Without Warning (13 page)

I had learned nothing from the trip to Bill’s house, except maybe a little about myself.

Matt Higgins had tried to reach Jake, but was told he was out of town. It didn’t take a crack reporter to realize that Jake wouldn’t have gone off on a vacation in the middle of probably the biggest case of his life, and Matt naturally assumed the trip must be related to the case.

So he called Mary Sullivan.

Mary tensed as always when she heard his voice. She never relished her role as a paid informer, but because in the past it usually had involved insignificant events, it never bothered her that much.

This was different.

They chit-chatted briefly, but they both knew exactly where it was going, and Mary just cringed and waited for the moment. It was quick in coming.

“So they told me Jake was out of town,” Matt said.

“Right.”

“Strange time for him to leave.”

No answer from Mary, so he continued on. “Where did he go?”

“New Hampshire, I think.” Mary sometimes added “I think,” as if on some level it might make the betrayal of Jake less awful. She knew it was stupid as she was doing it.

“New Hampshire is a big state.”

“North Conway.”

He laughed. “Doing some shopping?” North Conway is filled with retail store outlets; their presence is a major tourist attraction.

“I don’t know why he went there, Matt. I swear.” She was lying; she knew exactly why Jake had gone there, knew all about Bill Norris’s death. But she felt that she could credibly deny it, so she did.

Matt pumped her some more, but really didn’t have to. He had seen the news reports of the death of a decorated combat veteran in North Conway that morning, and correctly assumed that the two things had to be related.

He would uncover the connection to Jake easily, and he would write about it. The trick would be to put it into context of the entire capsule investigation, but that would not be far off.

Bill Norris was the “William” the capsule killer referred to. Matt had no doubt about that; the only question was gathering the facts to support it, and therefore having the revelation be rock solid, as all his reporting had been so far.

By the next morning, when the good people of Wilton picked up the
Journal
, they would know that the capsule killer had struck again.

Katie Sanford was uncomfortable with what she was hearing. Matt Higgins had told her about the Norris murder in New Hampshire, about the service connection he had to Jake, and about Jake’s heading down there after learning of it.

It wasn’t necessary for him to point out the fact that it was likely another fulfillment of the capsule’s prediction; she realized it immediately.

Matt was informing her because he was about to print the story. He wasn’t asking for permission, since it was inconceivable to him that she could have a problem with it. He was merely acceding to her wishes to be kept informed of everything that was going into her paper about this case, before it was printed. Or posted online.

Her discomfort was not about the journalistic aspect of it. Matt had done a solid reporting job, and it unquestionably deserved to be printed. Nor was she concerned that it was a violation of her agreement with Jake. He hadn’t provided the information; it was developed independent of him.

She wondered if he was planning to share the information about the Norris murder with her but at this point that wasn’t particularly significant. They had it, and they would run the story. She told Matt to go ahead with it immediately.

Kate’s discomfort came simply from Jake’s connection to the story at all, and was a result of what had happened between them. She had not planned it, hadn’t meant for it to happen, and never in a million years expected that it would.

Her feelings for him were intense, and probably had been for a long time. But the baggage they were carrying was always so great that those feelings had been kept deeply buried, and if not for their being thrown together by the opening of the capsule, they might have stayed that way.

She didn’t know where their relationship was going, or where she wanted it to go. But she knew one thing with certainty: it was not going anywhere for a while. As long as this story was active, her relationship with Jake was not going to be. There were just too many complications, too many chances to be uncomfortable. It was a time for professionalism; everything else would have to wait.

When she got out of her meeting with Matt, she learned that Jake had called, and for a second her resolve melted away and she felt like a schoolgirl. She called him back, under the self-imposed pretense that calling the chief of police back was the logical and obvious thing for a journalist pursuing a story to do.

But the first words out of his mouth were, “I want to see you,” in a tone that said, “I have to see you.” She knew it wasn’t about business, and she was glad that it wasn’t about business. This “professionalism” thing was tough to stick to.

She didn’t want to take another long ride to a restaurant where they wouldn’t be seen. And she didn’t want him to come over to her house; she lived in a residential neighborhood with neighbors who were sure to notice, if they hadn’t noticed the last time.

She told Jake that she would come to his house; he lived in a heavily wooded area with fairly long distances between houses.

“You have any food in the house for dinner?” she asked.

“Cold pizza. Couple of days old … maybe four.”

“I’ll bring some pasta and cook it there, assuming you have a stove?”

“A beauty,” he said. “And that will work great, because I was hoping to hang on to the pizza for tomorrow. Five days is when it’s at its ripest.”

“Do you have wine?”

“I do.”

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Best news I’ve had all day.”

She was there in forty-five minutes, but they had other things on their minds, and the pasta never got cooked. Much later in the evening they had four–day-old cold pizza, in bed.

And, at least for the moment, Katie wasn’t feeling at all uncomfortable.

Jake asked her to spend the night, but she didn’t think they should take things to that level yet. So she left at about eleven o’clock, and therefore wasn’t there in the morning when Jake saw the newspaper.

Which meant she wasn’t there to watch as he read about his trip to North Conway, New Hampshire, the day before. But he was immediately aware that all of Wilton was also reading about it, and about his relationship with Bill Norris.

He wondered why Katie had not mentioned anything about the impending story to him, but then was glad she hadn’t. They had reached a balance and understanding, albeit unspoken, and it was working pretty well.

For the moment.

I decided it was time to call in the Feds. I had two reasons for this change of mind. First, the New Hampshire murder meant that the conspiracy crossed state lines, and that represented a clear mandate for them to be involved.

Second, Matt Higgins’s article would alert them to that fact, and they’d be coming in whether I invited them or not. So I might as well.

I called Agent Bennett, and he confirmed my view of the situation by saying, “I was just going to call you.”

“I figured you were.”

“Is the New Hampshire thing clearly connected?”

“I can’t prove it, but I have no doubt in my gut that it is.”

“You in your office?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

He was there ten minutes earlier than he predicted, and the timing meant he was staying nearby, which in turn probably meant he had been working on the case all this time. There would have been no other reason for him to be staying so close by.

I took him through what I knew about the New Hampshire killing, and my relationship to Bill Norris. “He’s got to be the ‘six percent’ guy that the capsule prediction referred to,” I said.

“Did anyone call him William?” he asked. “Or just Bill?”

“Far as I know, Bill.”

“So a real estate agent in New Hampshire gets killed. If he’s connected to the capsule predictions, he’s the first victim that isn’t local. Why are you so sure he’s tied into this?”

“Because he’s tied into me. Everything is tied into me.”

Bennett folded his hands in front of himself, waiting for me to explain. “Well, this should be interesting.”

“It’s very simple. George Myerson was my insurance agent, Bill Norris was my friend, Charlie Price was someone I arrested, and Jenny was my wife.”

“What about the other woman that was killed?”

“The bullet was meant for Matt Higgins. He and I have had a lot of dealings with each other.”

Bennett thought about it for a few moments. Then, “I’m not convinced.”

I shrugged. “Can’t say that I give a shit.”

He laughed. “Except for Norris, everybody was from around here. They were probably connected to a whole bunch of people in town.”

“And Norris?”

“More significant, but not definitive. There were probably a whole bunch of Williams who died yesterday. It’s not exactly a rare name. Throw a dart out your window and you’ll probably kill or maim a William.”

“It is definitive in my mind,” I said.

“And Votto?”

“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The killer had to kill him, so he’d have access to the capsule.”

“Bullshit. He could have dug the damn thing up after it was buried.”

I was getting frustrated. “Fine. You got any theories?”

“No, but I will. It’s what makes me a special agent.”

“You’re wasting time,” I said. “For some reason it’s about me.”

“Okay, then who’s next? Have you taken the other predictions and assigned possible names to them?”

“Not yet, but I’m about to. But it’s going to be hard; might even be impossible.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, for example, I didn’t even know Bill Norris was a real estate agent until after he was killed. The same kind of thing could be true of other names on the list. And all the rest are so damn cryptic; our only advantage is that he seems to be taking them in order.”

Hank had been out in the field, but I had left word for him to join the meeting when he got back, so he came in as soon as he did. I updated him on what was said up to that point.

“Hell, everybody on that list except Norris is connected to me as well,” he said. “I knew George better than you, I was the one who actually arrested Price, I deal with Higgins all the time, and I was the best man at your wedding to Jenny.”

“But you didn’t know Bill Norris.”

“Maybe he was a coincidence.”

“I’m surrounded by idiots,” I said.

“I’ve been called worse,” Bennett said. “But let’s play it out. Somebody is killing people connected to you, so who did you piss off enough to want to do that?”

“Plenty of people, I would imagine,” I said. “But if I did piss off a killer that much, why didn’t he come after me? Why go through this capsule prediction stuff?”

“That’s why this is such a fun job; we got ourselves a puzzle. So the trick now is for you to figure out who’s next.”

I just nodded. That was something I needed to do. Especially since the next prediction, at least in the order they were placed in the capsule, was “Sleep tight, little girl.” It very likely meant that a child was in imminent danger.

“And while you’re at it,” Bennett said, “figure out which walls are going to come tumbling down.”

“Capsule Killer’s Warning: ‘Sleep Tight, Little Girl.’” That was the headline in the
Journal
, and I had to admit that it was getting on my nerves. Higgins, or Katie, or someone else at the
Journal
obviously had a source inside the department, and after a few days of it simply being annoying, now it was impacting our ability to do our job.

I had been about to issue a more general public warning, telling people that there was a dangerous criminal out there, and that they should lock their doors at night, keep an eye on children, alert the police if anything seemed unusual … that kind of stuff.

I didn’t want to be specific, because I wanted to avoid the panic that I would anticipate from a statement that the killer had specifically threatened young children.

The kind of panic that Higgins’s story was already generating.

When I got to the office, I was inundated with messages from concerned citizens, demanding action. It was one thing to have some weird story about a capsule, and some murders of other people, but now people were worried about their children.

I told Mary not to put any calls through to me, and about fifteen minutes later she came to the door. “It’s the mayor on line two,” she said.

I wasn’t a big fan of Mayor Wilson Harrick, and he certainly wasn’t crazy about me, either. He was a politician, through and through, which came as no surprise, since that’s what people who run for office generally are. But I didn’t mind him being a politician; I minded him being a weasel.

“You know how many calls I got so far this morning, Jake?” he asked, dispensing with “hello” or “good morning.” He also always made “Jake” sound like “Jack.” I think it was his way of being dismissive, or something.

Friends called him Wilson, so I called him “Will,” in retaliation for “Jack.” I certainly never called him “Mayor,” or “Your Honor,” even though he had also been a municipal judge before running for his current office. We’re a couple of really mature public servants. “I’m gonna take a shot at this, Will. Seven hundred and fourteen.”

“Over five hundred,” he said. “People are scared, and I don’t blame them.”

“Yeah, the same people are calling me.” The truth was that I had probably gotten about a hundred, and I doubted he got more. But that number in a small town like ours represented a tidal wave.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

His use of “you” was pointed, so I responded with, “Not sure. What do you think we should do?”

“Hold a press conference.”

I had actually been considering that and was sorry he was the first to suggest it. “Okay.”

He sounded surprised. “Good.”