freestanding structure. There had to be something in there. He left the line where it was, then ran the two dozen feet to the building’s entrance. It was locked-not surprising. He examined the door, but it was solidly built. There was a window-but he did not want to risk the noise it would make. Even if this was the darkest area of the grounds, a stray and unexpected crash of glass would invite trouble.
But each minute MacNally was in the open, outside the institution building, he was in danger of being discovered. He had been willing to accept the consequences when he launched the escape-because he was in charge of his own destiny and he felt confident he would be able to make it. But he had not planned on being double crossed by his co-conspirator. Now, with the chance of failure increasing with each passing second, the risk seemed far greater than it had when he sat down to plan it.
He circled the building, but found no other means of ingress. The window had to be it; he pulled the tail of his thick cotton shirt from his pants, then balled it around his left hand and punched it through the glass. It shattered as expected-and made as much noise as he had feared. Nothing he could do about it but get inside and find something that would help him climb that wall.
He hoisted himself up and through, and landed hard on the ground, amongst the broken shards of glass. He felt warm blood oozing from his cheek, but he didn’t care. He stumbled over haphazardly placed equipment of some sort, then groped in the darkness for something that he could fasten to the rope. A moment later, he found a rough, rusted rake. He stamped hard across the wood handle and the brittle wood snapped after three blows.
Drips of perspiration rolled off his brow, stinging his eyes. He wiped a sleeve across his face, and then examined the tool. It showed promise, but needed to be more rounded, like a hand. Anything he could use to bend it-a sledgehammer or other weighted device-would make substantial noise. Although his night vision had adjusted to the unlit interior, he could not find anything to reshape the hardened metal.
He tossed it out the window, then climbed up and out of the building. He picked up his new cleat, and cradling it like a football against his forearm, made like a running back and took off for the wall.
It was creeping past the end of the workday by the time Vail had started looking through the crime scene photos with Friedberg and Dixon. They had not gotten past the Anderson crime scene when Burden came running into the room.
“He left something for us.” Burden had a sheet of paper cradled between the thumb and forefinger of both hands. “Stuck it under the windshield wiper of my car.”
“He knew which car was yours?” Dixon asked.
“Apparently. After I spoke with Hayes-our lieutenant-and he gave me the go-ahead to use those interns, I had to get their names from a file in my car. And I found this.” He held up the document.
“Does SFPD have cameras in the lot?” Vail asked.
Friedberg stifled a laugh. “There are some out front, and some strategically placed around the building’s exterior. But the parking lot’s low priority. And we’ve had very few problems so there’s no incentive to spend money on that. You know how government works-we fix a security hole after we have a breach.”
“What’s it say?” Vail asked.
“It rambles a bit, kind of sounds like a manifesto.”
They gathered around Burden’s desk and huddled to read the letter.
You think I made a mistake? Right. That’s why I’m locked away in a jail cell. Oh, wait. I’m not. You people are a horrible waste of our tax dollars. Are you all so stupid I have to spell it out? Society functins by rooles and laws but they don’t apply to me. I don’t respect author-ity. Never did when I was growing up. My parents taught me to question author-ity. So why should I respecdt it in prisin son of a bitch bastards all they want to do is stick you force you to become someone your not if thts not a crime what is. I ask you agent vail what does all this mean. What does life mean if a man does all he can but cant make it work in society. It makes you think doesn’t it? If you still dont get it Agent Vail your not worth shit. I mean if all the philososphors and experts give us references for the trends of society what does it all mean if goverment doesn’t respect an individuals right to live in peace. I am a weakish speller but don’t take it for a fault. Underestimate me, you will be badly disappointed.
“I’m gonna take it over to the lab,” Burden said. “Have them do the usual workup, see what they can tell us. Karen?”
Vail was reading it a second time. They waited for her to finish, at which point she sat back in her chair. “There’s a lot of anger. It looks like his grammar is atrocious, which would indicate a lower level of schooling. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. There’s a purpose behind it. And he specifically warns us not to underestimate him.”
“What else?”
“The writer appears to have done time in prison. He obviously refers to it and implies he’s had experiences there. I assume being ‘stuck,’ in that context, refers to being raped. And he asks why he should respect authority in prison if his parents taught him not to respect it when he was free. That could merely be bullshit, but he does describe an attitude toward authority that’s common among violent offenders: a lot of them don’t think the laws of society apply to them. So I think there’s a good chance our writer’s been incarcerated.”
“That could help us out big time,” Friedberg said.
Burden leaned toward Vail. “He mentions you twice, as if he’s talking directly to you. What do you make of that?”
“That would be what our UNSUB would do. Same with his opening-he puts himself out as the smart one, us as the dumb ones.”
“You think this really is from the Bay Killer?” Dixon asked.
“That’s a much more difficult question to answer.” Vail sat forward in her chair and carefully slid the paper toward her using the eraser of a pencil. “It could be someone who read Allman’s article. He mentioned me, so this crackpot could be trying to get his fifteen minutes of fame, if tomorrow’s newspaper, or the paper’s website, mentions the letter. Or it could actually be our guy-but he could be deliberately altering things to throw us off.”
“Throw us off, how?” Friedberg asked.
“Reading this, you might think he doesn’t appear to be too bright, with all the grammatical and spelling errors and run-on sentences. But hints of his intelligence come through when he makes his point, however circular and pontificatory he made it sound.”
“Pontificatory?” Burden said.
“Yeah,” Vail said, “pontificatory. You got a problem with that?”
“Go on,” Dixon said.
“There appears to be a cogent message beneath the surface, if we read between the lines. I said before that he’s angry. He’s pissed about something that happened in prison. It might be a rape, but I think it’s more than that. Sounds like he got out of prison and tried to make it work, but he couldn’t survive in society.
“This is also a recurring theme with criminals-they do their time or get paroled, and then get released-and are completely unprepared for how society functions. They can’t get jobs, or
