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paying a source,” she said with a penetrating stare. “A rather flagrant violation of
Tribune
policy.”
“Mind your own damn business.”
“If somebody’s breaking the rules around here, it
is
my business. And I know what I heard.” She grabbed her purse, then turned and walked away.
Mike sank down in his chair and exhaled. “Timothy Copeland,” he said quietly, feeling a wave of frustration crash over him. There wasn’t supposed to be a seventh victim. No one in the newsroom was supposed to know anything about the money. And Karen—
What the hell am
I going to do about Karen?
He sat for a few more seconds, then, resigned, reached for the phone. He hit speed dial and waited.
“It’s me, Mike,” he said solemnly. The words came slowly. He felt unclean, almost nauseated by what he was about to say. “Aaron, I need page one tomorrow.”
88
“a
Tribune Exclusive,
” boasted the morning’s front page,
“by Michael Posten.”
Just after 7:00 A.M. the phone rang on Mike’s nightstand. Victoria Santos had just finished reading the story and was already booked on the next flight to San Francisco—United, 9:35, out of Fort Lauderdale. They still had a strict rule against talking “business” on the phone, so Mike agreed to an eight o’clock breakfast meeting. If it were up to him, they would have just talked on the phone. As a reporter, he often found his own sources to be more forthcoming on the phone than in person. From experience, however, he knew that FBI agents preferred in-person meetings. They claimed it was because they wanted to assess demeanor, or that phone conversations were often cut short. The real reason, he suspected, boiled down to authority and subtle intimidation.
Begrudgingly, he threw on a pair of plaid shorts and his last clean shirt, a twelve-year-old memento 89
THE INFORMANT
from the Pope’s last visit to Miami. Some Anglo trying to capitalize on Cuban America’s love for His Holiness had unwittingly printed up ten thousand T-shirts reading LA PAPA, the Potato, instead of EL PAPA, the Pope. Mike had worn it to the press conference.
Forty minutes north on 1-95 at the customary eighty miles per hour put him in Fort Lauderdale by eight o’clock. Victoria had picked Offerdahl’s Bagel Gourmet on Seventeenth Street, one of the original shops owned by John Offerdahl, a former All-Pro Miami Dolphin middle linebacker. Mike ordered a toasted seven-grain with honey butter from the cheery young woman behind the counter, then joined Victoria at the round table for two she’d snagged by the window. She was dressed in nice-fitting jeans of eyelet denim and a red cotton sweater that was definitely airplane apparel.
“Mmmmm,” said Victoria, taking a sip of her coffee and munching on her bagel. “I’m in heaven.”
“Glad to hear it. The last twelve hours have pretty much been hell for me.”
A flick of her tongue wiped the espresso mustache from her lip. “Sorry about that mix-up with your wife. We had a rookie covering her. Guy just plain panicked when she spotted him. He probably should have bolted. Instead, he tried to catch up with her and keep her from calling the cops. His intentions were good. Last thing we wanted was your informant to hear on the news that some South Miami cop had mistakenly arrested an FBI agent who was protecting your wife.”
“Well, I don’t know what he told her. But now she 90
James Grippando
thinks I’m a jealous husband who hired a private detective to spy on her.”
Her eyes lit. “Let her keep on thinking that. It’s perfect.”
“It’s not
perfect
. This is my wife—my
life
—we’re talking about. I have to tell her.”
“If you tell her, our deal’s off.”
“Okay,” he said with a shrug. “Deal’s off.”
“Fine.” She leaned forward on her elbows, assuming a datelike posture. “Just one thing I’d like to know, hotshot.
What are you going to do when the money stops flowing and your informant gets
really
pissed?”
His bravado quickly faded, and he shook his head with resignation. “It’s true what they say, isn’t it. No good deed goes unpunished.”
“I know you’re feeling put-upon. But let me just say something about this situation with your wife. I’m speaking to you as a woman now, not as Special Agent Santos, okay?”
“Sure.”
She took a breath, measuring her words. “I find it a little hasty on her part to be jumping to the conclusion that you hired a private detective to spy on her.
Hasty
isn’t the right word.
Defensive
. It’s like that line from
Hamlet
: ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’ I’m not passing judgment, but maybe what’s got her more uptight than the thought of you hiring a detective is the fear of what your detective might find out.”
His eyes narrowed. “Do you know something I don’t know? Or are you just assuming that as a journalist I’m in the habit of relying on wild speculation?”
“I’m just trying to help. I’ve seen the FBI send a lot 91
THE INFORMANT
of men to prison who put too much faith in wives or girlfriends who weren’t exactly trustworthy. I’d really hate for one of us to end up dead because you made the same mistake.”
He sat back in his chair, arms folded. “Have you ever been married?”
“No. And I’m not against it. That’s not where I’m coming from. I just haven’t met the right guy.”
“Well, I
have
met the right woman. You know, when Karen and I got married, she said that the only way two people can be totally open with each other is if they’re lovers or strangers. It’s been rough lately—most of it my fault, I guess—but if we lose trust, the best we’ll ever have is that no-man’s land in between.” He leaned forward, emphasizing his resolve. “I’m going to tell her the truth.”
She sat back, looked at him, seemed to be making up her mind. “Okay, you tell her, but make damn sure she realizes everything we have on the line here.”
Mike smiled, satisfied with the small victory.
She checked her watch. “Anyway, looks like I’ve got a plane to catch in forty minutes. So what do you say we get down to business?”
He nodded in agreement, pushing his paper plate aside.
“He wants a hundred thousand by Friday. Same account.”
Her eyes widened. “Already he’s
doubling
the demand?
I’ll have to speak to my unit chief, but with the kind of information you’re getting, it should be approved. Just so you know: He’s verifying the deposits with an ATM
card, and he’s withdrawing some funds at the same time.
Six hundred bucks so far, the daily maximum.”
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James Grippando
“Pretty clever.”
“Yeah. We can’t post guards or mark the bills at every machine in the country. But ATMs do have cameras, and every transaction creates a record of exactly where he’s been. He wore a ski mask to protect his identity, but some of these machines aren’t all that fast, so it’s a big risk for six hundred bucks a pop. My guess is, he’s desperate for cash right now. But once the nest egg builds up to something really substantial, he’ll want to make one big withdrawal, one quick transaction. When he does, we’ll be all over him quicker than you can say insufficient funds.”
“When do I get the money?”
“Probably Thursday. Don’t deposit it until Friday, his deadline.”
Mike shook his head, sighing. “Funny. I got into this hoping he was the killer. The thought of him possibly getting his hands on all this money makes me not so sure.”
“Well, whoever he is, I don’t think he’s totally in it for the money. He’s having some fun with us. Danced a jig in front of the camera outside the ATM machine in San Francisco, dressed like a bum.”
She checked her watch. “Damn, I gotta get going.” She gathered up her trash, then stopped. “Oh, one other thing.
I know we agreed you’d have complete editorial license to print whatever you wanted, but please think before you print. You did some serious damage to our investigation by printing the details of how the tongues are extracted. That
was
the modus operandi. Now that you’ve made it public, it’ll be harder to rule out copycats.”
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THE INFORMANT
“So it was smart of him to reveal those details to me.”
“Yeah, assuming he’s the killer.”
“Don’t you think he is?”
She paused, thinking about the memo she’d written to Assistant Director Dougherty. “Let’s just say there’s dis-agreement within the FBI on that point. That’s why we’d like you to get him talking less about the killing and more about the killer. We already know
what
this maniac does to his victims. We want to know
why
.”
“He’s nuts, that’s why.”
Her expression turned very serious. “No. I think he’s evil, sadistic and knows exactly what he’s doing. It makes a difference.”
They rose together, and he held the door open. “Not to Timothy Copeland, it didn’t. Made no difference at all.”
She dug her car keys from her purse. “But it did to his roommate.”
He nodded, seeing her point. “If the roommate
does
happen to know anything, you know my number.”
She opened her car door, then turned back to him with tongue firmly in cheek. “That’s what the FBI’s here for—to make sure reporters get good material for their stories.”
“Nice to know you have your priorities straight,” he replied.
“Later,” she called out through the window, then drove off.
94
t
hirty minutes before sunrise Victoria parallel-parked her car at the curb outside Timothy Copeland’s town house near Telegraph Hill, a pricey residential area of narrow alleys and small frame houses perched on San Francisco’s alpine inclines. His was a Victorian-style flat, two story and brightly painted with a gabled roof. A tall Italian cypress evergreen shot up like a needle from a big pot on the front porch. Yellow police tape still covered the red front door.
Victoria had been over the crime scene several times in the past two days, but never at 5:30 A.M. As best they could tell, that was the time of Copeland’s murder.
As a matter of practice, she made it a point to visit murder scenes at the same time of day the killer might have been there. Just knowing how cold it got at that particular hour could give her an idea of the clothing he’d worn, or help her figure
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out whether he’d hidden in the bushes or inside his car before making his approach. The comings and goings around the neighborhood might offer a lead on a possible witness. Most important, she could see everything just as the killer had seen it, and maybe understand why the victim hadn’t seen him coming.
The quiet street was wet and dimly lit, and the damp-ness made for a bone-chilling night. She pulled her brown leather jacket tight to keep off the cold as the car door slammed with an empty thud. She stopped and listened.
Urban quiet. To Victoria, there was nothing more eerie than busy city streets turned dark and deathly still.
From the sidewalk Victoria looked north and south, casing the neighborhood. Parked cars lined both sides of the street, but traffic was nonexistent. On the corner atop the hill she could see prosciutto hanging in the window of a small Italian grocery store, but it was dark inside and obviously closed. An old redbrick warehouse across the way looked as though it had recently been remodeled into expensive lofts and efficiencies. Only two apartments appeared lit in the whole building. She made a mental note of the night owls or early birds, whichever the case might be. Copeland’s side of the street was lined with refur-bished apartments, all very similar to his. Some had single-car garages, but they were all too close to the street to have a driveway. Narrow alleys ran between the buildings, just wide enough for garbage cans. Low-powered streetlamps lit each of the alleys, except for one—the one directly across the street.
96
James Grippando
Curious, Victoria took a flashlight from her car and crossed over.
It was uphill to the other side, and the sidewalk put her at eye level with the top of Copeland’s doorframe. She glanced at the streetlamp overhead, but it was impossible to tell whether it had been tampered with or had simply burned out. She shined the flashlight down the dark alley.
Trash cans lined either side, but the thing she noticed most was the continuing incline as the alley grew deeper.
She glanced back at Copeland’s town house, then stepped slowly into the alley, walking uphill.
The alley grew darker with each click of her heel, but the beam from her flashlight pointed the way. A small stream of water trickled in the gutter at her feet, racing toward the street. Gravity grabbed her as the grade grew steeper. She passed a cluster of trash cans, then stopped and turned around. It was like looking out of a tunnel—a telescope was more like it—right at eye level with Copeland’s second story. She could see directly into the upstairs bedroom in which he’d perished.
With the flashlight she searched the ground around her. The cracked cement was wet, but she noticed several black dots that hadn’t quite washed away. She got on one knee for a closer look. It was hard to tell, but it looked as if someone had crushed out a few cigarettes. A few swipes of the flashlight confirmed her guess. A soggy cigarette butt lay in the gutter, next to the trash can.
Someone had been standing there having a smoke. Jeffrey Dahmer was a chain-smoker, she suddenly recalled. She rose slowly and gazed back at Copeland’s bedroom.
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He’d watched from right here, she realized. The killer had stalked him.
In a split second she shot from the alley and was jogging back across the street. She wanted to turn the bedroom lights on, then return to the alley to see what the killer might have seen. She tossed the flashlight into her car, then retrieved the house key and went inside.
The door closed behind her with a hollow echo.
Strange, she thought, the way the ear always knew when there was no one home. She switched on the brass chan-delier in the foyer, then headed upstairs on the Oriental runner. She moved quickly at first, then slower, until she stopped completely at the top of the stairs. The pictures on the wall made her feel like an intruder—stark reminders that this had been a home before it was a crime scene.