over me in a wave. I slid off the chair to the floor, the phone still held to my ear.
“The guy who worked the case is retired but still around. Mo Friedman. We go back. I was just coming up in dicks when he was near the end. But he was a good man. I just got off the line with him a few minutes ago. Lives up in the Poconos. I asked him about this one and what his take on it was. His unofficial take, I told him.”
“And he said?”
“He said he let it go because either way he figured Harvey Wallbanger got what he had coming.”
“But what did he say his take was?”
“He said that he thought that bed was made because it never was slept in. Never used. He said he thought the father was sleeping with the daughter in the king-size and one morning she drew the line. He didn’t know about anything after that, none of this stuff that’s been going on lately. Mo’s seventy-one years old. He does crossword puzzles. He said he doesn’t like watching the news. He didn’t know the daughter became an FBI agent.”
I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t even move.
“Jack, you still there?”
“I gotta go.”
The field office operator said Backus had left for the day. When I asked her to double-check, she put me on hold for five minutes while I was sure she was doing her nails or touching up her makeup. When she came back on she said he was definitely gone and that I could try back in the morning. She hung up before I could say anything else.
Backus was the key. I had to get to him, tell him what I had and play it whatever way he wanted. I decided that if he wasn’t at the FO, he might be back at the motel on Wilcox. I had to go there anyway to pick up my car. I threw the strap of my computer bag over my shoulder and headed for the door. I opened it and stopped dead. Backus stood there, fist raised, ready to knock.
“Gladden wasn’t the Poet. He was a killer, yes, but not the Poet. I can prove it.”
Backus looked at me as if I had just reported that I had seen the Marlboro Man wink at me.
“Jack, look, you’ve spent the day making some strange calls. First to me, then to Quantico. I came by because I’m wondering if there’s something maybe the doctors overlooked last night. I thought maybe we’d take a ride over to—”
“Look, Bob, I don’t blame you for thinking that after what I asked you and Hazelton today. But I had to hold things back until I was sure. Now, I’m sure. Pretty sure. I can explain it now. I was going out the door to find you just now.”
“Then sit down here and tell me what you’re talking about. You said that I had a fox in the henhouse. What did you mean?”
“What I meant was here you people are, your job is to identify and catch these people. The serial offenders, as you call them. And there was one in your midst all along.”
Backus let out his breath loudly and shook his head.
“Sit down, Bob, and I’ll tell you the story. If you think I’m crazy when I’m done, then you can take me to the hospital. But I know you won’t think I’m crazy.”
Backus sat down on the end of the bed and I started spinning the story, recounting the moves and calls I had made through the afternoon. It took me nearly a half hour just to tell that part of it. And just when I was ready to begin telling him my interpretation of the facts I had gathered, he interrupted me with something I had already considered and was ready for.
“You’re forgetting one thing. You said Gladden admitted killing your brother. At the end. You said this yourself and I read it in your statement this afternoon. You even said he recognized you.”
“But he was wrong. I was wrong. I never told him Sean’s name. I just said my brother. I told him he had killed my brother and he thought one of the kids was my brother. You see? That’s why he said what he said, that he killed my brother to save him. I think what he meant was that he killed those kids because he knew that once he’d been with them they’d be fucked up for