'Okay, good. I want this to be as informal as possible. Why don't we go round-robin to see what people have. Brass, I'd like to finish up with you. So Florida. Is that you, Ted?'
'Uh, yes sir, with Steve, here. We are just getting our feet wet on this and hope to have more by tomorrow. But there are some anomalies here that we think are already worth noting.'
'Go ahead.'
'Uh, this is the first, or believed to be the first, of the Poet's stops. Clifford Beltran. The second incident-in Baltimore-did not take place until nearly ten months later. That is the longest interval we have as well. This leads us to possibly question the randomness of this first kill.'
'You think the Poet knew Beltran?' Rachel asked.
'It's possible. At the moment, though, it's just a hunch we are working. There are a few other things that when thrown into the stew are worth taking a look at in support, however. First, this is the only one with a shotgun. We checked the autopsy file today and they aren't pretty pictures. Total obliteration with both barrels. We all know the symbolic pathology of that.'
'Overkill,' Backus said. 'Suggesting knowledge or acquaintance of the victim.'
'Right. Next we have the weapon itself. According to reports, it was an old Smith and Wesson that Beltran kept in a closet, on a top shelf out of sight. This information is attributed in the reports to his sister. Beltran had never married and lived in the house he grew up in. We haven't talked to the sister ourselves. The point is, if this was a suicide, yeah, fine, he went to the closet and got out the shotgun. But now we come along and say this was no suicide.'
'How did the Poet know the shotgun was up there on the shelf?' Rachel said.
'Riiiiiight… How did he know?'
'Good one, Ted, Steve,' Backus said. 'I like it. What else?'
'The last thing is kind of sticky. Is the reporter there?'
Everyone in the room looked at me.
'Yes,' Backus said. 'But we are still off the record. You can say what you were going to say. Right, Jack?'
I nodded and then realized they wouldn't see this in all the other cities.
'That's right,' I said. 'We're off the record.'
'Okay, well, this is mere speculation at this time and we're not sure how it fits but we have this. On the autopsy of the first victim, the boy, Gabriel Ortiz, the coroner concluded, based on examination of the anal glands and muscles, that the boy was the victim of long-term molestation. If the boy's killer was also his abuser over a period of time, then this does not fit with our pattern of random selection and acquisition of victims. So that seems unlikely to us.
'However, looking at it from Beltran's point of view three years ago of not having the benefit of our knowledge, something here doesn't fit. He had this one case, knew nothing about the others we know about now. When the autopsy came back concluding the boy was the victim of long-term molestation, it stands to reason that Beltran should have jumped all over that and looked for the abuser as suspect numero uno.'
'He didn't?'
'No. He headed a team of three detectives and he directed almost all investigative work toward the park where the boy had been abducted after school. I got this off the record from one of the guys on the team. He said he suggested a wider focus looking into the boy's background but Beltran turned him down.
'Now the good stuff. My source at the sheriff's tells me Beltran specifically asked for the investigation. He wanted it. After he supposedly offed himself, my source did some checking and it turns out Beltran had known the kid through a local social services program called Best Pals, which puts fatherless boys with adults. Like a Big Brother program. Beltran was a cop, so he had no trouble going through the screening process. He was the boy's Best Pal. I'm sure you can all take it from there.'
'You think perhaps Beltran was the boy's molester?' Backus asked.
'It's possible. I think that's what my source was driving at but he won't put it on the line. Everybody's dead. It was written off. They're not going to go public with a story like that. Not with one of their own and sheriff being an elective office.'
I watched Backus nod his head.
'That's to be expected.'
There was silence for a few moments.
'Ted, Steve, this is all very interesting,' Backus said. 'But how does it fit? Is it just an interesting offshoot or are you seeing something there?'
'We're not sure ourselves. But if you say Beltran was a molester, a pedophile no less, and add that he was put down with a shotgun that somebody knew was on the top shelf of the closet because he knew Beltran, then we are getting into an area I think we should explore further.'
'I agree. Tell us, what else did your source know about Beltran and Best Pals?'
'He said he was told that Beltran had been with Best Pals for a long time. He'd been with a lot of boys, we assume.'
'And that is where you will pursue this, correct?'
'We'll hit it hard in the morning. Nothing we can do with it tonight.'
Backus nodded and put a finger to his mouth in a contemplative gesture.
'Brass?' Backus said. 'What do you think of all of this? How would that play with the psychopathology?'
'Children are a string all through this. So are homicide cops. We just don't have a handle yet on what this guy is all about. I think this is something that should be pursued vigorously.'
'Ted, Steve, do you need more bodies?' Backus asked.
'I think we're set. We've got everybody in the Tampa FO wanting in on this. So what we need, we can take from there.'
'Excellent. By the way, have you talked to the boy's mother about her son's relationship with Beltran?'
'We are still trying to track her as well as Beltran's sister. Remember, it's been three years. Hopefully, we'll get to them tomorrow after Best Pals.'
'Okay, then, how about Baltimore? Sheila?'
'Yes, sir. We spent most of the day re-covering the ground of the locals. We talked to Bledsoe. The theory he had on the Polly Amherst case from the start was that they were looking for a molester. Amherst was a teacher. Bledsoe said he and McCafferty always thought that she might've stumbled onto a molester on the school grounds, was abducted, strangled and then butchered as a means of disguising the true motivation of the crime.'
'Why did it have to be a molester?' Rachel asked. 'Could she have stumbled onto a burglar, a drug deal, anything else?'
'Polly Amherst had third-period recess watch on the day she disappeared. The locals interviewed every child who had been in the yard. A lot of conflicting stories but a handful of kids remember a man at the fence. He had stringy blond hair and glasses. He was white. Sounds like Brad wasn't too far off with his description of Roderick Usher. They also said this man had a camera. That was about the extent of the description.'
'Okay, Sheila, what else?' Backus asked.
'The one piece of physical evidence recovered with the body was a strand of hair. Bleached blond. Natural color is reddish brown. That's about it for now. We are going to work with Bledsoe again tomorrow.'
'Okay. Chicago's next.'
The rest of the reports contained nothing noteworthy in terms of identifying or adding to the growing database on the Poet. The agents were mostly covering ground the locals had already trod and they were finding nothing new. Even the report from Denver contained mostly old information. But at the end, the agent on the line said that an examination of the gloves worn by my brother was conducted and a single blood spot was found in the fur lining of the right-hand glove. The agent asked whether I was still willing to call Riley and ask her to allow an exhumation. I didn't answer because I was in a daze thinking about what the indication of hypnotism meant my brother's last moments were like. Asked again, I said I would call in the morning.
As an afterthought the agent concluded his report by saying he had shipped the GSR swabs from my brother's mouth to the lab in Quantico.
'They run a pretty good ship here, boss, and I don't think we'll get more than what they found.'
'Which was?' Backus asked, careful not to look at me.
'Just the GSR. Nothing else.'
