27

The way I drove I made damn sure nobody followed me. I didn’t get a ticket, for speeding or any other violation, but not because I obeyed traffic rules. Past midnight, there’s a scarcity of patrol cars on the road.

All that caution wasted. A cop lurked on my doorstep. Mooney. He hasn’t written a traffic citation in years.

“Come on,” he said.

“I’m tired.”

“Gary Reedy’s in the car. The FBI wants you.”

“You told them about me? You gave up your source?”

“No, Carlotta, that’s not the way it went. Garnet Cameron has accused you of bearing false witness.”

“‘Bearing false witness’? That might cut the mustard in church, but since when is it a jailable offense?”

“Just talk to Reedy, okay?”

If it had been any cop other than Mooney, I’d have told him to scoot.

Gary Reedy had a FBI man’s car, a big Mercury Marquis with a shotgun rack mounted under the roof. He had an FBI man’s firm dry handshake, an FBI man’s blunt chin and deep gruff voice. I hate to admit it, but I liked the guy. He made me think of the perfect dad, not the perfect J. Edgar Hoover suit-and-tie agent. I’d never even seen him in a white shirt. He wore jeans, as usual. Unfortunately, he tends to label and dismiss me as a gangster’s moll because of my involvement with Sam Gianelli.

“Is she game?” he asked Mooney as if I weren’t present.

“It’s your sell,” Mooney said.

“What would I be buying?” I asked Reedy. “This time of night?”

“Where’ve you been?” Reedy asked. I ignored him. He only does it for practice. He doesn’t expect me to answer so I don’t.

“Get in,” he said, indicating the car.

“No, thanks.”

“It would take less time if I drove while I explained.”

“On the other hand, if you ask here, I can just say no.”

“I need you to confront Garnet Cameron.”

“Bull.”

Reedy said, “I’m betting he won’t call you a liar.”

I glared at Mooney, but kept my voice steady as I spoke to Reedy, because Reedy stops listening to women if their voices get high or quavery or possess any quality he might be able to label “hysterical.”

“Why on earth not?” I said calmly and reasonably. “Because he went to the right schools? Maybe Garnet won’t out-and-out call me a liar. He’ll say I was mistaken. That I misunderstood. That Missy—”

“Marissa,” Reedy corrected.

“Marissa is just playing some little ol’ trick on her hubby. Don’t expect him to pass out with guilty chills when he sees my face.”

“I say give it a try.”

I spent a futile five minutes trying to convince the FBI to leave. No dice.

“May I change clothes? I feel a trifle underdressed for Dover.”

“Put on a coat,” Reedy said. Great sense of humor.

I crawled into the front seat of the car, leaving Mooney the rear, with, I devoutly hoped, no leg room at all.

“Aren’t you afraid that allowing me to confront Garnet at this time of night—morning—could constitute harassment?” I asked the FBI man.

“Once a kidnapping’s been reported, we assume total jurisdiction. We’re in a much more powerful position now that we have the original complainant.”

“Complainant?” I thought. I love FBI-speak. I didn’t bother remarking on the royal “we.” The FBI is a unit, a presence, a “we.” I hoped Mooney was suffering in the back, getting his legs scrambled on every bump.

I gave my head a toss, both to rearrange my hair and wake my brain. I was no longer Tessa Cameron’s employee. I’d gone against her son’s wishes and reported a crime. I could expect a lousy greeting at best.

Unless Andrew Manley happened to be present.

“Gary,” I said sweetly. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Ask away,” he said, while Mooney snorted in the rear seat.

“When did you guys start the profiling business, Teten and Depue and Douglas, and all those guys at Quantico?”

Every FBI agent knows the proud history of the Bureau. They love to expound.

“It was ’69 or ’70 when Teten started his class in applied criminology,” Reedy said. “He asked agents, cops from all over the country, to bring in unsolved cases, you know, the kind that wouldn’t let ’em sleep nights. He got a tremendous response.”

“Say a girl disappeared in ’71, killed by a guy who’d done at least two others—raped and murdered them. Would the FBI lab have paper on that?”

“Only if it was a big-time case, or took years to solve.”

“It was big time,” I murmured softly, wondering how I could get access to the Fibbie file on the Cameron case.

There was silence in the big car. It moved so differently than my small Toyota that we might have been on a ship at sea.

“Mooney,” I said, “did you review the Thea Janis file before you let me see it?”

“You bet,” he said. “And after.”

“Remember the Albion confessions?”

“I didn’t memorize ’em.”

I smiled in the dark. I had, and Mooney’d known I had.

I addressed myself to the FBI man. “Gary,” I said. “Here’s a theoretical: A guy kills a woman he may know, then kills another woman, then a third who looks like the first woman. Gets caught standing over the third lady’s nude body, knife in hand. No vehicle nearby.”

“So?”

“Would you call him an ‘organized’ or a ‘disorganized’ killer?”

“You kidding? The guy’s ‘disorganized.’ Miracle he didn’t get nabbed after the first killing. No plan of escape on the third murder is enough to indicate ‘disorganization.’ But ‘organized’ and ‘disorganized’ weren’t the terms the Bureau used in the early seventies.”

“What did the Bureau call them?”

“We had what we called the ‘simple schizophrenic,’ I think. Poor choice of words, but he sounds like the guy you’re talking about. And then we had the ‘psychopath.’ Your average Ted Bundy.”

Albert Ellis Albion hadn’t been found standing over Thea Janis’s body. According to MacAvoy’s reconstruction of the crimes, she’d been the second victim in the series.

“Does an ‘organized’ killer change?” I asked Reedy. “Become ‘disorganized’?”

“Possibly. Over time. Especially if he’s starting to lose it psychologically, if he wants to get caught. He could start sending notes to newspapers, bragging to buddies in bars.”

I swiveled to face the backseat. “Any progress?” I asked Mooney in a low voice.

“On what?”

“On getting me in to see Albion.”

“You do this for Reedy, maybe I’ll pull a favor for you.”

“I’ll expect it,” I said.

After fifteen minutes of happy talk about serial killers of the past, present, and future, we left the main road, squeezed between the gateposts, and started up the tree-lined path to the Cameron mansion. The house was ablaze with lights.

More than a single candle in the window to guide Marissa home.

I hadn’t noticed any cars on the way up the drive, but the minute we stopped a man stepped out of the shrubbery and reported through the half-opened window that all seemed quiet. He informed Reedy that two agents had heard engine noise from a side road half an hour ago, maybe a motor scooter or a minibike, but it hadn’t approached the house and an attempt to pick up the scooter had failed when it turned off into the woods.

A scooter. Like the one at Avon Hill School, driven by Anthony Emerson’s “street urchins.”

“Did anyone see it?” I asked quickly.

“No. The grounds are heavily wooded,” said the agent.

Special Agent Reedy seized control by saying, “I want a full search of the area. Tire tracks. Anything. Have they kept the damned lights on like this all night?”

“No, sir. Place lit up like a Christmas tree about ten minutes—”

The front door opened and Garnet Cameron appeared, elegantly dressed, as if he were expecting the press, not the cops.

“Come in, Agent Reedy. Come in, please.”

Agent Reedy seemed puzzled. It was evidently a far warmer welcome than he’d experienced before. “Thank you, sir. Uh, just a few questions.”

“We’ve received another message,” Garnet said. “I’m afraid it’s more serious than I thought.”

“Did you get it on tape?”

“Yes, yes I did. Part of it, anyway. I was rattled. I didn’t switch on at the beginning.”

“Let’s hear it.”

We were hastily ushered into a room I’d never seen before, studded with heavy oak furniture. A grand piano guarded one side of a marble fireplace, hardly taking up any space at all. Garnet merely nodded when he saw me.

Reedy moved in and took charge of the machinery.

The same voice I’d heard earlier, the digitized rumble, said, “She’s alive. If you mess with us, we’ll cut her face.”

Garnet’s recorded voice shot up an octave. “Let me talk to Marissa! How do I know—?”

There was a loud click. For a moment I thought the kidnappers had hung up, then a new sound began. In a steady voice a woman read aloud. Her tone seemed automated, lifeless.

“That’s Marissa,” Garnet offered eagerly. “She’s reading from the Times. Today’s—uh, yesterday’s—paper.”

“It’s taped,” Reedy said, “but if it is today’s news, you know she’s alive and relatively unharmed.”

“Is she drugged? Why does she sound like that?”

Reedy nodded. “Probably tranquilizers in her food.”

The mechanized voice came back. “Mr. Cameron, remember the payoff is two million. Don’t bring in the police, or else. Remember her fingers. One at a time. Maybe her pretty little nose first. Or an ear.”

“What do you think?” Garnet muttered as the tape came to an end.

“I wish I’d been here. How much of the conversation did you miss? How long before you turned on the recorder?”

“I don’t know. Not long. Not more than a sentence, two at the most. Won’t you be able to trace the phone number?”

“Yes, but if your perp is sophisticated enough to alter his voice, he’s probably calling from a public booth, or he’s figured out a way to reroute the call.”

I wondered about the voice-changer. Did it mean that Garnet might otherwise recognize the voice?

“Can you raise two million?” Reedy asked.

“No.”

“One million, five?”

Garnet took in a deep breath. “Yes. It will take time. You heard them. They’ll—”

“No,” Reedy said calmly. “Forget the threats. Kidnappers are greedy. They want money. Without your wife, safe and sound, they’re not going to get paid. They know that. When they call again, sell them on a new price. Try them out on one million.”

“Bargain with them?”

“Think of it from their point of view. One million’s a lot better than a dead body to get rid of.”

“Mr. Cameron,” I asked quickly. “Is this going to have any effect on your gubernatorial run? Do you plan to withdraw from the race?”

Special Agent Reedy was already excusing himself and us, apologizing gruffly for the intrusion. I’m sure he wanted to run the phone number, just in case, but I also got the feeling he didn’t like me asking such embarrassing questions.

He glared at me as we descended the steps. He’d have given me hell once we got outdoors. Fortunately one of his men intervened. They’d taken cast impressions of a narrow tire print in muddy ground. Nearby, they’d found a box, addressed in block print to Mr. Garnet Cameron. The box was small, light. The top was loose and no wires or machinery protruded. The exterior surfaces had been fingerprinted. Would the Special Agent in Charge care to open it?

He would. He donned latex gloves.

I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything lately. I was geared for a finger.

The box was filled with yellow hair, Marissa Cameron’s long flowing hair. The straight shining locks seemed to have been severed with a dull scissors. A block-printed note asked, “Want some more?”

The agent had a message for me, too. Tessa Cameron would like to see me. She was waiting in the gazebo by the lake. The man pointed down a path, said, “About three quarters of a mile.”

I shot a brief look at Gary Reedy’s taut face, and took off, jogging.