by Rob Ashman
‘The chances are that he got to the general location by car. It’s the safest, most controlled method and allows for an immediate getaway. But he’d want to park far enough away from the target house not to be spotted. So …’ Bassano stabbed his finger into the map and described Mechanic’s route, ‘… he drives down Ridgeway Crescent passing the Mason house on the right. It’s a long road with a cul-de-sac at the end where there’s space to park. He travels five hundred yards and pulls up at the parking lot. Now he gets out of his car and walks back along the water’s edge to the target house. No one will pay attention to someone enjoying a walk along the beach. It’s perfect. When he gets to the target house, and when no one is looking, bam! He’s in.’
‘That’s great,’ said Lucas, ‘but he went “bam!” and broke into the wrong house.’
‘That’s right, and that’s where the error was made. The McKee house was the intended target and they live at 1315 Ridgeway Crescent. All the properties are located on the beach side of the street and the house numbers run in numerical order. Mechanic drives to the end and looks at the number on the last house, number 1287. He subtracts 1287 from 1315 and counts twenty-eight houses when he walks back up the beach.’
‘Brilliant piece of deduction, Sherlock, but he still gets the wrong damn house. Are you saying that with all his high IQ and meticulous planning, Mechanic can’t count to twenty-eight?’
‘No, sir, he counts pretty good.’ Bassano tried hard to instill calm into his boss. ‘He counts twenty-eight houses as he walks past them on the beach side of the properties.’ Bassano straightened up from the map on the table. ‘Only, the twenty-eighth house is the Mason house,’ he said, emphasizing each word as he spoke.
‘But how can that be?’
‘Because one of the residents of Ridgeway Crescent is superstitious and there is no number 1313. The house numbers go 1311, 1312 ... 1314, 1315. Number 1313 is missing, I checked it out. Mechanic counted twenty-eight houses but without number 1313 he ended up in the next door house to the one he wanted. That put him in the Mason house, not the McKee house.’ Bassano looked triumphant.
Lucas slumped into a chair, exhausted by the events of the day.
‘That’s brilliant,’ he said to Bassano who gave him a wide smile. ‘But do you know what?’
‘What?’
‘While it solves a little riddle for us, it doesn’t get us any further with the big questions. Like, what’s the connection between our victims? How is he selecting them? Why did Mechanic kill Galbraith?’ Bassano nodded agreement, his smile fading away.
‘It does tell us one thing, sir,’ Bassano offered.
‘Oh, what’s that?’
‘It tells us he can make mistakes. It tells us he’s not foolproof.’ Bassano looked at his boss for any flicker of recognition.
‘You’re right,’ Lucas said. ‘Let’s hope he makes a few more. How are the rest of the team doing?’
‘They’re working hard trying to provide answers to all the questions you just raised, but they’re drawing blanks at every turn. That’s why I got excited about unravelling why Mechanic hit the Mason house. So far it’s the only thing we’ve managed to crack.’
‘Keep at it and call me if anything else turns up.’
Bassano left and Lucas returned to his desk, tilting right back in his chair. From this angle the mountain of paperwork looked even bigger. Even the arrival of a previously dead psychopath on your patch didn’t stop the administration machine churning out endless numbers of forms to fill. He jerked the chair back into its upright position, dragged the pile towards him and removed the top sheet. It was a request from the Governor’s office to comment on a performance stat. Lucas picked up his pen and started scribbling.
It was late in the evening when he gave up on his paperwork and made his way to his car. There’d been no further revelations from the investigation teams. Lucas had joined them in the incident room on several occasions during the afternoon, as much to get away from his admin as to get himself briefed.
Walking across the parking lot he could see someone standing by his car, hands in pockets. As he got closer he recognized it was Harper. He was dressed in a suit you could trick or treat in and a white shirt sporting a tragically frayed collar. He was shuffling his feet and staring at the ground. Lucas couldn’t work out if his hair was gelled flat to his head or he had a new haircut. If it was the haircut option, it looked like he’d done it himself.
As Lucas got closer, he noticed that Harper had shaved and had made an effort to smarten himself up. He didn’t stink of cigarettes and booze, though it was hard to mask the long-term effects of alcohol with an ill-fitting suit, some soap and a bad haircut.
‘Hey, this is a surprise.’ Lucas tried to sound upbeat.
‘I thought it best not to make a show of myself in the station. There are still a lot of guys I know there, but it’s not such a happy place for me, you know.’
‘That’s okay. What can I do for you? Do you want to go for a coffee?’
‘No, here will do fine for what I’ve come to say.’
‘Go on.’
‘When we spoke the other day, there was something I didn’t tell you.’ Harper looked as though he was in the confessional box at church. ‘In fact, it’s something I haven’t told anyone. But I think it’s time.’
There was a long pause.
‘Well,’ Harper cleared his throat, ‘on the night Galbraith died, I told you that he called me in a bar to chew me out again about his damn profile and how I was wrong.’
‘Yes, I remember. What of it?’
‘I’m not sure that’s really what happened and it’s bugged me all these years. It was early evening and I was already drunk. When he called I just went into orbit because I thought he’d tracked me down to ram his ideas down my throat. I was aggressive and I guess I didn’t listen to him properly. That final conversation has haunted me for three years. I’ve played it over and over in my head and I think he said something else. I think what he actually said was, “I’ve got it wrong.” He said something about throwing the investigation off course and I thought he was accusing me. But now I think what he actually said was that the profile itself was wrong.’
‘Wrong in what way?’
‘He didn’t say, or if he did I wasn’t listening. I was bawling him out so much that he couldn’t get a word in. In retrospect, I’m sure what he actually said was, “I’ve got it wrong.” But, whatever it was, he took it to his grave. I never spoke to him again. The next time I saw Galbraith, he was dead.’
‘Why haven’t you told anyone this before?’
‘Because there was no need to. Galbraith was gone and shortly afterwards Mechanic torched himself. It took weeks for the realization to dawn that I might not have heard him right. I’d dream about taking that call and the conversation we had. Piece by piece it dawned on me but by the time I had it straight in my head the opportunity to say something had passed. Besides, this is hard. It’s not easy for me to admit to myself. He might’ve been reaching out to me and all I did was to drive him away. If I’d have been different on that call, maybe he’d still be alive.’ Harper looked down at his shoes. ‘It was one of the reasons I quit.’
‘Do you have any idea how the profile was wrong?’
‘No, none at all. He made notes on everything but there wasn’t one scrap of paper with any mention of an alternative profile. There was nothing.’
‘Did you ask Jo Sells?’
‘Yes, sure, but she was as much in the dark as me. I didn’t tell her about the phone call, I just asked if there were any other profile options we should be considering. She was a junior member of staff and played second fiddle to Galbraith. His death hit her really hard and she went back to Quantico quickly after the case concluded. She took time off to come to terms with it. No, she didn’t know anything.’
Harper ground to a halt once he’d said all he’d come to say. Lucas sensed that the message had been delivered and the conversation was ov
er.
‘Well, I’d better be going. I just had to get that off my chest. Make of it what you will. You know where I am if you need to talk again.’ With that, Harper turned and walked away.
Lucas chanced one last question. ‘What were the other reasons?’ he called after Harper.
Harper turned. ‘What?’
‘You said it was one of the reasons you quit. What were the others?’
Harper strolled back towards him with his hands deep in his pockets, his head tilted down. He stopped in front of Lucas.
‘They are wide and varied, Lieutenant, wide and varied. But, without question, the straw that broke this camel’s back happened when I went to see Julie Tate after we’d confirmed Mechanic’s death to the press. She was the wife and mother of victims four, five and six. I went to see her to give her the news myself. We were really pumped up that Mechanic was dead. It felt like a good thing to do. I suppose I was expecting a positive reaction from her but she was just numb. We talked a while and at the end she thanked me for coming and said, “Lieutenant, you know, the agony continues for those that remain. I wish I were dead.” The words still keep me awake at night after all this time.’ Harper paused, drifting away. ‘That was it. I was all hyped up because Mechanic was gone and this poor woman was still living through her own private hell. Being dead was a better option for her. It was the final straw for me. My responsibility was to protect people like her. It was my responsibility and I failed.’
‘You can’t shoulder that degree of guilt.’ Lucas felt duty-bound to defend Harper’s position. ‘It happened years ago and you can’t keep beating yourself up over it.’
‘Oh, but I do, Lieutenant. When I look in the mirror I tell myself that every day.’ Harper turned and again walked away. Lucas didn’t call him back a second time.
Back at home, Lucas found himself in the unusual position of having a poor night’s sleep. His wife was away on a conference, which generally meant a relaxing evening watching wall-to-wall sport on TV, eating chili dogs and drinking beer. These were banned activities during the week but when the enforcer wasn’t there Lucas enjoyed his contraband evenings.
Under normal circumstances such an evening would have guaranteed a restful night, but not on this occasion. Lucas tossed and turned, replaying the conversations of the day in his head. Round and round the events span into increasingly bizarre dreams. A faceless woman swaying back and forth in a rocking chair crying, ‘I wish I were dead. It’s those that remain. I wish I were dead.’ Over and over. In another room, the carpet was stained dark with blood and Hannah McKee was on her knees trying to scrub clean the thick pile. The more she scrubbed, the more the blood smeared across the floor. And there was Harper trying to get to the bottom of a whisky bottle as fast as he could, staggering around and slurring, ‘It’s the profile, it’s the profile.’
Try as he might, he couldn’t shift the images which kept sleep at bay. He looked at the green digits on the bedside clock: 3.15am, cursed and turned over, trying to find a comfortable position. He closed his eyes and the faceless woman appeared again, wringing her hands. ‘Those that remain, I wish I were dead.’ Her voice swirled around Lucas’s head. ‘I wish I were–’
He woke up. His mind was completely alert. Leaping from the bed, Lucas raced down the hallway to his study, opening drawers for pens and paper. He took a piece of paper and covered it with what looked like the doodles of a crazy man. There were circles and squares with writing in them and a rat’s nest of connecting arrows. He scribbled furiously, reaching for more paper and covering it with the same graphic scrawl. Putting his pen down, he picked up the phone and barked instructions to the startled desk sergeant back at the station.
Replacing the receiver in its cradle, he leaned back and surveyed the papers side by side on the desk. His breathing was slowly returning to normal.
‘We’ve been looking in the wrong place,’ he said to himself.
The clock by the bed read 4.47am.
17
Lucas marched into his office at 6.50am. Bassano and Jo Sells were already seated at the conference table, coffees in hand. Another large mug full of hot black liquid was placed on a coaster at the head of the table. Lucas claimed it, as he joined them.
He looked across to see a perfectly formed sugar twist by the side of Jo’s mug. He estimated it contained more than her usual six packets. She looked immaculate in a grey trouser suit and white blouse with a button-down collar. Her hair was drawn into the same long plait as yesterday and she wore just a hint of make-up.
Bassano looked as if he’d dressed himself straight from the dryer and had made no attempt to tame his bed hair. The previous day he’d suffered the same reaction as Lucas when Jo Sells walked into the briefing room, he’d nearly fallen off his chair. She’d proceeded to give a very polished, competent performance, showcasing her expert knowledge and experience. However, for Bassano, all he could remember from the briefing was, ‘Man, she’s hot.’
Lucas pulled a buff-coloured file from his case and removed a sheet of paper covered with manic scrawl. ‘Thanks for coming in early,’ he said, pleased that his barked instructions had worked. ‘I need to share with you a few ideas and I wanted to do it before the rest of day kicked off.’ Bassano and Sells nodded.
‘This case bothers me. There is so much of it that doesn’t add up. Why is it with thirteen previous kills and three new murders we can’t find what connects any of the victims? I’ve never known a case where we have so much information and yet so little idea of the common thread. I was with the team yesterday, they’re hitting this really hard. But what have we got so far, Bassano?’
‘Absolutely nothing, boss. Not a single thing which connects the men or the kids.’
Lucas shook his head. ‘I shadowed a couple of them and they’re doing everything possible to get a result, but we don’t have a damn thing. Our profile tells us Mechanic is a father and sibling hater, right? Something happened in his past to cause him intense trauma, which fractured his personality and drives him to kill. Right, Jo?’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘The initial murders pointed to that conclusion and the most recent killings at the McKee house support it.’
‘But what if that’s not right?’ Lucas stood to pace around the office. ‘What if that theory is wrong? What if that part of the profile was incorrect?’
Jo Sells stiffened in her chair.
‘But it’s not. The evidence is clear,’ she said flatly.
‘Okay, but let’s suppose for one moment it’s wrong. Let’s park the evidence and look at it from a different point of view. Ask yourselves the question, who are the victims here?’
‘Mechanic killed the men and the kids. They are the victims,’ Jo said, folding her arms tight across her chest.
‘Yes, that’s what the evidence says, but what if the true victims were the women? Think about it. Mechanic takes away everything they love and leaves them to cope with the agony of losing their family. What could be worse than knowing that your family was executed, and for some bizarre reason you were spared. How could you live with that? Just think about it.’ Lucas stopped to let what he’d said sink in.
He continued, ‘What if Mechanic actually hated the women and the most vengeful thing he could do was to kill their families, while he left them alive.’
‘That’s an interesting hypothesis,’ Jo leaned forward placing both hands on the table, ‘and one that is completely ridiculous.’ She emphasized every syllable of the last word. ‘The profile is clear, very clear. Mechanic is a father and sibling hater. He leaves the women alive. To suggest that they’re the focus of his attention and the true victims here is complete nonsense.’
‘Yes, I know what the profile says, but do you know what Julie Tate said? She told Harper that the agony continues for those that remain and that she wished she were dead. Think about it. For her, being dead was a better alternative to what she was going through. Just think about that.’
‘This is absurd.�
� Jo flung herself back in her chair. She was beginning to lose it a little.
‘Go with it, Jo. What if the profile was wrong, what if—’
‘So, now you’re the expert? Only yesterday you needed a crash course in serial killers and today you’re the damned authority on it. No, the profile is correct. It’s you who’s wrong.’ She raised her voice with every phrase and with every phrase Bassano lifted his eyebrows higher.
Lucas stood his ground. ‘We need to cover all the options and this is merely a different viewpoint. Let’s face it, we’ve got absolutely nothing from concentrating on the murder victims so let’s shift our focus to the women instead.’
Jo leapt out of her chair, banging the table with the flat of her hand. ‘This is getting us nowhere. The evidence is clear. Mechanic kills the men and the kids, they are the victims and we need to focus all our efforts on them before he kills again.’
‘You’re not running this investigation, Doctor. I am,’ Lucas said, leaning over the table to meet her gaze. Jo kicked her seat back before storming out of the office. ‘If anyone wants me, I’ll be at the McKee house,’ she shouted over her shoulder, slamming the door behind her.
The room fell silent. ‘What the fuck was that about?’ asked Bassano.
‘Damned if I know. Maybe these academics don’t like it when you challenge them. Redirect the team to focus on the women and see what comes up. It might be nothing and if so I’ll have to eat a shitload of humble pie. But until then, get cracking on the women.’ Bassano left, eager to get to work.
Alone in his office, Lucas lifted the piece of paper from the table and placed it back into the folder. In doing so, he pulled out the other sheet covered with the same array of arrows and scribbles. He looked at it, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to deal with this one,’ he said to his empty office. He replaced it and gazed into the distance. ‘One step at a time, one step at a time.’
