After a sleepless few hours Patrick Jane had left his motel room the moment the pre-dawn light started filtering through the curtains. He then spent a couple of hours exploring the neighborhood. He was a block away from a 24-hour gas station where he bought a road atlas of California, two blocks from the road into Stamford University. On the opposite side of El Camino, Palo Alto's little downtown area stretched into the distance. He explored the Stamford campus, familiarizing himself with the locations of the libraries, cameras and security staff outposts.
Eight o'clock found him outside the Zane Medical Library a little way down from the main entrance, away from the gaggle of early morning students who were waiting for the doors to open and from the door cameras. He hadn't expected this many students to be so keen, waited for them to disperse before entering. A helpful sign on a noticeboard near the entrance explained exactly which facilities were available to what kind of visitor: students got an access-all-facilities pass, casual visitors such as himself got to read the books so long as they never left the library. Old school, he thought. Slow but untraceable. I'm not going to find the address of his townhouse here, no need to rush things.
The psychiatry section was up on the third floor. Patrick was vaguely relieved that the library looked nothing like his nightmare. He checked the back of four random textbooks with likely-sounding titles before he found the first mention of Red John in an index. He turned to the relevant pages, read them twice to make sure he hadn't missed anything then started making a list of other books and journals referenced in footnotes or the bibliography. Journals didn't seem to be stored here on the third floor so he stuck with the books for now. After half an hour he hunted down a dictionary of psychiatric terms then returned to his stack of books. After another hour he caved in, went down to the entrance and quietly liberated a pencil from the lost property box on the reception desk. He similarly acquired plenty of nearly-blank paper from the recycle bin next to the bank of printers and copiers before heading back up to the third floor.
By mid-afternoon the references were already mostly back to books he'd already read, information he already knew. The books of course described the general modus operandi of Red John but were frustratingly light on precise details. Most of them speculated endlessly on how best to classify his suspected personality disorders based on his apparent behaviour at the scenes of his crimes. A few compared him to other killers. There didn't seem to be much a hunter could use to identify or locate Red John. Aside from Angela and Charlotte all the killings so far had taken place in Northern California, He'd checked off the locations in his road atlas and there was no obvious geographical pattern, each victim as carefully and apparently randomly selected as he'd expected from a killer who had never left his DNA or fingerprints at any crime scene. If Red John did live in Northern California then that narrowed it down from six billion on the planet to about thirteen million. Almost certainly a man – that took it down to six and a half million people. If that was where he lived. He could be driving through the state and merely choosing to hunt there.
It took another three hours to finally run out of references to fresh books. There might still be a book or two that mentioned Red John in passing but Patrick was confident he'd read everything significant, gleaned all he could from these texts. The world outside was beginning to darken when he decided to take a break before heading down to the basement to start working through the journals. He needed some air, some food and some human contact. Maybe I can find somewhere to sit and watch the sunset, he mused, but no: when he left the library the sun had already set over the hills though the sky was still very light. He walked over to downtown Palo Alto and on a whim ducked into a bookshop, emerging a few minutes later with a paperback copy of Moby Dick.
Less than an hour later he was back at the library, heading down to the basement to search the journals. He felt much more alert than he would have expected after such a short break. It both was and wasn't like he'd taken a little cocaine: he didn't have the restlessness he associated with the drug but he did have that familiar sensation of his brain changing up into a higher gear. He hadn't even noticed he'd been taking things slowly until now – well maybe once or twice… Those fucking antidepressants! I must have been thinking in slow motion for months! No wonder I had such a hard time at the Hangley Shorter yesterday! He'd been off his meds a clear two days now, his hands had stopped shaking and now he was finally able to think. The information leaflet had said it could take weeks for the drug to finally clear his system so he wasn't going to hope this was the end but at last here was a good side-effect of stopping. He reviewed his mental list of the twenty-seven different journal articles that had been referenced in the text books while checking it against his written list. He couldn't stop the grin from spreading over his face as he pocketed both his pencil and written notes, then started hunting the journals down in the archives. After just twenty minutes he took a short trip to the third floor again, returning with the dictionary he'd used previously.
Deputy Vance Maure enjoyed working the 'University Buildings' round at the end of his shift. A big guy in his late fifties with a natural air of authority, he was regularly called on to deal with the rowdier student elements on campus after dark. This meant he saw his occasional library detail as a welcome quiet respite rather than numbing tedium. He had locked the main doors to the Zane Medical Library shortly after ten when he'd ushered out the last few students and librarians. Now he was following his customary route through the building before clocking off. The place was usually silent so the sound of pages being turned in the basement made him pause. It was not totally unheard-of for people to miss the half-hour warning alarm, that's why there was a patrol through the library after lock-up. He had occasionally found a desperate student with an impending deadline or an academic deep into their researches still inside after hours. When he found this guy there were journals and paper spread across four tables. He was writing, with his back to Maure.
"Library's closed, son, time to pack up your things. I'll escort you to the door."
At his words the man turned briefly, stretching his neck wearily. He wasn't a student, or was a very mature one. More likely doing some kind of research, though he also looked a bit old to be a research assistant.
"Hi, Deputy Maure. Is there any way I can persuade you to give me, uh, two more hours?" The man had glanced round the four tables as he said this, as though he was working out how long it would take for him to finish.
"Library's closed," Maure repeated. This guy was sharp, in spite of appearances. Maure's name was embroidered on his shirt, his rank on his sleeve but the man had barely glanced at him. He'd swear he'd never seen him before. There were professors who saw him every day who still didn't know his name. The guy looked round the tables again at all the journals strewn across them.
"How about half an hour to put these back?" Maure shook his head.
"Go get some sleep, you look like you need it. The library isn't going anywhere." There was a slightly desperate air about the guy that stirred a little compassion in Maure, made him add, "The cleaning crews have all left, no-one'll touch these so long as you're back first thing tomorrow. Library re-opens at eight. Go get your sleep, I know I want mine."
"Pulled a double, huh?" the man said as he pocketed the papers on which it looked like he'd just been doodling, picked up a paperback, took a last look round the tables. Maure chuckled.
"Mm hmm, and I'm back here in twelve hours."
"You're not opening up then?"
"Nope," Maure shook his head. "I'm on camera duty tomorrow."
"Ah. New boss," the man nodded, understandingly. Maure eyed the guy curiously as they continued up the stairs.
"Yes he is. Thinks we're too set in our ways to be effective, wants everyone to show him what they're good at. Well, he may have some good ideas, some of the boys could do with a good shaking, but he's messed the scheduling to hell and back. That's never good. Gets people riled up."
"Maybe that's what he wants? He hasn't riled you." Maure unlocked the door and held it open for the guy, smiling.
"Takes more than a few shift changes to rile me. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Deputy Maure." Yes it does, thought Patrick as he headed back to the motel, I don't think I want to know what would rile you. He'd been darkly unimpressed that the university had its own police force rather than just private security, it seemed so privileged in every sense of the word. However Maure had seemed like a good cop. He'd met his fair share of bad or at least mildly corruptible cops all his life, they formed a small part of the machinery of showbusiness that needed oiling occasionally. He'd also come across good cops, the ones who wouldn't take a bribe or who somehow managed to bring their humanity to the job as well as their training. They were always more of a puzzle than the others and though he'd never had a problem working around them he'd never really understood them. It must be a vocational thing, like nurses or firemen. I wonder if they all start out like that, or are bad cops bad from the get-go? A sense of vocation wasn't something he understood, though now he came to think about it he had his own dark little vocation. The thought was odd but he wasn't in any fit state to analyze it. The Deputy was right, he was exhausted. He hadn't slept since his nightmare yesterday evening, he'd spent the rest of the night watching TV and trying not to think about Angela. He wearily unlocked the door to his room.