“Shit, that’s right. He takes an afternoon class at the high school,” Titus said.
“That boy is scary smart,” Davy said.
“Did you … I mean, is it really…” Carla stammered.
“I can’t believe it. The stuff you said was on his phone. I can’t believe Mr. Spearman was into…” Davy’s face trembled.
“Kiddie porn,” Carla said softly.
Titus kept his gaze straight ahead.
“It wasn’t just porn,” Titus said. He took off his shades and rubbed his eyes. “It’s real bad. He was … he was in the pictures.”
He heard Davy choke out a swear. Carla shook her head from side to side.
“And based on some of those photos, they didn’t just hurt them. They killed them. They murdered those kids,” Titus said. He put his sunglasses in his breast pocket.
Carla made a noise that was halfway between a retch and a whimper. “You’re sure? Positive?”
Titus didn’t answer.
Carla set her shoulders and nodded. “You’re sure.”
“Spearman and Latrell and a third person. They weren’t doing it here, though. Not enough room. Wherever they were at, they’d fixed it up just the way they liked. You find any books about that kind of stuff?” Titus asked.
Carla and Davy shared a glance.
“I mean, he got a lot of books,” Davy said finally.
“We’ve just started going through his things. I mean … I don’t think he’d have those kinds of books out for just anybody to see,” Carla said. Her voice sounded hollow, like she was speaking inside a tin can.
“How are we supposed to know if … like, what do those kinds of books look like?” Davy asked.
Titus sighed.
“The books will have titles that refer to the deflowering or destruction of a young boy or girl. The covers will be mundane, but inside it’ll go into great detail. Excruciating detail. The magazines will be more … explicit. Both the books and magazines will be weathered, dog-eared from constant handling. He’ll have them hidden but within easy reach. There may also be … souvenirs,” Titus said.
“I’m gonna throw up,” Davy said conversationally. He wandered over to the far side of Spearman’s house and vomited.
“Did you learn how to do that when you were with the Bureau? That profiling?” Carla asked. Her face had gone green, but she hadn’t joined Davy yet.
“Yes,” Titus said.
“How do you deal with having that in your head?” Carla asked.
Titus put on his sunglasses.
“I try not to dream,” he said as he walked into the house.
* * *
“I know Steve is worried about his boy, but we need another set of hands. Give him another call,” Titus said as he moved a pile of magazines on a coffee table.
“What about Roger? He can help too,” Carla said with just a hint of frustration.
“Roger is on desk duty for the time being. So is Tom, I just haven’t talked to him yet. Standard procedure for a fatal shooting.”
“But if what you’re saying is true, if what’s on that phone is what you say it is, then Latrell got what he deserved. Spearman too. What we gonna punish Roger and Tom for?” Davy asked.
Titus turned his head toward his deputy.
“Latrell being involved in this … whatever this turns out to be … doesn’t change the fact that we follow procedure. And following procedure is we are going to have an internal investigation. Do I need to explain that? Is there something about that idea that is confusing you?” Titus asked. Davy shook his head. Titus walked up to him. He bent slightly and spoke directly into Davy’s face.
“We follow the rules. Not just enforce them. Now get Steve. We have a lot of work to do here,” Titus said.
By the time Steve got there they had taken apart Spearman’s bed and cleaned out all his closets. As they continued to work, they found random scraps that chipped away Jeff Spearman’s John Keating image. Carla found a book called The End of Alice under Spearman’s mattress. There was another book about Tiberius, with several sections highlighted about Tiberius’s “minnows.” They found a few porno DVDs that were marketed as “jailbait,” featuring both male and female performers in the jailbait role. The performers were obviously over eighteen, since they’d had stickers on them from the old Video Hut that had long since closed, indicating they had been purchased legally. Steve found a few magazines in a lockbox in the laundry room that pushed the envelope even more but had a clarification in bold letters on the back that all performers were of legal age and had fully consented to the acts depicted in the magazines. These items on their own were evidence only of Jeff Spearman’s venial sins. Perhaps perverse but not illegal.
Titus thought it was all disgusting, but it was nothing compared to what had been in those pictures on the phone. These magazines and DVDs and books were twisted and borderline unhealthy, but no one had died to create them. Everyone walked away with their lives, if not their dignity, intact. That didn’t seem to be the case for the kids in the pictures on Spearman’s phone. The speech he’d given Roger about nightmares danced tauntingly around in his head.
Steve was the one who found the wolf mask.
He’d been poking around the baseboards of Spearman’s bedroom, peering in the floor vents, when he found a section of cove molding that sounded hollow. A push and tug later, and the piece of molding pulled away from the wall on a slim hinge. There was a small hidden compartment behind the molding.
“Titus, look at this,” Steve called. Titus put down the sofa pillow he was about to cut open with his pocketknife. He walked in the bedroom and saw Steve holding a leather mask similar to the one he’d seen Latrell holding. The mask had a rigid snout that extended about six inches from the face. The ears ended in sharp points. The eyeholes were narrow slits in the leather that gave the mask an alien appearance. Less like a wolf and more like an insect. Steve wasn’t wearing a glove on the hand that held the mask.
“Where’s your glove?” Titus said. He made no effort to hide his disappointment.
“I took it off to wipe my eyes. I’m only holding it on the corner,” Steve pleaded. Carla had entered the room and dropped to her haunches without saying a word, reaching into the compartment. She pulled out a plastic pencil box and opened it. There were two external drives in the box.
“Guess we don’t have to worry about breaking the password on his computer now,” Titus said.
“If there’s evidence on these, and I think we’re all pretty sure there is, why did he have that shit on his phone?” Carla asked.
“He wanted to look at it whenever the mood struck him. It gave him a thrill to have it with him all the time. It made him feel powerful. It also excited him. Not the acts in the pictures but having them with him while he was around people. People who thought they knew him. I bet he got off on that,” Titus said.
“He was looking at that shit while he was in the same building with my son?” Steve said. Titus couldn’t tell if he was incredulous or incensed. Steve’s timbre rarely changed, no matter the circumstances.
Titus didn’t respond to the question because the answer was obvious and nothing he could say could offer Steve any comfort.
“Carla, you got your computer in the van?”
“Yeah.”
“Go get it. We need to look at these thumb drives. Anybody who doesn’t want to see this shit can stay outside,” Titus said.
“You seem to know a lot about these freaks,” Davy said.
Titus gave him the smallest of shrugs. “It used to be my job to catch them.”
“There’s something else down here,” Carla said. Carefully, she pulled out a rolled-up length of canvas. She stood and untied the black ribbon tied around the roll. When she unfurled it, Titus felt he wasn’t the only one relieved it didn’t have another set of gruesome images. It was a painting of a forest scene. A bosk of young maple and birch trees encircled a small clearing. In the center of the clearing was a tall, majestically gothic weeping willow tree. There were three words scrawled across the bottom of the canvas:
The Secret Garden.
Davy rubbed his face with his gloved hand. After licking his lips and tasting the residue from the latex, he gagged, then cleared his throat. “Well, thank God it’s just a painting. I don’t think I could take anything else.”
“That’s Spearman’s handwriting. I recognize it from his calendar in the kitchen. And geography class,” Carla said.
“I guess we should bag it along with this,” Steve said, holding up the mask.
“Who are those kids in those pictures?” Carla said, seemingly asking herself the question.
Titus didn’t say anything. He gently plucked the painting from Carla’s fingers.
“What did he and Latrell and the Last Wolf do with them? With the bodies?” Titus said. He spoke in a murmur. He too was talking to himself.
“Dumped them in the river, maybe?” Davy offered.