During August and September of 2010, Edwards sat waiting for his execution date. Several letters had arrived from Cameron who was two months into it and not sleeping. Edwards was pleased that he’d been right. He knew the cop would write again. He didn’t want to write Cameron back, but after getting Neal’s letter, he needed to know more. Neal appeared to be totally different. Totally uncop-like. Abstract writing, syntax changed, more personal. Non-accusatory. “We are always in control.” That struck a nerve!
“These guys want to play a game? I’ll give them a game.” Edwards wondered about the words, pyramid, old Egypt, higher levels. “What was going on here?” First, this cop writes him, says his name is John. Now he gets a completely different note from someone using the name Neal, and he figured out the cryptograms! Edwards was challenged and confused. He needed to know more. Nobody had ever figured out his puzzles. But this Neal guy…
“Am I to call you John or Neal?” was the P.S. to Cameron in the first letter. Cameron’s mind games had worked and Edwards wasn’t sure if Neal or John was one or two people. Cameron was using the mirrored worlds back at him. Ed hadn’t met too many cops that had knowledge of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. He wondered how much the guy knew, and how did he figure out that deal in Great Falls? After all these years! Unreal. No one had ever even suspected. That cop must have figured out something from his book. He had mentioned that he had read it. Why, he was only a heartbeat away from figuring out the magnitude of “The Zodiac,” if he hadn’t already. “This could really screw up my execution!” It didn’t take long to decide. He was going to have to write back. He hated the fact that Cameron had gotten to his family before he did.
“How did Cameron know about my cousin Dawn Bellett?” Ed thought back to living with Dawn at the age of 12 in 1945-46. That’s when it really started, right after he burned the Catholic Church and destroyed the Bible in Akron. To this day, no one had discovered the extent of it. Ed wondered how much Dawn had told Cameron. And Cameron had already got to her and it pissed him off.
Now, at age 77, he knew he had been successful, and he was still playing the game. He thought it would be 300 years before someone would figure it out—but he knew they would. He had laid the groundwork. After all, he was a writer, a producer and the world’s best criminal. He had planned out each crime, patiently, deliberately, cold-bloodedly. He left false trails and created red herrings. He had pinned many of his deeds over the decades on others, by setting them up, leading authorities up the wrong trail. He didn’t know that Cameron had discovered court records listing him as an informant. This information is on public record. Edwards provided the details that only the “murderer” would know, resulting in the convictions of innocent people. He thought, “He figured out my M.O.” He was impressed with Cameron’s tenacity and thought to himself, “I have one more game in me. He’s not even close to figuring me out.”