Puppets (34 page)

43

M
ONDAY MORNING, first order of business was a conference in Marsden's office, bringing Mike St. Pierre and the senior investigator up-to-date on what they were still calling the Pinocchio murders. The hard part for Mo was getting the others excited about the junkyard initiative while avoiding telling them why he was so hot on it: Yeah, see, a coincidence, this ninety-year-old Jamaican witch, now dead, thought it figured in, and then later it shows up in an analysis of Ronald Parker's free-associating babbling. Nor could he tell them the big picture: programmed human killing machines, the Geppetto scenario. For the first time, it came home to him what Biedermann was up against. This case really was about control of information—who knew what, when. How to survive and move toward a solution knowing as little or as much as you did.

His argument went that with the similar MOs their best bet was to establish a link of contact between Parker and Radcliff. The psychologist thought the junkyard was significant in Parker's babblings and might therefore relate to Radcliff, too. St. Pierre took it at face value, but throughout the exercise Marsden looked at Mo appraisingly, skeptical black, slit eyes over pouches. Marsden finally said, "Yeah. Yeah, you guys go get your junkyard battle plan sketched out. Yeah. And then, Mo, come see me, we got stuff to talk about."

Back out to the main room, going over the leads, looking at maps, taking notes. The plan was for St. Pierre to get the basics on Radcliffs background, then do some legwork in the community to put together a picture of his habits, his hangouts, his associations. From there, Mo could covertly look for a link back to Geppetto. The most important part of the whole thing, and nobody else knew about it.

On that score, Rebecca had assigned herself the job of looking into Radcliffs psychological past. Maybe she was right, Geppetto did tap into social-services and penal systems to acquire subjects with psych profiles appropriate to his needs. If so, they could conceivably track both Parker and Radcliff back, look for the same windows that Geppetto had once climbed through.

St. Pierre's firstjob, though, was to get maps of solid-waste disposal facilities. In theory, the hypothetical dump could be anywhere, but Mo was certain it would be nearby. All the crimes had occurred within fifty miles, and if Geppetto was Flannery—or even Zelek or, God forbid, Ty—he'd have to have his conditioning "lab" near his office for his double life to be logistically feasible. So St. Pierre would locate disposal sites in southern New York State and adjoining areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Once they had assembled a master list, Mo and St. Pierre would requisition a few uniforms to help tour dumps in New York State while other task force members checked out New Jersey and Connecticut sites. A total of maybe ten guys looking at a lot of territory, a lot of maps, a lot of trash. But you had to start somewhere.

When St. Pierre was gone, Mo reviewed the minimal information they'd gotten so far: Radcliffs driver's license application and photo. Thirty years old, longish blond hair, fairly handsome face marred by a smug half-smile, a supercilious look in the eyes. Six foot two, 210 pounds—a pretty big guy. They'd made some other inquiries, looking for a criminal record, and Mo expected more shortly.

But there was Marsden in his office doorway, leaning against the door frame and staring daggers, the irritated skin next to his nose like a red warning flag. Mo put on an apologetic face and went in.

Marsden shut the door, went back to the other side of his desk, sat heavily in his chair.

"Okay. Tell me what the fuck's going on." Mo feigned a surprised look, but Marsden wasn't having any. "Oh, look. How dumb am I, huh? I'm too tired to play games here. Let's hear it."

Mo had spent half the night thinking feverishly,
Why not tell it all to
Marsden?
Maybe the wily old senior investigator could help find a way out of the maze.

But opening this up would be scary. On the Flannery thing, you didn't even
suggest
you were suspicious of a powerful district attorney unless you had a hell of a lot more to go on than Mo had at this point.

Besides which, how much credibility would Mo have, given the guy he was accusing happened to be the very DA currently working up charges against him?

And then, forget Flannery, there really were issues of what you could call "national security" here. This had become a big issue, completely beyond Mo's experience. Maybe it
was
best to keep old government nightmare bungles secret, lay them to rest. And, as Zelek had correctly pointed out, he really didn't want to mess with Biedermann's show: Blowing the Geppetto scenario open now could easily squirrel the SAC's chances of catching the puppet-master. Most important, spilling to Marsden might set something in motion, increasing the odds that he and Rebecca would become Geppetto's targets. Or Biedermann's.

Marsden was waiting.

"What would you do," Mo hazarded, "if you'd started an investigation and it seemed to lead to, oh, say, some government thing?"

"A government thing." Marsden's head bobbed on his jowly neck, eyes closed, like
Great, here goes another Mo Ford special.

"Like a . . . maybe an intelligence-community problem. Or national-security-related.''

That was it for Marsden. He shook his head, waved his hands,
enough.
"You know, Mo, I was looking forward to reaming your ass this morning. But you know what? I'm too tired. I don't have what it takes. I'm due in for the bypass end of the week, I gotta conserve my strength, I gotta avoid blowing a gasket before Saturday. But I'm gonna tell you two things."

Marsden did look tired, more sad than mad, as if Mo were a big disappointment to him. Mo would have preferred the reaming, this was tragic. Marsden really was a man running out of gas. Now he heaved a sigh, looked back at Mo. "Off the record, as a guy who has some misguided respect for your work, I was gonna tell you something I thought you should know. Which is that Flannery's level of interest in you is very high. Too high, more than called for. He's been talking to me, to everyone in Major Crimes, fishing for shit on you. Also to Dodgson and Paley up in Albany, going over every little glitch in your file, maybe refreshing their memories about you in unflattering ways." He gave Mo a meaningful look with his slits.

That gave Mo a chill. Dodgson and Paley were budding Ken Starrs from Internal Affairs who had conducted previous internal reviews on him. No, not just Ken Starrs, more like Terminator robots, right out of the movies, tireless and unstoppable.

Marsden went on, "Point being, Flannery's acting like he means business on screwing you some big way. If not on Big Willie, something else. I was gonna ask you, A, what'd you do to get Flannery after you like this? It seems almost like something personal. You insult him, call him a jerk, or what? You screwing his girlfriend? Or, B, I was gonna ask, maybe Flannery has good cause to go after you like this, and I don't know what it is? You wanna give me a heads-up on some fuckup you haven't told me about?"

Flannery's extreme hard-on for Mo made sense for only one reason, Mo was thinking. He sensed Mo was getting close to him, he was looking for ways to sabotage Mo's investigation. But all he said to Marsden was "No. Nothing, none of the above. I swear to God."

Marsden looked at him with weary skepticism, a long look obviously intended to allow Mo to change his tune. When he didn't, Marsden bobbed his head again. "Okay. So on the other stuff you mentioned this morning, I'm gonna tell you one more thing. You've got this fucking . . .
impressionistic
way of running an investigation. You intuit this and you suspect that, you see suggestive stuff over
here,
inferences over
there.
And pretty soon, you've come around so your head's up your ass." Marsden had started low but was getting more and more worked up as he went on: "Now, you look to me like a guy up to his neck in hot water. Do I have that right? My point is, you want me to help, you gotta put something in front of me
on this deskl
Some paper, a name, a piece of evidence, a photograph. Something! If you can't do that, you'd better give up the artsy stuff and the national security shit. I can't do anything to protect you unless you show me something worth going out on a limb for."

Marsden had thumped the desk hard with his bunched fingertips,
on this desk,
face swelling red, before getting himself back under control. Calming again, he looked truly ill.

Mo looked at him with concern. "What time are you in surgery Saturday, Frank?" he asked. "I'd like to come keep Dorothea company. She must be worried sick."

With another hour left before he had to leave for the task force meeting, Mo worked the telephone directories, making lists. He looked under disposal services, dumps, garbage, junk, landfills, recycling, refuse, salvage, trash, waste. He also referenced antiques, art, entertainment, restaurants, taverns. In Brooklyn there was a dance club called The Junkyard, in the Village a gallery called Trash Art, and in Yonkers a bar called The Dump. In Greenwich, he found an antique store called Jane's Junkyard, and in Danbury a recycled-goods outlet called Good Junk, Inc. Then he remembered autos and made a list of auto salvage yards and used-parts outlets, then came up with surplus and scrap and listed surplus goods suppliers and scrap-metal reprocessing companies.

A long list, given that their target region included one of the most heavily industrialized areas in the world, a major producer of waste of all kinds.

Dumps or junkyards came in all shapes and sizes. Over the years, Mo had gone to crime scenes in cute, stinking rural landfills covered with thin grass and seagulls, and in urban metals-reclamation yards with mountains of crushed and shredded steel beneath gigantic cranes, processing conveyors, smoking smelter chimneys. What exactly had Geppetto and his puppets done in the "junkyard"? Something for Rebecca to zero in on. They had to draw a bead on that and select only the most promising sites to look at in person. Because there was no way they were going to check out the scores of possibles he had listed here.

Of course, it could all be for nothing. Maybe the "dump" was something else entirely, a code word, a symbolic phrase selected for reasons they couldn't know.

Mo dropped off the lists for St. Pierre to review, then left for the drive to Manhattan. Flannery and Biedermann would both be at the task force meeting, that should be fun, two big macho egos, all that testosterone. Tomorrow they'd put St. Pierre's lists of Sanitary District sites together with Mo's lists, prioritize the sites, and spend their days touring stinking landfills and dumps and salvage yards.

It was shaping up to be a great week.

A good-size crowd, twelve representatives from eight agencies and jurisdictions. Biedermann posed at the head of the conference table with his jacket off, shirtsleeves rolled up over beefy forearms in a workmanlike way. He looked tired, though, overextended, as did everyone else in the room. Flannery had even let a faint haze of white stubble crop up along a male-pattern-baldness line on his shiny dome, confirming Mo's suspicion that he shaved his head. Rebecca looked tired, too, but in a lovely way. When Mo came into the room, she shot a glance at him and then looked quickly away with a tiny, secret smile.

"Okay," Biedermann said. "Lots of ground to cover. I understand we've had some developments over the weekend. Chief Panelli and Detective Ford, maybe you can bring us up to speed on this event in Briarcliff Manor Saturday."

They took turns telling about Byron Bushnell's raid on the house of Dennis Radcliff, Bushnell's claim Radcliff had killed his wife, the puppeteer paraphernalia found in the house. Their theory was that Radcliff had begun a sexual relationship with Irene not long after she'd started cleaning for him and, in early April, had suggested they go for a picnic or tryst near the old power station, where he'd killed her.

The news that they had a probable name for the Pinocchio killer sent a stir through the group. Happy cops, feeling they were closing in.

Flannery had chosen the seat at the end of the table opposite Biedermann and had been absently rubbing his stubble as he listened. Now he asked, "So what do we know about Radcliff?"

Panelli passed around a handout and summarized, "My people tell me he has a history of juvenile problems, vandalism and assault, psych referrals. That's anecdotal in our department—his juvie records are sealed. But we learned he was convicted of aggravated rape in college, spent five years in Massachusetts jails. Released in '97. We don't know what he's been doing since, doesn't leave much of a paper trail. It'll take a while to get more."

"The prior rape's good—ties in with the Bushnell and Rappaport murders," Flannery said. "Between that and the paraphernalia, he looks good to me."

Biedermann: "Leaving us the question, where is he now?"

Nobody had any idea. For all they knew, he'd driven nearby that night, seen the activity in front of his house, and was in Alaska by now. Biedermann asked Rebecca if as a psychologist she could offer any insight into what Radcliff would do, where he'd go.

"Hiding out with relatives or friends? Maybe he's chosen another victim and he's staying at the victim's residence? I'm sorry. I need more background before I could speculate." Rebecca did her act well, gave no indication she had come to other conclusions.

"So why the copycat thing?" Flannery asked. "Why did this guy suddenly decide he's going to not only start killing, but he's going to imitate Ronald Parker?" He narrowed his eyes, directing his question down the table to Biedermann.