I spent the flight obsessing about Pierce, his apartment, Isabella Calais, their apartment, his studies in biology and modern philosophy, Noam Chomsky. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, wouldn’t have dreamed it possible, but Pierce was already eclipsing Gary Soneji and Simon Conklin. I despised everything about Pierce. Seeing the pictures of Isabella Calasis had done it for me.
Alien? I wrote on the foolscap pad lying across my lap. He identifies with descriptor.
Alienated? Alienated from what? Idyllic upbringing in California. Doesn’t fit any of the psychopathic profiles we used before. He’s an original. He secretly enjoys that, doesn’t he?
No discernible pattern to murders that link with a psychological motive.
Murders seem haphazard and arbitrary! He revels in his own originality.
Dr. Sante, Simon Conklin, now Anthony Bruno. Why them? Does Conklin count?
Seems impossible to predict Thomas Pierce’s next move. His next kill.
Why go south toward the New Jersey Shore?
It had occurred to me that he was originally from a shore town. Pierce had grown up near Laguna Beach in Southern California. Was he going home, in a manner of speaking? Was the New Jersey Shore as close to home as he could get — as close as he dared go?
I now had a reasonable amount of information about his background in California before he came east. He had lived on a working farm not far from the famous Irvine Ranch properties. Three generations of doctors in the family. Good, hardworking people. His siblings were all dong well, and not one of them believed that Thomas was capable of any of this mayhem and murder he was accused of committing.
FBI says Mr. Smith is disorganized, chaotic, unpredictable, I scribbled in my pad.
What if they’re wrong? Pierce is responsible for much of their data about Smith. Pierce created Mr. Smith, then did the profile on him.
I kept revisiting his and Isabella’s apartment in my mind. The place was so very neat and organized. The home had a definite organizing principle. It revolved around Isabella — her pictures, clothes, even her perfume bottles had been left in place. The smell of L’Air du Temps and Je Reviens permeated their bedroom to this day.
Thomas Pierce had loved her. Pierce had loved. Pierce had felt passion and emotion. That was another thing the FBI was wrong about. He’d killed because he thought he was losing her, and he couldn’t bear it. Was Isabella the only person who had ever loved Pierce?
Another small piece of the puzzle suddenly fell into place! I was so struck by it that I said it aloud in the helicopter. “Her heart on a spear!”
He had “pierced” her heart! Jesus Christ! He had confessed to the very first murder! He had confessed!
He’d left a clue, but the police missed it. What else were we missing? What was he up to now? What did “Mr. Smith” represent inside his mind? Was everything representational for him? Symbolic? Artistic? Was he creating a kind of language for us to follow? Or was it even simpler? He had “pierced” her heart. Pierce wanted to be caught. Caught and punished.
Crime and punishment.
Why couldn’t we catch him?
I landed in New Jersey around five at night. Kyle Craig was waiting for me. Kyle was sitting on the hood of a dark blue Town Car. He was drinking Samuel Adams beer out of a bottle.
“You find Anthony Bruno yet?” I called out as I walked toward him. “You find the body?”
Chapter 113
MR. SMITH goes to the seashore. Sounded like an unimaginative children’s story.
There was enough moonlight for Thomas Pierce to make his way along the long stretch of glowing White sand at Point Pleasant Beach. He was carrying a corpse, what was left of it. He had Anthony Bruno loaded on his back and shoulders.
He walked just south of popular Jenkinson’s Pier and the much newer Seaquarium. The boarded-up arcades of the amusement part were tightly packed along the beach shoulder. The small, grayish buildings looked forlorn and mute in their shuttered state.
As usual, music ran through his head — first Elvis Costello’s “Clubland,” then Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 21, then “Mother Mother” by Tracy Bonham. The savage beast inside him wasn’t calmed, not even close, but at least he could feel a beat.
It was quarter to four in the morning and even the surfcasting fishermen weren’t out yet. He’d seen only one police patrol car so far. The police in the tiny beach town were a joke anyway.
Mr. Smith against the Keystone Kops.
This whole funky seashore area reminded him of Laguna Beach, at least the tourista parts of Laguna. He could still picture the surf shops that dotted the Pacific Coast Highway back home — the Southern California artifacts: Flogo sandals, Stussy T’s, neroprene gloves and wet suits, beach boots, the unmistakable smell of board wax.
He was physically strong — had a workingman’s build. He carried Anthony Bruno over one shoulder without much effort. He had cut out all the vital parts, so there wasnt’t much of Anthony anymore. Anthony was a shell. No heart, liver, intestines, lungs, or brain.
Thomas Pierce thought about the FBI’s continuing search. The Bureau’s fabled “manhunts” were overrated — a holdover from the glory days of John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde. He knew this to be so after years of observing the Bureau chase Mr. Smith. They would never have caught Smith, not in a hundred years.
The FBI was looking for him in all the wrong places. They would surely have “numbers,” meaning excessive force, their trademark maneuver. They would be all over the airports, probably expecting him to head back to Europe. And what about the wild cards in the search, people like Alex Cross? Cross had made his bones, no doubt about that. Maybe Cross was more than he seemed to be. At any rate, he relished the thought of Dr. Cross being in on this, too. He liked the competition.
The dead weight on his back and shoulder was starting to get heavy. It was almost morning, close to daybreak. I wouldn’t do to be found lugging a disemboweled corpse across Point Pleasant Beach.
He carried Anthony Bruno another fifty yards to a glistening white lifeguard’s chair. He climbed the creaking rungs of the chair, and propped the body in the seat.
The remains of the corpse were naked and exposed for the world to see. Quite a sight. Anthony was a clue. If anybody on the search team had half a brain and was using it properly.
“I’m not an alien. Do any of you follow that?” Pierce shouted above the ocean’s steady roar.
“I’m human. I’m perfectly normal. I’m just like you.”
Chapter 114
IT WAS all a mind game, wasn’t it — Pierce against the rest of us.
While I had been at his apartment in Cambridge, a team of FBI agents went out to Southern California to meet with Thomas Pierce’s family. The mother and father still lived on the same farm, between Laguna and EI Toro, where Thomas Pierce had grown up.
Henry Pierce practiced medicine, mostly among the indigent farmworkers in the area. His lifestyle was modest and the reputation of the family impeccable. Pierce had an older brother and sister, doctors in Northern California, who were also well regarded and worked with the poor.
Not a person the profilers spoke to could imagine Thomas a murderer. He’d always been a good son and brother, a gifted student who seemed to have close friends and no enemies.
Thomas Pierce fit no brief for a pattern killer that I was familiar with. He was an original.
“Impeccable” was a word that jumped out of the FBI profiler reports. Maybe Pierce didn’t want to be impeccable.
I re-reviewed the news articles and clippings about Pierce from the time of Isabella Calais’s gruesome murder. I was keeping track of the more perplexing notions on three-by-five index cards. The packet was growing rapidly.
Laguna Beach — commercial shore town. Parts similar to point Pleasant and Bay Head. Had Pierce killed in Laguna in the past? Had the disease now spread to the Northeast?
Pierce’s father was a doctor. Pierce didn’t “Make it” to Dr. Pierce, but as a
med student he had performed autopsies.
Looking for his humanity when he kills? Studying humans because he fears he has no human qualities himself?
He had a dual major as an undergrad: biology and philosophy. Fan of the linguist Noam Chomsky. Or is it Chomsky’s political writings that turn Pierce on? Plays word and much games on his PowerBook.
What were we all missing so far?
What was I missing?
Why was Thomas Pierce killing all of these people?
He was “impeccable,” wasn’t he.
Chapter 115
PIERCE STOLE a forest green BMW convertible in the expensive, quaint, quite lovely shore town of Bay Head, New Jersey. On the corner of East Avenue and Harris Street, a prime location, he hot-wired and grabbed the vehicle as slickly as a pickpocket working the boardwalks down at Point Pleasant Beach. He was so good at this, overqualified for the scut work.
He drove west through Brick Town at moderate speeds, to the Garden State Parkway. He played music all the way — Talking Heads, Alanis Morissette, Melissa Etheridge, Blind Faith. Music helped him to feel something. It always had, from the time he’d been a boy. An hour and a quarter later he entered Atlantic City.
He sighed with pleasure. He loved it instantly — the shameless tawdriness, the grubbiness, the tattered sinfulness, the soullessness of the place. He felt as if he were “home,” and he wondered if the FBI geniuses had linked the Jersey Shore to Laguna Beach yet?
Entering Atlantic City, he had half expected to see a beautifully maintained expanse of lawn sloping down to the ocean. Surfers with peroxided, gnarly hair; volleyball played around the clock.
But no, no, this was New Jersey. Southern California, his real home, was thousands of miles away. He mustn’t get confused now.
He checked into Bally’s Park Place. Up in his room, he started to make phone calls. He wanted to “order in.” He stood at a picture window and watched the ghostly waves of the Atlantic punish the beach again and again. Far down the beach he could see Trump Plaza. The audacious and ridiculous penthouse apartments were perched on the main building, like a space shuttle ready to take off.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, of course there was a pattern. Why couldn’t anyone figure it out? Why did he always have to be misunderstood?
At two in the morning, Thomas Pierce sent the trackers another voice-mail message: Inez in Atlantic City.
Chapter 116
GODDAMN HIM! Half a day after we recovered the body of Anthony Bruno, we got the next message from Pierce. He had taken another one already.
We were on the move immediately. Two dozen of us rushed to Atlantic City and prayed he was still there, that someone named Inez hadn’t already been butchered and “studied” by Mr. Smith and discarded like the evening trash.
Giant billboards screamed all along the Atlantic City Expressway. Caesars Atlantic City, Harrah’s, Merv Griffin’s Resorts Casino Hotel, Trump’s Castle, Trump Taj Mahal. Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Now that was funny.
Inez, Atlantic city, I kept hearing inside my head. Sounds like Isabella.
We set up shop in the FBI field office, which was only a few blocks from the old Stell Pier and the so-called “Great Wooden Way.” There were usually only four agents in the small office. Their expertise was organized crime and gambling, and they weren’t considered movers and shakers inside the Bureau. They weren’t prepared for a savage, unpredictable killer who had once been a very good agent.
Someone had bought a stack of newspapers and they were piled high on the conference table. The New York, Philly, and Jersey headline writers were having a field day with this one.
ALIEN KILLER VISITS JERSEY SHORE…
FBI KILLER-DILLER IN ATLANTIC CITY…
MR. SMITH MANHUNT: Hundreds of Federal agents
flock to New Jersey Shore…
MONSTER ON THE LOOSE IN NEW JERSEY!
Sampson came up to the beach from Washington. He wanted Pierce as badly as any of us. He, Kyle, and I worked together, brainstorming over what Pierce-Mr. Smith might do next. Sondra Greenberg from Interpol worked with us, too. She was seriously jet-lagged, and had deep circles under her eyes, but she knew Pierce and had been at most of the European murder sites.
“He’s not a goddamn split personality?” Sampson asked. “Smith and Pierce?”
I shook my head. “He seems to be in control of his faculties at all times. He created ‘Smith’ to serve some other purpose.”
“I agree with Alex,” Sondra Greenberg said from across the table, “but what is the sodding purpose?”
“Whatever it was, it worked,” Kyle joined in. “He had us chasing Mr. Smith halfway around the world. We’re still chasing. No one has ever jerked around the Bureau like this.”
“Not even the great J. Edgar Hoover?” Sondra said and winked.
“Well.” Kyle softened, “as a pure psychopath, Hoover was in a class by himself.”
I was up and pacing again. My side was hurting, but I didn’t want anyone to know about it. They would try to send me home, make me miss the fun. I let myself ramble — sometimes it works.
“He’s trying to tell us something. He’s communicating in some strange way. Inez? The name reminds us of Isabella. He’s obsessed with Isabella. You should see the apartment in Cambridge. Is Inez a substitute for Isabella? Is Atlantic City a substitute for Laguna Beach? Has he thought Isabella home? Why bring Isabella home?”
It went on and on like that: wild hunches, free association, insecurity, fear, unbearable frustration. As far as I could tell nothing worthwhile was said all day and late into the night, but who could really tell.
Pierce didn’t try to make further contact. There were no more voice-mail messages. That surprised us a little. Kyle was afraid he’d moved on, and that he would keep moving until he drove us completely insane. Six of us stayed in the field office throughout the night and into the early morning. We slept in our clothes, on chairs, tables, and the floor.
I paced inside the office, and occasionally outside on the glittery, fog-laden boardwalk. As a last desperate resort, I bought a bag of Fralinger’s salt water taffy and tried to get sick to my stomach.
What kind of logic system is he using? Mr. Smith is his creation, his Mr. Hyde. What is Smith’s mission? Why is he here? I wondered, occasionally talking to myself as I strolled the mostly deserted boardwalk.
Inez is Isabella?
It couldn’t be that simple. Pierce wouldn’t make it simple for us.
Inez is not Isabella. There was only one Isabella. So why does pierce keep killing again and again?
I found myself at the corner of Park Place and Boardwalk, and that finally brought a smile. Monopoly. Another kind of game? Is that it?
I wandered back to the FBI field office and got some sleep. But not nearly enough. A few hours at most.
Pierce was here.
So was Mr. Smith.
Chapter 117
A FLAT, still sandy, still meadowy region… a superb range of ocean beach — miles and miles of it. The bright sun, the sparkling waves, the foam, the view — a sail here and there in the distance. Walt Whitman had written that about Atlantic City a hundred years before. His words were inscribed on the wall of a pizza and hot-dog stand now. Whitman would have been stricken to see his words on such a backdrop.
I went by myself for another stroll on the Atlantic City boardwalk around ten o’clock. It was Saturday, and so hot and sunny that the eroding beach was already dotted with swimmers and sunbathers.
We still hadn’t found Inez. We didn’t have a single clue. We didn’t even know who she was.
I had the uncomfortable feeling that Thomas Pierce was watching us, or that I might suddenly come upon him in the dense, sweltering crowds. I had my pager just in case he tried to contact us at the field office.
There was nothing else to be done right now. Pierce–Mr. Smith was in control of the situation and our lives. A madman was in control of the planet. It seemed like it anyway.
I sto
pped near Steeplechase Pier and the Resorts Casino Hotel. People were playing under a hot sun in the high, rolling surf. They seemed to be enjoying themselves and didn’t appear to have a care in the world. How nice for them.
This was the way it should be, and it reminded me of Jannie and Damon, my own family, and of Christine. She desperately wanted me to leave this job and I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t know if I could walk away from police work, though. I wondered why that was so. Physician, heal thyself. Maybe I would someday soon.
As I continued my walk along the boardwalk, I tried to convince myself that everything that could be done to catch Pierce was being done. I passed a Fralinger’s, and a James Candy store. And the old Peanut Shoppe, where a costumed Mr. Peanut was stumbling about in the mid-ninety-degree heat.
I had to smile as I saw the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum up ahead, where you could see a lock of George Washington’s hair, and a roulette table made of jelly beans. No, I could not believe it. I didn’t think anyone on the crisis team could, but here we were.
I was jolted out of my thoughts by the beeper vibrating against my leg. I ran to a nearby phone and called in.
Pierce had left another message. Kyle and Sampson were already out on the boardwalk. Pierce was near the Steel Pier. He claimed that Inez was with him! He said we could still save them!
Pierce specifically said them.
I shouldn’t have been running around like this. My side began to throb and hurt like hell. I’d never been out of shape like this, not in my life, and I didn’t like the feeling. I hadn’t felt so vulnerable and relatively helpless before.
Finally, I realized: I’m actually afraid of Pierce, and of Mr. Smith.
By the time I got near the Steel Pier, my clothes were dripping wet and I was breathing hard. I pulled off my sport shirt and waded out into the crowd barechested. I pushed my way past old-style jitneys and newer step vans, past tandem bikes and joggers.
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