Potter shook his head. Yes, he's calculating, but you're right, Charlie, what does that mean?
The men stopped speaking while Melanie's fingers danced over the keyboard. Potter walked around her and stood close as she typed. His hand brushed her shoulder and it seemed to him that she leaned into his fingers. She wrote: Everything he does has a purpose. He's one of those few people who isn't driven by life; he drives it.
Angie typed, Control, control, control.
Potter found his hand was resting on Melanie's shoulder. She lowered her cheek to it. Maybe it just was an accident as her head turned. Maybe not.
"Control and purpose," Potter said. "Yes, that's it. Type this out so she can see it, Henry. Everything he's done today has a purpose. Even if it seemed random. Killing Susan – it was to make clear that he was serious. He demanded a helicopter that seated eight but he had no problem giving away most of the hostages. Why? To keep us busy. To stretch out the time to give his accomplice and girlfriend a chance to set up the real Sharon Foster. He brought with him a TV, a scrambled radio, and guns."
Angie leaned forward to type, So what is his purpose?
"Well, escaping," Budd laughed. "What else would it be?" He leaned forward and two-finger typed, To escape.
No!! Melanie typed.
"Right!" Potter shouted, and pointed at her, nodding. "Escape wasn't his priority at all. How could it've been? He virtually let himself get trapped. There was only one trooper on his tail after the accident with the Cadillac. The three of them could've ambushed him, taken his car, and escaped. Why would anybody let themselves get trapped?"
"Hell," Budd said, "a spooked rabbit'll run right into a fox's den not even thinking." He dutifully hunted-and-pecked this in.
But he does think, Melanie wrote. We can't forget that. And he isn't spooked.
Not spooked at all, Angie offered. Remember the voice stress analysis.
Potter nodded to Melanie, smiling and gripping her shoulder once more. Calm as ordering a cup of coffee at 7-Eleven.
Melanie typed, I called him Brutus. But he's really like a ferret.
Budd continued, Well, if he's a ferret, then he'd go to ground only if he knew he wasn't trapped at all. If he had an escape route.
Melanie typed, When he first walked into the slaughterhouse Bear said that there was no way out. And Brutus said, "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all."
Potter nodded, mused, "He could've run, but no, he risked taking a detour to the slaughterhouse and getting trapped. But it wasn't that great a risk at all because he knew he could get out. He had guns and he had a radio to call his accomplice and work out some escape plan. Maybe he'd already thought up substituting his girlfriend for Foster." He typed, Melanie, tell us exactly what happened when they picked you up.
She typed, We found the wreck. He was killing those people. In no hurry.
He was confident?
Very. He took his own sweet time, Melanie typed, grim-faced.
Potter unfurled a map. What route did you drive?
I don't know roads, Melanie wrote. Past a radio station, a farm with lots of cows. She frowned for a moment then traced the route on the map. Maybe this.
The prison's south of the slaughterhouse ninety or so miles, Potter typed. The three of them drove north to here, had the accident with the Cadillac here, took the van and drove all the way around here… He traced a route that had Handy driving well past the slaughterhouse then doubling back.
Melanie typed, No, We drove straight to the slaughterhouse. That was one thing I thought funny. He seemed to know where it was.
But if he went straight there, Potter typed, when did you pass the airport?
We didn't, she explained.
So he knew about it ahead of time. When he was asking me for the helicopter he knew there was an airport just two or three miles up the road. How did he know?
Budd typed, He'd already arranged to fly out of there.
But, LeBow typed as fast as he could speak the words, if it was just a few miles up the road, and if there was an airplane or helicopter waiting for him, why go to the slaughterhouse at all?
"Why?" Potter muttered. "Henry, tell me what we know. Let's start with what he had with him."
You're carrying a key, a magic sword, five stones, and a raven in a cage.
He went into the slaughterhouse with hostages, the guns, a can of gasoline, ammunition, a TV, the radio, a set of tools -
"The tools, yes," Potter said, as LeBow typed. He turned to Melanie. "Did you see him use them?"
No, Melanie answered. But I was in killing room for most of time. Toward end I remembered them walking around looking at the machinery and fixtures. I thought they were taking a nostalgic look at the place, maybe they were looking for something, though.
Potter snapped his fingers. "Dean told us something similar."
LeBow scanned through the incident chronology. He read, " 'Seven-fifty-six p.m. Sheriff Stillwell reported that a trooper under his command observed Handy and Wilcox searching the factory, testing doors and fixtures. Reason unknown.' "
"Okay. Good. Let's put the tools on hold for a minute. Those are the things he had with him when he went in. What did we give him?"
"Just the food and the beer," Budd said. "Oh, and the money."
"The money!" Potter cried. "Money he didn't ask for in the first place."
Angie typed, And he never tried to bargain up the fifty thousand. Why not?
There's only one reason a man doesn't want money, LeBow typed. He's got more than he needs.
Potter was nodding excitedly. There's money hidden in the building. It was part of his plan all along – to stop at the slaughterhouse and pick it up.
That's why he had the tools – to get the cash out from where it was hidden, Budd managed to type. Potter nodded.
"Where did it come from?" Tobe wondered.
"He's a bank robber," Budd said wryly. "That's one possibility."
"Henry," Potter said, "jump into Lexis/Nexis and let's read about that most recent robbery of his. The arson."
In five minutes LeBow was on-line with Mead Data. He read newspaper accounts and summarized, "Handy was found with twenty thousand stolen from the Farmers amp; Merchants heist in Wichita."
"Had he ever burned anything before that?"
LeBow scrolled through the news accounts and his own sixteen-page profile of Louis J. Handy. "No prior arson."
Then why the fire? Potter typed.
He always has a purpose, Angie reminded.
Melanie nodded emphatically then shivered and closed her eyes. Potter wondered what terrible memory had intruded into her thoughts. The agent and Budd looked at each other, four eyebrows arched. Then: "Yep, Charlie. That's right." Potter reached down to the keyboard. He wasn't there to rob that bank at all. He was there to burn it down.
LeBow was reading the profile. "And he shot his accomplice in the back when they'd been trapped by the troopers. Maybe so no one would find out what he was really doing there."
But why did he do it? Budd typed.
Someone hired him? Potter asked the question. LeBow nodded. "Of course."