“I wish you would stay. I mean I'm flattered but I know how much you love this mag.” Erin said, oscillating bizarrely between pity and excitement.
“Loved, Erin. I want to do other things with my life.” Before Mister kills me.
“What about money? How will you get paid?”
“We will settle on a price. Something you will find fair. I can take a percentage of profits until it's paid off. And I've been careful with my money. I will be fine.”
“wow this is... kind of scary.”
Mary guffawed and kicked off her shoes. Right, scary.
“Can you please call Warren and have him set up a time for us to meet with him so he can get started drawing up the paper
work?”
CHAPTER 21
Recess was a war zone. Children running and screaming, jumping and twisting, little tribes of four and five, hands sticky from snacks of fruit and candy, mingling and mixing, running and skipping.
Sugar and a briefness of freedom fuelling a wild frenzy to absorb as much worth from their all too short break from the mundane environment of books and rules and manners.
Sitting with his back against the large weeping willow at the far end of the schoolyard, Simon watched it all peripherally, listening to the din of gleeful madness and hoping that if he didn't observe it too intently they in turn wouldn't notice him. Though that never lasted.
“What are you writing?” A boy asked from somewhere behind him. Simon turned to find a small group of red faced boys, sweaty and humming with that crazed kind of energy boys get when they horseplay. There were four of them and Simon expected the recess to take a sudden turn for the worse but he couldn't find any meanness in their faces so he cleared his throat and said:
“Uh- just – some stories.”
“Stories? What kind of stories?”
And then a lump grew in his throat and Simon felt very embarrassed.
“No, nothing... It's nothing.” he forced out.
“Nothing? You said stories... Can I read it?” The boy asked and Simon could see the bully-glimmer in his eyes now. He was suddenly aware of how big the boy was. Maybe not that tall but kind of beefy, his wrists were thick, his body square and heavy.
“No, it's just... no... Sorry I got to go.” Simon said, and calmly got up trying his best not to shake. He wanted to run but he knew they would catch him. If he just excused himself politely then maybe he could kind of trick them into not getting excited.
And then one of the boys was ripping the notebook from his hands.
“Give it!” Simon yelled.
One of the boys tripped him and he landed on the grass so hard that it knocked the wind right out of him. He sucked at the air uselessly, two then three times before he could finally fill his lungs again, and by then one of the boys was on top of him.
“Maybe you're writing love poems,” He said, sitting on his chest and tearing the pages out of the book one by one.
“Feed it to the worm.” One of the boys said, and then someone else joined in.
“Feed it to the worm!”
And then they were all chanting, like they were repeating a spell which would possess the bully to make him do their bidding.
“Feed it to the worm! Feed it to the worm! Feed it to the worm!”
And then one of the pages was in his mouth and Simon couldn't do anything about it. And when another pages was stuffed in he started to worry if he would choke to death.
“Get off him!” Someone yelled. The bully on his chest was thrown off and Simon rolled onto his tummy where he spat out the paper.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” The bully yelled.
A very strong looking boy with blond hair and at least a half a foot taller than the other boys helped Simon to his feet.
“Get out of here. Leave him alone.” He said to the group of bullies.
“What are you? His hero?”
And then he said the coolest thing Simon ever heard in his life.
“Yeah, I am a hero. And unless you want to get punched in the face you should do what I say!”
The bully then looked back at his friends for help but by this point they looked just as scared as he did. The strong boy stood his ground and waited for the bully to make his move but he never did.
“You're lucky worm,” the bully finally said and led the bully bunch away to find a new target.
“Are you okay?” The blond haired boy asked once the other kids were out of earshot.
“Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks.” Simon said and then tried to scurry away because he was so embarrassed that he had to be saved like a little girl.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“Uh, recess is almost over.”
“Well it's not over yet. What's your name?”
“Simon.”
“I'm Johnny,” He said and reached out to shake his hand. Simon shook his hand which felt strong and sure. He wanted to ask him why he was being so nice to him but that was a stupid question. That's how people were supposed to be. But still, he wondered.
“You shouldn't let those kids pick on you,” Johnny said.
“I didn't really have a choice,”
“Sure you did. You could have hit him or something.”
“They were too big. It was just me against them.”
“Well it's not like hitting back was going to make it any worst. They were already being mean to you.”
And that made a lot of sense to Simon. This boy seemed smart. He must have been a couple of grades ahead of Simon. That would explain why he was so tall and strong.
“Yeah, you're right,” Simon finally said because he couldn't think of anything else to say.
“Don't worry,” Johnny said slapping Simon playfully on the back, “I won't let them pick on you. They're not that tough. They just want you to think they are.”
“I know,” Simon said and he really did but he wasn't brave like him. Though it must be easy to be brave when you're so big.
The bell rang and they both walked back to the school together. After that they would meet at the weeping willow at the far end of the field every recess. Simon would tell him about his stories or about his favourite cartoons and how one day he wanted to make his own cartoons and Johnny would teach him how to swing on the vines of the willow or the proper way to throw a football with your fingers in between the little laces so it would spiral in the air. Nobody would ever pick on him when Johnny was around but he knew they were still there, watching and waiting. But he didn't care anymore if they liked him or not, because he could finally say he had a real friend and that’s all he ever wanted.
CHAPTER 22
Government buildings all have a distinct smell, Jeremy pondered, stepping off the elevator on to the fifth floor of the Los Angeles FBI head quarters. New carpet and... was it hand sanitizer?
He still didn't quite know how he felt about all this. It seemed only a few days ago- it was only a few days ago, he was resigned to never deal with this kind of work again. And now here he was, back in the government’s cold bureaucratic embrace. And while of course the circumstances were extreme, the ease in which he found himself back into the fold made him believe that perhaps he had been fooling himself all along. That perhaps it's true that just because we are done with the past, it doesn't mean the past is done with us.
En route to meet Costa he discovered a small staff kitchen and poured himself a coffee. A quick survey of the counter top and fridge failed to turn up any cream, only powdered milk. The U.S. defence budget was only seven hundred billion a year after all.
Costa and his team were already waiting when he reached the debrief room assigned to the Mister task force.
“Come on in,” Costa said to Jeremy when he entered the room. “Gentlemen, this is Dr. Jeremy Foster. He's coming on board as a special adviser. He's an ex company man, who doesn't know he's still a company man.” Costa joked but nobody laughed.
“Hey,” Jeremy said and smiled to the three men sitting across
from him and who comprised the core of the task force.
“Dr. Foster” Costa continued, “worked a couple years in the BSU and VICAP. Mathews here is with VICAP but I believe you were there before his time Foster.”
Mathews was a tall lean man in his mid to late thirties. His brown hair buzzed down military style. His eyes were sharp and his smile, Jeremy instinctively felt, disingenuous. Jeremy knew from the contacts he still held in the clandestine services that the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program had recently begun to churn out a stable of elite agents. Not that they were exactly the farm team during his tenure. But whereas his generation had been recruited or accepted based on a specialized expertise, Psychology, forensic science, what have you, they had begun to take a more obtuse strategy with their agents. This new breed by mandatory scored in the upper percentiles of all aspect of criminal investigation. Intelligence, criminology, analysis, forensic psychology and field work.
“Pleased to meet you Agent Mathews,” Jeremy said, shaking his hand and taking a seat at one of the small tables.
“With us today, is also Agent Green,” Costa said motioning to a large man who had the look more of a SWAT captain than an investigator. “Green is a former LAPD homicide detective, now also with the ViCAP And you already know Agent Moramarco.”
Moramarco was Jeremy's primary contact on the Matherport case. He was a capable man. A thinker not a talker. Still waters and all that.
“As you all know, Dr. Foster was instrumental in getting Matherport to divulge the location of several of his victims graves, post incarceration. You might even be aware he wrote a book about it. Un-dramatically entitled, Making Friends With the Devil. Makes for a great stocking stuffer.”
Funny joke Jeremy thought, but again nobody laughed.
“I'll keep it brief. These agents are the point men on the team. As you know, we are throwing a lot of resources at this thing. We have over a hundred and fifty agents working on this case in one form or another. Not to mention support and investigation efforts from state. We are pulling every violent offender who even closely resembles the profile and is currently not incarcerated. It's one of the largest investigatory undertakings in the history of the U.S government. The proper channels and liaisons from other agencies can all be explained to you by myself or these men, who, in all probability you will get to know very well unless of course, we catch this guy sooner than later at which point we can all go on vacation or have lobotomies or drink ourselves into forgetfulness.”
“Jeremy was contacted last week by a relative of an abductee previously unknown to us. He can explain the situation better then I can.”
“Yes,” Jeremy said, straightening out his tie, turning to the team. “I was contacted by a Mary Stien through my private practice. She had become aware of my involvement with the Matherport case.”
“How?” Mathews interrupted.
“She had read an article I wrote for Rolling Stone magazine regarded the case.” Jeremy explained, feeling a little embarrassed for reasons he didn't have the time to pinpoint.
Costa reached into his laptop bag, and pulled out a copy of the issue and flopped it down on the table.
“Has anyone not read it?” Costa asked.
Jeremy could tell from their faces that they all had. These boys were thorough. That was good.
“She posed as a potential client,” Jeremy continued. “Only after feeling she could trust me, or maybe realizing she had no choice, she told me about her niece, Cindy.”
“Same last name?” Moramarco asked.
“No, Stein, is a stage name. She's an actor.”
“Never heard of her,” Moramarco shot back.
“Yeah, she's a actress in horror movies. Slashers. Stuff like that,” Green piped in from under his classic cop moustache. “She does low budget B movies mostly. Attack of the Killer tomatoes type of stuff. She's kind of a big deal in that industry. But I think it's a big fish in a small pond kind of thing.” Green must have been able to read the subtle surprise on the other men's faces because he added, “my kid took special effects in school. He's obsessed with that kind of shit. He had a Mary Stien Calendar in his room for years.”
“Do we have the niece's last name?” Maramarco still wanted to know.
Costa leafed through some papers and said, “yeah. Summers.”
Everyone jotted down the name.
“Mrs. Stien was contacted by Mister on August fifth with a video of her niece, bound and gagged, being tortured. Has everyone seen the video?” Costa asked and grimaces all around indicated, yes.
“Do we know when and where she was taken?” Green asked.
“The family filled out a missing persons report August second. She had gone to work that day, a clothing store in Fairfield mall. Never came home.” Costa said.
“I take it Miss. Stien is a looker?” Mathews asked turning to Jeremy.
“She's an attractive woman, yes.”
“So maybe our guy has got himself a crush. This could be the big break. We sit on the woman, wait and see if he comes around.”
“Well we are definitely going to do that,” Costa agreed. “We have already arranged for an agent to be put in undercover at the concierge desk of her condo.”
“It certainly seems that he does feel some sort of obligation or concern for Miss. Stien,” Jeremy said. “Promising to enlighten her or set her free.”
“Maybe this is part of his M.O.” Green said. “In the video he warned her not to go to the police or he was going to hurt her niece. Maybe he sends videos like this to all the relatives of the ones he abducts. Maybe, they had all been too scared to come forward with it till now.”
“Okay, Green and Mathews, coordinate a team to interview all the victims’ relatives again, starting with the ones who had been abducted.”
“Foster what do you make of the profile of the victims?”
“Well, that's the baffling part. Most serial killers’ victims have something in common. Race, hair colour, sex, age. There are no patterns I can see in this case. I will say though, that nobody kills arbitrarily. Not even psychopaths. The way he dresses up, the Mister persona. It's all, highly, highly ritualized. The costume says to me that he sees himself in some sort of mythological way. As cosmically important. The murders are tied to that delusion somehow and as such, it is very unlikely he just chooses his marks at random. There is a connection here. We just don't see it yet.”
“Maybe he sees himself as death personified,” Mathews said. “Death is a faceless monster, who takes who he will when he will. It would be hard to be more important or mythological than being the very personification of death itself.”
Jeremy began to play with is bottom lip as he does when in deep thought.
“Yeah, could be,” he agreed. “But keeping with that metaphor, a faceless death wouldn't then send video's to the police and victims relatives. Death doesn't seek recognition, or have opinions, or complex belief systems, like Mister has demonstrated, it just is.”
“In any event,” Costa said, “A random faceless death profile, isn't going to lead us to diddly shit. He's not faceless, he's a man. He has a favourite food, a favourite song. He has relatives and a personality.”
“Wait. What about the girl’s parents? Are they aware of where she is?”
Costa and Jeremy exchanged a sullen look.
“Not yet,” Costa said. “We are meeting with the Summers tonight to inform them. Green and Mathews, get on those interviews. Agent Moramarco, I want you to have all the Fairfield mall security footage from August second, reviewed duplicated for our archives. Also find out what her exact path to and from work is, and find any traffic camera footage you can for it. I want to know the exact time she was unaccounted for. Foster, I will have all the relevant case materials boxed for you so you can get up to speed. Any questions? No. Okay, let's get to it then.”
CHAPTER 23
Simon kicked a tiny rock down the sidewalk, stopping to retrieve it off someone’s lawn or the street i
f it went off course. The game was to kick it as many sidewalk squares as he could before it veered off. The record so far was four. Unfortunately Johnny took the bus home and so he had to play by himself, but hopefully he would be allowed to walk home next year and he would have someone to share his little game with. But when he thought about it, he probably couldn't even compete with Johnny anyways because he was so good at sports and games. Way better than him. Still, maybe if he had someone to walk with after school it would take his mind off what the the real reason was for playing the rock game on the way home: To make the walk longer. He always took the long way, up and around Chester Street and even though he always dragged his feet the walk could never be long enough because at the end of it was home... and his father.
Things weren't always like this. There was a time when his father wasn't mean to him...Or at least he thought he could remember a time like that. But Simon understood it must have been his fault somehow. Why else did the kids at school pick on him so much? And now his dad too. He couldn't help it. He said stupid things. So stupid he didn't even know he was being stupid so he just tried to only talk when absolutely necessary. At least when he was writing he could say whatever he wanted without anyone making fun of him or bullying him.
As soon as he got home and took off his shoes and back pack, he could tell something was wrong. His father sat in a chair, staring out the window. He didn't move when Simon came in, he didn't even seem to notice. And even stranger than that, he didn't have a beer in his hand. The house was quiet, much more quiet than it usually was. Usually when he came in his mom had the radio on, or the TV but the house was so silent it made Simon instantly very sad for reasons he didn't understand.
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