During the early days after they first met, Evans saw Horton as an inexperienced investigator, still wet behind the ears. Horton was “the new guy” at the Bureau. Because of that, and the fact that he wholeheartedly believed he was smarter than Horton, Evans tried to shape and mold him into the type of cop he needed on his side. Horton, admittedly, was eager to prove himself as a young Bureau investigator. In a sense, he later said, he fell for Evans’s charm, at least in the beginning.
After talking to Evans several times throughout September after receiving that first letter, Horton went to his Bureau captain and told him what was going on. “Captain, I got this Evans guy talking about all kinds of burglaries and drug deals and—”
“Kid,” the captain said, interrupting, “leave it alone. Let Troy take care of those drug dealers. Worry about your job. Murders. The bigger fish.”
Horton felt discouraged. He thought he had accomplished what other Bureau investigators had tried for years to do but couldn’t: penetrate the armor of the abominable Gary Evans and get him to open up.
Horton would understand later that his captain knew a lot more about law enforcement than he let on.
“Gary Evans was playing me,” Horton said. “He was throwing me things: drug dealers, robbery suspects, et cetera. But he was also giving me bullshit names and crimes that never happened. My captain knew I was being played.”
Evans believed he was controlling Horton. He thought he could pull a string and Horton would rush right over to console him and grant his every wish.
But Horton was also using Evans. He knew Evans could further his Bureau career. He knew Evans would eventually cough up important names. And he knew he ran a risk by befriending Evans—that it could all backfire on his career if he wasn’t careful.
Throughout the remaining few months of 1985, and well into the beginning of 1986, as Evans continued to do his time at Sing Sing, he became one of Horton’s top CIs. Every cop has a few on a string—some with good information, some not. Most of the information Evans provided, Horton said later, was either impossible to back up, or totally spot on. Evans knew exactly what he was doing. In the years to come, Horton would realize that the main thrust fueling Evans’s desire to give up only certain bits of information was to throw Horton off the scent of Michael Falco. Evans would later admit he believed that if he kept Horton busy with other crimes and criminals, he would never suspect—and he didn’t until years later—that Evans was involved in Michael Falco’s disappearance.
Indeed, both men were using each other—and both thought he was smarter than the other.
In October, Evans sat down and sent his sister a letter and, with one stroke of his pen, explained how he’d figured out his life. He finally realized why he had spent the better part of the past ten years behind bars: I can’t believe I’m here again. But I know what did it: that guy not wanting the painting and I was trying to get [my last girlfriend] as a replacement for [Stacy], which is impossible.
Evans had, during the first few months after he had been released from prison the last time, tried to sell some artwork he had made while in prison. But the first person he tried selling it to brushed him off. Then he went out and found a steady girlfriend. Because he had failed as an artist and tried to replace his beloved high school sweetheart with another woman, he now figured out that his way of dealing with those failures was to turn to a life of crime. It was as if he couldn’t look at his own behavior, and his refusal to admit the truth about his life was just too overpowering.
In that same letter, he talked about spending his entire twenties in prison. He didn’t recall much of it, he said, because most of it had been spent behind bars.
By December, Evan had been transferred to Dannemora. This didn’t sit well with him. He said he was “slowly and fastly going crazy.” What angered him most was that he was put in a cell next to the first cell he had spent time in back in 1977. It was a constant reminder of how his life had spiraled in a complete circle. With twenty-four months left on his most recent sentence, he realized, his life was heading nowhere…fast…and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Then something odd took place. Robbie wrote to him, explaining how she had received a phone call from someone who sounded like him. The person—and Robbie had wholeheartedly believed it was Gary—had mentioned something about a fetish with animals, bestiality. Someone had called and, disguising himself as Evans, bragged about having sex with animals, or something to that effect.
You’re fucking up my head saying somebody is doing my voice perfectly, Evans wrote, the anger and hate evident in his penmanship, which was sharp, clear and direct. Evans generally had a soft approach to his writing: light and fluffy, sometimes cursive and other times print. He was always gentle in that respect. But this letter was all business.
Over the course of the next few weeks, his letters focused exclusively on the “caller.” He believed, about a week after the incident, he had figured out who it was and swore, even without any proof whatsoever, to wreak havoc on that person when he got out of prison: And right now I want this motherfucker worse than I want [anyone, even those] who put me here.
By the end of the letter, it didn’t matter to Evans that he had no evidence to support his claim of who it was, but he had made a decision, nonetheless. There would be no more discussion about it: He’s my pick for the guy behind this shit. And that’s enough for me.
On January 2, 1986, he wrote again and, after talking to Robbie earlier that day by telephone, convinced himself to drop his pledge to destroy the guy he “thought” had made the call. Robbie had, apparently, figured out through phone bill records that the guy Evans had suspected couldn’t have been the person who made the call. It was impossible.
I thought I had it solved. I don’t know any other asshole that you know, so you’ll have to figure it out! And just like that, as quick as he was to put the guy on his grand hit list, he let it go and never brought it up again.