I knew exactly what he was doing, because I’d done it myself as a cop, more times than I could count. He wanted to see my immediate reaction to whatever he said next.

  “We need to talk to you,” he said. “About a man named Martin T. Livermore.”

  “Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”

  “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

  He kept looking me in the eye until he nodded his head and put a hand on my back. “We’ll talk about it on the plane,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  I pushed his arm away. “My partner and I are working here. You can talk to me tomorrow.”

  “I’ve got this,” Maureen said. “Just go with them.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “This is not a request,” the older agent said.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No,” he said. “You are a person of interest.”

  That’s not something you want to hear an FBI agent tell you, I thought. If I were sensible, now would be a great time to keep my mouth shut.

  “I thought I was done with this a long time ago,” I said, taking my usual pass on sensible. “Feebs messing up my whole life.”

  “Shut up and go with them,” Maureen said. “Call me if you need me.”

  I took a long breath and watched it condense in the cold air.

  “We’ve wasted enough time,” the younger agent said. He had put his gun away, and by now there was a thin line of blood running from his nose. I didn’t bother to apologize to him.

  “Just go,” Maureen said.

  I shook my head and then finally got in the backseat of their vehicle. The younger agent got behind the wheel, spun the tires as he backed out of the driveway, and then took me away.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I’D SEEN THE FACES of killers before. But never this face. Not until this moment, sitting on the plane.

  “This is his mug shot,” Agent Halliday said, putting the photograph on my tray table. “Taken less than twenty-four hours ago.”

  We had just lifted off in a small commuter jet, which had been waiting on the runway at the Chippewa County airport. There were no official FBI markings on the plane. There was probably an elaborate cover story behind that, unmarked planes the FBI used in special circumstances, but I didn’t bother asking because I knew I wouldn’t get an answer.

  Halliday sat in the window seat. I was on the aisle. Across the aisle was Agent Cook. The airplane was still climbing in altitude, riding the rough air over the half-frozen lake. The photograph shifted back and forth on the tray table, until I finally put my hand on it to keep it in place.

  I was still catching up to everything that had happened. Still trying to understand how this night had somehow led to me sitting here on this airplane with two FBI agents, and no idea where we were even going.

  “Take your time,” Halliday said. “It could be years since the last time you saw him.”

  I looked carefully at the man’s face. He had close-set eyes, intense and focused, even here while holding a mug-shot board with his own name spelled out in white plastic letters. His head was slightly tilted, and there was a half smile on his face.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know this man.”

  “I said take your time.”

  I kept looking. He was about my age. Long hair combed back. Clean-shaven. There was an intensity in his eyes that maybe I wouldn’t have noticed at first glance. On closer examination, I could see that he was a smart, focused man. The kind of man you’d expect to be successful at something.

  “A man can remember ten thousand faces,” Halliday said. “A woman, possibly more. If this man was significant in your life in any way . . .”

  “This face means nothing to me.”

  “You were a cop for eight years,” Halliday said. “Is it possible that—”

  “Did he ever live in Detroit?”

  “We can’t put him in Detroit, no. He definitely has no arrest record there.”

  “Then I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “The man who shot you . . .” Halliday said. “We don’t see any connection with Livermore, but—”

  “He was a crazy fuck who lived by himself,” I said. “He wasn’t connected to anybody.”

  Halliday left the mug shot on my tray table. He put another photograph on top of it. A young woman. “This was his first victim,” he said. “Three years ago, in California.”

  I shook my head. It was another face that meant nothing to me.

  “A second woman in California,” he said, putting another photograph over the first.

  I shook my head again. He showed me three more.

  Utah.

  Nevada.

  Arizona.

  All young women.

  Women I’d never seen before.

  He put down the sixth photograph. “Arizona again,” he said. “Phoenix. Just a few days ago. Her name was Carolyn Kline.”

  “He abducted every one of these women,” Cook said. “Tortured them. Then killed them. None of the bodies were ever found, until this one.”

  “He’s a highly organized, highly sophisticated sociopath,” Halliday said. “We don’t know his exact methodology yet, but he’s clearly very good at manipulating people. I sat in a room with him twelve hours ago.”

  I picked up all of the photographs, one by one, and looked at them again. Six faces of women who’d suffered and died, and then finally the one face who was responsible for all of it.

  Martin T. Livermore.

  A stranger.

  “I’m going to make this question as simple as I can,” I said. “Wh
at does any of this have to do with me?”

  “He asked for you,” Halliday said. “By name.”

  I let the words wash over me, trying to absorb their meaning but utterly failing.

  “He says you’re the only person he’ll talk to.”

  “That makes no sense,” I said. “Why would he want me?”

  “That’s a good question.”

  The two agents stayed silent for a while. I knew exactly what they were doing, because I had done it myself a thousand times. This was the exact right moment to wait. To let the silence build.

  I picked up the mug shot, holding it closer.

  I looked at the man’s eyes one more time.

  Nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” I said.

  “So then what,” Cook said, “he just picked your name out of nowhere?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He stared back at me, looking for the lie behind my eyes.

  I wasn’t lying.

  Halliday put one more photograph on top of the pile. It was yet another attractive young woman, late twenties. This was more of a candid shot, taken at a party, the woman with a plastic cup in her hand, her other arm around another woman. A little silver ring in her eyebrow, and a big smile.

  “Who is this?” I said.

  “Her name is Stephanie Hyatt,” Halliday said.

  I shook my head. Another face I’d never seen before. “Is she the latest victim?”

  Halliday watched me carefully as he composed his answer. I’d already figured out the dynamic between these two agents—Halliday was the one with the experience and the even temper. Cook had the raw energy, and he could obviously play the bad cop when it was needed. But now, as the overhead light painted every line in Halliday’s face, he looked even older than I had first thought. Too old to be flying across the country and freezing his ass off in Michigan. Maybe too old to be doing this job at all.

  “He claims to have met her two days ago,” Halliday said. “I was not inclined to believe him, because it doesn’t fit the pattern. He abducts one woman at a time, then he waits, sometimes for months, until he moves on to his next victim.”

  “So why do you—”

  “He had details,” Halliday said. “Knew she was from Mesa. Knew she had a tattoo on her left shoulder blade. It all checked out. She was last seen two days ago.”

  “I don’t mean to be insensitive,” I said. “But you just told me most of those other bodies haven’t been recovered, either. How is this one different?”

  Neither man said anything. I looked back and forth between them, saw them exchanging something without words. Some horrible truth that they both shared. Another moment passed, and then it came to me.

  The one good reason they’d fly two thousand miles across the country to find me.

  “Are you telling me . . .” I said.

  “Yes,” Halliday said. “We have reason to believe she’s still alive.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHEN THE METAL DETECTOR went off, three different men drew their weapons on me. I froze and waited for them to pat me down. As if I’d actually be stupid enough to bring a gun into the jail. When they brought out the wand, it beeped when they waved it over my chest. That meant another pat-down, and eventually I ended up having to open my shirt and show them the scars.

  “Twenty-two caliber slug,” I said. “Next to my heart.”

  “You didn’t set off the detector at the airport,” Cook said from behind me.

  “Airport detectors are set at a different level,” I said. “This one’s obviously cranked up to eleven, all right?”

  We were in the Maricopa County Fourth Avenue Jail, where they’d driven me directly from the airport. It was early morning. The air was seventy degrees warmer than what I’d left behind in Michigan, even if I’d only felt it for the few yards between the airport and the car, and then the car and the jail.

  I’d been surprised when we pulled up in front of the place, because you think of a jail as a place for drunk drivers to sleep it off, or for strung-out petty thieves to spend a week or two in holding cells, waiting for their trials because they can’t scrape up the bail money. Not for one of the most notorious serial killers in recent history. But then two things hit me:

  One, Martin T. Livermore—even though he was implicated in the murders of six women, and in the abduction of a seventh—was still officially an unconvicted suspect. That status would end about two seconds after his guilty verdicts were read in open court, but not before.

  And two, this was Maricopa County, Arizona. So when it came to anything having to do with the apprehension and housing of criminals, right down to the county jail, these good folks did not fuck around.

  As we got out of the car, I could see that the jail took up an entire city block, a hulking redbrick presence among the courthouses and other government buildings. There was a column of glass running four stories above the main entrance. The rest of the walls were broken only by the few thin slits that barely qualified as windows. It was as if the architect wanted to make sure anyone going into the place knew to leave all hope of ever seeing daylight again outside on the sidewalk.

  “This is the most secure facility in the county system,” Halliday had said as he’d closed the car door behind him. “The high-security floor is a vault.”

  We had come inside and met a half dozen of the detention officers who worked here. They all looked a little too amped up to me. But then here were two Feds, bringing in this civilian, this stranger, right into the heart of their facility, to ride in their elevator all the way up to their most secure floor, to interview a serial killer. So I couldn’t blame them for being a little on edge.

  Of all the men waiting for us, the warden was the one in the suit and the bolo tie. “This is my jail,” he said to all three of us, after he’d shaken every hand. “I make the rules. I’ll be watching on the other side of the window at all times. Nobody will make any physical contact with the suspect. No objects will be passed to him. Do we all understand?”

  He looked each of us in the eye, one by one, until he was satisfied. Then I was led through the metal detector first, and that was when everything went sideways. It looked like they were going to drag me all the way out here from Michigan just to let three Maricopa County detention officers gun me down in the lobby.

  But when the sidearms were finally put away and I had buttoned up my shirt, the warden took us to the elevator, put his special key in the control panel, and took us up to the top floor. He led us down another long hall. Everything was clean and functional and harshly lit. Like any jail, anywhere in the country, and yet everything felt different here. Even in the air itself, this sense that something big was about to happen, something that everyone involved would remember for the rest of their lives.

  This is why you become a cop, I thought. Or an agent. Or a guard or a warden, whatever you need to become to be a part of something like this. Whether you admit it to yourself or not.

  When we got to the interview room, Agent Halliday told his partner to wait with the warden on the other side of the glass. Agent Cook didn’t look happy about it, but then I hadn’t seen him look happy about anything, from the moment he had run into the back of my truck in Michigan.

  Agent Halliday and I were led into a small intermediate room, the door clanging shut behind us. We waited there for a long moment, until we heard the buzzing sound on the second door. Halliday pushed the door open, and we walked into the empty interview room.

  There was a table in the center. Two chairs on the near side, one chair on the other. A single video camera was mounted high in one corner. The red light was blinking.

  Eight hours ago I was sitting in my truck, I said to myself, freezing my ass off and watching for a petty drug dealer to show up at his girlfriend’s house.

>   Now I’m here.

  Agent Halliday sat down. I took the chair next to him.

  “Understand something,” Halliday said to me. “I know you’re an ex-cop. You think you know how to talk to a criminal . . .”

  “I do.”

  “This man is something different.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ve interviewed psychopaths before,” Halliday said, “but I’m still trying to understand Livermore. You’re here because he asked for you. We want to know why. Let him go in that direction, but don’t let him draw you in too deep.”

  “Just bring him in here,” I said, feeling like I’d already waited too long for this. All of the confusion, all of the disorientation, it had been burned away on the long journey to reach this place. This moment. Now I just wanted to see this man face-to-face.

  Another long minute passed. I heard the outer door opening, then the buzzing of the inner door. When it opened, I heard the rattling of chains. Halliday and I stood up at once, like some dignitary was entering the room. By the time I turned around, he was already through the doorway.

  Martin T. Livermore.

  He was wearing an orange jumpsuit. His hands were cuffed and attached to a chain around his waist, so his hands were effectively pinned to his sides. Legs shackled. He was my height, a little leaner. Long hair tied neatly behind his head. Smooth skin, even with a little stubble around his chin, everything about him perfectly composed, like he’d spent the last hour carefully grooming himself for an important appointment, instead of sitting by himself in an eight-by-ten jail cell, waiting to be interrogated.

  I kept looking at him, waiting for a bell to go off in my mind. Some hint of recognition. But my mind remained silent. I knew I had never seen him before, for the simple reason that having this man’s intense green eyes on me was something I would never be able to forget.