Run for Your Life (14 page)

I sent Nineteenth Precinct detectives back up to the Polo store and the 21 Club, to recanvass the areas with the photo and to interview all the employees they could find, including those that hadn’t been working on the day of the murder. Maybe the Teacher had been to those places before, and someone could match a name to his face.

But they called back in to say they’d come up empty at both places. Both institutions had plenty of disgruntled employees and nasty customers. Just none that fit the shooter’s description.

In the meantime, I checked downtown with Ballistics to see if the medical examiner had sent them the rounds that killed Officer Tonya Griffith.

“We got them, all right,” the senior tech, Terry Miller, said. “The twenty–two–caliber was mushroomed, but I could still make out the five lands, five grooves, and the left–hand twist to the barrel. It has the same markings as the bullet that killed the Twenty–one maître d’. I can pretty much ID it in my sleep by now.”

That was a strong point in our favor. The second we nailed this guy, we’d have evidence lined up and ready to go.

During the lulls when I didn’t have anything pressing to do, I sat and reread the manifesto that Cathy Calvin had given me. The penalty for obnoxiousness was now death? And I’d thought the nuns in grammar school were harsh. This guy might think of himself as the Teacher, but in truth, he was more like a vigilante.

What was it exactly that had set him off? The fact that some people had more money than he did? No, I realized. He hadn’t just picked his victims out of a hat. He must have had some previous contact with them in order to be offended to such an enraged degree. He had to have money himself.

I spent a lot of time looking at his picture, too. He definitely didn’t look like a mentally unbalanced, reclusive, on–the–fringe type like Berkowitz or the shooters at Columbine and Virginia Tech. He was smiling and seemed confident — was actually a strapping, handsome man.

I scratched at my developing five o’clock shadow.

What the hell was up with this guy?

Chapter 43

Around six P.M. I was alone in the office, with a newly installed computer. All the detectives were out on the bricks. I heard a tap at the door.

Damned if it wasn’t Cathy Calvin standing there, practically wringing her hands with nervousness.

“Must have taken a lot of investigative skill to find me here,” I said. “I’m impressed.”

“Quit it, Mike. Please? I came to — I won’t even say apologize, I know that’s no good.”

She was right, and I started to tell her so. But she actually seemed sincere. I noticed, too, that she’d changed out of her usual businesswoman combat uniform into a light, summery dress. It made her look softer, more feminine — really quite pretty.

“Just because I didn’t run you in doesn’t mean it’s finished,” I said. “The department’s going to be all over your editors.”

“They deserve it. I mean, I’m not just blaming them. I knew how wrong I was. It’s just? —” She stepped into the room, closing the door most of the way behind her. I could smell her perfume in the warm, still air. “This job makes you crazy,” she said. “The competition’s unbelievable. It’s turned me into a monster. When I started thinking about what I’d done, I just came apart.”

She drifted closer. It was clear that she wanted comforting, and I admit I was tempted to let her slip inside my arms and nestle her face against my chest.

But that temptation was easy to brush aside.

“My job hasn’t made me a nicer guy, either, Cathy,” I said. “But you’ve got to know where to draw the line — it goes with the turf. I figure when the day comes that I can’t find that line anymore, that’s the day I hand in my badge.”

My tone was no more inviting than my words. She stopped her approach.

“I’m leaving you a peace offering,” she said. She took an envelope out of her purse and dropped it on the table, then retreated to the door.

“Go ahead and hate me, Mike,” she said. “I just want you to know I’m really not like that. I’m not.”

Then she was gone.

Of course she wasn’t really like that, I thought. Not until the next time she stood to gain by it.

Inside the envelope was a copy of the Teacher’s original e–mail to her.

And on the bottom, he’d left her a Yahoo Instant Messaging ID where he could be contacted: TEECH1.

Through my clenched teeth, I called Calvin a bitch for not giving me this right away. Peace offering, my ass. Then I sat at my desk and tried to decide what to do with it.

Setting up a trace was difficult and complicated. In order to get the Internet company to assist, court orders would first have to be procured, and even then it could turn out that the message could have come from a public library or a college.

I made up my mind that we didn’t have time for that, and took a stab in the dark. Quickly, I created a Yahoo Instant Messaging ID for myself.

Then I sent a message to the Teacher.

MIKE10: Got your mission statement.

What happened next blew me away. After only a brief pause, an answer came back.

TEECH1: What did U think?

It was him!

MIKE10: Very interesting. Could we meet?

TEECH1: U R a cop aren’t U?

I debated lying, then decided against it. Treating the guy like he was stupid wouldn’t get us anywhere.

MIKE10: Yes. I’m a detective with the NYPD.

TEECH1: I didn’t mean to kill those cops, Mike. I like cops. They R among the few left in this world who actually believe in good and evil. But I needed to escape. What I’m doing is bigger even than the lives of 2 good people.

MIKE10: Maybe I could help U get your message across.

TEECH1: I’m doing just fine, Mike. Death and murder get people’s rapt attention. Their ears R perking up BIGTIME.

Chapter 44

Hovering tensely over my keyboard, I tried a different tack.

MIKE10: Maybe if U talked to someone U could work out your problem in a different way.

TEECH1: Don’t even go there. I don’t have problems. I solve them. People think they can keep on screwing others with impunity. Why? Because they have money. Money is scrap paper with a number written on it. It doesn’t make U immune to your human responsibilities.

MIKE10: The clerk and the maitre d and the stewardess didn’t have money. Something else about them must have bothered U. I really do want to understand U, so please tell me. Why did U murder them?

TEECH1: Murder?

MIKE10: U R the same person who shot those people?

TEECH1: Of course. I only object to the word. Murder implies that those animals I wiped out were human beings. Their families should say a prayer and thank me for emancipating those pathetic slugs from the ignoble slavery that was their existence.

Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought.

MIKE10: R U doing God’s work?

TEECH1: Sometimes I think so. I can’t claim to know how God intercedes in the world. But it could be through me. Why not?

Teacher? The only class this guy could teach was how to be nuts.

MIKE10: I can’t believe that God would want U to kill people.

TEECH1: He works in mysterious ways.

MIKE10: What R U going to do next?

TEECH1: YR. IDTS. Wouldn’t U like to know. Now I said it to those cops, and I’ll say it to U. Stay out of my way. I know U think U need to catch me, but I’d take a real serious re–eval on that if I were U, Bennett. Because if U or NE1 else gets between me and what needs 2B done, I swear to Almighty God I’ll kill U B4 U get a chance to blink.

Christ on a bike, he knew who I was! He must have figured it out from the Times article. Why hadn’t Calvin just printed my home address while she was at it?

MIKE10: Guess I’ll have to take my chances.

TEECH1: That’s a dangerous way to think, Bennett. That’s what those two in the train car thought. Right before I erased them from existence. When is my mission statement going out?

I passed my hands through my hair, forcing my distraught brain to think fast. Getting his message to the world was obviously very important to him. Maybe we could use that to gain some leverage or draw him out.

MIKE10: We can’t let that happen. Not until we get something in return.

TEECH1: How about I’ll let U live. That’s my final offer.

I’d been holding back my anger pretty well, but at last it jumped ahead of me. I was sick of this smug, cop–killing piece of crap. Before I could stop myself, I engaged in a slight episode of IM rage.

MIKE10: In that case instead of going on the front page, your manifesto of nonsense is going in my circular file. U catching my drift, U deluded freak?

TEECH1: U just cost another citizen his life, cop. I’ll kill two people a day if that message doesn’t go out. U don’t have the slightest conception of who U R messing with. My message will reach the world if it has to be written in your blood. TTYL. YFA!

I sat there staring at the screen. TTYL stood for “talk to you later,” I knew. I did have four preteens. But what was YFA? You something something.

Then I got it.

I turned and stared at the crosshairs over the Teacher’s face up on the wall, imagining my finger squeezing the trigger.

Yeah. Right back at you, Teech.

Part Three

Life Lessons

Chapter 45

Sitting in the quiet of his apartment’s shaded living room, the Teacher chucked his Treo across to the couch, and knocked back the last of the Daumas.

He grinned as a ball of sweet fire softly exploded in his stomach. He flipped on the TV set and channel surfed. Not only NY1, but the national networks were all over the hotel and subway shootings.

The people on the street looked solemn, downright paranoid. God, this was fun, he thought. Fucking with their heads was so addictive. He started laughing when a very concerned–looking cop was interviewed. Was that MIKE10? The asshole who just so lamely tried to get him to stop?

He held his sides as the hilarity of it all suddenly overwhelmed him. Tears actually came out of his eyes.

“Better than Disney World on the Fourth of July,” he said to the screen as he wiped at a joyful tear.

He clicked off the set with the remote and extended the recliner all the way back, thinking about the Frenchwoman he’d killed. She’d been even more attractive than a fashion model — curvier, less plastic, with an air of real sophistication. She’d virtually lit up the room with her sexuality and femininity.

Now she was as dead as the guys in the Pyramids. As dead as the dark side of the moon. Dead and gone forever and ever, amen.

It served her perfectly goddamn right, her and all the rest who thought they could skate through this life on their looks and bank accounts. Pride goeth before the fall. Make that the trigger pull in this case.

Deluded freak? he thought, recalling the cop’s text message as he closed his eyes. Now, now. Wasn’t that a tad harsh?

After all, one man’s deluded freak was another’s avenging dispenser of justice — swift, final, and complete.

Chapter 46

The eleven P.M. news carried wall–to–wall coverage of the shootings. Both reporters and anchors seemed quite critical of the way the NYPD was handling the case. ABC actually interviewed people on the street about whether they thought the cops were doing enough.

I watched a skinny taxpayer waiting for a bus answer with a sneer and a thumbs–down.

“They stink,” he said. “My four–year–old daughter could catch this guy.”

“So what are we waiting for?” I growled at the screen. “Somebody bring that kid in here.” I balled up my sandwich wrapper, tossed it at the still–yammering jerk, and turned away, rubbing my eyes into the back of my skull.

I’d already sent the Teacher’s mission statement and our IM exchange over to Agent Tom Lamb to see if the FBI’s document division could cull out some new insights, but I hadn’t heard back. Gabrielle Monchecourt, Martine Broussard’s stewardess friend, was ready to look at photos of airline personnel, in hopes that she could match the Teacher to the pilot she’d seen at a party. But we were still waiting for those photo ID books, and she was scheduled to get on a plane to Paris in the morning.

And if our shooter stayed true to his history, the new day was going to bring more than just a sunrise. Time was of the essence, as my seventh–grade teacher, Sister Dominic, had often reminded us.

I finally decided it was time to go from proactive to in–your–face active. I sent a couple of Midtown North guys to pick up Mlle. Monchecourt and take her to Kennedy Airport. Then I started calling airline corporate security people. I’d already talked to them umpteen times, but now I made it clear that if those photo books weren’t available when she got there, the NYPD was going to assume that some insider was protecting the shooter, and those airlines would be shut down until the situation got straightened out. Probably it would take several days.

That got through to them. By midnight, my guys at Kennedy reported back that our witness was going through photos.

I decided to take a break before I collapsed. I announced to everyone within earshot that my cell phone would be on. Then I headed home to check on the sick.

I arrived at my apartment in the nick of time. As I walked in, I found Seamus in the dining room, pouring a shot of Jameson’s into a plastic Curious George cup.

“Shame on you, Monsignor,” I said. “We have big–people glasses in the cabinet over the fridge. You can set me up one, too, while you’re at it.”

“Very funny,” Seamus said. “As if it was for me! That poor lad Ricky’s throat is so sore, I thought I’d give him a little Galway remedy, as they say. There’s nothing a spot of Jameson’s and some warm milk and sugar won’t cure.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Did you fall down the altar steps?” I said, pulling the bottle away from him. “Your little Galway remedy will land us in family court. I can’t believe I actually have to say this out loud: Don’t give the children any whiskey!”

“Oh, well,” Seamus said with wounded dignity, grabbing his coat. “Have it your own foolish way. Tell Ricky to bear up like a man. Seamus out.”

I reluctantly decided I’d better not have a drink after all and put away the whiskey, then checked in again with my detectives out at Kennedy. The Air France stewardess had gone through both the Delta and Aer Lingus books, but didn’t recognize anyone.

British Airways was still holding out. They had the pilot book ready to show, but were still waiting for final permission from their CEO, who was on holiday somewhere in the Italian Alps.

“Right, of course,” I said. “Everyone prefers the Italian side nowadays. Saint Moritz is so over. Tell him when the next victim goes down, we’ll have the crime–scene photos sent up to his suite with his morning espresso.”

After I hung up, I made the command decision to stay and sleep under my own roof. I went into my bathroom to take a quick but glorious shower. But when I pulled back the curtain, I almost had a heart attack instead.

My five–year–old, Shawna, was sleeping in the tub.

“What are you doing in here, daisy flower?” I asked, lifting her out. “When did pillows become tub toys?”

“I just don’t want to make any more messes for you to clean up, Daddy,” she croaked.

She started shivering as I tucked her back into her bed. Gazing down at her, I asked myself the question that kept coming back to me time and time again over the last year. What would Maeve do? I grabbed a flashlight from the pantry, went back to Shawna’s room, and whisper–read her one of her favorite Magic Tree House books until she fell back to sleep.

“How’m I doing, Maeve?” I asked after I stepped out into the hall. “And don’t worry. It’s okay to lie.”

Chapter 47

After showering, I found Mary Catherine in the kitchen, taking sheets out of the dryer.

“For God’s sake, Mary, it’s one o’clock in the morning,” I said.

“Has to be done,” she replied, striving valiantly for her usual crispness, but with her weariness showing underneath.

I stepped in to help her fold, and she went over the sick list.

“For the moment, everybody seems fairly stable,” she said. “All the puking seems to have run its course, thank the Lord, but now the bug’s rising into their lungs and nasal passages. We’ll be out of tissues by noon tomorrow is my guess.”

“On it,” I said. In the morning, I’d send Seamus out to our Costco in Jersey to fill up the van. Boy, did our doorman love it when he saw that coming.

When the laundry was done, I took the basket from Mary Catherine’s hands and said, “Why don’t you get some sleep now?”

But I couldn’t persuade her to leave. She insisted on sleeping in a chair in the living room in case somebody needed her. Too tired to argue, I took off my suit jacket and plopped down in the chair opposite. What the heck, I was already dressed for the next day. I was going to be one wrinkled detective — Cathy Calvin wouldn’t have approved — but I needed to be ready to go the second I heard any news.