Jonathon Redding
Chapter 9
Edward Casey was a forty-six year old Business teacher at Patten University, a faith-based school in Oakland. He lived with his wife and children in a modest ranch bungalow with large pine trees in the front. There was a squad car in his driveway, two unmarked cars on the street in front of his house and now a black SUV on the grass. It was two thirty in the morning, his wife was sitting woodenly on the couch, cradling a cell phone and vainly trying to hold back tears.
Edward Casey wasn't answering his phone.
And Lisbon realized that in all likelihood, Edward Casey wasn't coming home again.
"Mrs. Casey, Agent Cho and I are going to head over to the University. Do you have any idea where he might be, other than his office?"
She took a deep breath. "Sometimes, they have movie nights with the students… I'm not sure where that would be. On campus somewhere. Um, he might be in the library too, with the students. The faculty is encouraged to help that way…"
Lisbon nodded, passed her a card. "Thanks. Here's my number. If he calls or answers his phone, call me."
The woman took it, dropped it onto the pine coffee table. Like a dead leaf in autumn.
Lisbon sighed, nodded to Cho, and together, they headed out.
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Weston Ranch was a subdivision of Stockton, a modest but beleaguered community with the highest forclosure rate in the entire country. The drive in from San Francisco had been a strained one, with Wayne Rigsby desperately making small talk and Mira Vierra deliberately keeping it so. He was a San Diego native. She was not. He had extensive experience in the arson and bomb units of the forces there. She did not. He was clearly an eager and open book. She was anything but.
And so, it was at two thirty in the morning that they rolled into Stockton, navigating their way to the athletic club known as the Stockton Edge. Red and blue lights from the squad cars lit their way and a gurney was being loaded into an ambulance as they pulled up.
"Det. Sergeant Germaine Brigg," said a tall man with grizzled mutton-chop sideburns. "You the CBI?"
"Wayne Rigsby," said Rigsby, offering his hand. "Agent Mira Vierra. We'd like to see the vic before you pack him up."
"Sure thing." Brigg waved at the ambulance attendant, unzipped the black forensic bag that wrapped the body.
Rigsby nodded, noticed as Vierra turned away after only a heart beat.
"Thanks," he said. "Has the, uh, has the wife been notified?"
"Yeah."
"And the body was found where?"
"Over there. Behind the club." And together, they began to walk toward the building.
"Who found his body?" Vierra this time. She seemed to have composed herself.
"Jogger."
Rigsby paused mid-step. "What's his name?"
"Uh…Nils Franklin."
"Nils Franklin? Nils?"
Brigg shrugged. "People got all kinds of names."
Wayne Rigsby was a fairly smart man. He was no Patrick Jane, to be certain, but to be successful in the field of law enforcement, one had to have more than brute strength on one's side. Wayne Rigsby was strong, determined, stubborn, linear and loyal, but was also fairly smart.
"Nils Franklin... Frank... Nilson? Nelson?"
He glanced at Vierra. She glanced back, not understanding. He looked back to Brigg, brow furrowed.
"This Nils Franklin, he still here?"
"Uh, yeah. Giving a statement to my partner, over there…"
Hands on hips, Rigsby turned, scanning the crowded parking lot. There were many people here now, reporters, cops, bystanders and onlookers, but there, talking to a plainclothes officer, long grey ponytail pulled back under a sweatband, was Douglas Rayer.
Rayer looked up, and for a split second, their eyes met.
Rayer bolted, knocking the cop over and into the crowd.
"Freeze!" shouted Rigsby and was after him like a shot.
The streets were dark and slick with condensation, and they shone like ice under streetlamps and the moon. For an older man, Rayer was fit and fast, but Rigsby was faster, and within minutes, he launched himself in a classic football takedown, tackling the older man in a clatter of arms and legs, garbage cans and pavement.
In one rather smooth motion, Rayer rolled and swung and Rigsby gasped, a line of red appearing under his shirt.
A strange knife glinted in the moonlight.
"You see, you see," as Rayer began to laugh. "If they were women…if they were women…"
And he sliced the air between them, once, twice, three times.
Still on the ground, down on one knee, the agent pulled up his revolver, cupped it in his bloody palm. "Put it down, sir."
"IF they were women, you'd still be sipping coffee in your Sacramento office."
"That's not true, sir."
"Yes it's true! My Katie, coming home from the gym." He swept his arm out over the street. "A gym, just like this. She was only nineteen!"
The Glock did not waver. "I'm sorry, man. Just put the knife down and we'll talk."
"No one found out who did it. No one cared. Because she was only a woman! Little more than a girl!"
"Put it down!"
"We're proving it, too. The fact that you're here proves it. Young girls die, you stuff your face with donuts, but kill an investment banker or a college prof and you're all over it like a dirty shirt."
"Please put it down. This is not going to bring your daughter back."
"Nothing is going to bring my daughter back, son. My wife left me a year after she died, so I lost my daughter, and my wife. It's not right. It's not fair."
"Please, sir. I can't help you if you don't put the knife down."
"I suppose you want me to let it go, right? That's what the other cops said. "Just let it go, Mr Rayer. Let it go.'"
He tightened his grip on the blade. "Well, I'm not going to let it go. You're just going to have to man up and make me, son."
And with a strangled cry, Douglas Rayer lunged forward and a shot rang out, sending his body backwards into the street.
Rigsby blinked. He hadn't fired. He half-turned to see Mira Vierra standing over him, her revolver cupped in both hands, eyes wide in shock. He let out a deep breath, and then another, shook his head as he looked back at the man on the street.
In a growing pool of his own blood, Douglas Rayer was weeping.
Rigsby moved over to his side.
"Katie, my little Katie…"
Rigsby felt his heart crumble inside him. He reached down, placed his hands on the man's shoulders.
"Don't move," he said softly. "The ambulance is right down the street."
"My lovely little Katie, my baby…"
A gurgle and a gasp, and then, he was still.
Wayne Rigsby swallowed, feeling like a sinking stone. Part of the job he never got used to, hoped he never would. With a sigh, he rose to his feet, holstered his weapon.
Vierra hadn't holstered hers. In fact, she hadn't moved.
He reached out, lowered her arms, and she released a long, shuddering breath.
"Hey," he said. "It's okay."
She nodded, her breathing heavy as the adrenalin worked its way through her system. Finally, her dark eyes flicked over him. "You…You're bleeding…"
He looked down. His shirt was soaked with red.
"Just a scratch. I'm okay. Thanks though."
The street was filling up with people. Other officers, Det. Sergeant Brigg, onlookers. He sighed again as he turned back to the body of Douglas Rayer, Ph.D. student of Berkeley, and he wondered how many more Berkeley students would be willing to die to prove a point.
He'd lost his daughter and his wife. Mark Mooney had lost his mother.
Death changed things.
Death changed people. And for some reason, he thought of Jane.
He reached for his phone.
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"Hi. No, no I'm resting. Yes, at the hotel. I'm not lying. Why would I lie? Oh, you know, making lists. That lovely young agent got me a whole new box of HB pencils. Yellow ones. She's a lovely woman. You should ask her out. Dead? Oh dear. That's not good. I would have liked to talk to him. Oh, yes, that's very sad. No, I haven't heard from Lisbon. Why would I hear from Lisbon? Of course she trusts me. Well, good night, Rigsby. See you in the morning. Yes, you take care of yourself too. Good night."
He slipped his phone into his pocket and sighed. Rigsby, of all people, was worried about him.
It was sweet. Inconsequential, but sweet, and he forgot all about it as he turned his eyes to the house.
He had known the moment he saw the name, the very moment the Dean of Criminology had given him the list. J.R. Piper. J. Ripper. If it wasn't a pseudonym, then it would be a remarkable coincidence. Either that, or his imagination had finally gotten the better of him.
That wouldn't really have surprised him.
What had surprised him, however, was the address.
1514 Union Street, Alameda.
He was back in Alameda.
He had paid the cab and it had left him facing the dark house of J.R. Piper. It wasn't anything like he had expected, and he chastised himself for such melodrama. The homes of sociopaths were notoriously average. Craggy old houses up on deserted hills were fodder for movies and novels alone. As he stood under the lamplight, rubbing his arms in the damp fog of very early morning, he studied the wartime two-storey and wondered what he could possibly have been thinking.
It was in one of the lower income neighbourhoods of Alameda, sandwiched between affluence and comfort. Two blocks west lived large stucco residences with triple car garages and swimming pools in the back yards. Two blocks east was one of the yacht clubs, and even from here he could smell the water. The house was easily seventy-five years old, two storey plus and attic, and it was situated next to a square four-plex that had seen better days. There was a four-foot chain link fence around the property and an alley between house and apartment that was almost too narrow for a body to fit through. Although the alleyway was creepy, it was not at all the image of a serial killer's lair.
It was the book, he knew it for a fact. He needed to see if Piper had a copy of that damned book. Beyond that, everything else to follow was a blur, a vague notion of a piece in a puzzle that had been almost ten years in the making. The book was only one very small piece, true, but he had once thought it his and his alone. A secret code, Red John's gift to him. He had been wrong about that, and he so hated being wrong.
The house was dark, no lights on inside or over the outer doors. Casing a place like this was a snap. Two locks on the front door, each of which easy to jimmy on their own but wasting precious time in combination. The windows were old, easy to pry, easier to break, but he had a sneaking suspicion that J.R. Piper lived with his mother, and giving an old lady a coronary would not be so easy for Lisbon to overlook. The back door - now that was a possibility, and with a glance both ways down the street, he shoved his hands in his pockets and headed into the narrow alley between the buildings.
It smelled of trash and dog feces and led into a very small back yard, again surrounded by the short chain link fencing. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now and they swept the yard, noticing holes in the grass, bones and tennis balls.
Damn, he thought to himself. Dog.
Not likely anything big however. A four-foot fence would not succeed in holding in anything larger than a Cocker Spaniel, and so he hopped it easily and trotted up the steps to the back door. He peered in the window. Dark. Tested the doorknob. Locked. But simple to pick. The book was likely no more than three minutes away.
His heart was racing.
And like the rush of cold water, he realized that he was in the grips of an addiction, not so different than drugs or alcohol or sex. His own idol, Revenge, had him cold, could make him do anything it needed. Indeed, anything it wanted. He liked to think he was in control, but he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was a puppet and he would do anything, sacrifice anything, on the altar of Red John. Red John knew about sacrifice. In fact, he was a master. Rebecca the emotionally-scarred lover, Dumar Tanner, Todd Johnson. Yes, Red John knew all about the importance of sacrifice. If he entered this house and he got caught, he could very well be letting a serial killer walk. They would likely fire him from the CBI. It didn't surprise him overmuch to see how little that bothered him. It was a sacrifice, one that he had made before, would make over and over and over again.
One day, it would catch him.
But not today.
With a deep breath, he reached into his pocket for the wire.
There was a slide and click of a weapon being cocked. A Kimber, from the sound of it. All steel The one all the SWATs use.
"Hey there Elmo," came a rough and familiar voice. "You're a hell of a long way from Sesame Street."
End of Chapter 9