his secret?”
“Possibly.”
She had regressed to the one-word reply.
“Possibly,” I repeated, a thin line of sarcasm in it.
“Eventually, I’ll go to Florida to talk to Gomble again. And I’m going to ask him that. Until I get an answer one way or the other, it’s possibly. Okay, Jack?”
We pulled into an alley that ran behind a row of old motels and shops. She finally slowed down to the point where I let go of the armrest.
“But you can’t go to Florida now, can you?” I asked.
“That’s up to Bob. But we’re close to Gladden here. For the time being I think Bob wants to put everything we have into L.A. Gladden’s here. Or he’s close. We can all feel it. We’ve got to get him. Once we have him, then I’ll worry about the other things, the psychological motivation. We’ll need to go to Florida then.”
“Why then? To add data to the serial killer studies?”
“No. I mean, yes, there’s that, but primarily we’ll go for the prosecution. Guy like this, he’s got to go the insanity route. It’s his only choice. So that means we’ll have to build a case on his psychology. One that shows he knew what he was doing and he knew right from wrong. The same old thing.”
Prosecution of the Poet in a courtroom had never entered my mind. I realized that I had assumed that he would not be taken alive. And this assumption, I knew, was based on my own desire that he not be allowed to live after this.
“What’s the matter, Jack, you don’t want a trial? You want us to kill him where we find him?”
I looked at her. The lights from a passing window flicked across her face and for a moment I saw her eyes.
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Sure you have. Would you like to kill him, Jack? If you had a moment with him and there were no consequences, could you do it? Do you think that would make up for things?”
I didn’t like discussing this subject with her. I sensed more than just a passing interest from her.
“I don’t know,” I finally answered. “Could you kill him? Have you ever killed anyone, Rachel?”
“Given the chance, I’d kill him in a heartbeat.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve known the others. I’ve looked in their eyes and know what’s back there in the darkness. If I could kill them all I think I would.”
I waited for her to continue but she didn’t. She pulled the car to a stop next to two other matching Caprices behind one of the old motels.
“You didn’t answer the second question.”
“No, I’ve never killed anyone.”
We went in through a back door into a hallway painted in two tones; dingy lime to about eye level, dingy white the rest of the way up. Rachel went to the first door on the left and knocked and we were let in. It was a motel room, one that would have passed as a kitchenette in the sixties, when it was last refurbished. Backus and Thorson were there waiting, sitting at an old Formica table against the wall. There were two phones on the table that looked as if they had just been added to the room. There was also a three-foot-high aluminum trunk standing on one end with its lid open to reveal a bank of three video monitors. Wires ran out the back of the trunk, along the floor and out the window, which was opened just enough to allow them through.
“Jack, I can’t say I’m happy to see you,” Backus said.
But he said it with a wry smile on his face and he stood up and shook my hand.
“Sorry,” I said, not really knowing why. Then, looking at Thorson, I added, “I didn’t mean to blunder into your setup but I was given some bad information.”
The thought of the phone records went through my mind again but I dismissed it. It was not the right time.
“Well,” Backus said, “I have to admit we were trying a little misdirection there. We just thought it would be best if we could work this out without any distractions.”
“I’ll try not to be a distraction.”
“You already are,” Thorson said.
I ignored him and kept my eyes on Backus.
“Have a seat,” he said.
Rachel and I took the two remaining chairs at the table.
“I assume you know what is happening,” Backus said.
“I assume you’re watching Thomas.”
I turned so I could see the video monitors and for the first time studied the view each one had. The top monitor