"Words, it seems, are not enough. Man, it appears, needs to see his fellows weep, and bleed, and die. He needs to hear the dark secrets of others, to realize, perhaps, that he is not alone, that others have done terrible things as well. Those I sacrificed were given up to God so that I could make certain, this time, that you would listen and hear and feel this primary truth: be honest with God and achieve eternal salvation; hold back the smallest thing and burn in hellfire forever."
These last words had come out in a rush, a quiet thunder, passionate. This is it, I think. Why he does what he does. Or at least, why he thinks he does what he does.
He's been building a case for truth before God. The deaths were necessary to proving this ideal and were justified by the potential salvation of others who'd watch and learn the lessons he was trying to teach. He didn't have to feel guilty. They'd confessed, right? That meant he was sending them to a better place. Heck, he was doing them a favor.
What a crock of shit. What about Ambrose? How had he justified killing him?
Psychotics, however brilliant, will always have blind spots. Their systems of rationalization, however logical at first glance, can never hide the basic motivation: they enjoy the suffering and death of others. He picks up the rosary again, and begins rubbing the beads.
"I offer myself as a final demonstration of the tenets I espouse. To the members of law enforcement who will watch this: everything you need to know to find me is on these and the other tapes. Everything. But you will have to be clear-minded. You will have to have the ability to see the truth. Practice what I preach and you will find me standing right in front of you. Hold on to your lies, keep the veil over your eyes, and it will take you that much longer. In this case, time is life, Officers and Agents.
"I am not done. I have names on a list, and I have put things into motion to bring them first to me and then to the right hand of God. I will kill again in the next two days, and this time, it will be a child."
"Shit," Alan breathes.
That frozen moment again. The world stops turning, the cicadas return. I have no doubt that he's telling us the truth, even less that he'll keep his promise.
"That's all for now. I realize in this day and age I'll be given a nom de plume of some kind. I don't want someone's clever creation to distract from the purpose of my message. So let's agree to keep it simple: you can call me the Preacher."
Fade to black.
Everyone's quiet.
"The Preacher," Callie finally says, with a little bit of a sneer.
"What an overblown ego."
"Rosemary said she 'only told the people in my . . .' In her what?"
I ask.
"Church?" Alan posits.
I frown. "That wouldn't make much sense. Did you see her face?
Zero recognition. She had no idea who this guy was. It's a small church, with a tight-knit congregation."
"Puts Father Yates in the clear," Alan points out. "But how about a support group?"
"What, like Coke Fiends Anonymous?" Callie asks.
"It'd be a bigger collection of people. Harder to remember a face that way."
"It's a thought," I agree.
"Shitty thought." Alan sighs. "I've had to follow leads into groups like that before. It sucks. They take the 'anonymous' idea pretty seriously."
"Still, let's keep it in mind. What about the rest of the clips?"
"I haven't viewed any past this last one," he says, "but it looks like he's been true to his word. There are another six clips or so on this page, and then . . ." He clicks on a link that says Next Page and a new page loads into the browser, filled with thumbnails of clips. "If you look, you'll see that the information on each clip includes the author. These are all him."
I lean forward and sure enough I see Author: The Preacher below each thumbnail. I examine the thumbnails themselves. They are a mix of images. Some simply have a black screen, others have the now familiar white lettering he uses for his "opening credits." Some show women, young and old. Some look dead, some appear terrified, a few have gags tied around their mouths. There's no recognizable victim type here.
"How many thumbnails to a page?" I ask.
"Ten rows of five," Alan replies.
"How many pages?" I dread the answer.
"Almost three."
"So if each is a separate victim," Callie muses, "then the numbers on the crosses he left in Lisa Reid and Rosemary Sonnenfeld were a body count, after all."
"There's another problem," Alan says. He navigates back to the front page of the religious section of the website. "These make it to the front page based on popularity. In other words, the number of times they're viewed."
"Great," I mutter. "And I'll assume that there's an overall popularity index too, right?"
He nods. "If these are viewed enough, they'll end up not just on page one of the religion category, but page one of the website itself."
"Someone will make the connection with the Reid name soon,"
James observes. "Not to mention his threat to kill a child. This is going to hit the news."
The anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach widens into a chasm.
"This is going to turn into a shit storm," I say. "We need to try and get ahead of it." I begin pacing, talking out loud to organize my thoughts. "The media is going to splash the story and then we're going to start getting calls from all over about the victims. The fact that he's kept himself hidden until now probably means that most of his victims are unsolved disappearances. That's potentially a lot of families that will be clamoring for confirmation."
"Good Lord," Callie says, now really seeing the truth of what I'm saying. "Those poor people will be crawling out of the woodwork."
"Them and the crazies," Alan observes.
High-profile murders, particularly those that garner media attention, call forth the loonies like throwing meat in front of a hungry dog. People line up to confess. The more unusual the crime, the longer the line. I rub my forehead, still pacing.
"We need to get the clips pulled," I say.
"Yes," Callie agrees.
"Wait a moment," James says, and begins typing in website addresses, one after the other, each in a new browser window. He leans back after a moment, shaking his head. "I thought so."
"What?" I ask.
"The key term here is viral, " he replies. "User-tube is the most popular site for the sharing of video clips, but it's far from the only one. I typed in the URLs for ten others. See for yourself."
We all lean forward as he cycles through the various browser windows he's opened. Each one is filled with rows of video-clip thumbnails.
"This is . . . ?" I ask.
He nods. "The Preacher's clips. Re-posted by users to other similar websites around the world." A shrug. "The feeding frenzy starts a lot faster on the Web."
Alan rubs his face with both hands. "Holy fuuuuuuck."
"So what?" I ask. "You're telling me it doesn't matter if we get them pulled from user-tube?"
"No. User-tube is the most popular video-sharing site on the Internet. Getting them pulled will make an immediate difference, but it won't stop them from spreading. It'll only lessen their visibility."
"How's that?" Alan asks.
James shrugs. "The clips are everywhere now, including people's hard drives. They'll be burned onto CDs and DVDs, viewers will e-mail them to each other, share them on forums and newsgroups. There are a ton of video-sharing sites that are run outside the U.S. Most won't listen to a word we say. Even some of the ones run from within the states will resist removing the clips without a court order. Then there's the hierarchy of user-tube itself. All the content is user provided. For every clip we pull, someone else will probably repost it, in the name of free speech or voyeurism. It's the perfect medium for the Preacher, really."
Alan throws up his hands in disgust. "What the fuck should we do, then?"
"Get them pulled. We'll have Computer Crimes liaise with usertube and monitor any attempts by the P
reacher to post future clips. They'll intercept them and let us know. We'll also have Computer Crimes contact the other video-sharing sites that we know will be cooperative. Beyond that . . ." He shakes his head. "The main thing you have to understand and accept is this: the clips are out there. That ship has sailed. Families are going to see them and there's nothing we can do about that."
I stare at him for a moment, blinking. "I have to call the AD," I say.
"We're going to need additional personnel."
James nods. "A task force."
"Yes."
Alan groans. "Great. Bunch of newbies tripping over their own feet and trying to steal my desk."
"We'll use them primarily to field the phones and to help collate information. Following up any leads--and the primary investigation--
remains with us."
"They do the grunt work, we get the glory." Callie nods her approval. "I like it."
"First things first," I tell them. "We need to watch these clips. He told us the names of Dexter and Rosemary. Maybe he followed the same formula throughout. We need to make a list and then start searching the databases for similar crimes nationwide."
"Look for commonalities of location," James provides. "Hopefully he'll give us some clues in that regard that will help us identify the victims and narrow down our geographical target area." He looks at me.
"We're going to end up sending this victim list out to local police municipalities. If we can reduce the radius, it will help."
"Good thinking. Divide up the clips. I'll take the last set and start viewing once I've called AD Jones and Rosario Reid."
Alan grimaces. "Think she knew? About what her son had done to that kid Jacob?"
I feel tired and rumpled and half put together and far, far too electrified at the same time.
"No. Let's get to work."
24
"SWEET JESUS," AD JONES SWEARS AND THEN FALLS SILENT. I wait him out. "This is going to be everywhere," he says.
"Already is, sir."
I had called him on his cell phone. It's always on.
"Do we have any idea at all who the kid he's promised to kill might be?"
"No, sir."
More silence.
"Have you spoken to Rosario?"
"Not yet, sir. I called you first. But I will."
"This is going to be hard on them." He sighs. "I suppose you want a task force?"
"We're going to need the extra manpower, sir. Once this gets out past the Internet, to the mainstream media, the families are going to need a number to call. If we can't prevent the media from doing its thing--and we can't--then we can use it to our benefit."
"Agreed. You'll need someone who's done this kind of thing before, who can hit the ground running."
"Any ideas?"
"There's an agent working in public affairs who's run a phone bank before. Jezebel Smith."
"Jezebel? Really?"
"Yeah, I know. The religious references are running wild on this one. She's been on the job for about eight years and she's a selfstarter. We used her on the '07 terror scare. People were calling in sightings of al Qaeda from a hundred miles around. Total bullshit and a waste of time, but she did a good job of sorting out the wheat from the chaff."
"At least she's not a newbie. I imagine the agents we use to man the phones will be a bunch of greenie-weenies?"
" 'Fraid so. What else do you need?"
"Do you want me to call the Director?"
"Yeah, but I won't make you do it. I'll deal with him and I'll make sure he knows to call me and not you. We'll need his resources to help deal with the media."
"Thanks."
"Better get rolling, Smoky. I'll round up Agent Smith when I get in and send her to see you. Should be within the next hour. Call Rosario Reid."
"Yes, sir."
He hangs up and I take a moment to procrastinate. I don't want to call Rosario, I really don't. I hate having nothing but bad news to give to the survivors.
"Suck it up," I tell myself.
I dial the cell number she'd given me. She picks up after just three rings.
"Smoky?"
"Hi, Rosario."
"It's bad news, isn't it?" No hesitation. This makes it a little easier for me, that she's expecting it. Not a lot easier, but a little.
"Very bad."
Again, no hesitation. Her voice is firm. "Tell me."
So I do. I explain about the Preacher, the video clips, and the pages he'd torn from Lisa's journal. She is silent throughout and after I am done.
"I remember Jacob Littlefield," she says. "A sweet boy. And I remember Mark Phillips too. A little monster who grew into a big one. He was in jail by the time he was twenty. Poor Dexter. My poor, poor son."
Her voice cracks, the first time I've heard it do so. This is how loss hits us sometimes, I know, by making an irrelevance of time. She hadn't lost her composure when her child was murdered, but she loses it now, thinking of her young son and the death of his Saturday mornings.
"Are we any closer to knowing who this monster is?" she asks after a moment.
"Yes, in the broader sense. He's provided us with video recordings of his earlier victims. The more data we have, the greater the odds that we'll catch him."
"Why would he do this? Why would he tell Lisa's secret to the world? Wasn't it enough to murder her?"
She wants to understand, and I try to help her, though I know it won't give her any comfort.
"It's always about power, Rosario. Power over life and death and all the components thereof. I can't give you an exact picture of his motives, not yet, but the short answer is--no, murdering her wasn't enough. He wants to feel in control of everything that was the most personal, the most private, the most guarded. That's sex for him. Great sex."
"And his speech about 'truth' and God?" Her voice quivers with distaste.
"He believes that he believes. I'm sure of that. But he's insane, so he misses the real truth."
"Which is?"
"He tells himself his joy comes from using the deaths to forward a purpose. The real truth, the ugly bottom line, is that the deaths are the only purpose he needs."
She is silent for a moment. "How do you know something like that?"
I consider the question. It's not the first time I've been asked it.
"I guess I let myself feel what they feel."
More silence.
"And what is he feeling right now? This monster that killed my baby?"
"Joy," I reply without hesitation. "Joy at its apex."
When she speaks again, her voice is rough and husky. "I want him to feel agony, Smoky, not joy."
"I know. All I can do is catch him."
"Don't worry about me or how this getting out will affect my family. It will be difficult, but we'll deal with it. Concentrate on finding this . . . thing. Please."
"I will."
ALAN HOLDS UP A SHEET of paper as I walk back into the office.
"He's giving us the names in every case," he says. "Some of these go back a long way, I'm thinking up to twenty years based on the clothes, hair, stuff like that."
"It's all the same basic format too," Callie says. "He gets them to admit to a deep, dark secret and then makes it clear he's going to kill them."
"But each clip ends before the actual death," James notes.
"Strange," I murmur. "You'd think the moment of death would be more important than that to him."
"Perhaps it's a part of his rationalization framework," James says.
"He's telling us, and himself, that he's doing what he's doing to forward a concept of truth that brings one closest to God. He's trying to share this truth with the world so that others can be saved. Showing the murder, perhaps he feels it would make him look voyeuristic."
"I bet he did film the murders, every one of them," Alan says. "He just didn't include them in the clips. He probably sits at home and jacks off to them regularly."
"I don't know," I say. "I think he'll be into se
lf-repression. The holy man who resists his own vices successfully, that kind of thing. That fits with the identity paradigm he's trying to assert to us. Let's keep going through the clips and noting the names. If he's willing to give them to us, let's use them."
I fill them in on Jezebel Smith and the rest of my conversation with AD Jones.
Alan checks his watch. "We should be seeing her soon. She'll be setting up the number?"
He's referring to the tip-line phone number that we'll be putting out.
"Yes. She'll run that whole show--and knows how to, apparently. Anything else?"
No one says a word.
"Then let's keep at it."
Moments later I am back in my office. James had downloaded all of the clips, and split them up between us. I pop in the CD he'd given me. The clips are in number order, four digits each. I sigh and click on the first one. I watch as the black screen appears, followed by the white letters: The Sins and Death of Maxine McGee. I note the name down on the pad. A woman's face appears. It's a pretty face, though not a beautiful one. She's got brown, shoulder-length hair, and it's feathered in a style that tells me this was probably shot in the 1980s. She has big brown eyes and her face is just short of chubby. Those brown eyes are surrounded by black, the eyes of a raccoon, because she's sobbing and terrified and her mascara has turned her tears to dirt.
I note down her physical characteristics next to her name. I try and use this to distance myself from the fact of what I'm seeing. This is a woman who once was alive and now is dead. She's living her last moments, she knows it, I'm watching it. It makes me tired.
"Maxine McGee," the Preacher says, in that pleasant voice I'm growing to hate. "Tell the people watching about your sin."
Maxine can't stop sobbing.
"W-w-what are you talking about?" she blubbers.
"Maxine." The voice has a chiding tone, the verbal equivalent of a friendly but cautionary finger wag. "Don't you want to sit at the right hand of God? Tell them about your baby. Tell them about little Charles. How old were you then? Sixteen?"
The change in her demeanor is instant and amazing. Her eyes go wide, her tears quit, and her mouth drops open. She's become a caricature of shock and surprise.
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