KingEnergy 12 types:
Come back anytime, brother. You’re welcome here, and you won’t be judged.
Leo leaves the chat without replying.
“Good touch,” Alan says. “Being a little bit nervous at the end.”
“It’s not like I’m totally clueless when it comes to online undercover work,” Leo says. “I’ve played a pedophile before. This is harder.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Being a pedophile was nothing like being me. It was an act from start to finish.”
“Whereas this …?”
“I don’t see things the way these guys do, I’m not saying that. But … it’s a little too easy to slip into this role.”
“Dance with the devil, son,” Alan says.
“Yeah.” Leo sighs. “I like computer work better.”
“You’re doing fine,” I say. “So what’s the plan now?”
“He needs to do some day trading,” Alan says. “Slow and easy.”
“Give me a call when you go back into chat.”
“You got it. Bye.”
The microphone clicks off. A moment later, the connection to Leo’s PC is severed.
I think about what I’ve read, what I’ve watched being typed in that chat room. Part of me feels for these men. I don’t sense rage in all of them. Some simply seem confused, hurt. My hand finds my belly and I wonder: What if I have a son? Should I think about these hurting men, worry about what role model my boy should look up to?
The only answer I can find is Tommy. Tommy is unassertive about being a man. He just is one. His masculinity is a part of him, as natural as breathing, unconfused. I could do worse than raising a son to emulate such a man.
My cell phone rings.
“Barrett,” I answer.
“Hey, boss woman.” Kirby’s cheerful voice—not much different from her killing voice, but comforting nonetheless. “Thought I’d report in, give you a little update on where your money’s going.”
“Tommy’s money, you mean.”
“It’s all one big green pile now that you’re married, right?”
I don’t bother asking her how she knows about the marriage. “What’s the briefing, Kirby?”
“So far, so nada. Nothing happening. No signs anyone is following her or even has eyes on her.”
“That’s good news.”
“But not really, right?”
When a threat is out there and we know it, we’d rather it come out to fight than hide. We can win a fight. All we can do about the other is worry.
“No, not really.”
“Well, don’t fret about it, boss woman. We’re on the job. Raymond’s not much for company, but he’s a good listener.”
“You’re not taking shifts?”
“I decided to add a few people. Raymond and I are on the evening watch, and a couple of my other buddies are there during the day. Nighttime is the right time when it comes to killing people, don’t you think?”
“I suppose.” I consider asking her about her “buddies” but realize maybe I don’t want to know. Raymond was creepy enough. “I appreciate you taking the night shift, Kirby. You’re right, it’s the time of greatest threat.”
And it’ll let me sleep, knowing you’re out there, watching us.
“No problema. Well, not
“You being the supply, I take it.”
“Of course! Hey, did you see how I did that, a little intentional pun? ‘Come’ in the daytime?” She giggles.
“Good-bye, Kirby.”
“Later, alligator!”
I hang up, shaking my head.
“Have we heard anything from Earl Cooper?” I ask James.
“He said he’ll have something for us by late afternoon. He also said not to expect very much.”
“Reassuring.”
“Collecting facts,” he replies, either missing the light humor or ignoring it.
“On that note: Tell me about the other victims.”
“All women,” Callie says, picking up a file from her desk and opening it. “Eight years ago, on June thirteenth, Elizabeth Harris was found on the steps of the Chatsworth police station, prefrontal lobes mutilated in the same way as our current victims. She’d been abducted a little more than seven years earlier, and her husband was the prime suspect.”
“But the investigation stalled because a body was never found.” I deliver it as a statement.
“That’s correct. Her husband, one Marcus Harris, killed himself a few days after the discovery of his wife. He left a note, saying that he was ‘sorry.’ It was assumed that he was responsible for the mutilation as well as the abduction, and the case was closed.”
“Strange.” I frown. “If he was willing to kill himself, why didn’t he say anything about Dali? What did he have to lose?”
“He had a daughter. She was twenty at the time. She went missing the day after her mother was found.”
Something inside my stomach plummets into an icy abyss. “Was she ever recovered?”
Callie consults the file. “No.”
“Dali probably gave him a choice,” James says. “Keep your mouth shut about me and take the blame, or your daughter suffers the same fate as your ex-wife.”
“He would have killed her after Marcus’s suicide,” I say. “She was no longer ‘necessary.’” I exhale. “Well, we have an answer to the question of how Dali ensured Marcus would take the fall. What happened to Elizabeth?”
“She never came out of it. She died of a blood clot to the brain three years ago.”
“Nothing came up when Elizabeth was found about Dali? He didn’t text the cops or drop off a stray greeting card?”
“Not a word. The police assumed, understandably, that Marcus Harris had been keeping her somewhere all that time. They chalked the mutilation and suicide up to an unbalanced mind. The disappearance of the daughter confirmed, more than disproved, this.”
“I’m assuming he had an insurance policy?”
“Four hundred thousand dollars. He’d recently collected, and all the money was accounted for. He hadn’t sent any of it away.”
“No notes,” James muses. “Dali took care to remain hidden. The current circumstances remain a significant anomaly.”
“Tell me about the next victim.”
“Oregon, four years ago. November twelfth. Two patrolmen were on a coffee break. They came back out to find Kimberly Jensen in a body bag, which had been left in front of their cruiser.”
“Bold,” James says.
“Kimberly had been abducted from a supermarket parking lot—you guessed it—more than seven years earlier. She was thirty-five at the time. Her husband, Andrew, was—surprise—the prime suspect. She’d been having an affair and was seeing a divorce lawyer.”
“I guess he’d collected on life insurance and kept the loot?”
“Greed is a bitch.”
