Rules for Perfect Murders - Peter Swanson Page 0,73

said, I didn’t really believe it until we found the books at Elaine Johnson’s house. Then it was obvious. And it was obvious that the murderer wanted me to know about it. Or wanted it to point to me, I guess. I don’t really know. We talked a lot about it, the two of us.”

“Who? You and Agent Mulvey?”

“Yes. We thought about what the person, what Charlie—that was the name we gave him—was trying to accomplish with the murders. And we thought that he really was trying to accurately convey the spirit of the original murders from the books.”

“Can I ask you about one of her notes? She had written down the three names of what she called the ‘bird murders,’ and then she’d written: Who was the actual target? Do you know what that meant?”

“In The A.B.C. Murders a series of murders are committed so it will look like a lunatic is on a crime spree. But the murderer had only one victim in mind that he really wanted dead. The other murders were cover.”

“So you think that might be the case with the bird murders?”

“I don’t know if I think that, but it’s a possibility.”

“Maybe it’s a possibility that all these crimes—all the ones tied to your list—are just covering for one murder.”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s a possibility, but if that were the case, that’s a lot of murders to commit to conceal one.”

“Yes.” There was a lengthy pause, and I wondered for a moment if our call had been disconnected, or if she was just thinking.

“So, if you had to guess,” she finally said, “which one of the three in the bird murders do you think was the intended victim?”

“If you forced me, I’d say Robin Callahan because she’s the best known of the three, and she pissed a lot of people off.”

“That’s what I think,” she said, then there was another pause. “Do you mind if I call you back with any other questions I might have?”

“Of course not,” I said, and we said our good-byes.

I called Old Devils. Emily answered.

“You still feel sick?”

“Not terrible, but not great.”

“Stay home. It’s fine here.”

I was about to end the call but decided that while I had Emily on the line I could ask her some questions.

“Can I ask you some names and you can tell me if you’ve heard of them?” I said.

“Uh, sure,” she said.

“Ethan Byrd.”

She was quiet for a moment, then said, “Haven’t heard of him.”

“Jay Bradshaw.”

“No.”

“Robin Callahan.”

“Yeah, of course. She was that insane newscaster who got murdered. I’m sure she’ll be the subject of an eventual true crime bestseller.”

“Why do you say she was insane?”

“I don’t know. I guess I heard it. She wrote the book about adultery, right?”

“Right,” I said.

After ending the call, I thought some more about Robin Callahan being the intended victim of the three bird murders. And even if there hadn’t been an obvious intended victim, there must have been someone that Charlie thought of first. He knew he wanted to emulate the A.B.C. killings, and he knew he wasn’t going to use the alphabet. If he decided that he wanted to kill Robin Callahan, then the way to cover it would be to find two more victims with names that suggested a bird. And Robin Callahan was a natural victim in the sense that she’d upset people. She advocated for adultery, and she’d wrecked at least two marriages.

In the afternoon I slept on the sofa. I dreamed I was being chased again, like I always did. Even when I was young, I would have these dreams in which I suddenly found out that my parents, my friends, my teachers were all monsters, and that I needed to run from them. In the worst dreams I found myself powerless to move, my legs heavy, my feet stuck to the earth. That afternoon, in my dream, the only person I wasn’t running from was Gwen Mulvey. She was at my side, and together we were trying to escape the murderous horde. When I woke up, I ran to the bathroom thinking I might be sick, but I wasn’t.

I dressed for dinner, tucking a blue checked shirt into a pair of dark corduroys, then putting on my favorite sweater, a cashmere roll-neck in black, the last gift I’d received from Claire, on the Christmas before she died. I stood in front of a floor-length mirror and, in my mind, I asked Claire how I looked. You look fine, she said. You always look