Shadow Man (53 page)

He falls silent and doesn’t start speaking again.

“I can guess where this goes, Don,” I say in a gentle voice. “No evidence, right? You couldn’t connect him to the crime. Sure, he’d been at the strip club, rehab, and the college. But all of that could be explained away.”

He nods. Bereft. “That’s right. It was enough to get a warrant for his place, but nothing turned up. Not a damn thing. His past was clean.”

He looks back up at me, and his eyes are filled with frustration. “I couldn’t prove what I knew. And there weren’t any more killings. No other scenes. Time went on; he moved away. I started dreaming again. Sometimes it was the babies. Most of the time it was Renee.”

No one here feels superior to Don Rawlings now. We know that everyone has that point. Where they can no longer bend without breaking. He no longer seems pathetic or weak. Instead, we recognize him for what he is: a casualty.

Whoever said “time heals all wounds” wasn’t a cop.

“The reason we’re here,” I speak into the silence, “is because VICAP

matched the MO of our unsub to your unsolved case. He has killed again.” I lean forward. “After listening to you, I’m certain our killer and yours are one and the same.”

He studies my face like someone does when they don’t trust in hope.

“You having any better luck than I did?”

“Not in terms of physical evidence. But we did find out one thing that, combined with your suspect of twenty-five years ago, might break this case.”

“What’s that?”

S H A D O W M A N

325

I explain to him about Jack Jr. and the contents of the jar. Cynicism begins to fall away from his face, replaced by excitement.

“So you’re saying this guy was indoctrinated in this idea of being Jack the Ripper’s great-great-grandkid, or whatever, and that it started when he was young?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

He leans back in his chair with a look of amazement. “Man oh man oh man . . . I never had any reason to check out his mom back then. The dad was long gone and in the wind . . .” Don has the look of someone in shock. Reeling. He gathers himself up and taps on the case folder he’d brought with him. “That info’s in there. Who his mom is, where she lived at the time.”

“Then that’s where we’re going,” I say.

“Do you think . . .” He takes a deep breath, draws himself up. “I know I’m not much these days. I’m an old, drunk has-been. But if you let me go with you to see the mother, I promise I won’t fuck it up.”

I’ve never heard someone sound as humble as he does right now.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Don,” I say. “It’s time for you to see this through.”

53

C
ONCORD IS LOCATED
north of Berkeley in the Bay Area. We are headed there to see Peter Connolly’s mother, a woman named Patricia. The driver’s license on file says that she is sixty-four years old. We have opted to show up on her doorstep, rather than telegraph our coming or our suspicions. Mothers have sent their sons on killing sprees before. In this case, who knows? I am in the zone. It is that place I get to near the end of a hunt, when I know, at a primal level, that we are zeroing in on our quarry. All senses heighten to an almost painful level, and I feel as if I am running full tilt across a piano wire over a chasm. Sure-footed, invincible, unafraid of falling.

I look at Don Rawlings as we drive, and I see a spark of it there as well, though perhaps mixed with more desperation. He has dared to hope again. For him the price of failure might be more than a disappointment. It could be fatal. In spite of this, he looks ten years younger. His eyes are clear and focused. You can almost see what he was like when he was still honed sharp.

We are junkies, all of us who work in this profession. We walk through blood, decay, and stench. We toss and turn with nightmares caused by horrors the mind has trouble encompassing. We take it out on ourselves, or our friends and family, or both. But then it comes
S H A D O W M A N

327

toward the end, and we arrive in the zone, and it is a high like no other. It’s a high that makes you forget about the stench and blood and nightmares and horrors. And once it is behind you, you are ready to do it again.

Of course, it can backfire on you. You can fail to catch a killer. The stink remains, but without the reward that cleanses it away. Even so, those of us who do this thing continue, willing to take this chance. This is a profession where you work on the edge of a precipice. It has a high suicide rate. Just like any profession where failure carries such a terrible weight of responsibility.

I think of all these things, but I don’t care. For now, my scars have no meaning. Because I am in the zone.

I have always been fascinated by books and movies about serial killers. Writers and directors so often seem dedicated to the idea that they must lay out a path of bread crumbs for their hero to follow. A logical array of deductions and clues that lead to the monster’s lair in the blazing light of an
aHA!

Sometimes this is true. But much of the time it’s not. I remember a case that was making us crazy. He was killing children, and after three months we didn’t have a clue. Not a single, solid lead. One morning I got a call from the LAPD—he had turned himself in. Case closed. With Jack Jr., we have exhausted the gamut of physical evidence and the search for the esoterics of “IP numbers.” He has costumed himself, planted bugs and tracking devices, enlisted confederates, been brilliant. And in the end, the resolution of it all will probably come down to just two factors: a piece of cow flesh and a twenty-five-year-old unsolved case gathering dust in VICAP.

I have learned to need only one truth over the years, and it provides all the order I require: Caught is caught and caught is good. Period. Alan’s cell phone rings. “Yeah,” he says. His eyes close, and I am fearful, but they open again, and I can see his relief. “Thanks, Leo. I appreciate you calling me.” He hangs up. “She’s not awake yet, but they’ve upgraded her condition from critical to stable. Still in ICU, but the surgeon told Leo specifically that death wasn’t on the table anymore, unless something really unexpected happens.”

“Callie’ll pull through. She’s too damn stubborn,” I say. James says nothing, and silence rules again. We keep driving.
328

C O D Y M C F A D Y E N

“Here it is,” Jenny murmurs.

The home is old and just a little shabby. The yard’s uncared for but not quite dead. The whole place has the same feel: on its way out but not yet gone. We get out of the car and walk up to the door. It opens before we can knock. Patricia Connolly looks old, and tired. As tired as she looks, her eyes are awake.

With fear.

“You must be the police,” she says.

“Yes, ma’am,” I respond. “As well as members of the FBI.” I show her my credentials and introduce myself and the others. “Can we come in, Mrs. Connolly?”

Her brows knit together as she looks at me. “You can as long as you don’t call me Mrs. Connolly.”

I hide my puzzlement. “Certainly, ma’am. What would you prefer I call you?”

“Ms. Connolly. Connolly is my name, not my late husband’s. May he burn in hell.” She opens the door wide for us to enter. “Come on inside.”

The interior of the house is clean and neat, but devoid of personality. As though it is cared for only through force of habit. It feels twodimensional. Patricia Connolly ushers us into her living room, indicating for us to take seats. “Do any of you want anything?” she asks. “I only have water and coffee, but you’re welcome to either.”

I look around at my crew, who all shake their heads in the negative.

“No thank you, Ms. Connolly. We’re fine.”

She nods, looking down at her hands. “Well, then, why don’t you tell me why you’re here.”

She continues to look at her hands as she says this, unable to meet my eyes. I decide to follow my instincts. “Why don’t
you
tell me why I’m here, Ms. Connolly?”

Her head snaps up, and I see I was right. Her eyes glint with guilt. Not ready to talk yet, though. “I have no idea.”

“You’re
lying,
” I say. I’m startled at the harshness of my own voice. Alan’s face registers surprise.

I can’t help it. I’m done fucking around. I am filled to the brim, and
S H A D O W M A N

329

the anger inside me is overflowing. I lean forward, catching her eye. I stab a finger at her. “We’re here about your son, Ms. Connolly. We’re here about a mother, a friend of mine, raped and gutted like a deer. About her daughter, tied to her mother’s corpse for three days.” My voice is rising. “We’re here about a man who tortures women. About an agent, another friend of mine, laying in the hospital, maybe crippled for life. We’re—”

She jumps up, hands against her head.
“Stop it!”
she screeches. Her hands drop to her sides. Her head falls forward. “Just . . . stop it.” As suddenly as she has reacted, she deflates. It’s like watching an air balloon sink to earth. She sits back down. Patricia sighs, a long exhalation that seems to signal the letting go of something older than this moment. “You think you know what you’re here about,” she says, looking at me, “but you don’t. You think you’re here about those poor women.” She looks at Don Rawlings. “Or about that poor young lady from twenty-some years ago. They are part of it. But you’re here about something a lot older than both of those things.”

I could interrupt her, tell her about the cow flesh in the jar and Jack Jr., but something tells me to let her speak at her own pace.

“It’s funny how you miss the most important things in people sometimes. Even in people you love. Doesn’t seem fair. If a man is cruel inside, someone who’s going to turn into a wife beater or worse, there should be something you can see that would tell you that. Don’t you think?”

“I’ve thought the same thing many times, ma’am,” I reply. “Doing what I do.”

“I suppose you would,” she says as she regards me. “Then you also know that’s not how it works. Not at all. In fact, many times it’s just the opposite. The ugliest people can be the most decent. The charmer can be a killer.” She shrugs. “Appearance is no index, no index at all.

“Of course, when you’re young, you don’t worry about things like that. I met my husband Keith when I was eighteen years old. He was twenty-five and he was one of the most handsome men I had ever seen. And that’s no exaggeration. Six feet tall, dark hair, face of an actor. When he took his shirt off . . . well, let’s just say he had the body to go with the face.” She smiles. A sad smile. “When he showed an interest in
330

C O D Y M C F A D Y E N

me, I was bowled over from the word
go
. Like many young people, I was convinced my life was boring. He was handsome and exciting. Just what the doctor ordered.” She pauses her narrative, looking at all of us. “This was down in Texas, by the way. I’m not native to California.” Her eyes look faraway. “Texas. Flat and hot and boring.

“Keith pursued me, though it wasn’t a marathon pursuit. More of a sprint. I made him run just far enough to let him know I wasn’t completely pliable. I didn’t know it at the time, but he saw through me like I was made from glass. He always knew he had me. He just put up with it, went through the motions, because it amused him. He could have grabbed me and told me to come with him right away, and I would have said yes. He knew it, but he took me on the requisite few dates anyway.

“He was good at what he did. Good at pretending not to be a monster. He was a perfect gentleman and as romantic as anything I’d ever seen in the movies or read in the books. Kind, romantic, handsome—I thought I had found my perfect man. The one every young woman is certain they deserve and are destined to find.” Her voice and smile are both bitter.

“Now, you have to understand, my home life was difficult. My daddy had a short temper. It’s not as if he beat on my mother every day, or even every week. But it happened every month. I’d been watching him backhand her or punch her for as long as I could remember. He never laid a hand on me, but in later years I understood that this wasn’t because he didn’t want to hit me. It was because he knew if he touched me, it would be for a reason other than violence.” She raises her eyebrows. “You understand?”

Unfortunately, I do. “Yes,” I say.

“I think Keith understood too. I’m sure of it. One night, just a month after he met me, he asked me to marry him.”

She sighs, remembering. “He picked the perfect night to do it. There was a full moon, the air was cool without being cold. Beautiful. He brought me a rose and told me he was going to California. He wanted me to come with him, to marry him. He said he knew I needed to get away from my daddy, and he loved me, and this was our chance. Of course I said yes.”

She closes her eyes and is silent for a span of moments. I get the idea
S H A D O W M A N

331

she is remembering that as the point where she took a wrong turn and plunged into darkness, forever.

“We left four days later, in secret. I didn’t say good-bye to my parents. I packed up what little I had and snuck off in the middle of the night. I never saw either of them again.