The Poet

52

In late spring a city Department of Water and Power inspector, investigating the source of a foul odor that had drawn complaints from the residents living above, found the remains of the body in the tunnels.

The remains of a body. It carried his identification and FBI badge and the clothes were his. It was found, what was left of it, laid out on a concrete shelf in an underground intersection of two stormwater drainage culverts. The cause of death was unknown because advanced decomposition-sped along by the damp, fetid surroundings of the drainage culvert-and disturbance of the remains by animals precluded accurate autopsy results. The medical examiner did find what appeared to be a wound channel and a cracked rib in the rotting flesh but no bullet fragments that could conclusively tie the wound to Rachel's gun.

As far as the identification went, it, too, was inconclusive. There was the badge and the ID and the clothing but nothing else that proved that these were indeed the remains of Special Agent Robert Backus Jr. The animals that had attacked the body-if it had truly been animals-had made off with the complete lower mandible and an upper bridge which precluded a comparison with dental records.

That seemed too convenient to me. And others. Brad Hazelton called me to fill me in on these facts. He said the bureau was officially closing the case but there would be those who would still look for him. Unofficially. He said that some people viewed the discovery in the drainage tunnel as nothing more than a skin Backus had left behind, probably a homeless man he had encountered in the pipes. He said they believed Backus was still out there and so did I.

Brad Hazelton told me that while the official search for Backus might be over, the effort to explore the psychological motivations was continuing. But cracking the nut of Backus's pathology was proving difficult. Agents spent three days in his condominium near Quantico but found nothing remotely indicative of his secret life. No souvenirs of his kills, no clipped newspaper stories, nothing.

There were only little things known, small clues. A perfectionist father who never spared the rod. An obsessive-compulsive fixation on cleanliness-I remembered his desk at Quantico and his straightening of the calendar after I had sat there. An engagement broken off years earlier by a bride-to-be who told Brass Doran that Backus required her to shower immediately before and after they made love. A high school friend who came forward and told Hazelton that once Backus had confided to him that when he wet the bed as a boy, his father would handcuff him to the towel bar in the shower-a story denied by Robert Sr.

But these were only details, not answers. They were fragments of the much larger fabric of personality that they could only guess at. I remembered what Rachel had told me once. That it was like trying to put together a shattered mirror. Each piece reflects a part of the subject. But if the subject moves, so does the reflection.

I have stayed in Los Angeles since it all happened. I had my hand repaired by a Beverly Hills surgeon and it only hurts now at the end of a long day at the computer.

I've rented a small house in the hills and on good days I can see the sun's reflection on the Pacific almost fifteen miles away. On bad days the view is depressing and I keep the blinds closed. Sometimes at night I can hear the coyotes whining and barking at each other in Nichols Canyon. It is warm here and I have not had the desire to return to Colorado. I talk to my mother and father and Riley regularly-more so than when I was there-but I still fear the ghosts back there more than the ones here.

Officially, I am on leave from the Rocky. Greg Glenn wants me to come back but I have held off on an answer to him. I have the leverage. I'm now a celebrity journalist-I've been on "Nightline" and "Larry King Live"-and Greg wants to keep me on staff. So for now, I am on extended leave without pay while writing my book.

My agent sold the book and film rights to my story for more money than I could make in ten years working at the Rocky. But most of the money, when I get it all, will go into a trust fund for Riley's unborn baby. Sean's baby. I don't think I could manage with so much in my own bank account and I don't feel deserving of it anyway. It's blood money. I put aside just enough of the first payment from the publisher for living expenses here in L.A. and the possibility that I might make a trip to Italy after I finished the first draft.

That's where Rachel is. Hazelton told me. When they told her she was being transferred out of the BSS unit, out of Quantico, she took her own leave and went overseas. I've waited to hear from her but there has been no word. I don't think there will be now and I don't think I'll be going to Italy as she once suggested. At night, the ghost that haunts me the most is the thing inside of me that led me to doubt the very thing I wanted most.