Fair Warning - Jack McEvoy Series 03 (2020)

by Connelly, Michael

  “Last we spoke, I was a murder suspect,” I said. “Now you want to work together.”

  “Jack, you’re cleared,” Mattson said. “The DNA was clean.”

  “Thanks for letting me know,” I said.

  “You did know,” Mattson said. “You knew all along. I didn’t think you were waiting for me.”

  “How about this: Did you tell Christina Portrero’s friend that I wasn’t the creep you told her I was?” I said.

  “It’s at the top of my list,” Mattson said.

  I shook my head.

  “Look, Mr. McEvoy,” Sakai said, pronouncing my name perfectly. “We can sit here and potshot each other about mistakes made in the past. Or we can work together. You get your story and we get the guy out there who is killing people.”

  I looked at Sakai. He was obviously assigned the role of peacemaker—the man who was above all the skirmishes with only the truth in his sights.

  “Whatever,” I said. “You’re about to get bigfooted by the FBI. You’ll be turning this over by tomorrow morning.”

  Mattson looked stunned.

  “Jesus Christ, you went to the bureau with this?” he exclaimed.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I asked. “I went to you people and you put me in jail.”

  “Look, can I just say something?” Ortiz said, holding his hands up in a calming gesture. “We really need—”

  “No,” Mattson said. “Who did you go to over there?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Another person I’m working on this

  with went there while I went here.”

  “Call them off,” Mattson said. “It’s not their case.”

  “It’s not your case either,” I said. “There are killings from here to Florida and up the coast to Santa Barbara.”

  “See? I told you he was the one who connected all of this,” Ortiz said, looking at Mattson.

  “So why am I here?” I asked. “You want to know what I know? Then it’s got to be an even trade and it’s got to be ironclad exclusive or I am out of here. I’ll take my chances with the FBI.”

  Nobody said anything. After a few seconds I started to get up.

  “Okay, then,” I said.

  “Just hold your horses,” Mattson said. “Sit down and let’s cool down. Let’s not forget that there’s a sick fuck out there killing people.”

  “Yeah, let’s not,” I said.

  Mattson turned slightly to check with his partner. Some sort of nonverbal message was communicated, then he looked back at me.

  “All right, we trade,” he said. “Info for info, intel for intel.”

  “Fine,” I said. “You first.”

  Mattson spread his hands.

  “What do you want to know?” he said.

  “How’d you get here?” I asked. “Were you following me?”

  “I invited them,” Ortiz said. “I saw the post.”

  “Coincidence, Jack,” Mattson said. “We were here, meeting with Gonzo, when you showed up.”

  “Tell me why,” I said.

  “Simple,” Mattson said. “Gonzo started looking around after your post and started connecting cases, same as you. He knew Sakai and I had Portrero, so when two of these AOD cases came up in one day he called us and said they might all be connected. Here we are.”

  I realized that I was light-years ahead of them on the investigation. I could share some of what I knew and blow their minds—and still keep some details for myself and my story. I also had the printouts from Hammond’s lab that I had to be careful about revealing.

  “Your turn,” Mattson said.

  “Not yet,” I said. “You haven’t told me anything I don’t already know.”

  “Then what do you want?” Mattson said.

  “The guy who fell off the parking garage today, who is he?” I asked.

  “Gonzo?” Mattson prompted.

  “Guy’s name is Sanford Tolan,” Ortiz said. “Thirty-one years old, lived in North Hollywood and worked at a liquor store.”

  That was not what I was expecting.

  “A liquor store?” I asked. “Where?”

  “Up in Sunland off Sherman Way,” Ortiz said.

  “How does that fit with Hammond?” I asked.

  “As far as we can tell, it doesn’t,” Mattson said.

  “So, you’re saying it’s a coincidence?” I asked. “The two deaths are unrelated?”

  “No, we’re not saying that,” Mattson countered. “Not yet. We’re just getting into this thing.”

  He looked at Ortiz as if throwing the ball to him.

  “Autopsy has not been scheduled yet,” Ortiz said. “But the preliminary notes from the field indicate he was already dead when he fell.”

  “How can they tell that?” I asked.

  “We have witnesses,” Ortiz said. “He didn’t yell and he didn’t attempt to break his fall—which we would have seen in the injuries. Plus, you don’t see AOD in falls like this. A broken neck is common, but not AOD. There is no twisting of the neck in a fall like that.”

  “You said he worked in a liquor store,” I said. “You mean, like behind the counter?”

  “Correct,” Ortiz said.

  “What else do you know?” I pressed.

  “We know he had a criminal record,” Ortiz said.

  Ortiz looked at Mattson as if for permission.

  “The whole deal’s off if you hold back on me,” I said.

  Mattson nodded.

  “He was a pedophile,” Ortiz said. “Did four years in Corcoran for raping his stepson.”

  Again, the information didn’t fit. I was expecting an Internet cipher, some sort of expert who handled the dark-web part of Dirty4. A woman-hating incel. Pedophile was not part of the profile that was emerging.

  “Okay,” Mattson said. “Now it’s your turn to give. Tell us something we don’t know, Jack.”

  I nodded and to buy some time I reached down to my backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out the notebook in which I had written the facts of the story. I flipped through the pages for show and then looked up at Mattson.

  “The man you’re looking for calls himself the Shrike,” I said.

  32

  I sat in my Jeep in the parking lot of the coroner’s office and made calls. I didn’t want to be driving during these conversations. I also wanted to watch for Mattson and Sakai. They had stayed behind with Ortiz after our meeting and I was curious to see how long it would be before they left. I didn’t know what I would get from that but I wanted to know anyway.

  The first call was to Emily Atwater to check on her status.

  “I’ve started writing,” she reported. “So far so good. We’ve got a lot so I’m playing with the balance. What to move up, what to move down. As you know, Myron doesn’t like sidebars. So it’s got to be one story and follow-ups in the days after. What about you?”

  “I was wrong about the second case being Hammond’s partner,” I said. “They think the Shrike might have made a mistake and killed the wrong guy. So we have to keep looking for him.”

  “‘They’?”

  “Yeah, the police were here. Mattson and Sakai. With the help of a smart coroner’s investigator they’ve put the cases together.”

  “Shit.”

  “Well, I made a deal with them. Traded information on the basis of exclusivity.”

  “Can we trust them?”

  “Not at all. I don’t trust them and I don’t trust the FBI not to leak. So I held back. I gave them Dirty4 but didn’t mention GT23 or Orange Nano or Hammond’s connection to the Orton case. I think they have a lot of catching up to do before we have to worry about them leaking.”

  I saw a man and woman leaving the coroner’s office, arms wrapped around each other, heads down. I recognized them from the family room earlier. The man had tears on his face. The woman didn’t. She was supporting him more than he was supporting her. She walked him to the passenger side of a car and helped him get in before going around to get in behind the wheel. I saw
a man in another car watching them as well.

  “Jack, you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why do they think the Shrike killed the wrong guy?”

  “Because he was the wrong profile. Guy worked in a liquor store and was a convicted pedophile. Not the right fit. We are just guessing here but they think the Shrike tried to lure RogueVogue to a meeting at the Northridge Mall and somehow thought this guy—his name was Sanford Tolan—was RogueVogue. Tolan was there by himself, probably sitting around watching children in the mall. The Shrike followed him out to his car, broke his neck, and threw him over the edge.”

  “That’s horrible. Do you think the Shrike knows he made a mistake?”

  “You mean like he realized this is not the right guy but killed him anyway? Maybe. Hard to say. The whole idea of setting up the meeting is a guess.”

  “What about the FBI? Have you heard from Rachel?”

  “My next call. I wanted to check in with you first.”

  “All right, then I’m going to get back to it. Let me know what you know.”

  “You got it.”

  Before calling Rachel I pulled up my email account to check for new messages. My pulse jumped when I saw I had received a reply from RogueVogue to the message I had sent earlier.

  I don’t understand this. Who are you? Why did you send this to me?

  I checked the time on the message and saw that it was sent well after the lifeless body of Sanford Tolan had dropped from the fourth floor of the mall parking garage. It was further proof that the Shrike had killed the wrong man. The message was short and simple and most of all innocent. No acknowledgment, no admission, just tell me more.

  I considered how to answer in a way that would not scare him off: I can safeguard you … I can tell your story … I can be your go-between …

  I decided on a direct approach that laid the reality of his situation on the line. Looking up every few seconds or so to check for the detectives, I composed an email that I hoped would lead RogueVogue to trust me with his story and safety.

  I am a writer. I have written books about killers like the Poet and the Scarecrow. I am writing now about the Shrike. You are in danger. He killed Hammond and he killed a man he thought was you. I can help you. I can get you to safety and I can tell your story. I know you and Hammond had nothing to do with the Shrike. You never planned on that. I’m including my number here. Call me and we can help each other.

  I read it twice and typed my cell number at the bottom before sending it. My hope was that RogueVogue would read and react to it right away.

  I checked the parking lot and the front of the coroner’s office once more but saw no sign of the LAPD detectives. I realized that they might have parked over at USC Medical Center and taken the tunnel through to the coroner’s office. I may have missed them. But I decided to call Rachel while maintaining my vigil. She answered in a whisper.

  “Jack, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I was just checking in. Did you meet with anybody yet?”

  “Yes, we’re in the middle of it. I just stepped out to take the call.”

  “And?”

  “Well, they’re working on it. They’re looking for other cases and trying to run down Hammond’s partner. I should have something on that soon.”

  “There might be a case in Tucson. But more importantly at the moment, there was another killing today here in L.A. I thought it was Hammond’s partner but it’s not. It looks like a mistake. Like the Shrike thought it was Hammond’s partner.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  I filled her in on how a check of the causesofdeath website led me to the coroner’s office. I told her that the bureau now had competition in the form of the LAPD connecting the same cases the FairWarning team had. I suggested that maybe the FBI should join forces with the LAPD rather than have the agencies run parallel investigations.

  “I’ll suggest it but don’t hold your breath,” Rachel said. “That never worked well when I was here and I doubt attitudes have changed much.”

  “Well, it won’t look that great when the story comes out and it says they’re running different investigations,” I said.

  “Jack, that’s another thing.”

  “What is?”

  “They don’t want you to publish yet.”

  “Jesus, I knew it would come to that. You can tell them to forget it. It’s our story. We brought it to them as a courtesy. We’re going with it.”

  “They feel—and I agree—that it would be better if this guy doesn’t know they’re coming. You go with the story, he’ll probably drop from sight and then we’ll never get him.”

  “‘We’? You’re back with them now?”

  “You know what I mean. As soon as this guy knows we’re on to him he’ll disappear and change his pattern.”

  “And if we don’t publish and warn the public about this guy, he just goes on killing until maybe he is caught.”

  “I know that’s the argument but—”

  “He killed two people today alone. And this was him covering his tracks. He must already know that something is up, that people are on to him.”

  “But not the FBI, Jack.”

  “Look, I’ll talk to Myron and Emily about it but I will vote to publish. The world needs to know this guy is out there and what he’s doing and how these victims are identified and stalked.”

  “And you have to make sure you don’t get scooped.”

  “Look, I’m not denying that. I’m a reporter and this is my story, and yes, I want to be sure I’m first out with it. But now with both the FBI and LAPD aware of it, it’s only a matter of time before some asshole leaks it to some reporter he’s trying to leverage. That alone makes me want to publish, but the more important reason is to alert the public to the very dangerous thing going on out there.”

  “Okay, Jack, I’ll tell them. How long can I say they have before it goes out?”

  I looked through the windshield and saw Mattson and Sakai walking along the sidewalk that fronted the parking lot. I put my phone on speaker so I could use it to take a photo of them. Myron liked to put photos into the body of long stories as visual breaks. As long as they were somehow connected to the story, that was all that mattered.

  The detectives went down either side of an unmarked car and got in.

  “A day,” I said. “We’ll try to get it out by tomorrow night.”

  “Can’t you push it back at least twenty-four hours, Jack? There is not much they can do by tomorrow night.”

  “What if he kills somebody on that extra day? You want that on you, Rachel? I don’t.”

  I got the call-waiting buzz in my ear and looked at my phone’s screen. An Unknown Caller was reaching out to me.

  “Rachel, I’ve got a call I have to take,” I said quickly. “It might be him.”

  “Who?” Rachel said.

  “RogueVogue. I’ll call you back.”

  “Jack—”

  I disconnected and accepted the other call.

  “This is Jack McEvoy.”

  Nothing. Just an open line. I watched Mattson and Sakai drive out of the parking lot and turn right on Mission Road.

  “Hello? This is Jack.”

  “You sent me a message …”

  The voice came through a digital modulator that turned it into the voice of a robot.

  “Yes … I did. You’re in danger. I would like to help you.”

  “How can you help me?”

  I quietly unzipped my backpack and grabbed a notebook and pen so I could write his words down.

  “For one thing, I can get your side of the story out. When this thing hits, there are going to be victims and villains. You want to get your story out there before other people put it out there for you. People who don’t know you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I told you. I’m a writer. I track killers. I’m tracking the Shrike.”

  “How do you know about him?”

  “He killed som
eone I knew. He got her name and details from Dirty4.”

  There was a silence and I began to think I’d lost him. I wanted to persuade him to talk. But I wasn’t willing to dance around what he and Hammond had wrought with their scheme. As far as I was concerned, RogueVogue was firmly on the villain side of the ledger. He was not as culpable as the Shrike but pretty damn close.

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  I wrote the line down verbatim before responding. I knew it would go high up in the story.

  “What was supposed to happen?”

  “We … it was just supposed to make money. We saw a niche.”

  “What was that niche?”

  “You know, helping guys … some guys have trouble meeting girls. It wasn’t that different from Tinder and some of those others.”

  “Except the women whose profiles you were selling didn’t know, right?”

  I said it in a non-accusatory tone but it brought silence. I threw a softball question out before I lost him.

  “How did you and Marshall Hammond meet?”

  After a pause he answered.

  “College roommates.”

  “Where was that?”

  “UC–Irvine.”

  A little piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

  “You knew William Orton there?”

  “Marshall did.”

  I threw a curveball at him. A possibility that had been growing in the back of my mind.

  “Is he the Shrike?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know. What happened to Marshall?”

  “The Shrike broke his neck, then tried to make it look like he hanged himself in his home lab. How do you know Orton is not the Shrike? Do you know who the Shrike is?”

  “I figured it out.”

  I wrote it down. I knew my next words to him might be the most important part of the conversation.

  “Okay, listen. There is a way for you to help your situation—if you want to.”

  “How?”

  “Tell me who the Shrike is. The FBI needs to stop him.”

  “The FBI?”

  I immediately realized I had misspoken. He didn’t know that this had come to the attention of the FBI. I sensed that I had to keep him on the phone by going in another direction. I blurted out a question.