The Poet

48

The sun was going down and the sky was the color of ripe pumpkin with slashes of phosphorescent pink. It was beautiful and even the clutter of billboards up and down the strip looked beautiful to me. I was back out on the balcony, trying to think, trying to figure things out, waiting for Bledsoe to call back. He was the one who had left the message while I talked to Rachel. His message said he was out of the office but would call back.

I looked at the Marlboro Man, his crinkled eyes and stoic chin unchanged by time. He'd always been one of my heroes, an icon, no matter that he was always as shallow as a magazine page or a billboard sign. I remembered being at the dinner table, my position every night always to my father's right. Him always smoking and the ashtray always to the right of his plate. Me learning to smoke by virtue of that. He looked like the Marlboro Man to me, my father. Back then, at least.

Back in the room, I called home and my mother answered. She went into histrionics asking whether I was all right and gently scolded me for not calling sooner. Finally, after I had calmed her and assured her that I was okay, I asked her to put my father on the line. We had not spoken since the funeral-if we had even spoken then.

"Dad?"

"Son. You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine. You okay?"

"Oh, sure. We were just worried about you, that's all."

"Well, don't. Everything's fine."

"It's a crazy thing, isn't it?"

"You mean about Gladden? Yeah."

"Riley's here with us. She's going to spend a few days."

"That's good, Dad."

"Do you want to talk to her?"

"No, I wanted to talk to you."

That silenced him, maybe made him nervous.

"You in Los Angeles?"

He said it with a hard G.

"Yeah, at least a day or two more. I just… I called because I wanted-I've been thinking about things and I wanted to say I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what, Son?"

"Anything, everything. Sarah, Sean, you name it." I laughed the way you laugh when something isn't funny, when it's uncomfortable. "I'm sorry for everything."

"Jack, you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Well, you don't have to say you're sorry for anything."

"Yes, I do. I do."

"Well… we're sorry, too, then. I'm sorry."

I let a little bit of silence underline that.

"Thanks, Dad. I'm gonna go. Tell Mom I said good-bye and tell Riley I said hello."

"I will. Why don't you come down here when you get back? Spend a couple days, too."

"I will."

I hung up. Marlboro Man, I thought. I looked out the open balcony door and saw his eyes peeking over the railing, watching me. My hand was hurting again. So was my head. I knew too much and didn't want to. I took another pill.

At five-thirty Bledsoe finally called. The news he had was not good. It was the final piece, the final tearing of the veil of hope I'd held on to. As I listened to him it felt like the blood was draining from my heart. I was alone again. And what was worse was that the one I had desired had not simply rejected me. She had used and betrayed me in a way I would've thought no woman could do.

"This is what I got, buddy," Bledsoe said. "Hang on to your hat, is all I can say."

"Give it to me."

"Rachel Walling. Her father was Harvey Walling. I didn't know him. When he was in dicks, I was still in patrol. I talked to one of the old guys from dicks and he said your guy was called Harvey Wallbanger. You know, after the drink. He was sort of an odd duck, loner type."

"What about his death?"

"I'm getting to that. I had a buddy pull the old file out of archives. Happened nineteen years ago. Funny I don't remember it. I guess I was working with my head down. Anyway, I met my pal over at the Fells Point Tavern. He brought the file. And, first off, this was definitely her old man. Her name's in there. She was the one who found him. He'd shot himself. Temple shot. It went suicide but there were some problems."

"What?"

"Well, no note for one thing. And for another, he'd worn gloves. It was in the winter, yes, but he did it inside. First thing in the morning. The investigator wrote down in the reports that he didn't like that part of it."

"Was there gunshot residue on one of the gloves?"

"Yeah, it was there."

"Was she-was Rachel home when it happened?"

"She said she was upstairs in her bedroom sleeping when she heard the shot. In her king-size bed. She got scared, said she didn't come down for an hour after the shot. Then she found him. This is according to the reports."

"What about the mother?"

"There was no mother. She'd taken off years before. Rachel was left alone with the father then."

I thought about that for a few moments. His mention of the size of her bed and something about the way he'd said the last line bothered me.

"What else, Dan? You're not telling me everything."

"Jack, let me ask you something. Are you involved with this woman? Like I told you, I saw on the CNN how she wal-"

"Look, I'm out of time! What aren't you telling me?"

"Okay, okay, the only other thing noted in the reports that was strange was that his bed was made."

"What are you talking about?"

"His bed. It was made. The way it had to have worked was he got up, made his bed, got dressed and put on his coat and gloves, like he was going to work, but then instead sat down in the chair and put a bullet through his head. Either that or he stayed up all night thinking about it and then did the job."

I felt depression and fatigue wash over me in a wave. I slid off the chair to the floor, the phone still held to my ear.

"The guy who worked the case is retired but still around. Mo Friedman. We go back. I was just coming up in dicks when he was near the end. But he was a good man. I just got off the line with him a few minutes ago. Lives up in the Poconos. I asked him about this one and what his take on it was. His unofficial take, I told him."

"And he said?"

"He said he let it go because either way he figured Harvey Wallbanger got what he had coming."

"But what did he say his take was?"

"He said that he thought that bed was made because it never was slept in. Never used. He said he thought the father was sleeping with the daughter in the king-size and one morning she drew the line. He didn't know about anything after that, none of this stuff that's been going on lately. Mo's seventy-one years old. He does crossword puzzles. He said he doesn't like watching the news. He didn't know the daughter became an FBI agent."

I couldn't talk. I couldn't even move.

"Jack, you still there?"

"I gotta go."

The field office operator said Backus had left for the day. When I asked her to double-check, she put me on hold for five minutes while I was sure she was doing her nails or touching up her makeup. When she came back on she said he was definitely gone and that I could try back in the morning. She hung up before I could say anything else.

Backus was the key. I had to get to him, tell him what I had and play it whatever way he wanted. I decided that if he wasn't at the FO, he might be back at the motel on Wilcox. I had to go there anyway to pick up my car. I threw the strap of my computer bag over my shoulder and headed for the door. I opened it and stopped dead. Backus stood there, fist raised, ready to knock.

"Gladden wasn't the Poet. He was a killer, yes, but not the Poet. I can prove it."

Backus looked at me as if I had just reported that I had seen the Marlboro Man wink at me.

"Jack, look, you've spent the day making some strange calls. First to me, then to Quantico. I came by because I'm wondering if there's something maybe the doctors overlooked last night. I thought maybe we'd take a ride over to-"

"Look, Bob, I don't blame you for thinking that after what I asked you and Hazelton today. But I had to hold things back until I was sure. Now, I'm sure. Pretty sure. I can explain it now. I was going out the door to find you just now."

"Then sit down here and tell me what you're talking about. You said that I had a fox in the henhouse. What did you mean?"

"What I meant was here you people are, your job is to identify and catch these people. The serial offenders, as you call them. And there was one in your midst all along."

Backus let out his breath loudly and shook his head.

"Sit down, Bob, and I'll tell you the story. If you think I'm crazy when I'm done, then you can take me to the hospital. But I know you won't think I'm crazy."

Backus sat down on the end of the bed and I started spinning the story, recounting the moves and calls I had made through the afternoon. It took me nearly a half hour just to tell that part of it. And just when I was ready to begin telling him my interpretation of the facts I had gathered, he interrupted me with something I had already considered and was ready for.

"You're forgetting one thing. You said Gladden admitted killing your brother. At the end. You said this yourself and I read it in your statement this afternoon. You even said he recognized you."

"But he was wrong. I was wrong. I never told him Sean's name. I just said my brother. I told him he had killed my brother and he thought one of the kids was my brother. You see? That's why he said what he said, that he killed my brother to save him. I think what he meant was that he killed those kids because he knew that once he'd been with them they'd be fucked up for life. Just like he was fucked up by Beltran. So in his mind he thought that by killing them he was saving them from becoming like he was. He wasn't talking about the cops, just those kids. I don't think he even knew about the cops.

"And as far as him recognizing me, I was on TV. CNN, remember? He could've recognized me from that."

Backus looked down at the floor and I watched him try to compute this and I saw by the expression on his face that he found it plausible. I was getting through to him.

"Okay," he said. "What about Phoenix, the hotel rooms, all of that? Where do you see that going?"

"We were getting close. Rachel knew it and needed some way to either derail the investigation or make sure it pointed only to Gladden when we got him. Even though every cop in the country wanted him dead, she couldn't be sure that would happen.

"So she did three things. First, she sent the fax, the one from the Poet, from her computer to the general number at Quantico. She wrote it in a way that she knew the information it contained would become the definitive link between Gladden and the cop killings. Think back, remember the meeting on the fax? She was the one who said it tied all the cases together."

Backus nodded but said nothing.

"Next," I said, "she thought that if she leaked the story to Warren, it would trigger my story and the rest of the whole media stampede. Gladden would have to see the story somewhere and he'd go underground, knowing that he was being blamed not only for the murders he did commit but the cop killings that came after. So she called up Warren and gave him the story. She must've known that he'd gone to L.A. to peddle the story after he got canned at the foundation. Maybe he had called and left her a message about where he was. You follow all of this?"

"You were so sure it was Gordon."

"I was. And with good reason. The hotel bills. But the drugstore receipt shows he wasn't even in his room when the calls were made and Warren told me today his source wasn't Thorson. By then he had no reason to lie. Thorson was dead."

"What was the third thing?"

"I think she made a connection by computer to the PTL Network. I don't know how she already knew about it. Maybe it was a tip to the bureau or something. I'm not sure. But she dialed in. I don't know, maybe that was when she shipped one of those Eidolon files that Clearmountain found. Again, it would be evidence linking Gladden to the Poet murders. She was sealing him up tight in a package. Even if I didn't kill him and he lived to deny everything, the evidence would be there and nobody would believe him, especially in light of the killings he did commit."

I took a breather so Backus could digest everything said so far.

"All three of the calls she made were from Thorson's room," I said after a half minute. "It was just one more buffer. If things went wrong there would be no record of her making the calls. They'd be on Thorson's room. But the box of condoms destroys that. See, you know firsthand about the relationship she had with Thorson. They battled but there was still something there. He still had something for her and she knew it. She used it. So I think if she told him to go get a box of condoms and she'd be waiting for him in his bed, he'd have run out the door to the drugstore like a man with his pants on fire. And I think that's exactly what she did do. Only she didn't wait in his bed. She made those calls. Then when Thorson got back she was gone. Thorson didn't exactly tell me all of that but in so many words he did. When we worked together that day."

Backus nodded. He looked like a man lost. I thought maybe he saw what was to become of his career now. First his command questioned by the fiasco of the Gladden arrest, and now this. His days as an assistant special agent in charge were numbered.

"It seems so…"

He didn't finish and I didn't finish it for him. There was still more for me to tell him but I waited. Backus got up and paced a little. He looked out the balcony door at the Marlboro Man. He didn't seem to have the same fascination with him that I had.

"Tell me about the moon, Jack."

"What do you mean?"

"The Poet's moon. You've told me the end of the story. What's the beginning? How does a woman end up at the point we are at now?"

He turned from the door and looked at me, a challenge in his eyes. He was looking for something, anything that he could build a case on for not believing. I cleared my throat before beginning.

"That's the hard part," I said. "You should ask Brass."

"I will. But you try it."

I thought a moment before starting.

"A young girl, I don't know, twelve, thirteen years old. She's abused by her father. Sexually. Her mother either… her mother leaves. She either knew what was happening and couldn't stop it or just didn't care. The mother leaves and then the girl is left alone with him. He's a cop. A detective. He threatens her, convinces her she can never tell anyone because he's a detective and he'll find out. He tells her she won't be believed and she believes him.

"So one day she's finally had enough or she'd had enough all along but didn't have the chance or hadn't thought out the right plan. Whatever. But that one day comes and she kills him, makes it look like he did it himself. Suicide. She gets away with it. There's a detective on the case who knows something isn't right but what's he gonna do? He knows the guy had it coming to him. He lets it go."

Backus was standing in the middle of the room staring at the floor.

"I knew about her father. The official version, I mean."

"I had a friend find out the details of the unofficial version."

"What next?"

"What happens next is she blossoms. The power she had in that one moment makes up for a lot of things. She gets past it. Few do, but she makes it. She's a smart girl and she goes on to the university to study psychology, to learn about herself. And then she even gets drafted by the FBI. She's a prize and she moves fast through the bureau until she's in the unit that actually studies people like her father. And like herself. You see, her whole life has been this struggle to understand. And then when her team leader wants to study police suicides he goes to her because he knows the official story about her father. Not the truth. Just the official story. She takes the job, knowing inside that the reason she had been chosen was a sham."

I stopped there. The more I told of the story the more power I felt. Knowledge of someone's secrets is an intoxicating power. I reveled in my ability to put the story together.

"And so," Backus whispered then, "how does it all come apart for her?"

I cleared my throat.

"Things were going good," I continued. "She married her partner and things were going good. But then things weren't so good. I don't know if it was pressure from the job, the memories, the breakup of that marriage, maybe all of those things. But she started coming apart. Her husband left her, thinking that she was empty inside. The Painted Desert, he called her, and she hated him for it. And then… maybe she remembered the day when she killed her tormentor. Her father. And she remembered the peace that came after… the release."

I looked at him. He had a far-off look in his eyes, maybe envisioning the story as I conjured it from hell.

"One day," I continued, "one day a request for a profile comes in. A boy has been killed and mutilated in Florida. The case detective wants a profile of the person who did this. Only she recognizes the detective, knows his name. Beltran. A name from the past. A name maybe brought up in an old interview and she knows that he, too, was a tormentor, an abuser like her father, and that the victim he is calling about was also probably his victim…"

"Right," Backus said, taking up the strand. "So she goes down to Florida to this man, Beltran, and does it again. Just like with her father. Makes it look like a suicide. She even knew where Beltran kept his shotgun hidden. Gladden had told her that. It was probably an easy thing to get to him. She flies down, goes to him with her bureau credentials and gets inside the house to do it. It brings her peace again. Fills that void. Only thing is it doesn't last. Soon she is empty again and she has to do it again. And then again and again. She follows the killer, Gladden, and kills those who are after him, using him to cover her tracks before she had even made them."

Backus was staring blankly at some vision as he spoke.

"She knew all the touches, all the moves," he said. "Wiping the lubricated condom off inside Orsulak's mouth. The perfect deflection. It was true genius."

I nodded and took it from there.

"She had seen Gladden's cell and knew there was a photograph in the files that could be found one day," I said. "She knew the books about Poe were in the photos. It was all a setup. She followed Gladden around the country. She had a sense. She knew from the cases coming in for profiling which were the ones he did. She had an empathy. She'd follow him. She'd go out and kill the cop that was after him. She made each one look like a suicide, but she had Gladden to put it on if someday someone came along and it unraveled."

Backus looked at me.

"Someone like you," he said.

"Yeah. Like me."