The Informant

by James Grippando

  “Sounds to me like you still value our marriage, that’s all.”

  She looked into his eyes. “What should we do about that?”

  “We could alert the media,” he said, jerking his head toward the front door.

  Her eyes brightened. “I got a better idea. Why don’t we just forget about them, forget about everything. Just sit on the couch, me and you, and talk.”

  “I’d like that.”

  She smiled thinly, then turned serious. “I’ve been feeling like a hypocrite, the way I came down on you for not telling me about your arrangement with the FBI.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have, well…secrets of my own—things I’ve wanted to tell you about for a very long time.”

  “What kind of secrets?” he asked warily.

  “Things about myself. I’ve been beating myself up lately, blaming myself for not telling you. But there are two sides to this. I remember so many nights lying in bed, listening to you in the other room talking on the phone with your sources, trying to coax information out of them. You were always so patient with them, so understanding. Sometimes I wish you’d be more like that with me. Maybe I would have opened up more.”

  “Well,” he said, “let’s talk about it.”

  Suddenly, the SkyPager on his belt blared with a pulsating beep, signaling a message.

  They exchanged glances. Time froze. Then finally he looked down.

  “Damn. I think that’s Aaron Field’s home number.”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “Karen, it’s not every day my publisher calls me from home. He must be watching the news. I better return this.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “You’ll have to plug in the phone. I pulled it when those reporters kept calling.”

  “It will just take a minute, I promise. Hold your thought.”

  “Right.”

  He dashed to her office and connected the phone. He paused to peer outside through the mini-blinds. The mob of reporters had grown larger. With a sinking sense of dread, he picked up the receiver to return Aaron’s call.

  Victoria showered and slipped into the white terrycloth robe that came with her hotel room. Her wet hair was twisted up in a bath towel. Too tired and too busy to call any of her old friends in Miami for dinner, she ordered room service and ate in bed while reviewing the autopsy protocol from the Arkansas case. It wasn’t until she was halfway into a protein-rich bean salad that she’d realized she was actually putting food in her mouth while reading about “petechiae in the conjunctiva,” or tiny hemorrhages in the mucous membrane of the brain caused by increased pressure in the head at the time of death.

  The phone rang on the nightstand. She answered and tucked the receiver beneath her chin. It was Tony Costello, an agent from the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office who’d been Victoria’s Georgia coordinator ever since the Gerty Kincaid murder.

  “Victoria, hey. Sorry to bug you so late, but I think we got something for you on these tongue murders. Have you been watching the news at all?”

  “No, I was just having a nice quiet dinner with a corpse.”

  “Huh?”

  She shook her head. Chasing serial killers could do strange things to your sense of humor. “Never mind. What’s up?”

  “In a nutshell, there’s some controversy brewing over Posten’s coverage of the murders, and it’s getting some coverage.”

  “What kind of controversy?”

  “I’m not exactly sure, and that’s not the reason I’m calling. What happened is that a guy in Atlanta—Reggie Holland—was watching the news, and the particular report he saw discussed in some detail the articles Posten has written about the murders, including that one he wrote after the Copeland murder in San Francisco. You know, where he describes how the killer cuts out the tongue—two small incisions on each side of the tongue using a diver’s knife with a serrated edge.”

  “Right. The one I told him he shouldn’t have written.”

  “Well, it may be a good thing that he did, because that’s what got Holland’s attention. His wife—Cybil is her name—was attacked in Atlanta on a Monday, the day after they found Gertrude Kincaid in Candler County.”

  “We got another victim?” she said apprehensively.

  “Well, that’s the issue. See, Mrs. Holland wasn’t murdered and she didn’t have her tongue slashed, but whoever attacked her sliced off her finger to get her engagement ring. They never caught him, and from what I’ve gathered so far, the Atlanta police don’t really know very much, because she was knocked unconscious and hardly remembers anything. But by looking at the wound they’ve been able to figure out that, whoever he is, he used one heck of a big knife with a serrated edge—like a diver’s knife—to cut off her finger.”

  “So, Mr. Holland thinks—”

  “He thinks what I think. The killer struck in Hainesville over the weekend, and by Monday he was trying to disappear into Atlanta, the nearest big city. He got hard up for cash or whatever, and his wife with her diamond ring was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Victoria grabbed the notepad from the files spread across the bedsheet, then jotted down a quick thought. She suddenly felt like this could be it—the killer had finally slipped. “Have you talked to the wife? Did she get a look at her attacker?”

  “She didn’t see a thing. Got blindsided, knocked down a flight of stairs. Put her in a coma for almost a week.”

  “Did they recover the knife?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, what do we have?”

  “The finger,” he said. “They weren’t able to reattach it, so it’s sitting in a container of liquid nitrogen in the Georgia State Crime Lab in Decatur. The police wanted it preserved. Their hope was that if they ever recovered the knife, they could match the blade to the cut marks on the finger.”

  “If they don’t have the knife by now, they’re probably never going to find it.”

  “True,” he said. “But if you get the right forensic pathologist, I was thinking maybe he could compare the stab wounds on our victim in Hainesville to the cuts on that finger sitting over at the crime lab. It would be nice to know if our killer is the same man who stole a diamond ring in Atlanta. I could have a team of agents scouring every pawnshop in the city, seeing if he hocked it. Maybe one of the shop owners even got a look at him.”

  Victoria sat up in her bed, her lips curling with a faint smile of hope. “This is good, Tony. Set up an appointment with the Georgia State Crime Lab for tomorrow morning. I’ll make sure we have the right pathologist.”

  Chapter 24

  mike collected his thoughts for a moment before dialing the number. He actually called directory assistance first, just to make sure it was Aaron’s home number that had flashed on his pager. It was. Aaron snatched up on the half-ring, as if he were sitting beside the phone waiting for the call.

  “What the hell is going on, Mike?”

  Mike caught his breath. “I don’t know exactly. I’m just as blindsided by this as you are. But you’re obviously upset—”

  “Damn right I’m upset. We’ve got a major crisis here. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing. And it’s not penny-ante local stuff. Newsweek, Time, the network news. They’re all on top of it now. Nightline’s even doing a spot tonight on ethics in journalism—focusing on the alleged payments we’ve made to your confidential source. I have to go on TV tonight to defend my own newspaper. It’s like that big ethics debate back in eighty-eight, when everyone from Rivera to Koppel was asking whether those Miami reporters went too far by hiding in the bushes outside Gary Hart’s town house. Only this is a thousand times worse. Two of my editors threatened to resign if I don’t fire your ass.”

  Mike drew a deep breath. “What are we going to do?”

  “We knew we’d have to go public with this eventually. Granted, we all hoped that would come after we’d caught ourselves a serial killer. I don’t know who let the press in on our little secret, but it sure wasn’t me. And
it wasn’t Charlie.”

  “Are you accusing me?”

  “It had to be you. Maybe not on purpose, but somewhere you slipped. And we made it clear from the very beginning that if you did slip, you were the one who was going down. Not me. Not Charlie. And certainly not the Tribune. That was our deal.”

  Mike took a deep breath. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that, for the time being, I know only one way to handle this. I’m sorry, but I’m putting you on probation.”

  “For what?”

  “I can’t just ignore the editorial revolt on my own doorstep. I have to take some action.”

  “This is crap!”

  “We’ve got no choice. You can’t just come out and deny you’re paying an informant. That would be a lie. And we can’t reveal that you’re working with the FBI, or your informant will stop calling, and we’ll have blown everything we’ve tried to accomplish. Or worse, if your informant feels like you’ve double-crossed him, you might be putting your own life in danger. For better or worse, we’ve got to ride this out to the end.”

  “Aaron, this is my reputation we’re talking about. Doesn’t thirteen years count for anything?”

  “Of course it does. That’s how we got into this mess in the first place. If anyone but you had come up with this proposal I would have killed it immediately. And if it were anyone but you, I wouldn’t be giving him a chance to redeem himself.”

  “Redeem myself? I must be missing something.”

  “I’m going to allow you to continue your coverage of the serial killings, even though you’re on probation. The only condition is that I handle all inquiries about alleged payments to confidential sources. I’m not asking you to lie—just refer all questions to me.”

  “How do I justify that?”

  “Tell the truth. It’s an ongoing story, and you’re concerned that any comments could jeopardize your relationship with your informant. The Tribune is handling the matter internally for now, and you’re confident that your name will be cleared in the end. Period.”

  “This is insane.”

  “Trust me. No matter how much heat our competitors in the media put on us, I’ll fend them off, so you can keep doing your job. Hopefully your stories will help catch the killer, and in the end we’ll have no public relations problem to speak of. Just remember: We’re in this box together. Right now, all we can do is let me play dumb and do a song and dance around the tough questions, until you can bring this thing to closure.”

  “Basically what you’re saying is: Go catch myself a serial killer and all our problems are solved.”

  His voice rose with urgency. “Do you see another way?”

  Mike sunk in his chair. “You’re all heart, Aaron.”

  “I gotta go. Just stick with the program.”

  The line clicked in Mike’s ear. He brought his hand to his forehead, his mind racing.

  “Can we talk now?” said Karen. She was standing in the open doorway, arms folded.

  He winced. “Sorry, but I gotta go talk some sense into Aaron. He’s putting me on probation over this.”

  “Can’t it wait until tomorrow morning?”

  “It really can’t. This is getting worse by the minute. He’s going on Nightline tonight.”

  “That’s not for another three hours.”

  He glanced at the clock, then back at Karen. His frustration was immense. “This is my career. Don’t you think I should go?”

  “I can’t tell you what you should do.”

  He took another look at the clock, then back at her. He could see in her eyes that maybe it would have happened. If they had just stayed there on the couch with no interruptions, she would have opened up, maybe even asked him to spend the night.

  “Karen, I really have to go.”

  “Then go.”

  He rose quickly and tried to kiss her on the lips, but she turned her cheek. His forced smile came out more like a grimace. He turned and hurried to the French doors. Karen followed and stood watching as he slid them back. He stopped on the lawn and looked back longingly, pleading with his eyes.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I get this straightened out. I promise.”

  She folded her arms tightly and shook her head. “Don’t knock yourself out,” she said as she reached out and shut the doors tight.

  Karen waited for Mike’s call, but it never came. She knew how important his career was to him, but he sure didn’t seem to appreciate the importance of what she’d been trying to reveal. At midnight, she unplugged the phone and went to bed.

  At 6:30 A.M. she reset her alarm for nine o’clock. She was still trying to fall asleep, and if she did, she wanted to get at least a couple of hours. Even after two months, sleeping without Mike was still awkward, and a week at her mother’s had made the house feel even less like a home. The familiar noises from the kitchen weren’t so familiar anymore. Passing cars on the street seemed to stop right outside the house. Hours passed as she lay in the darkness, eyes wide open, listening for footsteps. In the small hours of the night, an empty house was a frightfully noisy place.

  Lying on her back, she thought about her so-called protection. Maybe the alarm wasn’t enough. When she’d seen Mike, she’d frozen—hadn’t even thought to push the button. Maybe the agents outside had gone for coffee or had fallen asleep. Maybe they were lying in a ditch with their tongues cut out.

  Fading in and out of no-sleep and near-sleep, she tried to imagine what Mike was going through, dealing with someone who might be a killer. She wondered if she could do it, if she could bring herself to converse with someone so psychotic. That thought stayed with her as her mind finally drifted, taking her to another level of consciousness, to another time in her life….

  A cold Canadian wind had invaded the college town of Ithaca, rising in furious gusts as a steady rain beat on her windowpane. It all added up to yet another night of staring at the ceiling. She hated living alone, and she resented the hell out of her old roommate for dropping out of school, stuffing the rent payments up her nose, and sticking her with the apartment for the entire spring semester.

  She heard a thud outside, like a slam against the building. She sat up in bed and listened intently. The wind and rain howled outside her window, but all else was quiet. Slowly, she lay back against her pillow, listening so hard that she could hear the feathers compress to envelop her head.

  Another thud, and she shot up in bed. Her mouth went dry, and her heart raced. She listened, but there was only silence. The digital alarm clock said 4:27. The phone sat right on the nightstand, but she’d had so many false alarms with the campus police they’d started referring to her as the little girl who cried wolf. She drew a deep breath, then pulled back the covers and slid out of bed.

  She was wearing a long cotton jersey that came to the middle of her thighs, with bikini briefs underneath and thick white socks on her feet. One foot went slowly in front of the other as she entered the hallway, a long, dark tunnel with green sculptured carpet. She stopped at the living room. It was dark, lighted only by the faint glow of the night-light she’d placed in the kitchen. The furnace kicked on, giving her a start. She swallowed hard, calming her nerves. Grow up, she told herself. Don’t cry wolf again.

  She took a few more steps, then stopped and folded her arms tightly for warmth. It was chilly, downright cold, even with the heater on. Outside, the wind whistled. Inside, the curtain blew—and she gasped at the sight of the open window and the rain pouring in. Before she could scream there was a hand on her mouth and a damp weight on her back that pushed her to her knees and then to her stomach. She kicked and twisted, but he was sitting on her kidneys. She couldn’t breathe and couldn’t shake free. Again she tried to scream, but his big, gloved hand squeezed tighter around her mouth, and as she gasped for air her nostrils filled with stinking smells of old leather gloves.

  “Shut up,” he grunted, breathing bourbon on her face. “Just shut—”

  Up she came, like a rocket from th
e sheets. Her hands were shaking as she frantically looked left, then right, searching and disoriented in the darkness of her own bedroom. Sweat poured through her nightgown. But all was quiet.

  She caught her breath and rubbed the knots in her neck. Dreaming again. That same nightmare. Worse than a nightmare. It was all too real.

  If only it were a dream.

  Chapter 25

  torrents of icy air streamed from the air-conditioning vents in the ceiling, making the autopsy room of the Georgia State Crime Lab feel like a meat locker in a packinghouse. After an hour in the chill, Victoria Santos had to put on her long winter coat. For a hot-blooded Latin, she was a confessed wimp in the cold.

  Bright lights glistened off the white sterile walls and buffed tile floor. A long mobile cart for transporting bodies to the morgue was parked against the wall. A shiny metal autopsy table was in the center of the room, riddled with small holes that allowed water and fluids to drain into the round metal tank below. It looked like the perforated face of a giant cheese grater balanced on a huge tin can. Atop the table sat the small-parts dissection tray. Atop the tray lay Cybil Holland’s frozen finger.

  Victoria stood on one side of the table, staring down at the purplish stub with the pink French manicure beneath the bright examination light. Beside her stood Dr. Leslie Harmon, a tall black woman from the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s office who spent most of the time right in this room at the crime lab in Decatur. Tony Costello, the stocky Atlanta field agent, stood behind her in the shadows. On the other side of the table and hunched over the tray was Chester Burns, a fifty-nine-year-old internationally renowned forensic pathologist who smiled a lot, considering he was a walking encyclopedia on knives and stab wounds. Victoria had brought him down from the Bureau’s Forensic Science Research and Training Center in Quantico.

  “We got lucky,” said Dr. Burns. He was smiling, as usual, but still staring down at the finger, squinting through gold-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a crisp white lab coat, and his short black hair was matted on his head, parted widely down the middle. He straightened up and stepped back from the tray. “The cut is very clean. Fortunately, her attacker didn’t saw off the finger. Sawing would have shredded the tissue, splintered the bone. That would make my job a bear.”