CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“That sounds like an unpleasant read,” Kate said.

AJ shrugged. “Yes and no. It wasn’t what I expected. For the most part the book doesn’t deal with the lower-level Edward Lester Herzog type—”

Kate leaned forward. “He considers someone like Herzog ‘lower-level’?”

“On the predatory food chain, yes. Raines believes that there exists among us a whole different kind of rare individual who is entirely more dangerous.”

“So this book is about these, what … super-predators?”

AJ gazed into Kate’s eyes. “And in part about those rare individuals who can recognize these top-level killers among us.”

“You mean recognize killers the way John could?”

AJ leaned back in the booth. “That’s what I wanted to know. The book deals with how both killers and their opposite are connected in a broad historical context.”

“What do you mean, connected?” Kate asked. “Connected how?”

“That’s what I needed to figure out in order to understand John. The problem was, Raines wasn’t specific enough. By reading between the lines I could tell that he understood those connections quite well, but they weren’t the focus of the book.

“I needed to talk to him to find out more. I tried to find his phone number. It wasn’t in any of the police reference resources. It was like he didn’t exist.

“So I called up his publisher, thinking it would be simple for them to put me in touch with him. People there weren’t in, they were on vacation, they were sick, no one would return calls. I believe his book was relatively successful, but his publisher seemed disorganized and disinterested.”

“Maybe they thought you were an aspiring author who wanted to submit a manuscript or something.”

“Could be. I repeatedly left my name and number asking for Jack Raines or someone familiar with him to call me. I didn’t want to leave messages with just anyone saying that I was a police officer for fear that someone there might call my department, instead of me, asking what I was calling about. That would have opened a whole can of worms.”

“And possibly expose John,” Kate said.

“Exactly,” AJ said with a single nod. “So one day a woman named Shannon Blare finally returned my calls to see what I wanted. She sounded rather put out by my repeated calls. I told her I was calling about Jack Raines. She said that she was the editor for a number of writers and wanted to know what my interest was in that particular author.

“I told her that I was a homicide detective and I wanted to talk to Mr. Raines about some of the theories in his book.

“She got all quiet.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I asked her for Jack Raines’s number. She told me that he was busy working on a new book, but the next time she spoke with him she would pass my number along.

“I didn’t understand her reluctance, but I especially didn’t want her calling my department, so before she could hang up I told her I had a test for lieutenant coming up, and as part of my work on the most intelligent kinds of killers, I had read A Brief History of Evil. I told her it would really help me out if I could ask him a few questions. That seemed to calm her down. I said I understood that she was only protecting his privacy and asked her to at least email my phone number to him.”

“I take it he called?”

AJ nodded. “Just a little over a month ago. He was aloof. I suspected he’d had enough calls from wannabe private detectives, or cranks, and they never really understood the premise of the book. I answered as ‘Detective Janek’ so he would know I was a police officer. I asked him a few questions about specifics in his book in order to dispel the notion that I wanted to become an author myself or have him write the story of my life or something. He gave simple answers and asked a few questions of his own. As a detective I know when someone is doing the dance with me. He was dancing.”

Kate understood what Detective Janek was talking about. She often had to do the same kind of thing when she questioned reticent people about serious issues.

AJ gestured with a sweep of her hand. “I finally steered the conversation to the heart of the matter and told him that I had someone who matched the abilities he theorized in his book.

“There was a very long pause, and then he said, ‘It isn’t a theory.’ I asked him if he was sure. He asked me instead what made me think that I might know such an individual. It was obvious to me that we were still dancing. I wanted to bring it to an end.”

Concerned, Kate said, “So you told him about John?”

“Yes, but I didn’t name him. I simply told him that I had a man capable of the things I thought he was touching on in his book, the things connected to his larger theme. He asked me if all the people in my department were big believers in his work.

“I told him that no one in the department knew what I was doing and wouldn’t believe me even if I told them. I said I didn’t dare tell anyone or I would not only lose my job but endanger this individual. I told him that I knew the stakes, that my phone call to him was outside the scope of police procedures and could cause me a lot of problems. I told him that while I’d very much like to talk to him about the matter because I thought he could help me understand it better, I couldn’t discuss it any further unless I had his word that he would keep it strictly between the two of us.

“He said that he was glad to hear that I was being cautious and he would keep the call confidential. His tone changed a little, then. He became more focused. He asked me what I was dealing with—what I believed I had found and why I believed it.

“I told him that I had a mentally handicapped individual who wasn’t the kind to try to impress me or flatter me or con me. In fact, this individual was reluctant. Jack said the mental handicap would help explain his ability, if that ability was in fact actually true.

“I told him straight up that this man could identify killers from photos on film printed from negatives—something mentioned in his book. He asked how sure I was. I told him that in all the tests I’d done, and I’d done a lot, he had never once been wrong. Not once.

“In the silence, I could almost hear the guy thinking. He dropped the formality and told me that he suspected I was a professional or I wouldn’t be a detective and I wouldn’t have gone to the lengths I had, but detective or not, I needed to be painstakingly careful not to tell anyone what I had stumbled upon. He said that he didn’t think I fully comprehended what I was dealing with.

“I told him that I knew quite well what the individual I was dealing with was capable of. He said that wasn’t what he meant. That in turn gave me pause.

“He told me that the new book he was working on dealt with the connections he had only hinted at in his first book, and asked if he could interview this person.

“I told him no, that an expert had advised me to be painstakingly careful to protect him. He laughed.

“He had a nice laugh. You know how sometimes an easy laugh tells you a lot about a person? It was that kind of laugh.

“I laughed, too, and in that moment I think we had established something of a real and trusting relationship. We both understood that we were well outside the orthodoxy of regular police work or even accepted principles of criminal behavior, much less criminal law. We were both outsiders in something that others wouldn’t want to hear or believe, but we both knew to be true.”

AJ pointed back and forth between herself and Kate. “Kind of like you and me. We both know we’re touching on something out of the ordinary, something others wouldn’t believe, but we’ve seen it with our own eyes. You know what I mean?”

Kate nodded with a sigh. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“Anyway, Jack said that not only were there exceedingly rare individuals like the one I had encountered who possessed a refined ability to recognize threat, there were also predators who, as a consequence of their own natural selection and evolution over tens of thousands of years, had developed the corollary ability to recognize those individuals.”

Kate’s brow drew down. “Predators who know which prey recognizes them?”

“Exactly.” AJ leaned in again, lowering her voice as if the walls might have ears. “That means that not only can people like John—like you—see evil, but evil can see you.”

AJ straightened back up, letting that sink in for a moment.

“Jack says those rare killers can recognize people with that special kind of vision—and they don’t like it. Not one bit. He said that a regular criminal will typically avoid a person who looks them in the eye, a person who is watching them, who suspects them, and instead look for weaker prey.

“This kind, he said, will do the opposite. They will go after a person who can see them for who they are.”

Kate was frowning. “You’re saying that despite your secrecy, one of these sorts of super-predators may have somehow recognized John for his ability and killed him?”

AJ shook her head in frustration. “I don’t see how.”

“Maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe John was on his way home one day and happened to cross paths with a killer,” Kate offered, “the kind he thought of as the devil—you know, a regular killer, not one who recognizes John for his ability. Maybe without thinking John hit him over the head and then chained him up. John wouldn’t always think things through. He would sometimes act on impulse and later on not know how to untangle himself from the situation.”

“That makes sense,” the detective admitted. “Even an ordinary killer would have been more than John could handle.”

After a moment Kate asked, “What about me? Did Jack Raines have anything to say about someone like me?”

“In a way, yes.” AJ’s finger traced the contour of the handle on her cup as she thought about how to explain it. “Jack says that an ability like John’s is incredibly rare. He says it’s a mutation wired to the person’s perception.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Neither did I,” AJ admitted. “Jack said to think of it as the way owls evolved, taking advantage of genetic mutations that enabled them to see better in the dark. He says that a genetic mutation resulting in John’s ability is relatively new on the scale of human evolution and it runs in families the same as any other genetic trait.

“Life is always in the process of evolving. Some mutations help, some hurt. The ones that help us survive are passed on; the ones that hurt die out.

“Like I told you before, for most people the chances of actually seeing a murderer are pretty slim, but it obviously does happen. Since seeing that kind of individual is a rare occurrence, the genetic mutation to identify them is rare. Yet being able to see a truly evil individual for who they really are is a lifesaving ability, and as such, as rare as it is, it would tend to pass on genetically. Thus it runs in families.

“Jack says that this ability can lie dormant until a trigger event—a sighting. If he’s right, you’ve always been able to see what John could see. You just never knew it before because you never saw a killer before.”

One time when she had doubted John about a man he had seen in the neighborhood, she told him that he couldn’t tell if a person was bad just by looking at them. John had fixed Kate with a look that gave her pause and he said that if she ever looked into the eyes of the devil she would know it, too, just like he did.

“Jack said he has been studying the history of these rare predators. I told him that it wasn’t the history of killers I was interested in so much as the connections he’d hinted at in his book. I told him that I thought those connections were somehow at the heart of all of this.

“He said I was right about that in more ways than I even realized. He said that all those connections created nesting events.”

“Nesting events?”

AJ shook her head in frustration. “He said that was the heart of the matter, but he didn’t have the time to get into that part of it with me right then.”

AJ saw the worry on Kate’s face and softened her tone. “Look, Kate, maybe after things settle down you could talk to Jack Raines. I’m sure he could help you understand all of this better. I’m probably doing a pretty poor job of explaining it. Maybe I’m making more of it than is warranted.”

Kate wasn’t about to be put off. “I can recognize the worst kind of killers, they can recognize that I know them for what they truly are, so that makes me a target. Isn’t that about the sum of it?”

AJ sat back. “I guess it is.”

“It sounds,” Kate said, “like Mr. Raines had pretty good reason to tell you to keep John’s identity a secret.”

“Yes, and now yours as well.”

“What now?”

AJ yawned. “I asked Jack if he had any suggestion as to what I should do about all of this. Of course, at the time I didn’t know that you could do the same thing John could. Jack said to give him a little time to look into it and he would see what he could find out.”

“But you said you didn’t give him John’s name.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then how is he going to be able to look into it?”

“He simply said to give him some time to look into it.” AJ opened her hands. “I’m not sure what he meant. I haven’t heard back from him since then.”

Kate felt a shadow of worry for Jack Raines. Even though she didn’t know him, she worried that in the kind of research he was doing he could very well encounter one of those killers, and she didn’t think that, like her, he would be able to see them for who they were.