“Anger’s got my vote,” Coyote insisted. “Christ, who wouldn’t have been pissed?”
The patient who’d been working in the little garden in the courtyard stood up. Dirt circled the knees of his pants like brown patches, and he made a brief effort to brush himself clean. He looked down at the flowers he’d tended, then stared up at the sky that was fractured by wire mesh.
“Keep in mind that David’s understanding of the world came largely from what he experienced in that dreadful house,” she said. “His knowledge of what was beyond his basement he’d acquired largely from his reading and the radio. It would be as if you or I were trying to understand the cannibals of Borneo simply from reading textbooks. I think he was more outraged by his mother’s suffering than by the incest. The killing ended her pain and his grandfather’s tyranny. In his mind, the act was reasonable and justified.”
“How did he kill them?” Bo asked.
“He blew up the house.” Her brown eyes strolled between Bo and Coyote. “Swift and terrible.”
Bo shook his head. “This all seems predicated on believing what he’s told you. Do you have any facts that support his story?”
“Facts?” She smiled patiently. “He was placed in St. Jerome’s Home for Children after he was discovered outside the burning remains of an isolated farmhouse in Isanti County. Investigators found explosives and other related materials in the barn. They determined David’s grandfather was a man they’d been attempting to trace for some time, a man who called himself Short Fuse. In letters to the media, he’d taken responsibility for nearly a dozen bombings over a three-year period. All this was almost a quarter of a century ago, but I’ve checked the newspaper accounts. As far as I can tell, no suspicion ever fell on David. He was quite clever, even then.”
“Is he criminally insane?” Bo asked.
“I would have expected his childhood experiences—neglect, abuse, exposure to incest—to contribute to psychosis. However, in David’s case, I believe what resulted would better be characterized as an alternative reality. He is, in many ways, predictable because he lives according to an ethos. Not one many people would necessarily condone, but certainly understandable.”
“Help us understand,” Bo said.
“All right. You or I might consider killing someone in a fit of anger. We don’t because we’re conditioned to believe it’s wrong to kill. In war, however, to kill becomes the moral imperative. For God, for country, for our comrades. And we hold in high esteem those who kill best. Think of David Moses as existing internally in a state of perpetual warfare. He kills not out of cruelty, but because it is in complete accord with the world as he understands it.”
“If that’s true, why hasn’t he killed more?”
“He intimated that he has. Many times.”
“A serial killer?” Stuart Coyote asked.
“Not if I’ve interpreted correctly what I’ve pieced together. A hired killer, Mr. Coyote. An assassin.”
“A hit man?”
“Dr. Hart,” Bo put in, “you said that before the killing in Minneapolis, Moses had no criminal record, is that right?”
“None that we’re aware of.”
“Men who do that kind of work are generally well known to law enforcement.”
She didn’t seem at all inclined to withdraw her conjecture.
“You believe all this?” Coyote asked incredulously. “Don’t you think it’s possible he fooled you? Or maybe that he was so deluded he made it all seem convincing?”
“With a man of David’s intelligence, anything is possible. You indicated you’d seen the scars on his arms.”
Bo nodded. “Self-mutilation?”
She shook her head. “Cicatrization. Ritual scarring. If I’ve put his story together correctly, he carries a scar for each killing. Those of least importance are on his appendages. The greater the import, the nearer he puts them to his heart. Another thing. He’s very sensitive to sunlight. He prefers to wear sunglasses even indoors. He’s been checked. There’s no medical foundation for such a sensitivity. But to David, it’s real.”
“I asked you a question you never answered,” Bo said. “Do you think he’s dangerous?”
“Most patients are dreary repetitions of an unhappy theme. David Moses is different. I looked forward to our sessions. He’s charming when he wants to be. When he deigns to be communicative, a conversation with him can be delightful and challenging.”
“But is he dangerous?” Bo persisted.
“If he’s truly delusional, he’s fully capable of living out his delusion. If he’s not, then he knows well how to kill.” She paused and seemed to consider whether to say the rest of what was on her mind. “David doesn’t belong out there. Out there, he is dangerous. But in here, he’s a rare creature, and I would hate to see him destroyed.”
They leaned against their cars in the visitor lot of the Security Hospital. It was late morning, already hot. They’d given the program director all the information they had on the man who was probably David Moses. Helen Wardell had called the Nicollet County sheriff’s office, and two detectives were on their way to the Security Hospital.
Coyote said, “I was inclined to laugh when Dr. Hart said Moses might be a hired killer. But I’ve been thinking. A decade-long blank in his history, that’s pretty suspicious.”
“With this guy, I’m beginning to think anything is possible,” Bo answered.
“Could someone have actually hired David Moses to kill Jorgenson?”
“I think it’s more likely that he has his own agenda.”
“He’s driving Luther Gallagher’s truck. We should take a look inside Gallagher’s house.”
“You mind handling that, Stu?”
“Fine by me. When the sheriff’s men get here, I’ll see if we can’t get a warrant. While I’m at it, I’ll check out activity on any credit cards Gallagher has. Might tell us where he, or Moses, have been lately and what they’ve been up to.”
“My own instincts are telling me that Gallagher’s dead. And if David Moses is as clever as Dr. Hart believes, we’re not going to find the body easily.”
“Let’s see where we stand after I’ve had a look at his place. What about you, Bo?”
“I’m going back to the office, see how quickly we can get hold of Moses’s military service record. It might help in uncovering some of that missing history. I’d also like to find out about the fixation on Tom Jorgenson. What’s the connection between Moses and him?”
“If he’s whacked out, he could have seen Jorgenson on television and just fixated.”
“You know where St. Jerome’s Home for Children is, Stu? Less than ten miles from Wildwood. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Dr. Hart said David Moses never completed high school. He dropped out and joined the service. I’m going to look into his time at St. Jerome’s. I’d like to know who signed his enlistment papers and why.”
chapter
twenty
It took Bo an hour and a half to get to Minneapolis. He made one stop on the way at a market outside Shakopee to pick up an apple and some cheese for lunch, but he still felt hungry when he walked into the field office. The place seemed empty, as it usually did when someone important enough to warrant protection visited the Twin Cities.
He spoke with Rafael Ramos, the criminal research specialist for the field office, and gave him what information he had on David Moses. He asked Ramos to get a copy of the man’s military record ASAP.
Diana Ishimaru was on her phone. She waved Bo in and pointed to a chair.
The office of the special agent-in-charge was a large and orderly room painted in light blue. On the wall behind her desk hung a photograph of a younger Agent Ishimaru shaking hands with President George Bush, the elder. She was an attractive woman, Bo’s boss. Forty-seven years old, straight black hair that swept her shoulders, a well-maintained figure, dark Asian eyes. Like a lot of agents, she had a divorce somewhere in her past. Never remarried. Driven in a profession dominated by m
en, she’d advanced to her position through hard work, an astute understanding of the politics of the Secret Service, and an ability to engender fierce loyalty in those who worked with her.
Ishimaru hung up. “What do you have?”
“Care to step into the Twilight Zone with me?” He related what he and Coyote had discovered in St. Peter. She made notes as he talked. He finished with “I called the Washington County sheriff and let him know what we’d found out. He’s putting additional security on Tom Jorgenson.”
“How about Wildwood?”
“I talked with Jake Russell. He’s going to relay the information to Manning. I figure it’s Manning’s decision whether to inform the First Lady and Annie.”
“What are you going to do now?” she asked.
“Try to find answers to three questions. What’s the connection, if any, between Tom Jorgenson and David Moses? Why would such a towering intellect choose to join the military at seventeen? And, because he was underage, who signed as his guardian on the enlistment papers?”
“Let me guess,” she said, glancing at her notes. “You’re going to St. Jerome’s Home for Children, where you’re hoping to find the answers to all three questions.”
“You’re scary,” he said.
“Just good at this job. As you are. Well done, Bo.”
He was heading for the elevator when Diana Ishimaru stepped quickly out the door of the field office and called to him. “Bo. I just got a phone call from the Washington County sheriff. Tom Jorgenson’s regained consciousness.”
Where I-94 snaked through downtown St. Paul, there was a rollover with injuries. Bo got caught in the snarl of traffic. He was delayed nearly an hour getting to the St. Croix Regional Medical Center. He observed immediately the intensified security. Additional hospital guards and sheriff’s deputies made access to the fourth floor impossible for all but authorized visitors and staff. Consequently, the newspeople had set up camp in the main lobby. Media vans and cars that had been parked along the highway fronting Wildwood now sat in the hospital lot. Bo parked in a tow zone near the Emergency Room entrance and went in that way. He found the security desk manned by C. J. Burke, the guard who’d been on duty the night O’Meara died. Burke had the current issue of Gamer’s Magazine open on the desk in front of him. He looked at Bo through eyes heavy with boredom.
“Sorry about your partner,” Bo said.
“Partner?”
“O’Meara.”
“He wasn’t my partner. We just worked the same shift.”
The guard wrote Bo’s name in the log and went back to looking at his magazine.
Bo was angry that Burke didn’t seem to give a shit about his fallen colleague, but he let it go. What good would it do to lash out? You cared or you didn’t, it was that simple. He took the elevator to the fourth floor, where Tom Jorgenson now lay conscious. A sheriff’s deputy stopped Bo the moment he stepped out, then allowed him to pass when he saw the Secret Service ID. Another deputy had been posted at the door to Jorgenson’s room. Sheriff Doug Quinn-Gruber was using the phone at the nurses’ station.
When the phone call ended, Bo approached. “Doug, have you had a chance to talk to Tom Jorgenson?”
Quinn-Gruber sipped vending machine coffee from a disposable cup. “He’s pretty weak. The doctor’s allowed only family in so far. The First Lady was here with Annie. They headed back to Wildwood just a few minutes ago. Ruth stayed. She’s here somewhere.” He glanced around. “Must’ve gone to the ladies’ room.”
“Any of the family know about Moses?”
The sheriff shook his head. “Manning didn’t want to say anything until he knew more. We got a photo of David Moses over the wire from Minneapolis P.D. Everybody working security has a copy of it. Detective Timmons is at Hennepin County Courthouse checking the file they’ve got on Moses.”
Bo glanced toward Jorgenson’s room. “How’s he doing?”
“Seems okay now. They had a scare when he first came to. He went ballistic. Disoriented, I guess. The nurses had to restrain him. The doctor asks him if he knows where he is. Jorgenson looks at him like the doc’s the devil himself and says, ‘Are you no man?’ Doc tells him he’s a physician and that this is a hospital. That settled him right down. He’s been fine since.” The sheriff shook his head. “‘Are you no man?’ What kind of question is that?”
Bo went to the physician who was deeply engrossed in reading Jorgenson’s chart, and he interrupted gently, “I’m Special Agent Bo Thorsen, Secret Service.” The two men shook hands. “I know Tom Jorgenson’s condition isn’t good, but I’d like to talk with him.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“It’s important or I wouldn’t ask.”
The doctor considered, then said, “All right. But keep it short.”
Tom Jorgenson’s eyes were closed. His face was sallow, his cheeks and sharp jaw grizzled with white stubble. A tube was attached to one arm, and another came out a nostril. He was hooked to electrodes connected to an EKG monitor. He reminded Bo of a puppet abandoned by whoever it was that usually pulled the strings. The shades over the windows were open to let in sunlight, but the glass was tinted, and what came through was subdued. The tint turned the blue of the river and the sky to deep gray. Bo drew up a chair next to the bed. Tom Jorgenson still wore a turban of gauze, and his eyes still looked as if he’d been pummeled in a prize-fight.
“Bo?” he whispered.
“Hello, Tom.”
He spoke slowly. “What are you doing here?” He thought a moment, then answered his own question. “Oh, Kate.”
“I’m only going to stay a moment, Tom. I need to ask you a couple of questions, okay?”
Jorgenson gave a faint nod.
“Does the name David Moses mean anything to you?”
Tom Jorgenson closed his eyes. Bo thought he might be drifting off, then his eyes opened again. “No,” he replied.
“It might have been a long time ago.”
“Sorry, Bo. Not so easy to think.”
“That’s okay. Tom, do you remember anything about your accident?”
“Getting on the tractor. Nothing else. Tree limb hit me, they say.” A weak smile touched Tom Jorgenson’s lips. “How’s that for clumsy?”
Bo told him to rest, then he left the room. Outside Quinn-Gruber was waiting.
“You ask him about Moses?”
Bo nodded. “Nothing. But he’s tired. I didn’t want to push it.”
He left the medical center and walked outside into the late afternoon sun. He stood beside his Contour and used his cell phone to contact Agent Russell in the Op Center at Wildwood.
“How are things there, Jake?”
“Quiet.”
“Have you and Manning discussed informing the First Lady about David Moses?”
“We discussed it. He wants to know exactly what you have first.”
“Is he there?”
“He’s out looking at the equipment we’ve got along the bluff. He’s not convinced the perimeter there is secure.”
“Maybe he’s right to be concerned. I’ve been thinking, Jake. If Moses did attack Tom Jorgenson in the orchard, it may indicate a good knowledge of Wildwood. I think we should put additional agents on the perimeter. Maybe call Diana and request—”
“Bo,” Russell cut him off, but didn’t go on. Bo understood the meaning. The security of Wildwood was no longer Bo’s responsibility.
“Sorry, Jake.”
“No problem, Bo. Just keep me informed.”
“You’ve got it. Have Manning call me when he gets back to the Op Center. I’ll fill him in on everything.”
“Ten-four.”
Bo stood blinking in the sun, wishing he could let go of the feeling that responsibility for so much rested on his shoulders. But it was a feeling as old as any for him, and if he lost it, who would he be then?
chapter
twenty-one
St. Jerome’s Home for Children was a vast rectangular structure of red brick set at
the edge of an alfalfa field. When Bo drove up, the playground beside the parking lot was full of laughing children. It was a fine setting, there in the country, but Bo knew firsthand that even in the finest of settings an institution was no substitute for a home and a family.
Sister Mary Jackson ushered him into her office. She wore a brilliant red skirt and matching jacket. Her dark hair was coifed short and stylish. There were lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, smile lines deeply etched. Her eyes were warm brown and welcoming. Her office overlooked the playground, and as they spoke, the sound of children’s voices floated in like music. Bo explained his situation. She turned to her computer terminal and entered the name of David Moses. The program searched for a moment, then reported it found no matches. No problem, she explained. While all recent files were in the system, anything older than fifteen years probably hadn’t been entered yet. She led Bo downstairs into a cool basement room full of green filing cabinets and the musty smell of time. She turned on a dismal light, quickly found the cabinet she wanted, and pulled out a drawer. She began to flip through manila folders brittle with age.
Bo’s cell phone broke the quiet of the basement. “Thorsen, here,” Bo answered.
“This is Manning. You wanted to talk to me.”
“Chris, can I call you back? I’m in the middle of something here.”
“If you think it can wait.”
“Hmmm,” Sister Mary Jackson said.
“It can wait.” Bo flipped the cell phone closed. “What is it?” he asked the nun.
“I can’t find one for David Moses. It would have been approximately twenty years ago?”
“Approximately.”
“And you’re certain he was one of ours?”
“I’d pull up just short of certain.”
“That’s very odd. We should have a file somewhere.” She accompanied Bo back upstairs and discussed the situation with a couple of the office staff. They looked in several places and came up empty-handed. “It’s possible,” she finally conceded apologetically, “that it’s been misplaced. These things happen. If you’d like to talk to someone who may remember the boy, I’d suggest you speak with Father Don Cannon. He was the director here for nearly thirty years. He’s retired now, but he’s a wonderful resource.”
The Devil’s Bed Page 14
