he passed through the gate at Hartsfield-Jackson, the mayor beaming at their first press conference together.
He was a big guy, six-four, wide shoulders, with a veiny round nose and the ruddy complexion of someone who’d spent some time either in the sun or at the bar. Trailing closely behind Chief Connor was Jeanne Bascom, APD’s official spokesperson. Bascom gave daily press briefings, handed out progress reports, worked damage control, and according to Rauser, she was generally pummeled for her trouble. Bascom not only took a daily battering from the press, she was the person who took the calls from the families of victims and answered to the chief and the mayor for any public misstep. I could not imagine what attracted anyone to such a position.
The chief pushed open the door and nodded at the tangle of detectives in the room, let his gaze settle on me for a moment, and then said to Rauser, “Powwow, Lieutenant, before the press conference. You gotta stand there too. They like seeing us all lined up. It’s like target practice.” He nodded again to the room. “You’ve got about two minutes, Aaron.”
Rauser looked at his team. “Listen up. Street’s been working on a psychological sketch. Pay attention, please, listen, make notes, and then I want you back out there. Thomas,” he said to one of only two female detectives on the task force, “go back to Lei Koto’s neighborhood, talk to the neighbors again, and keep talking and walking around until something makes sense. There was a car watching that street or a motorcycle or a bike. Some neighbor, some kid, some nosy old lady saw him. Maybe they don’t even know it. Maybe they just need the right question to jog their memories. I want to know everyone who ever stepped in that neighborhood in the two weeks before this lady was killed. Stevens, make sure we got all the interviews Fulton County did when Elicia Richardson was killed. Track them all down. Neighbors, paperboys, service people, first responders, whatever. There was five years between Richardson and Koto, so you gotta track everyone down and talk to them again. Bevins, communicate with every jurisdiction in the Southeast, then branch out state by state. Maybe it hasn’t been five years. Maybe we got more vics out there. Maybe we got a crime scene somewhere that’s not so clean. Williams, Balaki, if you gotta go to every elevator in the city until you figure out where this freak is doing his hunting, do it, ’cause the only thing we know right now about David is that we don’t know shit. You get any sense at all of what building that bastard is writing about, I don’t care if it’s just a feeling, put in requests for the surveillance tapes. We got nothing to lose.”
He left us there and headed down the hall. From the War Room we could see Jeanne Bascom perched on one of the vinyl chairs in Rauser’s tiny office. Chief Connor was in Rauser’s desk chair.
“Poor Lieu,” Detective Andy Balaki said. He had a swampy southern drawl and a Braves cap. “That don’t look so good.”
I cleared my throat and addressed the room. “This person’s family, his friends, and possibly his coworkers would have experienced his tendency to be hypercritical, moody, perhaps even verbally abusive.” No one even bothered to look up. Everyone kept on doing what they were doing. I was an outsider, no matter what Rauser had told them. “Okay, listen,” I said, louder. “I want this sonofabitch off the streets just like you do.” A few heads turned. “I’m not going to get in your way. I don’t want to direct your investigation. I’m here to assist, not to interfere. I used to do what you do. My background is in law enforcement. I know how hard you work.” A few more detectives gave me their attention. “His crime scenes and his letters, they have a story to tell. He’s skillful, this guy, and careful about showing his temper. He doesn’t want to be observed losing it.”
“What about his personal life?” Detective Thomas wanted to know. She was in jeans and athletic shoes, an army green hoody. “Are we looking for somebody married, divorced, gay, straight?”
“Never been married,” I replied. “Intimate relationships are fraught with obstacles. They don’t last. He dates and is sexually active, but this is about appearances. He’s straight, but his orientation has nothing to do with victim selection.”
I had their attention now. One by