Looking Glass

by Andrew Mayne

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  JUSTICE

  Two hours later, I’m in the passenger side of Mary Karlin’s red Tesla Model X as she rapidly weaves through traffic, making me pray Elon Musk’s engineers are as good as I’ve heard.

  A petite fifty-year-old with bright-red hair and a mouth that doesn’t stop, she barged through the police station with a US marshal and had me free before I even had a chance to take my shoes off. It was a whirlwind that still has me confused.

  “You have Justice Davenport to thank. He was the one that ordered you released.”

  “Did he owe you a favor?”

  “Ha!” She swerves past another Prius. “Hardly. He hates me. I just told him that if you had to spend the night in jail, I was going to have a press conference waiting for when you got out, during which I would explain how the LAPD booked you because they were embarrassed by how badly their investigation was going and wanted a ready scapegoat if they fucked up the prosecution.”

  “Huh. I didn’t think about it that way.”

  “I have no clue if that’s what they’re up to. But it was enough to motivate them. So why did they arrest you?”

  “You mean you got me out without even knowing?”

  “I read the booking. It was rather vague. Which did them no favors. They stepped on their own dicks. You don’t have to tell me, but I am your attorney and I’m as curious as hell.”

  “I took some material I found in a clogged storm drain near the Wimbledon house.”

  “Public street?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, fuck, that’s good. Clogged? That’s an EPA violation the city committed. If it’s a poor neighborhood, I have another federal recourse. Go on …”

  “Well, I found some bones and extracted some DNA to do my own analysis.”

  “I love this!” she says as we speed down the HOV lane. “So it didn’t come from their crime scene?”

  “No. They didn’t even know it was there.”

  “Do they know where it came from?”

  “No. I kept my mouth shut. Detective Chen is under the impression I took it from the Wimbledon house either before or after I called the police.”

  “Did she ask you before if you had any other evidence?”

  Chen asked me that several times, worried that I’d collected samples like I did in Montana. “Yes. Repeatedly. I told her no. That’s the truth.”

  “I’m going to request the video of your questioning. She’ll hate that. But the fact that you didn’t even take anything from the scene of the crime—even before it was a crime scene—makes it a no-brainer. She’d never be able to hold you on that.”

  “Should I have told her? Maybe I could have saved us all some trouble.”

  “Fuck no! You never, ever know what they’re going to try. You were a good boy in keeping your mouth shut. So these samples, what are they?”

  “Bones.”

  “Gross. And they seized them from your hotel room?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did she say where they were being impounded?”

  “Actually, I think they sent them to the lab handling the Wimbledon case.”

  “Ooh! They fucked up,” Mary says excitedly. She punches a button on her car’s screen.

  “What’s up?” asks a young woman.

  “Get me Davenport,” she says.

  “One second.”

  Mary turns to me before deciding to focus on driving, “That’s your property. They can’t enter it into evidence or even look at it in context with the Wimbledon case under the warrant they served you with.”

  “I want them to have it.”

  “So do I, but not if it means using it as a threat against you.”

  “Now what, Karlin?” says a gruff older man’s voice.

  “It seems your LAPD detectives seized some property with a sham warrant and have already sent it over to the Wimbledon lab.”

  “So?”

  “So? Well … if you don’t want anything that could be of value thrown out, I suggest you call Judge Lau and tell him he needs to have his detectives unfuck this, ASAP. They’ve already threatened to throw the book at my client—who, by the way, found his DNA thingies in a drain on public property nowhere near the house. I’m already talking to Kleiner about a wrongful-arrest lawsuit.”

  “No, you’re not. He’s sitting here with me.”

  “Well, I have him on speed dial. Same thing.” She asks me, “Did they take anything else?”

  “My computer and my gun.”

  “Clown show. Hear that? If Lau is there, I suggest you advise him on how to fix this.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Karlin.”

  “I have to. There’s no one man enough in this town to do it right.” She presses the “End Call” button.

  I just stare at her, confused. I have no idea what just transpired.

  She sees my expression. “You know the expression ‘if you pull a gun, you better be prepared to use it’?”

  “Yes …”

  “They bluffed big-time. Chen and whoever decided to intimidate you. If I had to bet, it was actually Grassley, the prosecutor who’s lining up for this, that told them to get you in line. The problem is, they treated you like a perp, not a concerned citizen. Which was not only disrespectful, it backfired.”

  “But is this going to affect the case?”

  “There’s no effect. You’ll probably have your stuff delivered tonight by LAPD.”

  “I meant the Wimbledon case. Is it going to affect that? Because that’s what matters.”

  “Oh, that. Right. I forgot you’re an honest-to-goodness do-gooder. No. They were up in your business because they think they have somebody and wanted to shut you up.”

  “Wait? They have somebody?”

  “You didn’t hear it from me, but they’ve filed for extradition orders from Brazil. I think they found a fingerprint and a blood match with someone already in jail down there.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “They got lucky. Some contract killer the gangs used. He got caught by the Brazilians a few months back.”

  “Wait, a few months? That doesn’t make sense. The last victim we know about went missing only a month ago.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know about any of that. But they think they have the guy.”

  “I think they’re wrong.”

  Mary pulls in to the driveway of my hotel and puts the car in park. “I’m not sure what to tell you, other than they aren’t going to want to listen to you. Let them bring this guy in. If not all the evidence fits, hopefully it’ll shake out.”

  “But that could be months …”

  “Easily. You’ve done what you can.”

  “I don’t know about that. The real guy’s still out there.”

  “Maybe. But what I do know is that the next time Chen knocks on your door, she’s going to be very, very thorough—possibly going as far as entrapping you. My professional advice is to stay clear. I can only pull my magic tricks so many times.”

  I open my door. “Thank you. Um … how does billing work?”

  “This one is on me because you’re fighting the good fight. Next time I send Julian a fat invoice. Have a good night. And if they don’t bring your computer by breakfast, call me. Oh, and I’ll figure out a way to tell them to keep the DNA-thingie stuff.”

  As she drives off, I try to figure out how I need to proceed. This Brazilian connection may or may not change things, but I can’t wait to find out.

  Before the knock on my door, Predox was flagging something, a potential pattern I hadn’t been aware of before, which could make matters even more urgent than they already are.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  NEW REALITY

  As I sit in front of my rapidly returned laptop, looking at the whirling bands of colors and trying to decide what questions to ask Predox, I’m reminded of one of the gifts of science: when you discover a new truth, you also gain a new way of looking at things that can change your per
spective.

  Newton’s new math made it possible to discover the orbital cycles of heretofore unknown worlds. Einstein’s more refined science of relativity, which took into account how space could be warped, allowed us to understand why Newtonian mathematics couldn’t accurately predict the orbit of Mercury so close to the sun.

  More recently, when astronomers looked at a three-dimensional map of the icy bodies that make up the distant Oort Cloud of the outer solar system, they noticed a peculiar pattern: objects appeared to be clustering toward one side, like water in a tilting bowl, acting as if something were pulling them.

  This lead to the theorization of a previously undiscovered planet in our solar system—which would have been called Planet X had astronomers not decided that Pluto, the original planet nine, didn’t quite qualify as a planet.

  This new Planet Nine, while still hypothetical, has a growing amount of data supporting its existence. The astronomers who made this observation and fully accepted its reality made yet another discovery: for years, scientists had observed that the sun had a particular tilt of almost three degrees compared to the plane of the solar system.

  There was no accepted explanation, other than maybe that’s just the way the solar system settled—like a house on a slight incline. However, the Planet Nine astronomers realized that, if there were a massive object in the far reaches of the solar system, its effect on the inner system wouldn’t be negligible. Like an immensely long lever, it would create a slight tilt on the inner planets, making it look like the sun was tilted, when it was actually us … At least that’s what the scientists theorized.

  When I accepted the reality that the Toy Man was choosing his victims primarily because they had unusual features—and not solely because of their availability—this gave me a new lens to look at the overall question. If this is true, what else is true?

  If the Toy Man selected his victims because of peculiar aesthetics, what other factors affected his choices?

  Every murder has at least five important factors: a victim, a means of death, a location, a time, and a murderer. Solving for one or more of them can lead you to a solution, much like an equation, assuming they’re not all random.

  The Toy Man’s victim selection is even far less random than I first realized. His means—murder by knife—might tell me something if I had more forensic data, but I don’t. The location, at least for the bodies at the Wimbledon address, appears to be one and the same, but I don’t want to say that’s an absolute certainty. Latroy was almost surely killed somewhere else, years after the Toy Man left the Wimbledon residence. And while the murderer’s identity is an unknown, we have approximate times for three victims: Artice and his near-death experience, as well as when Christopher and Latroy vanished.

  One question to ask is whether the dates of their deaths were a matter of convenience or had some intentionality to them. Convenience would be if the Toy Man had a work or travel schedule and he happened upon the victims on that day. Intention would imply he killed them on that day for a reason.

  Christopher’s abduction took place on March 22, 2009. Latroy vanished sometime around February 15 of this year. According to police reports, Artice’s encounter took place on June 19 of the same year that Christopher disappeared.

  None of those dates has any religious significance at first glance. If they have a personal significance, it will be nearly impossible to discover without talking to the Toy Man.

  I ask Predox if those dates fall on a full moon and the answer is negative, ruling out that the Toy Man is a werewolf.

  I ask if there’s any number correlation based upon the time between the murders, and Predox spits back out 354 hours.

  Three hundred and fifty-four hours is not a strong signal to me on first glance, but then I remember that Predox is giving me the most accurate result, not the one that has the most context.

  Three hundred and fifty-four divided by twenty-four equals 29.5 days: the same length of the lunar cycle.

  Okay, so my first instinct about a full moon was in the right direction, but I was asking about the wrong phase.

  I look up their dates again and feel that little jolt when my brain is rewarded for doing something right.

  They weren’t murdered during the full moon: they were killed (or nearly killed, in the case of Artice) on moonless nights.

  While I can’t immediately imagine what the significance of this would be, other than allowing the Toy Man to wander around his backyard in the nude and bury the bodies without worrying about a neighbor seeing something, it does help me in one other major way …

  Statistically speaking, of the approximately one thousand children currently missing in California, thirty-five of them—on average—should have gone missing on a new moon.

  This allows me to narrow down my search to children with green eyes or some other feature similar to the DNA findings I’ve made so far who were abducted around those dates.

  Unfortunately, Toy Man has a habit of choosing children who don’t always make it onto the missing-persons lists, so my data may be limited.

  I ask Predox for any disappearances that match this, and the answer chills me.

  Eighteen days ago. One lunar cycle after Latroy went missing. Just ten days before I picked up this hunt.

  Vincent Lamont, age thirteen, was reported missing in Snellville, Georgia, fifteen miles outside Atlanta.

  He was an albino.

  I perform a search for the past decade in California, using the new-moon timing and the Toy Man’s preferred physical characteristics, and find that there are at least twelve more children who fit these criteria that are still not accounted for.

  The Toy Man must have one or more kill sites in Los Angeles.

  The question is do I try to find them and whatever clues may be there? Or do I go to Georgia and try to see if I can’t find him there …

  One is safer and could lead to more forensic data.

  The other may put me on a path I’ve already gone down and that nearly killed me.

  My fingers are already booking the ticket before my brain catches up.

  While Detective Chen pursues her tenuous connection, I’ll be following my own lead. I don’t really care who’s right, as long as we catch him before he kills again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  STAKEOUT

  I’ve built myself my own operations center in my hotel room at the Atlanta Sheraton just north of Georgia State University. I’ve got printouts of all the known victims. Maps of where he struck in South Central and color-coded note cards with possible facts and assumptions stuck to the wall.

  I also have a large wall calendar marking off the days until the new moon: less than two weeks.

  I have no direct reason to believe that the Toy Man will strike again on the next moon, but if there’s some kind of ritual importance to the killing, it might be highly likely.

  He’s seen the news. He knows police are crawling all over his old house and are trying to find him. If he’s the superstitious kind, he might decide he needs to keep killing to protect himself.

  Or not. I have no idea how his mind works.

  There’s also the chance that at any moment Chen and company are going to announce their Brazilian break in the case. If that happens, Toy Man—assuming the Brazilian suspect is not the break they think they have—will believe that he’s once again slipped away and is free to continue killing.

  I can’t let that happen.

  It’s interesting that I’ve found myself in Atlanta, in the area where serial-killer profiling got its first, major real-world test.

  Between 1979 and 1981, the murders of twenty-eight children and adults were linked together in what were called the Atlanta Child Murders because most of the victims were under eighteen.

  It took half a dozen bodies before the authorities realized there was a serial killer on the loose. Because they were so-called black crimes, police were hesitant to draw the same conclusions as they would had the victims been
white—for a variety of reasons, most racial and not racist, but with the same unfortunate consequences.

  Once the community was aware there was a predator on the loose, playgrounds emptied, people were on the watch, and rumors began to spread.

  This was an area where, a generation before, the KKK had operated openly and was responsible for dozens of murders. Some KKK members still worked in law enforcement and held public office.

  While some insisted they were a vestige of the past, it was hard to fully accept that notion at a time when a former West Virginia KKK recruiter, Robert Byrd, held office as a Democratic senator in Washington, DC.

  Horrific statements caught on tape by a local Klan leader only exacerbated the issue as he praised the murders and helped fuel conspiracy theories for years to come.

  However, when FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood took a tour through black neighborhoods in a police car driven by black police officers, he noticed that the sight of his white face made people retreat into their homes and off the streets.

  This was a major break in creating a profile of the killer. Profilers surmised that a white man going into these communities would have attracted a considerable amount of attention—especially after the murders became well publicized.

  Flying in the face of community beliefs and media speculation, Hazelwood and his FBI team suggested that a black man was responsible. Based upon prior experiences with serial killers, they made a number of assumptions: the killer was young. He was a police buff. He probably lived alone or with his parents.

  Unfortunately, while that profile narrowed potential suspects down by some degree, it still described hundreds of thousands of young men.

  What investigators needed was a pattern in his killings. While his victims were poor and thus likely to go off with a stranger for a few bucks or a convincing story, the suspect’s means of disposing of their bodies changed once the press started covering the case.

  He stopped putting bodies in out-of-the-way places and began to leave them where they could be more easily found—that was, until a forensic specialist casually mentioned to the press the killer might change up his method by dropping bodies in the water to erase any evidence.