wall working girls, and now here she stood all alone.
“Have to ask,” Miller continued. “What inspired you to become a cop-caller, Markus? Isn’t that against the code or something?”
Chief Jansen exited the Club, wearing his SBPD uniform and looking smug as ever. He got into his cruiser and backed out of his parking space.
“If it was good enough for Karl, its good enough for me,” I said, my attention divided as I focused as much on Jansen’s actions as on Miller’s words.
“So how is Karl?” Miller asked. “He was supposed to get back to me a while ago. How come I’m not speaking to him right now?”
“You’re saying you’re not aware he’s dead?” I grinned to myself despite the subject matter, letting him hear my sneer. “Maybe you junior G-Men aren’t as all-knowing as you’d like us common folk to think you are.”
As Jansen came out the exit his gaze clicked over to as if magnetically attracted to the girl at the bus stop. He stared at her, not even glancing in my direction though I was only twenty feet away across the street.
Agent Miller was silent for several seconds. “How did it happen?” he finally asked, in a quiet voice.
“You sure suck at interrogation,” I said. “It’s hard to be offering me a soda or a smoke over the phone, but shouldn’t you at least be trying to establish rapport or something? Maybe play schizo and give me Good-Cop/Bad- Cop all rolled up in one package?”
“Quit playing around,” Miller said. “I shouldn’t have to work you if your brother’s dead. If I’m wrong about that, just hang up and stop wasting my time. Otherwise, spill what you know and be quick about it.”
I clucked my tongue at his impudence. “It was a justifiable shooting by Stagger Bay law enforcement. Apparently in dealing with my brother you were associating with a major pot dealer, the kind of guy who’d try to shoot the cops serving his warrant. Funny how that works, huh?”
“All right,” Miller said. “All right, let’s both cry uncle here. What do you need from me?”
Chief Jansen turned on his cruiser’s trouble lights so they spun and glowed atop his car. He blurped his siren for a second but turned it off right away, creating a short, choked digital wail as he hung a right and pulled up in front of the young hooker.
“What was Karl doing with you?” I asked. “Was it a two-way street, a team effort between you guys? Or was he just a low life CI you were using up and throwing away?”
“Have you ever heard of a federal judge named Juanita Herrera, out of San Francisco?” Miller asked.
Jansen had the girl assume the position and gave her a cursory frisk before cuffing her, chatting her up all the while. He helped her to climb into the back seat of his cruiser and then drove away, having done his bit to clean up Stagger Bay one working girl at a time.
“Judge Herrera’s daughter was hitchhiking through Stagger Bay a few years ago and went missing, all the way, without a trace,” Miller said. “She hasn’t been seen nor heard from since.
“It’s no secret Stagger Bay is drop dead dirty, there’s bad mojo happening up there in your neck of the woods. Ordinarily when we suspect corruption and malfeasance in a county entity, the State Police would have complete jurisdiction. They’re the next higher level of law enforcement; this should be all theirs.
“But when a federal judge like Ms. Herrera makes it her life’s mission to bust a place wide open, we feds are the first ones invited to play. Markus, I’ve been up to Stagger Bay more than once, trying to find reason to widen the investigation. Your county stinks like day-old puke. I know it. I can feel it.
“Still, believe it or not, we still need a warrant to really dig, even in these turbulent times,” Miller said. “To get a warrant you need probable cause. And in Stagger Bay there are just too many places to bury the bodies. Literally.”
“Isn’t that why you get paid the big bucks? To pull the rabbit out your hat?”
“Rabbit out my hat? Don’t even start,” Miller said. “You of all people should know Stagger Bay’s county covers an area the size of Connecticut, and that it’s almost all old growth redwoods, mountains, rivers, and foggy coastline. Where are we going to search if we don’t know specifically where to bring the cadaver dogs? How are we going to know who to grill if everyone’s either too afraid to talk or has too much to lose? Anyone not familiar with how isolated Stagger Bay is couldn’t possibly understand the handicap we’re working under.”
“How about forensic accounting or something, like you guys did Al Capone with?” I asked.
“Well, we can get away with basic audits and default oversight inspections on anything we have any kind of jurisdiction over. But again, we need a warrant to delve much further than that, especially into the private sector. With even minimally imaginative bookkeeping, they can hide their trail easily.”
“You’ve put a lot of mental effort into this campaign of yours,” I noted.
“What’s my interest, you mean?” Miller asked. “Would it make you feel better if I pointed out just what a shot in the arm it’d be for a special agent’s career, if he broke open a case this big and had a federal judge owing him this kind of favor? A guy could transfer from a field office in, say, San Francisco, right into the Violent Crimes Unit back where the real action is, back in DC. Besides, maybe I’d enjoy putting the Staties in their place by making the bust federal.”
I could probably use this guy without having to be too afraid of his own personal agenda, then. “I got one more thing. Maybe you have some input for me.”
“Shoot.”
“What does it mean when a serial killer drives up to you on the street, says hello and tells you who he is, and then taunts you with his next victim while they’re his prisoner, still alive?”
“What the heck are you talking about?” Miller asked, his voice raised.
I explained, describing my encounter with the Driver, doing my best not to remember the little Hmong girl’s face. Miller was silent for a long while after that, then grunted.
“Markus,” he said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Serial killers don’t come right out and show themselves, anymore than a comic book super villain rips their mask off in public. One of the reasons your brother contacted me was because he knew I’m a fairly decent profiler; I’ve been shooting for VCU a long time. The big boys are back East, but I’m probably as good as you’re going to easily find out here on the Left Coast.”
“Markus,” Agent Miller said. “If the Driver is playing it that loose and crazy, he’s obviously on his last legs. He’s at what he sees as his end game.”
I saw the Club’s entrance door open and Mr. Tubbs walk out, Meshback Number One in front of him, Meshback Number Two behind him pulling drag.
“See, we generally differentiate between ‘spree’ killers and ‘serial’ killers, even though they both have multiple victims,” Miller said. “Sprees kill a whole bunch of people in a short time and then, often as not, kill themselves or suicide by cop. Serials may be organized or disorganized, but their murders are generally separated in time, with their technique becoming ever more similar and ritualized as they kill their way up along their learning curve.”
Meshback Number One got behind the wheel, and Tubbs climbed in to sit shotgun; Meshback Number Two was relegated to the back seat for this particular trip.
“Maybe this Driver is mutating from a serial to a spree?” Miller surmised. “If that’s so, then if he’s not stopped there’s probably a big body count blowout getting ready to happen, soon.
“Something’s changed drastically for him. In which case it sounds like all bets are off and he’s even more dangerous. Things are going to get even uglier with him now, and you need to be very, very careful, Markus. This guy just doesn’t care anymore.”
The Bronco pulled out the Club parking lot and started to make a left turn. But Tubbs saw me standing there and spoke to his driver.
“Dang,” Miller muttered, his mouth aimed away from the phone. “I’ve got to go. I’m already late for a big meeting; time ran away from me here.”
Tubbs’ Bronco rapidly reversed and pulled to the curb butt first, stopping less than a foot from Sam’s front bumper – Meshback Number One could drive, it seemed.
“So what happens if I bring you evidence enough for probable cause?” I asked, avoiding Tubbs’ efforts to catch my eye.
Miller didn’t hesitate: “Then my people and I will be on the next chartered turbo-prop up to Stagger Bay, with a SWAT team, a stack of warrants, and a mob of cracker-jack accountants. You’ll be feeling the warm glow appropriate to any citizen doing his civic duty. And, incidentally, you’ll also have a federal judge who’ll love you forever, as well as a life-long good buddy in the Bureau’s VCU.”
“And one more thing friend,” Miller said. “You don’t strike me as a law enforcement groupie. Heck, if I were you
