He took his newest notebook from its hiding place in one of the small safes in the attic floor — the compartment under the loose carpeting in the northeast corner of the room — and placed it on the immaculate desk in the middle of the room. He selected a mechanical pencil from a line of three of them in the top drawer of the desk.
He closed his eyes for a moment, mentally reviewing the events of the day. He had been forced to act hastily — haste was not the same thing as carelessness, merely an invitation to it. He must make certain that any errors were corrected. This was his first opportunity to reflect on all that had happened today…
He had been paged while watching Harriman. The page had not been sent by a human caller. Years ago, he had made a change in the software used in the property room. The people who worked in Property were like most people who used computers. They used them in the same way they used their refrigerators and television sets — as long as the computer functioned and did what they expected it to do, they did not investigate its inner workings.
So when he made the small change in the program, it went unnoticed. The property room staff was totally unaware that whenever anyone asked for evidence from certain cases, the property room computer sent a message to his own computer. And when his computer received the message, it dialed his pager number and left a code indicating which evidence had been requested and the name of the person making the request. Today it had indicated that Bredloe was looking at the evidence the department had gathered against Lefebvre. When he realized which evidence in particular the captain had studied, his sense of alarm had increased.
It would not be easy, he had realized, to lure Bredloe away from the office. An intensive investigation would be launched into any attack on the captain of the Homicide Division. Seeing the newspaper article about the unveiling of the mural had reminded him of the Sheffield Club, and suddenly he had known where he would ask Bredloe to meet him. The Looking Glass Man had attended the event — not knowing at that time how useful it would be.
It had not been difficult to gain access to the building. The disguise had been effective. He already knew that security at the site was lax. No one on that job would question someone who was carrying equipment
He was able to install the cameras and lights within thirty minutes. It was the end of the workday — the Sheffield was already nearly empty. While he ran cables to a monitor — which would only appear to be taping what was seen by the cameras — he checked to make sure no one was nearby. Then he used a pallet jack to position the load of bricks and put the remote-controlled lift in place beneath the pallet itself.
He made sure that the ramp from the publicity event was still accessible and that Bredloe would be able to enter through the front doors. The most difficult aspect to arrange was the single whimsical note — the paper airplane. He had worried that the small fan — a second remote would trigger its operation — would be discovered before he was ready to launch the plane. He dared not try a test launch there, and feared the plane would not perform as he hoped it would — in the science of paper airplane flight, every room was different, with drafts and thermal factors that could ruin everything.
Though he had installed the fan that afternoon, the plane had been ready to go since Saturday, when the department grapevine was buzzing with rumors about Lefebvre’s plane being found. He had intended the paper plane for Frank Harriman, a final little touch to be used at some future date if necessary — but the Looking Glass Man had decided to use it now, curious to see if Harriman would make the connection between it and the Cessna. But today’s flight had not, after all, been such a bad experiment.
With everything in place, he had made a single phone call — at that dreadful bus station! — and the captain was on his way.
He had been pleased with all the mechanical aspects of the plan and could not help but feel a sense of pride in his quick thinking. He was not so foolish as to believe his problems were over now. But he had been able to contain the damage that might have been done. He sighed, saddened that his work on behalf of justice require the sacrifice of a man like Bredloe. This, he decided, must be how a victorious general felt in the aftermath of battle — exhilarated by the achievement but mournful over the loss of life among his troops. Like a general, he must concentrate on the ultimate and worthy objective. Some lives might be lost, but many others would be saved. By his own reckoning, he had already saved hundreds of lives, spared all kinds of suffering and deprivation.
Yes, he thought, I am a general. At war with Judge Lewis Kerr.
The Looking Glass Man acknowledged that he was driven by hatred, not of a race or nation — that kind of hatred he found abhorrent — but rather of a single individual. He did not consider this hatred an imperfection, and his hatred of Judge Kerr did not make him unhappy. On the contrary, he knew his anger toward Kerr fueled all the finer fires of his existence. At its onset, that anger had been a remedy for pain, and seeking relief, he had fantasized Kerr’s death at his hands a thousand times over. Each hour, it seemed, brought some new vision of Kerr’s demise: a delivery of food poisoned with undetectable substances, a prescription that had been altered, household “accidents” — an electrical problem or a small but smoky fire — a shove into traffic or down a flight of stairs. He had seen so much murder in his career, it was not difficult to consider methods that might end another man’s life.
These visions of Kerr’s death brought a certain measure of delight, but none seemed to correspond with the Looking Glass Man’s notions of a fitting punishment, and so he hesitated to implement any of them. Sadly, he would only be able to kill Kerr once and must not squander his chance.
Over the years, though, as his anger burned on — hollowing him, hardening him — he became glad for the reluctance that had made him delay the pleasure of slaying Kerr — for in that time he learned of a magnificent opportunity, a perfect event to bring matters to an appropriate close, an event that was now not so far away. A plan had slowly emerged, and he prepared. He learned his craft, honed his skills. And took comfort in the good he was doing while he waited.
He had bided his time in the service of justice. It had become a challenge, a true challenge, to make certain that the worst criminals set loose by Kerr’s idiotic rulings were later caught again and prosecuted successfully. It mattered not at all to the Looking Glass Man that the criminals were never guilty of these later crimes, that these later crimes were ones he himself had planned. No, that was the joy of it! He wrote the script, managed the stage, set the props, and ultimately, directed the action. If someone else got the credit for capturing these lowlifes, it didn’t trouble him. After all, the arresting officers were just another set of players. The last thing he wanted was the limelight.
And so certain anonymous tips nearly always led to arrests, and then convictions, because he orchestrated events to ensure the best outcome. He did his best to ensure that the evidence was in place, that witnesses would be present, that anything that had gone wrong in the first trial would not go wrong in the second.
He frowned as his thoughts strayed to Trent Randolph and to Seth and Amanda. He thought of Lefebvre and suddenly shivered. Was there some divine message here? A warning from the cosmos, perhaps? Some reason Lefebvre’s body had been found now, of all times, when he was within reach of his long-awaited goal?
