Jarecki was waiting at the front gate at the public entrance to the Denver field office of the FBI when we arrived. He wasn't wearing a coat despite the cold air. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. He waived to the guard, and Johnny pulled through the gate when it opened.
"Any trouble finding the place?"
"David and I were here on our last visit to Denver," I said.
"You're gonna have to tell me how you figured this out, Helen," Jarecki began with some agitation showing. "Park in the garage, and I'll meet you at the front door.
We were barely in the lobby when he started in. "Christ we'd have been banging our heads against the wall to no end if you hadn't figured this out."
"It's just a theory, Stephen," I reminded him.
"Right. A theory. Wait 'til you see the photos from the case file, Helen. It might've happened between thirty to thirty-five years ago, but they digitized all the old files years ago. Every scrap of paper on the case is in that PDF. You're not going to believe the photographs."
"Then you compared photos of Banks and Fletcher to the last two victims of Shriver's?" I asked.
His eyes widened. "Are you suggesting that Fester Banks is really Thomas Anderson?"
"She is," Johnny said. "Where's the terminal so she can look at the photographs."
He led us to the elevator and up to the office he'd commandeered for the duration of his investigation. Instead of waiting for Helen to share what she'd learned, he sat down and pulled up the picture of Thomas Anderson.
"Oh God," Johnny muttered. "Even I can see that this kid grew up to look just like Fester Banks."
"He was the one who had toes sent to his father," Helen said. "Jeremy found information from that pastor about the boy left on their doorstep, that his feet had been badly scarred from burns. I don't know why I assumed they were cigarette burns."
"Because Rhodes didn't ask the right questions. This is precisely why we don't need rank amateurs doing our jobs for us, Eriksson," Jarecki thought to scold me, but realized what he was saying by the time he was finished. He slumped into his chair deeply. "Oh dear sweet lord. Fletcher is Keith Rhodes. We've got to get him over here, Helen."
Simultaneously, we all looked at our watches. "It's a quarter to nine," I said. "Do they have an early news broadcast out here?"
"Doesn't matter. Get Rhodes on the phone and tell him that the case has broken and we need him here now."
I was already dialing.
"Jeremy, I'm not sure what hotel you and Burt are staying in, but I need you at the FBI office in Denver right away."
"I can't make it for about an hour, Helen. Burt and I plan to make some notes based on the Fox News broadcast of the information about Fletcher and Banks—"
"No!" I nearly shouted. "Jeremy, it's urgent. The case is broken. I need you here now."
"What does that mean?" he asked.
"It means we've figured everything out. Motive, why this happened, who these men really are, all of it. All that's left is to find them."
"And see that they're appropriately punished for their crimes, Helen. Or have you lost sight of the fact that eighteen people—including your friend—are dead because of this man."
I wanted to vomit. Christ, it was clawing its way out of my gut and ready to spray across the room in one gigantic, acidic burst of pain and grief and horrific anticipation of delivering the worst news of my entire career to a father who thought he understood grief. Jeremy Rhodes was about to learn that grief is a master that just keeps collecting dues into perpetuity.
"Please, Jeremy. Come right now. I wouldn't tell you that it's urgent if it really wasn't. My colleague Stephen Jarecki will be waiting for you at the gate in the security checkpoint. How soon can you be here if you leave now?"
"I'm on my way out the door. We're not that far. Burt and I got rooms at the hotel that's right at the airport."
I snapped my fingers at Johnny and mouthed, Denver Police escort for Rhodes from Denver International Airport to here.
He whipped out his cell and made the call, though it probably would've happened faster if Jarecki had done it.
"Listen, this is beyond critical, Jeremy. I'm sending a police escort to get you here as fast as possible, all right?"
"Helen, you're starting to scare me now. Am I in some kind of trouble?"
"No, no, nothing like that at all," I said. "But there are things you need to know, things that you and I must discuss about this case right away. It won't wait another hour, or even another twenty minutes."
"I'm in the lobby right now…hell, a squad car from the Denver police just pulled up."
"Do me a favor. Just let him bring you and leave Burt at the hotel, okay? I'll get you back when we're done talking."
"Okay, but whatever this is, I hope you know, any help I can offer, any resource I can provide, just ask and it's yours."
Jarecki and Johnny were already preparing a revised statement for the news media and police departments. Jarecki's fingers flew over his keyboard as he prepared the updated information and sent the email.
I disconnected the call and looked at Stephen. "The Justice Department is going to seek the death penalty for David's murder. I want to know what kind of mitigation would prevent that from happening."
Jarecki's jaw dropped. "Excuse me? Did you just say what I think you said? My God, Helen, the man was your mentor, your closest ally in law enforcement through all the crap you pulled over the years. How can you even think of asking for leniency for this guy?"
"I can think it because I know how messed up he is. This man never had a chance at a normal life, Stephen. We've been running around trying to figure out if he's a man or a woman for a week. Do you realize why? Because Harley Shriver cut out his testicles when he was six years old. He proceeded to dump Keith on his little sister's doorstep—when she was only twenty years old, I might add—and she didn't have the common sense to get him on testosterone so he'd experience sexual maturation. Do you have the slightest comprehension how this kid must've been tortured by his peers growing up? He finally just threw up his hands and went by the name Harriet instead of Hank, because frankly, he was more convincing as an androgynous woman than he was as a man.
"And think about that in terms of interpersonal relationships. He couldn't have ever had a normal sex life with a woman. What woman, other than a lesbian, would've shown any interest in him? Once the pants came off and the truth was revealed, even a lesbian would've run the other direction.
"He's been isolated his whole life. The only person on the planet who understood what his life was like was Thomas Anderson, the abusively named Fester. At least he had a wife and a child. Scarred feet are easy to hide, and they don't make you sound like a woman."
"Don't start with this bleeding heart liberal crap, Helen. He murdered a federal agent in cold blood."
"And he's still emotionally a six year old boy who's been trying to find the daddy his emotions remember but his mind can't!" I yelled.
"What do you mean his mind can't remember?"
"Did you ever meet Harley Shriver?" I asked.
Jarecki shook his head. "By the time I had my appointment, Shriver was the plaything of you head shrinks. Why would I have met him?"
I related my one and only conversation with the man to Jarecki. Needless to say, his color had taken on a gray-green cast by the time I finished. "Do you get it? Do you have the slightest comprehension now what it would've been like to be that man's captive not for a day, but for months, Stephen. Months. Clearly these two boys that he didn't kill were too terrified of him to act out like the one Shriver gutted and then later laughed about.
"I promise you. Keith Rhodes and Thomas Anderson don't remember who they were or the faces of the people who loved them anymore. They didn't remember by the time Shriver disposed of them in a way he'd never done before."
"Then why do you think they can remember the emotions?" Jarecki argued. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Oh boy," Johnny muttered.
"What?" Jarecki snapped. "Am I wrong here?"
"Dead wrong, and she's about to give you the science."
"That's right, Stephen. Studies of people with even end-stage dementia, the ones who don't know their own names, or look in a mirror and see a stranger's face looking back, who don't know their spouses or children, they never forget emotions. They will still coo and want to cuddle a baby. They'll respond with love to pet therapy. They know what fear is even if they can't tell you they feel it. Emotions are never forgotten."
"This guy isn't crazy," Jarecki threw out the arguments I knew he would.
"And I'll go on the record with exactly two points, Stephen. One, David would be the last man who would want either one of them executed when it's so clearly obvious that neither one of them is mentally well. Two, I'll testify that despite business success, the only reason it happened was because that was the means that Keith had, the only means he had, to find his father."
"Your passion is almost persuasive, Helen, but you're talking about someone who essentially was a serial killer, who murdered a federal agent in the line of duty trying to apprehend him. There will be only one outcome for this case. Death. If you don't think it'll happen, I want you to sit down for a reality check. Federal prosecutors will stack the deck with pro-death penalty jurors, and there won't be a president who will commute his sentence. He'll die of old age first."
My voice was low, strained with the pain his surety and determination wrought. "We owe this family, Stephen. We owe that little boy. I'm not advocating for a free pass, but my God, he doesn't deserve to die."
The elevator outside Jarecki's office chimed.
I braced myself for the coming conversation that would no doubt further underscore the battle any prosecutor would face in the case of The United States versus Keith Jeremiah Rhodes.
Jarecki had the foresight to close the windows on his oversized computer monitor. He rolled back from the desk, stood and made himself a bit more officious looking even though his shirt and suit were beyond rumpled.
It was an odd time to notice that he hadn't changed clothes since I saw him at the hospital after David died.
"I thought you were going to wait for me at the gate," Rhodes said. The lines on his face looked deeper and cast gruesome shadows over the tanned flesh. "At least security knew I needed to come up here," he nodded curtly in thanks to the officer who had escorted him to us.
"I let them know you were coming while you were still on the phone with Helen, Mr. Rhodes," Jarecki said.
"Let's move to one of the conference rooms to have this conversation."
"Stephen, I think you should let me talk to Jeremy alone," I said. "Later, if he needs more details, you can explain it to him, but for now, I think this is a conversation best kept between the two of us."
Jarecki opened his mouth to protest, but I saw Johnny's look of determination had given him pause.
"It's best, Jarecki," Johnny said. "Helen and Mr. Rhodes have been working this case together from the very beginning. She has information and insight that neither of us have witnessed. Do you understand?"
Please Jarecki, get a clue. Johnny just threw you a huge bone. You never sat face-to-face with the monster. Let me tell Jeremy what really happened, the depths of that monster's ability to torture the fathers of his victims. It's going to be hard enough for him to hear as it is.
Thankfully, he acquiesced easily. "We'll be in my office, Helen, just a shout away if you need us."
Shouting. Yeah, there would likely be a whole lot of that.