“Does that fall down to the personality types most likely to murder?” Spekler laughed at this question.
“Are you talking about the dreaded ‘Psychopath’?” he smiled, using air quotes around the word ‘Psychopath.’ Before Tyler could answer, Spekler went on, “You’ve seen the list, I assume, of professions most favoured by so called psychopaths? Your profession is number six on the list.”
“I’ve seen the list.”
“So you know you’re in good company; police are at number seven and priests are number eight. Just look at all the evil people in those roles have done over the last century alone and tell me a man who kills a few people is any worse than they are.” Tyler delighted in what Spekler was giving him here.
“You see no real difference between cops, priests and serial killers?” he asked.
“Crooked cops and paedophile priests are certainly no better than I am, I’ll tell you that!” Spekler said, sounding almost indignant.
“Those numbers of crooked cops and priests must be very low though, compared to the overall, just like serial killers make up a very small portion of people in general.”
“The number who do the ‘wrong things’ is not the question here. It’s the number of people who would do the ‘wrong thing’ if they knew they could get away with it. That’s the evil in all humans and the one thing that holds most people back from doing what I and so many others before me have done.”
“Fear is what holds back a deluge of killers?” Spekler nodded at this,
“Not just killers, but all kinds of criminals.”
At that moment, Tyler saw a book before him. If he could get access to more killers like this, there must be a tonne of material he could use. People were always fascinated by serial killers, and with his own links to the current case it was sure to be a best seller if he could get it out within the year. Davis at ‘The Baltimore Echo’ might be a stumbling block, but Tyler thought he could talk him around.
“You’re being very open about everything,” Tyler said, “I’m very happy to be the one to hear all of this.”
“You should be, this could make your name all over the country,” Spekler said and then laughing added, “Maybe I should give you some insight into the ‘John the Baptist’ case to stir up even more trouble for you!” Tyler smiled,
“I’m happy to hear anything you have to say about it.”
“The more I think about it, the more I’m sure I know who the killer is.” Tyler could tell by the quick flick of his tongue over his lips that Spekler was getting ready to tell him some joke.
“Who?” Tyler played along.
“All the murders are near Washington, right? It’s got to be the President of the United States!” Tyler smiled but only to placate; it was a poor joke and would not be making it into his story, or be mentioned outside this room in case it leaked.
As with the last visit, the rest of the time flew by and before he knew it, there was a guard at the door telling him it was time to wrap things up. There was one more meeting to go, and that was when he was going to ask Spekler what he knew about Dwight Spalding. That would keep Sarah hanging on for another few days at least.
Chapter 40
In the middle of the night a buzzing noise comes from far away, perhaps still in sleep. Sarah turns and feels the cool of the pillow on her cheek. The noise has stopped. But then it starts again. She cannot make sense of it. It stops. The third time she is alive to it and she jumps up scrambling through the bedclothes looking for the phone. She must have fallen asleep with it on the bed. It is on silent, but the vibration is calling to her and now she sees the lit up screen coming on and off through the sheets.
“Hello?” she answers frantic as she looks to the alarm clock for the time. 1.15am glows green in LEDs.
“Agent Brightwater?” a man’s voice - one she does not recognise - asks.
“Yes, who it this?”
“This is Officer Poking in Petersburg County Jail. Mr Stanver here is adamant he needs to talk to you right away.”
“What’s he saying?” she asked, already scampering about the room pulling clothes out for dressing in.
“Well, nothing so far, but he says it has to be you and it has to be now. He says you will definitely want to know what he had to say, it’s...” Here Officer Poking stalled a moment before saying, “He says it’s about ‘The Monster.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
“I’ll leave in a few minutes, but it's going to take me some time to get down there,” she said. Her name for Spalding had run her blood cold.
“Ordinarily we wouldn’t listen to inmates like this, but this case has been so strange, what with the blog from the killer and all, I thought it best to let you know.”
“You did the right thing, Officer. I’ll be down with you as fast as I can.”
“OK, Agent Brightwater, just to make you aware, I’m going to call his lawyer now too so he can be here when you arrive.”
“That’s fine, you just do what you have to do.”
The roads were quiet at this time of night, but it still took Sarah an hour and twenty-five minutes to get to the jail. She went inside and went through the usual jail procedures and form signing before being brought to where Karl Stanver was being held. Officer Poking was there waiting for her.
“You made good time, Agent Brightwater,” he said as they shook hands. She nodded and then asked,
“Is his lawyer here yet?”
“No, but he’s not too far away.”
“Is there anything more you can tell me about what Stanver’s been saying?”
“Not really,” Poking said. “The only thing I can tell you is that whatever it is, it’s got him scared as hell.”
“Scared?”
“He’s white as a ghost and sweating since he came to the guard saying he needed to talk to you.” Sarah looked at the door of the room as if she might somehow see through it to the man inside.
“So all he’s said is that he wants to talk to me about ‘The Monster’?” she asked for clarification.
“That’s pretty much it. Does the name ‘The Monster’ mean anything to you?” he asked.
“It could, but it will depend on what he has to say about it.” Poking nodded, knowing not to ask any more about it.
The lawyer arrived and he went in to speak to Stanver first. Sarah knew there was little point to arguing about this as it would only end up delaying things further. It was 4am now and everyone was very tired. Sarah paced the hall growing more frustrated all the same. Her mind was racing to crazy suppositions and she did her best to quell them. She couldn’t know what was going on at all until she spoke to Stanver. Calling someone you were scared of, or controlled by, as a ‘monster’ was not uncommon after all. Stanver might have nothing of value at all for her when she got to speak with him.
Finally, her patience wore thin and Sarah barged into the room.
“What is it you need to tell me, Mr Stanver?” she asked looking him in the eyes as his lawyer stood up remonstrating and saying she had no right to come in here like this. Sarah ignored him and continued to stare down Stanver. The man looked away and fiddled with his hands nervously before saying to his lawyer,
“I’m ready to talk to her now.” Sarah was delighted, and she sat down and reached for the recorder to turn it on. “No!” Stanver said in terror, “No recording!” Sarah looked at him and saw genuine fear in his eyes,
“It’s standard practice, Mr Stanver,” she said.
“He might find out that way,” Stanver said.
“Who?”
“The Monster.”
“Who is the Monster?” Sarah asked, her heart beating faster in anticipation of the answer, her fingers poised over the recorder, but her mind no longer caring if it was on or off.
“I don’t know, but you can’t toy with him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s too powerful, knows too much and can get to anyone no matter where they are,” Stanver said. Sarah saw
Stanver’s lawyer shift uneasily,
“This interview needs to be on a more formal footing,” he said. “You can't just bark questions rapid fire at my client like this.”
“Does he have someone close to you?” Sarah asked, never taking her eyes from Stanver. This was it, this was why Stanver had done this awful thing. The Monster had someone he loved captive and would kill them if he didn’t go along with this. It must be the same for Des Roche - that was what he meant about having no choice! Tears began to run down Stanver’s face and he nodded in desolation. Sarah glanced at the lawyer and could tell by his face that this was the first time he was hearing this information. He was flummoxed.
“Who is it?” Sarah asked Stanver, “Who’s in danger?”
“My daughter!” Stanver wailed and he flopped down into his folded arms on the table. “He has my little girl!” Sarah’s mind zoomed through what she could recall in Stanver’s file about his family. The daughter was in college. Where was it? Wisconsin?
“Mr Stanver, I know this must be very difficult for you, but I’m going to need you to try to compose yourself so I can get all the information we need as fast as we can.” The lawyer patted Stanver on the back and Sarah noted she’d never seen this happen before in an interview, an odd moment.
“She’s in school in Wisconsin, but he has her somewhere else. He let me talk to her and she said they had travelled for hours in his van. She didn’t know where they were, but it was far from her school.”
“He has a van?” Sarah latched on to this, “One that you can’t see out of from the back? Did she say anything more about the van?” These were the kind of small details that could unravel everything else, or alternatively tie everything together when other facts were unearthed. He shook his head,
“I don’t know, I don’t think so.”
“OK, that’s OK. Mr Stanver, we’re already making progress, the van is a great start.” She grabbed his arm and squeezed in support. It was hard to think this man was in jail for murder right now. “You say you spoke on the phone to your daughter. Whose phone was it?”
“It was her phone calling my cell phone,” he said. Sarah registered fear at this answer. The killer would know that the daughter’s phone could be tracked using phone towers - not an exact location, but it would narrow things down. It was likely then, knowing this, that they would have travelled far again after this phone call had been made. But in which direction? The killer would have disposed of her phone then or just took it apart. She didn’t impart any of this professional wisdom to the two men sitting before her.
“When did he take her?”
“Three days before he made me go to Palmyra.”
“Did he contact you on other phones?”
“He called my cell phone from blocked numbers but also the landline at home and in my office.”
“He called you a lot?”
“Yes, he wanted to make sure I wasn't going to go to the police. He kept letting me hear snippets of Megan talking with live news feeds on in the background. Stuff that had just happened in the last few hours before the call.”
“He was letting you know she was still OK, and leading you on,” she said. Here he broke down again and Sarah felt she could almost see the man age twenty years in that one moment. “There’s no reason to think she’s been hurt now,” she went on, “She is still his security policy and what he hopes is keeping you quiet. What we have to make sure is that as few people as possible know you’ve spoken to us.” Stanver nodded at this and Sarah looked to the lawyer who also nodded eagerly. This was something new for him and she could see the worry in his eyes.
Sarah was worried too. How was she going to be able to keep this thing quiet? The more people who found out about this, the more chance little Megan Stanver was going to turn up dead.
Chapter 41
Tyler sat on his bed in the inn going over his notes on his interviews with Spekler. Tomorrow was going to be the last one and in a way Tyler was saddened by this. He felt if given more time there was no telling what he might have been able to mine from the man. He was open and ready for exploration like no criminal Tyler had ever known of.
On reading parts where Spekler had mentioned his own murders, Tyler found himself thinking of Sarah’s mother and the way she’d been killed. How scared she must have been once she realised she was all alone in a locked house with a beast like Dwight Spalding. There was no need for that kind of cruelty, he thought. It’s one thing to kill people to satisfy some urge that can’t be resisted, but why wasn’t the killing enough for some of them? Why did the horrific fear of the victim have to exist as well? Surely killing was killing, but then, perhaps that was just being too simplistic.
The book idea resurfaced and he imagined talking to Spalding in some future where the man was in custody. This led him to think what if through his work on the book he could be the man to bring Spalding to justice. Wouldn’t that be something!
And how happy it would make Sarah too. Well, perhaps happy wasn’t the word, but there would be at least be... what? How would she feel to have the murderer of her mother in jail, surely expecting the death penalty? Would it change anything for her? Tyler had often got the impression (indeed he was using it to his advantage) that vengeance was the purest form of emotion that drove Sarah Brightwater on in her pursuit of Spalding. What would that leave her if this was ever accomplished? Would there be a void that could never be filled, and her with so much of her life left to live? Or would it finally give her the chance to grieve for her lost mother without anger, without recrimination or doubt? Perhaps that would be the best outcome she could hope for.
Whatever outcome she wanted, Tyler decided he was going to help her achieve it. He would ask Spekler about Spalding in their last interview. That would be the start of it.
The next day, Spekler seemed tired, spent almost, and his answers and enthusiasm had waned since the previous meetings of the two men. Tyler was getting a lot of opinions out of the killer such as his thoughts on the big tech companies, and also global warming (which he didn’t believe in) and even to his recent conversion on both the Mandela effect and also the possibility of a flat earth.
“Let me ask you about some of the other serial killers in the era you were active,” Tyler said and thankfully Spekler nodded for him to go on. Tyler sat up and made as though he were trying to think of a question along this line. “How about Dwight Spalding?” he asked.
“Prom Night?” Speller laughed, “One thing I can tell you about that guy is that he certainly won’t like having that name associated with him!”
“You knew him?” Tyler asked with sudden urgency once he’d registered what Spekler had actually just said.
“I wouldn’t say that, but I have met him.”
“When?” Tyler was stunned, “Where?”
“Here in California, back when I was free.” Spekler said this like it was nothing.
“Did you know who he was at the time?”
“You bet your ass I did, and he knew who I was too.”
“How? No one knew who you were until after your arrest.”
“He did,” Spekler said and he nodded grimly. “He came up to me one day in the street, I never even saw him coming. He slammed me hard against a fence and man, the power in that one hand was scary!”
“What did he say to you?”
“He started laughing at my reaction to his slamming me like that and then he let go of me.” Spekler smiled at his recollection of this event. “He said to me then, ‘You know who I am?’ and I did, I’d seen his mug shot on TV and in newspapers tonnes of times, and then he said, ‘I know who you are too, ‘Spider’. Be careful in what you’re doing. You’re leaving yourself open for something to go wrong.’”
“He was giving you advice!” Tyler asked. This was getting more unbelievable by the second.
“I guess you could say that. I probably should have listened to him. Look at him out there free twenty years later and I’m in line for the electri
c throne!”
“What happened next?” Tyler asked.
“Nothing. He smiled at me and then put on shades and a hat and walked away. Didn’t look like him at all two seconds later.”
“You never saw him again?”
“Never, and never heard from him again either.”
“Wow, and no one else knew this before now?”
“No, ain’t you getting super lucky with these interviews!” Spekler smiled. Tyler smiled back.
“Looks like it,” he said. “What was your impression of him, even in that brief meeting?” he asked.
Here Spekler leaned in and looked Tyler right in the eyes. A mask of seriousness covered his face,
“I’ll tell you one thing about Dwight Spalding. I’ve never been in the company of another man on this earth who made me feel the way he did. I was scared, I’m not ashamed to admit it. He gave off a sense of death, like he could kill any second. I’d say by now, if he’s ever found, you’ll find he has hundreds of victims to his name. If I go to the chair not meeting him again, that will be one thing I can be thankful for.”
It was hard for Tyler to believe the words he was hearing - it all sounded so fantastical - but he found himself trusting Spekler’s eyes and his demeanour as he spoke of Spalding. Later, Tyler would think on this as like a rookie in the NFL meeting Jim Brown in his prime.
“So,” Spekler said, knowing time was running short, “How do we finish this thing out?”
“That’s up to you,” Tyler said. “Is there anything you wanted to talk about that we didn’t get to?” Tyler was thinking about asking how he felt knowing he was going to die soon but waited. Spekler looked deep in thought for a long few moments and then shook his head slowly.
“Nah,” he said, “But I did want to ask you something, though.”
“Shoot,” Tyler said.
“Would you consider coming to my execution? It would be nice to have one familiar face there.” For a moment, the killer before him looked all too human and Tyler wasn’t expecting this. He felt sorry for the man and found he was nodding before he even thought about it,
An Unkindness of Ravens Page 18
