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by Brian Freemantle

  ‘It isn’t any good, my people trying to work like this,’ protested Westmore. ‘We need to be on a crime scene as soon as it’s discovered.’

  ‘It didn’t become serial before Alabama,’ reminded Powell. ‘You’ll be there soon enough the next time.’

  Burt Lindropp was what was known as a good ole boy. There was the regulation cowboy hat and boots and ironically the silvered pistol high on the man’s left hip was a .357 Magnum Colt Python. It appeared polished to match the sheriff’s star beneath which it hung. He would, Powell knew, be a friend of every person it was politically and personally important to know in the county and beyond. The moment the soft handshake ended Powell decided that beneath the fat, affable, courteous exterior was a man with the temperament of a rattlesnake with an amphetamine habit.

  ‘Seems the rules weren’t quite followed here, son.’

  ‘What rules?’

  ‘Made it quite clear to your boy that I wanted my people around when you looked through Gene’s apartment. Now I hear you been there already. Broke my seal, even. That’s discourteous, sir. Downright discourteous.’

  ‘I didn’t have time.’

  ‘People are kinda polite around here, sir. They make time, particularly when I ask them to.’

  ‘If you’re offended, then I’m sorry. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.’

  ‘I am offended, son. And getting more so.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be difficult for me to become offended, either, sheriff. But I don’t think that would help what we’re both supposed to be interested in: finding a maniac killer. So why don’t we start behaving like adults and less like something out of a Tennessee Williams play.’ Fuck the man and the Washington lore about not offending the locals, thought Powell. He wished he’d eaten lunch. And slept better the previous night. He wondered if Lindropp knew who Tennessee Williams was.

  Red pinpricks began to form upon Lindropp’s already flushed cheeks. ‘I’m not accustomed to being talked to like this, son. And we don’t need any of your smart young scientific boys coming in from the big city, telling us how to run our investigation. Which, in this case, is running along pretty nicely.’

  Powell wished the man would make his mind up whether to call him sir or son. ‘I really am glad to hear that. Because I don’t think the local FBI office here has been properly included, as it should be.’

  ‘Don’t consider it something we can’t handle ourselves, without any outside interference. All pretty straightforward, to me. Gene’s a good boy. Little headstrong, maybe. No real harm. Met a willing gal, made a mistake. A tragedy.’

  ‘Killed by someone passing through, is that what you think the evidence points to?’

  ‘Something like that. A drifter. Happens a lot.’

  ‘I don’t think it does,’ said Powell. ‘So I’d greatly appreciate my office getting all your evidence files. Today. I want to know what happened to the Colt Python that Gene always had clipped inside the glove box of his cab. I want to know whether Gene was robbed, after being killed. And what it was that was taken, obviously, so we can circulate pawnshops, places like that, as well as the letters and the bank statements. The bank statements might show unusual payments or withdrawals, which I’m sure you’ve followed up. And I want everything that was in Billie Jean Kesby’s purse and a list of all the jewellery that was recovered. You do understand, don’t you, that this is now a federal case? Taken out of your hands.’

  Lindropp’s face was now scarlet. ‘You’re talking as if we’ve got a crime wave on our hands here.’

  ‘It’s become one. There’s been an identical murder in Alabama. We’re talking serial killings. But when we get whoever did it, Texas will have right of trial. Which will be a national affair and every aspect of your investigation will come under courtroom scrutiny.’

  The man’s mouth actually hung slightly open. ‘You serious?’

  ‘Totally serious. You will make everything available to the FBI office here, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Today.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘There!’ said Powell, rising. ‘We got along real fine in the end, didn’t we?’

  * * *

  The more he thought about it the more Harold Taylor wanted an audience. To know – to see and to feel – the sensation he could cause, not just in those fleeting last moments, before he killed those who had to die, but for much longer. For people who would go on living to realize who he was, what he was. To marvel. He’d have followers, disciples. Become a messiah. He couldn’t understand why it hadn’t occurred to him before. So much time lost. Wasted. Then again, maybe not. The world was a global village, he remembered. Now was exactly the right time. Perfect. But how? All he had to do was work out a way. He knew he could do it: he could do anything he wanted. There were still those who had to die, of course. No reason yet to stop doing that. Never a reason to stop doing that.

  He was glad he’d chosen to live, for the moment at least, close to Washington, DC. It was a grand city, properly impressive, the avenues made for marching legions. And convenient, for most of the people he had to kill. Conveniently within striking distance, he thought, amusing himself with the choice of words.

  Chapter Five

  As the division chief Harry Beddows had every right – and the unquestionable authority – to establish an incident room in the FBI’s Washington headquarters. But Powell was irritated that Beddows hadn’t discussed it until he’d called from San Antonio airport on his way to Alabama. When he’d protested Beddows had dismissively talked of team work, but during the flight Powell decided a more accurate although clumsier definition was apparently active participation without culpable responsibility. An arrest would be Harry Beddows’s success, a failure down to Wesley James Powell, wrongly chosen – already doubted – team leader. Washington fucking politics. But he wasn’t in Washington. He was in Birmingham, Alabama, his future seemingly hanging by a thread. Even more annoying was that Amy Halliday hadn’t said anything about the formation of a task force involving herself, clerks and the returning forensic group.

  The Birmingham investigation appeared to be impeccable, the co-operation between City Homicide and the Bureau faultless.

  The body of Jethro Morrison, a recidivist criminal who had spent thirty-one of his sixty-six years behind bars, had been found in Lane Park, close to the botanical gardens, displayed and mutilated in an identical way to those of Gene Johnson and Billie Jean Kesby in the Texas desert. Unlike Johnson, fibres from his shirt, in which there had been a minuscule slit, had been found in the wound, indicating the victim had been dressed when he was stabbed, although naked and spreadeagled when found, his clothes neatly folded beside him. His pockets had contained five rocks of crack cocaine and there had been $2,400 in small-denomination notes, none larger than $20. The local medical examiner had established that at the time of his death Morrison was suffering from ulcers and the considerable damage to the nasal membrane indicated substantial and long term cocaine abuse. Both eyes had been destroyed but only the left found, forced into the severed head. Death had been caused by the same sort of narrow-bladed knife. There was no restraint bruising to the wrists or ankles.

  The rest of the forensic routine had been just as immaculate. Birmingham homocide squad had alerted Charles Andrews within thirty minutes of themselves being summoned to the murder scene, for the local FBI man to be present throughout the scientific examination of the park area. Which had found nothing. The one potential witness, Michael Gaynor, had been led to the body by the frantic barking of his dog.

  The dead man’s son, also named Jethro, headed one of the city’s three major organized crime families. Local drugs squad listed the father as a deliverer and collector. Andrews said, ‘Junior thinks it’s a territory thing. Told us to go fuck ourselves. That they’d handle it their way. We’re expecting a war.’

  The dossier between them on Andrews’s desk in the local FBI office off Main Street was almost six inches
high and Andrews had confirmed that it had been sent to Amy Halliday on their way in from the city airport. With so little for him to do, Powell thought with luck he’d be able to get back to Washington by the following day. He said, ‘You tell the son about Texas?’

  ‘Didn’t know how you wanted to handle it,’ said Andrews. He was a neatly unobtrusive, bespectacled man whom it was difficult to imagine had killed someone, which Powell knew Andrews had: a serial rapist he’d trapped with a thirteen-year-old victim in a New York tenement. The rapist had fired four shots at Andrews, all of which had missed, and was turning the gun on to the child when Andrews fired back, just once.

  ‘The old man had quite a rap sheet,’ said Powell, tapping the file in front of him. As well as convictions for larceny, grand theft auto, armed robbery and drug dealing there were two separate murder investigations which had failed through lack of evidence.

  ‘A saint, compared to the son,’ said Andrews. ‘Local Public Enemy Number One.’

  ‘I think we’ll stop the war before it starts: see Gaynor later,’ decided Powell.

  The legend over the door described it as the Hillside Sports and Social Club. It was close to the railroad station and the only reasonably maintained property in a decaying terrace of houses so dilapidated they looked like animals, gradually lying down to die. Cardboard and packing crate planking filled more windows than glass, and the street and an empty lot immediately alongside were littered with cars being leisurely stripped of wheels and fittings. Their entry was met with an even greater silence than at Jilly Joe’s.

  It was bare-board basic, a lot of round tables, three pool tables, all occupied, a bar to the right and an annexe at the far end formed by a slated partition that came halfway across the room. It was dominated by a single but larger round table, at which three men sat looking out into the main room, lords of all they surveyed. The music was monotonous rap, like rain on a tin roof.

  ‘That’s Jethro Junior at the back table. The guy in the middle, wearing the dress,’ identified Andrews.

  Jethro Morrison Jnr was young – twenty-nine, Powell knew, from the police file – and big, more than a head taller than the two men either side of him, even sitting. His hair was cut extremely short and a tightly clipped beard fringed his jawline. Powell was unsure if the man was wearing a collarless shirt or a full caftan. It was yellow and shone like silk. There was a gold choker beneath, a heavy gold watch, the face surrounded by diamonds, and three diamond rings, one on his left hand, two on his right. As they walked the length of the room men began easing themselves into the partitioned-off area until Jethro Jnr gave a hand movement, as if shooing away bothersome insects. He said something and everyone around him laughed, dutifully. From a group outside the club Powell had seen two men hurry in ahead of them, so Morrison had known of their approach: could have left through any of the four doors behind him or even tried to impede their entry, if he’d chosen to do so. He’d obviously decided instead upon a cabaret, with them as the star act. There were four more men protectively behind Jethro Jnr, as well as the two at the table, by the time Powell and Andrews reached the man. As they did so the gang leader said, ‘I don’t recall your ringing for an appointment’ and there was another obedient round of laughter.

  ‘Let’s not fuck about,’ said Powell, heavy with condescension. He pulled out a chair directly opposite the gang leader and sat down. The local FBI agent did the same. There was noise behind them of people crowding the entrance from the larger room.

  Jethro Jnr said, ‘You’re in nigger country now, honky. You gotta show respect.’

  ‘I told you not to fuck about,’ repeated Powell. ‘I want to find who killed your father. This time around anything else doesn’t interest me. OK?’

  Jethro Jnr nodded in Andrews’s direction. ‘I told him it wasn’t nothing to do with you people. That he wasn’t to worry himself about it.’

  Powell very obviously and slowly lifted the briefcase he’d carried into the bar onto the table and equally unhurriedly took out photographs. Without speaking Powell dealt out the scene-of-crime photographs of Gene Johnson and Billie Jean Kesby. Initially – very briefly – the man feigned uninterest, then bent over them.

  ‘Where’s this?’ he said.

  ‘Texas. Five days before the same thing happened to your father.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘A trucker.’

  ‘The chick?’

  ‘A hooker.’

  ‘Why’d it happen?’

  ‘It’s serial. Nothing to do with any other gang, here in Birmingham.’

  ‘So there’s no cause for war,’ came in Andrews.

  ‘Why my daddy?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Powell. ‘I want you to help me find out.’

  ‘Me, help you! Feds!’

  There was a snicker from the assembled audience but Powell knew the other man’s cabaret was falling flat. ‘It’s the only chance you’ve got of finding out who cut your father up.’

  The gangster winced before he could stop himself, turning the expression into a frown. ‘You mean it, about not being interested in anything else?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You got the authority to say that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Harry Beddows would probably have his ass.

  There was a long pause, the man staring very directly at Powell. At one stage he made another shooing-off gesture and there was a scuff of people moving back into the main part of the club. Powell didn’t look around and was glad Andrews didn’t, either. Finally the black man said, ‘You jiving me?’

  ‘You’ve seen the pictures. You saw what happened to your father. We’re your chance to get even.’

  There was another long pause. Jethro Jnr said, ‘OK,’ but doubtfully.

  ‘You see your father, the day he died?’

  ‘Saw him every day.’

  ‘The night it happened?’

  The man nodded. ‘He left here around six, I guess. No later than six-thirty. Said he had a little business. Had a few customers. Made him feel independent.’

  ‘You know who his customers were?’

  ‘Old guys.’

  ‘Names?’

  There was a shrug. ‘Some.’

  Powell gestured vaguely around the room. ‘Any here?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Your father was found at nine-thirty. I need to fill in the time from his leaving here until then.’

  ‘Same deal we’ve got?’

  ‘Same deal.’ Powell was conscious of his colleague shifting beside him.

  Morrison nodded to the man at his left, who got up immediately and went out into the bar. Jethro Jnr said to Powell, ‘Leroy and my daddy go way back.’

  ‘Leroy?’ queried Andrews.

  ‘Leroy Goodfellow,’ said the gang leader.

  The name sounded genuine enough to check out in records, acknowledged Powell, grateful for the local man’s question. Jethro Jnr looked over Powell’s shoulder at the shuffling approach. Again Powell didn’t turn.

  Leroy Goodfellow was a wizened, slightly hunched man with completely white hair. He remained standing until Jethro Jnr nodded permission to sit and stayed looking more at the man in the caftan than at Powell. The gang leader said, ‘You’re cool, Leroy. Amnesty. Tell the man whatever he asks. OK?’

  ‘Whatever you say, Jethro.’

  ‘I say it’s OK.’ Morrison nodded, as if giving permission for Powell to begin.

  Powell said, ‘How long did you know Jethro Senior?’

  ‘Since we were kids. Always run together.’

  ‘Do time together?’

  ‘Some.’

  Something else that could be confirmed in Records. ‘When was the first time?’

  ‘Really kids.’ There was a nostalgia in the singsong voice.

  ‘Eighteen? Nineteen?’

  ‘End of the Second World War. All nigger units. Brothers together. More comfortable than being on the streets here, 1944, ’45. Lot of deals to work up. Army rations. Cigare
ttes and petrol and a lot of people to buy: white guys as well as niggers, despite segregation …’ He laughed. ‘We get picked up, Jethro and me. Pull five years apiece almost here on our doorstep. Military stockade just outside Florence. We’re pissed, right. Then you know what. Our unit gets sent overseas, all the Brothers get put in the front for the honkies to hide behind. They get 70 per cent casualties in some final push or other. And we’re here at home, warm and safe, working the prison almost as well as we worked the streets outside …’

  The locally based agent shifted again, impatiently. Powell said, ‘Afterwards you and Jethro stayed together?’

  ‘Both local boys. Good to have someone you can trust your life with, on a long stretch. That was how close me and Jethro was. Watched out for each other.’

  Permanent losers, thought Powell. ‘And when Jethro Senior’s luck changed, he looked after you?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Tell us about the night of the murder,’ cut in Andrews. ‘You with Jethro Senior here?’

  The old man shook his head. ‘Met in a bar up on Wilmington. Always did. Every Monday, regular. Jethro and me.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Quarter of seven. Around then. I was there first. Wanted to be there when Jethro arrived.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Powell.

  Goodfellow looked warily at the young black man, who nodded. Goodfellow said, ‘Little business. I’d kinda found some watches. Some jewellery. Good stuff.’

  Andrews shifted once more, uncomfortably. Powell came forward in his seat. ‘He take it off you?’ No watch – apart from the one the man had been wearing – or jewellery had been found on the body.

  ‘Agreed to. I reckoned it was worth three or four grand. He said he wasn’t carrying that much. That he needed a second opinion. So we arranged to meet the following day.’

  ‘What happened to the watches and the jewellery?’ demanded Andrews.