The Verdict on Each Man Dead

by David Whellams

  “I’ll follow up with emails, but here’s the essence. I want you to poke into any databases you can find listing major arson incidents in the United States between 1990 and 2012. Include charges and convictions, also any news reports implying a link between the arson and drug dealers. I’m particularly interested in fires in crack houses and marijuana grow ops. Don’t ignore incidents where small-time dealers accuse their competition of setting the fire.”

  “Geographical parameters?” Maddy said.

  “Western states.” He listed twelve states, including all that bordered Mexico.

  “There’s more?”

  “Yes. Note any drug and arson cases with a mention of domestic terrorism, the Unabomber, or the Murrah Building.”

  Maddy said, “How about we also frame the terrorism search using Homeland Security categories? They’re likely divided by domestic versus foreign-linked incidents. They must be time-delineated, pre- and post-9/11, for example.”

  “Yes, and both eras are of interest exactly because of the different perspectives. The eighties up to mid-nineties form Reagan’s war-on-drugs period, and I’m curious about that. By the by, it sounds like you’ve been doing research already.”

  “Joan told me about the grow op murders in Salt Lake. I was curious.”

  Peter didn’t have to tell her that her initiative pleased him.

  “And that raises a key question,” she added. “A lot of the details and cross-references will only be in secure police databases. You want me to stay away from them?”

  “Hold off. Don’t pull a WikiLeaks on any Homeland Security files.”

  “When should I call?”

  “I’ll ring you tomorrow night. My battery’s running out, or the reception’s just plain fading. I have to go, dear.” Peter sometimes forgot the human dimension. “Oh, how’s Joe?”

  Peter’s battery faded out, and he failed to hear Maddy’s chuckle as she pictured him standing in the back of the pickup.

  CHAPTER 29

  Peter awoke at six thirty. At seven thirty, Henry rousted himself from his mattress and spent thirty minutes in the bathroom getting ready, as if he were trying to scrub away his experiment in dipsomania. They left at nine in Peter’s truck.

  Phil Mohlman’s note gave an address up in Provo, an almost straight shot from Salt Lake City on Highway 15. Alma May Reeve worked at the Spector Diner. The note gave no more details.

  Henry hadn’t fully expunged the alcohol from his body, but he kept himself under control. And he kept the banter light. “Why would you call your place the Spector Diner?”

  “Wall of sound.”

  “What?”

  “Phil Spector. Girl bands of the sixties. Chiffons. Also, Righteous Brothers. ‘You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’’?”

  “Not my era, Peter. I grew up with Nirvana — and yeah, even Mormons listened to Nirvana.”

  “Okay, then. I like all music.”

  “You like the Strokes?”

  “Who are they?”

  “A band, Peter. You know: five guys, three guitars, some drums.”

  “Three guitars?”

  Henry smirked. “Even the Beatles had three guitars, Peter.”

  “Maybe they’ve changed the name of the place to the Strokes Diner.”

  The issue remained moot. The address was right, but the name had changed to the Blue Horizon Café. Phil Mohlman’s information was out of date, so the police must not have interviewed Alma lately.

  “Blue Horizon,” Henry affirmed, getting out of the truck.

  Peter led the way inside. Only three tables had patrons, all of them clustered on the sunny side of the restaurant. The breakfast rush had dissipated, and a waitress and the rotund fry cook chatted by the kitchen door. Alma wasn’t in evidence.

  The cook made them for cops as Peter approached.

  “Alma May Reeve?” Peter said.

  “Don’t know that name,” the fat man replied, but a flash of recognition crossed the woman’s face.

  The hinged door to the kitchen opened and Alma came out with two full plates in her hands. She looked grey and harried, the stress lines in her face deep. She looked at Peter and dropped both plates.

  The cook, who appeared to manage the place as well, came forward to steady her.

  “It’s okay,” the other waitress and the man said simultaneously.

  “It’s okay,” Alma parroted. Peter saw that her nametag read “Dawn.”

  Henry pressed forward and began to pick up broken crockery. “I’ll get that,” he said.

  “Don’t,” Peter whispered, unnecessarily harshly. Offering that form of kindness to Alma at this point wasn’t the way to go. She was tough in her own fashion, Peter knew, and would reject condescension.

  “I can do that!” she said.

  The chef took over and instructed her to take her break. Without looking at Peter, she said, “Let’s go to the park. I can smoke there.”

  As they walked down the street, Henry trailing, Alma said in a husky voice, “My name is Dawn Lewis now. Please use it.”

  Seldom had Peter been more anxious to re-interview a witness. For almost two decades, Alma had held in a fact that went to the core of the Unabomber case and that might well have driven the investigators to rechristen it the Unabomber Conspiracy. The trio reached the park, and Peter sat down next to her while she smoked. Henry stood apart. “You knew I’d be back someday?” Peter said.

  “I knew that you or another cop — or one of them — would return. Strange how one event can flow through your entire life. You’re damn right I’ve been waiting.”

  Peter leaned closer. “Dawn, I’m here because I know I got it wrong. I apologize.”

  She said nothing for a long minute. Peter remained calm but wished that Henry, fidgeting nearby, would go back to the truck.

  “Events that haunt our lives,” Alma said as if looking down a tunnel into the past.

  “Yes,” Peter said. “When the police first interviewed you, you said you had seen three men at a table in the diner around the corner from the computer store. They showed you the wanted poster for the Unabomber.”

  “With the sunglasses and the sweatshirt, yes. It was two weeks after the bombing. They seemed to know which man they wanted, understand? I told them, yeah, I had seen the guy in the picture, that was him.”

  “But the one you identified wasn’t Kaczynski,” Peter said.

  “You made the same mistake when you came by years later and asked me about the poster.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “The man on the poster was someone else.”

  “And he was at the table that day?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  Peter allowed a diplomatic pause, but unfortunately Henry jumped in. “So, you did see this man?” He showed her the Devereau sketch. She nodded but turned to Henry with some irritation.

  “Who are you?” said Alma.

  “I’m the husband of the woman this man killed less than a year ago.”

  Alma swung towards to Peter. “He’s come back? That’s why you’re here?”

  “We’re on his trail. It would help us if we went over your recollections.”

  “It would help if you tell me you’ll stop this man in his tracks. Where’s he been all this time?”

  “Living under different pseudonyms.”

  “I know what that’s like.”

  Henry sat down on the bench on the other side of her. This time Alma looked at him with sympathy. “Miss Lewis, why are you so certain you’re in danger from this man?”

  “Young man, I’m sorry about your wife. But you’re still young and you don’t get it. I don’t really think he’ll come after me but one encounter with an evil person can permeate your entire existence.” Alma turned back to Peter. “There was craziness in his eyes. That face
haunts me and I don’t mean the Unabomber.”

  “Tell us about that morning,” Peter coaxed.

  “The three men were having breakfast at a corner table. Kaczynski was extremely antsy. He was shabbily dressed and had the look of a loser. Didn’t eat his breakfast. The one in the sketch, the one we’re talking about, did all the talking. I overheard words like ‘government,’ ‘justice,’ ‘effective deterrence.’”

  “He was agitated?” Henry said.

  “Yeah, but not loud. He was very intense.”

  “What about the third guy?”

  “He kept quiet. The interesting thing ’bout him was he looked a lot like the one you’re after.”

  “I don’t want to be argumentative, Miss Lewis,” Peter said, “but how do you know that the suspect in the poster wasn’t the third guy?”

  Alma looked at Peter and smiled for the first time. “Because the third guy wore a bushy handlebar moustache that day. Obviously fake.”

  “Did all three men leave together?”

  Peter and Henry waited for the rest of her story.

  “I have to get this off my chest, so let me tell it my way. They’d been sitting there a while. The intense guy was doing most of the talking, but Kaczynski didn’t like whatever he was saying. You get a sense with customers. They were building to an argument. Kaczynski got up to use the bathroom. Then the serious guy suddenly picked up a canvas bag from under the table and walked out. Kaczynski came back and got all upset that the bag was gone, and the man in the silly moustache tried to calm him down.”

  “That explains why Devereau and the wanted poster are so similar,” Peter said. “It was Devereau the secretary in the computer store saw planting the bomb. Did he return?”

  “No. After twenty minutes Kaczynski and the moustache character left.”

  Peter said softly to Alma, “I know you couldn’t come forward afterwards. The police were convinced they already had the right suspect in Kaczynski …”

  Alma snapped back, “I was flabbergasted when I saw they arrested the hermit. Looked nothing like the one in the poster. But you see, what did I care which guy they arrested? But mister, Kaczynski wasn’t the one in charge at the table that day.”

  Peter spoke. “You’ve been waiting all these years for us to come back to see you. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ve been waiting for … I don’t know what. Maybe I was responsible for a killer getting away.”

  Alma seemed to shrink, becoming tiny. She was holding something back.

  “Did you see something else, Dawn?”

  “There was a book on their table. By someone called Turner.”

  “The Turner Diaries?”

  “I think so. What are they?”

  “A favourite novel of the anti-government militia groups.”

  “I always wondered,” Alma said. The information did not appear to lift the burden of her bad memories.

  “Did they leave anything else behind?” Peter then said.

  “You mean other than no tip?”

  “I mean anything.”

  Alma stubbed out her cigarette. “You know, Detective, I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me that. None of the cops wanted to listen back then; they were committed to their scenario. Come with me.”

  Alma led the two men three more blocks down the street. In her apartment, she ordered them to wait by the door while she went to the bedroom. They heard her tossing boxes around. She emerged with a dog-eared sheaf of typewritten text.

  “The man you want left this behind.”

  “What’s that about?” Henry said.

  “It’s Devereau’s manifesto,” Peter stated.

  “It’s about how a crazy man might blow up the world,” Alma said.

  Peter held on to her hand. “If he hasn’t returned for it by now, he won’t be coming back.”

  “I really hope not,” Alma May Reeve said. There was relief in her voice.

  CHAPTER 30

  On the way back home, Peter stopped at a Staples and had six copies of the Devereau manifesto photocopied and bound.

  In the truck, Henry flipped through his copy and offered a running critique. “Maybe thirty pages. Funny, the thing is typed but the title is handwritten: Fire and Brimstone. A screed denouncing the U.S. government … all governments in general … Lots of quotes. If only there were signatures on it.”

  Peter glanced over at the crudely typed manuscript. “Henry, we need some help on this.”

  “Time to call in the cavalry, Peter?”

  “Well, the quiet kind of cavalry. Can you think of someone back in Quantico who might give the manifesto a discreet review?”

  Henry understood where Peter was heading with this. “You want to know if the guy who wrote this thing also wrote Kaczynski’s Manifesto back in ’96. Well, there are guys in Art Crimes who know text-comparison software. I could ask, but the atmosphere is tight these days in the Bureau. Sidebar work is heavily discouraged.”

  Peter knew that every law enforcement agency in Utah would hear about their query within a day. “You’re right. I have a better idea.”

  At the house, Henry went off to read his copy of Devereau/Shaw’s diatribe while Peter checked his emails. Maddy had yet to respond with research results. He was pleased to find a clear dial tone on Henry’s landline and he punched in the number for Leeds.

  Alma’s memories had not disappointed, but it was crucial to maintain momentum. Peter’s plaguing fear wasn’t that Devereau would return to attack Alma but that he was planning to vanish soon, either into the impenetrable underground of militias and domestic agitators or, more likely, back into another suburban identity. Peter assessed the various scenarios. The deadliest hazard was a fresh terrorist attack by Devereau, in which case Peter and Henry would pay heavily for failing to plug in the agencies in advance. Peter was ready to freelance for a few more days, but not much longer.

  “Hi, Dad. I’m sending you a pile of stuff,” Maddy began on the phone, without more greeting than that.

  Had she been up since dawn? Peter could only guess at the volume of material about to flow across the Atlantic. He let her run with her news; it was always wise policy with his daughter-in-law. “Send it to Henry’s email. Give me the headlines now.”

  “All right. You wanted me to find cases involving arson and drugs, with any notations on terrorism. I went for the 1980-to-2012 bracket, a bit wider than you requested.”

  “I almost hate to ask, dear, but did you break in to any restricted databases along the way?”

  “‘Break in’ is a relative term, Dad. Most criminal-record data are organized by specific investigative requirement — terrorism, drugs, organized crime. The need shapes the data sets. There’s a Homeland Security agency or sub-office for every topic. Absolutely amazing. Every little bureaucracy wants access to the stats. I had no trouble getting what I wanted online.”

  “Results?”

  “Mixed. I found several hundred drug busts over the full period that involved fires. In most of these, the drug dealers themselves set fire to their inventory, or the police somehow caused a fire in the crack house. It was a lot harder to pin down cases of one drug dealer burning out another. Police forces like to take credit for the downfall of every pusher. My charts show the spread across eight states, and I’m still working on the other jurisdictions.”

  “Bottom line?”

  “No bottom line. Patterns are broad. I’ve highlighted two dozen fires where ‘rivalry’ and ‘vengeance’ — or everybody’s favourite, ‘internecine drug war’ — are mentioned. But look at page sixteen when you get the package. It shows a cluster of unsolved drug-related killings in the 1990-through-1993 period in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Kansas.”

  “Terrorism links?”

  “Rarely are specific links made between drugs and terrorism. I marked six incidents of s
omeone taking out a drug dealer where the police expressed puzzlement about the attacker’s motive and thought some militia movement was looking to finance its operations. Nothing linking drug or arson cases to the Unabomber, other than the fact that his own bomb on that American Airlines flight in 1979 caused a fire.”

  “Okay, Maddy, I will read everything.”

  “Keep looking?”

  “Keep looking.”

  “Anything else?” It amazed him that neither ever asked the other about their health or the weather. Maddy was all business.

  “Yup. I’m sending you a document by international courier. I’d scan it in, but I prefer you examine the text in its original format. I want you to compare it to the Unabomber’s Manifesto published in the New York Times and the Washington Post.”

  “I’ll read it.”

  “Good.”

  “You want to know if the same person wrote both documents.”

  “Yes. Henry says there is text-analysis software available online.”

  “Put him on.”

  “What? Really?”

  Peter fetched Henry from his bedroom. In two minutes, he was talking happily with Peter’s daughter-in-law. The ease of it made Cammon feel very old. Henry laughed once, almost the first time since Peter’s arrival in Utah.

  “Maddy, they use three standard programs to compare texts,” Henry said. “They always start with tagging software, measuring word frequency. They use a second program to evaluate sequence probabilities for parts of speech. Those are called Markov models. Finally, try what they call sentiment analysis. If you don’t have the program, I can probably get it for you. Movie studios use it to assess audience reactions at sneak previews. All this gives a ninety percent accuracy rate on identifying stylistic similarities between texts.”

  They talked for ten more minutes, and Henry gently sat the phone on its cradle. Peter respected the pause but then said, “Should I have asked you to do the analysis?”

  Henry shook his head. “She’s beautiful.”

  Peter drove into town and shipped the coffee shop manifesto at a DHL outlet; he was promised delivery within three days. He took his time returning to Coppermount; he wasn’t in the mood to hash out his next steps with Henry. He picked up Chinese food and drove around Salt Lake for a while, arriving at the house to find that his host had set the table for dinner. Henry had taped the various sketches and photos from Peter’s rogues’ gallery to the backs of the dining room chairs and was pacing the floor examining them. The effect was unnerving.