CHAPTER 55
The War Room, the centralized meeting place for coordinated information exchanges about the SHS Killer, was located in the basement of the Boston police headquarters at One Schroeder Plaza. Gathered around a long conference table, and eyeing Clegg with a mix of curiosity and suspicion, were all the people essential to locating this predator. Chief Higgins sat across from me, red-faced and paunchy, and to his right were detectives Gant and Kaminski. Special Agent Brenner was also seated at the table, along with a few others from the FBI, the state police, and other agencies with acronyms that were meaningless to me.
I should have expected the hostile reception. Only Clegg knew about my plan, and it was his idea to call this gathering together without first providing details or specifics. Less chance of getting it shot down during one big powwow than if we piecemealed the approvals, he assured me. So nobody here knew what we were going to propose. This was my plan, and it explained why and how Clegg got me a seat at the table. He didn’t want anything getting lost in translation, and neither did I.
Looking around, I could tell by the fidgeting fingers, long stares, tapping toes that most viewed this impromptu meeting as a giant distraction and profound waste of their time. Of course, they were wrong. The Fiend might have been a step ahead of me before, but this time things would be different.
Following the arrival of some last-minute invitees, Clegg began to speak as soon as the conference room door closed. These people understood the Fiend had kidnapped my wife. They knew that every tick of the clock brought Ruby that much closer to death, but they were not aware that the Fiend wanted me to commit murder in exchange for Ruby’s life. As of that moment, we had less than twenty hours to make everything happen.
Papered on the wall behind Clegg were various maps, photographs, timelines, and charts—all the stuff of an investigation that I knew was going nowhere.
“We’ve heard from the SHS Killer,” Clegg began, using the moniker most familiar to this group.
Brenner stood, palms flat on the table, face brightening. “When? How?”
Before this meeting, I had worked things out with Clegg and advanced the lie using some rudimentary computer scripting. Technically, we had obstructed justice by not revealing the Fiend’s initial demands from the get-go. Since Clegg worried that we might need to produce an actual victim in exchange for Ruby’s life, we couldn’t have told them what we needed and produced that very thing without having suspicion cast right on me.
“I think it’s best that John tell you what happened,” Clegg said.
“Why? He isn’t a cop,” somebody shouted from the back of the room.
“No, numb nuts,” Clegg barked. “He’s the guy who came up with a plan to save his wife’s life. So show him some respect, or show yourself out the door. Sound good?”
Nobody debated, so I stood up and went to the front of the room while Clegg passed around copies of the e-mail that I wrote myself.
“The person who kidnapped my wife contacted me through my game One World,” I began. “He used Elliot Uretsky’s game account to send me a message.”
I had modified the transaction logs for my game server so that the IP address could not be traced. I figured the BPD forensic guys, or the FBI, for that matter, would try and track down the Fiend’s location by IP, so I faked them. They were going to hit a dead end, no matter how hard they dug. My plan was all that counted, and I believed this little bit of subterfuge was necessary to set things in motion.
I waited for the folks gathered to get their copy of the simple note. It had sickened me to write it, but I had memorized it nonetheless. I began the letter “Dear John,” thinking the Fiend would view the formality of his greeting as a pleasing bit of irony. Brenner and the other experts at the FBI would be dissecting every word, trying to match it to the profile that I helped to create.
I read the letter aloud, just to emphasize the urgency.
“Dear John, it’s time for you to take your criminal career to bold new heights. I want another victim of the SHS Killer, and you’re going to provide the goods. Man or woman, doesn’t matter to me. What I want is a dead body by your hands, with two fingers set upon their dead lips, one in each ear, and two on each eye. See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. You have twenty-four hours to make this happen, otherwise Ruby is going to be my next victim. Signed, SHS.”
“When did you get this?” Higgins asked, rolling the letter up like a wand, shaking it at me.
“Two hours ago,” I said. “We’re already late.”
“John’s prepared to turn over his computer to the FBI’s forensic guys,” Clegg said. “But he has another idea that I think we need to listen to.”
Again all eyes fell to me.
“I want to give him a victim,” I said.
“Sounds great,” Gant said. “Only one small problem. We’re the police. We catch killers. We don’t employ them.”
“My victim is already dead,” I said. “I want to use a body donated to a medical school or some research facility. We’ll need to make a bunch of calls to relatives of the deceased until we find someone willing to help us. I’m betting that somebody who wanted to use his body to help save lives or train doctors would want to help save my wife’s life. Let’s just hope the living relatives see it the same way.”
Agent Brenner stood again. “How is this going to help us catch him?”
“It’s probably not,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t know how we’re going to catch him. Right now, I just want to get Ruby back. That’s what matters most to me.”
Clegg interjected, “For that, we’re going to need Chief Higgins’s help.”
“Me?” Higgins said, sounding a bit surprised.
“We’ll need to arrange a media press conference,” Clegg said, “announcing the discovery of a possible new victim of the SHS Killer. You’ll say that you can’t provide any more details at this time.”
“Why are we going to do that?” Higgins asked.
“To get his attention,” Clegg said. “Obviously, we can’t show a dead and mutilated body on the six o’clock news, but this monster is going to be on the lookout for some sort of news report. He wants another SHS victim. It’s all part of his game. We keep a small circle that knows about this in case of any leaks. Everyone involved will think it’s a real murder.”
“So you think this guy is going to try to contact you after it makes the news,” Kaminski said.
I nodded. “He’ll demand his proof. That’s when I’ll send him a video recording of the victim. I’ll tell him that Detective Clegg took it for me.”
“Will he buy that?” Brenner asked the room.
Clegg said, “We’ve got to think this guy has already dug into John’s past. He’ll know that we’re friends, so it won’t come as a surprise to him that I helped out. Bent a few rules.”
You were going to bend a lot more than a few rules, I thought as a hush settled over the room.
“What then?” Higgins asked.
“Then I’m hoping he lets my wife go,” I said. My voice cracked. Clegg poured me a glass of water from one of the dew-coated metal pitchers set out around the table. I struggled to get enough air into my lungs. The room felt oven-hot. “Please,” I said, pleading. “Don’t say no to this. We don’t have enough time. He’ll kill her. He’s going to do it. Please.”
Before anyone could answer, the conference room door burst open. In stepped two breathless guys, neither looking like a pinnacle of fitness, or the beneficiaries of sunlight, for that matter. Computer jocks, I thought.
“Hey,” the stouter of the two said. “Sorry for the interruption, but we just found something on Elliot Uretsky’s computer that you’ve got to see.”
“What is it?” Higgins asked.
“We think we know why the SHS Killer is using body parts to communicate the proverb ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ ”
“Why?” Higgins asked.
“Chief,” the guy continued, “you’ve got to see this to believe it.”