“Of course. He wants to stay over, too. He loves boats. And I think he wants to fish again tomorrow. You’ve created a monster.”
McCaleb nodded, thinking about the night ahead. A few minutes of easy silence went by while they watched the other activities in the marina. Saturdays were always busy days. McCaleb kept his eyes moving. Having guests made him more alert for the Russian, even though he’d decided the chances of Bolotov showing up were slim. He’d had the upper hand in Toliver’s office. If he had wanted to harm McCaleb, he could have done it then. But thoughts of Bolotov brought the case intruding. He remembered a question he’d thought of for Graciela.
“Let me ask you something,” he said. “You first came to me last Saturday. But the story about me ran a week before that. Why did you wait a week?”
“I didn’t really. I didn’t see the article. A friend of Glory’s from the paper called up and said he saw it and wondered if, you know, you could’ve been the one who got her heart. Then I went to the library and read the story. I came here the next day.”
He nodded. She decided it was her turn to ask a question.
“Those boxes down there.”
“What boxes?”
“Stacked under the desk. Are they your cases?”
“They’re old files.”
“I recognize some of the names written on them. The article mentioned some of them. Luther Hatch, I remember him. And the Code Killer. Why did they call him that?”
“Because he-if it was a he-left messages for us or sent messages to us that always had the same number at the bottom.”
“What did it mean?”
“We never found out. The best people at the bureau and even the encryption people at the National Security Agency couldn’t crack it. Personally, I didn’t think it meant anything at all. It wasn’t a code. It was just another way for the UnSub to tweak us, keep us chasing our tails… nine-oh-three, four-seven-two, five-six-eight.”
“That’s the code?”
“That’s the number. Like I said, I don’t think there was any code.”
“Is that what they decided in Washington, too?”
“No. They never gave up on it. They were sure it meant something. They thought it might be the guy’s Social Security number. You know, scrambled around. With their computer they printed out every combination and then got all the names from Social Security. Hundreds of thousands. They ran them all through the computers.”
“Looking for what?”
“Criminal records, profile matches… it was one big wild-goose chase. The UnSub wasn’t on the list.”
“What is UnSub?”
“Unknown subject. That’s what we called each one until we caught him. We never caught the Code Killer.”
McCaleb heard the faint sound of a harmonica and looked over at the
“Was he the only one of your cases where that happened?”
“You mean where the guy was never caught? No. Unfortunately, a lot of them get away. But the Code case was personal, I guess. He sent letters to me. He resented me for some reason.”
“What did he do to the people he…”
“The Code Killer was unusual. He killed in many different ways and with no discernible pattern. Men, women, even one small child. He shot, he stabbed, he strangled. There was no handle.”
“Then how did you know it was him each time?”
“He told us. The letters, the code left at the crime scenes. You see, the victims and who they were didn’t matter. They were only objects by which he could exercise power and stick it in the face of authority. He was an authority-complex killer. There was another killer, the Poet. He was a traveler, was active across the country a few years ago,”
“I remember. He got away here in L.A., right?”
“Right. He was an authority killer, too. See, you strip away their fantasies and their methods and a lot of these people are very much alike. The Poet got off on watching us flailing around. The Code Killer was the same way. He liked to tweak the cops every chance he got.”
“Then he just stopped?”
“He either died or went to jail for something else. Or he moved somewhere else and started a new routine. But it’s not something these guys can just turn off.”
“And what did you do in the Luther Hatch case?”
“Just my job. Look, we should talk about something else, don’t you think?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just… I don’t know, I don’t like all of those old stories.”
He had wanted to talk to her about her sister and the latest developments but now it didn’t seem like the right time. He let the opportunity pass.
For dinner McCaleb grilled hamburgers and barracuda steaks. Raymond seemed enthusiastic about eating the fish he had caught but then didn’t like the strong taste of the barracuda. Neither did Graciela, though McCaleb didn’t think it was bad.
The meal was followed with another walk to the ice-cream store and then a walk along the shops on Cabrillo Way. It was dark by the time they got back to the boat. The marina was quiet again. Raymond got the bad news from Graciela.
