Cops – uniformed and not – came running from all directions, drawn by the noise. They were all asking their own versions of "What the fuck happened?" but I didn't answer at first. I was staring into the interrogation room through the empty space where the door had been.
It was pretty clear that commando boy wouldn't be needing a lawyer, after all.
• • • •
"They searched him down in Booking," I said to Karl. "They emptied the fucker's pockets, then checked him for weapons and contraband. He didn't have anything on him when he was brought into that interrogation room. He was clean, Karl."
"I believe it."
"Then I had to go and give him a pencil."
"Don't beat yourself up over it, Stan. Sure, you gave the guy a pencil – that's standard procedure. That's why they keep that box of pencils down there. And they're special pencils, too."
"Four inches long," I said. "With a sharp point."
"Hell, it's got to have a sharp point, or you can't fucking write with it."
"Yeah, I guess so," I said. "But still…"
"'But still' my ass," Karl said. "They give the prisoners those dinky little pencils for a reason – they're supposed to be too small to be used as a weapon, for either homicide or suicide."
"The motherfucker managed it, though."
"I don't figure whoever ordered those pencils had in mind a guy so determined to off himself that he would dig the thing into his neck, and keep pushing until he opened the carotid artery."
"That does seem to call for a certain amount of determination, doesn't it?" I said.
"Determination? It calls for a fucking psycho, that's what. It's like… cutting off your arm with a pocketknife."
"A guy did that, though, didn't he? There was a movie made about it."
"Sure," Karl said. "And the reason they made a movie about it is because ninety-nine point nine percent of human beings would never have the guts to do something like that – even if the alternative was dying of thirst in a fucking cave."
"I guess commando boy belonged to that one-tenth of a percent," I said. "Maybe he was special ops, after all."
"I doubt it," Karl said. "He was just nuts. How'd he manage to barricade the door, anyway?"
"He pushed the table against the wall," I said. "Then he wedged a chair against it, and then another chair behind that – which brought the whole fucking Tinkertoy setup within a few inches of the opposite wall."
"Shit, no wonder I couldn't force it open."
"I did find something kinda interesting down there, though – after they carted commando boy off to the morgue."
"Interesting how?"
"Well, I gave him a pad of paper along with the pencil."
"Also standard procedure," Karl said. "So?"
"So, he'd thrown the pad into a corner – a corner where the blood pool didn't reach."
"I don't suppose he wrote out a confession, did he?"
"No, but he did write something on it."
Karl sat up a little straighter. "Don't keep me in suspense, Stan."
"It looked like it wasn't intended for us. God knows why he bothered to write it down at all. Maybe he found it comforting, because it looks like he wrote it over and over."
"Hope do you know it wasn't for us?"
"Because he tore off the sheet he was writing on, and shredded it before he started digging into his neck with the pencil. The pieces of paper were so small, they look like confetti."
Karl smiled a little. "But he forgot that the pencil would leave the impression of what he wrote on the sheets underneath, huh?"
"No, he seems to've remembered that, too. He not only shredded the top page – he tore out the next three or four and did the same. Like I said – confetti."
Karl rubbed the bridge of his nose. "OK, so why're you telling me about it, then?"
I produced a little smile of my own. "Because he didn't tear off enough of them."
"Aha – the light dawns," Karl said. "Although I probably should stop using that expression, haina? So, what did you get?"
"I got another pencil and gently shaded all the places where the writing had been. It came through pretty faint, but it was there. He wrote the same thing, over and over, about twenty times. McGuire's got the original, but I copied down the words for myself. Here."
I took a sheet of paper from my jacket pocket and handed it to Karl. He looked at it and frowned. He kept looking, and the frown only got deeper. Looking up at me, he said, "Well, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, and like that. Latin?" Karl handed the paper back to me.
"Looks like it," I said. "Ad verum Dei gloriam."
"You're the one who knows the lingo – what's it say?"
"For the true glory of God."
Karl blinked a couple of times. "And what the fuck is that supposed to be about?"
"Beats the shit out of me," I said. "But in a few hours, I'm pretty sure I can find out."
The man I wanted to talk to wouldn't appreciate being awakened at 5am for something that wasn't an emergency, and I figured about 8 o'clock was about the earliest I could get away with calling about something that wasn't urgent. I said goodbye to Karl as he left for his day's rest at about 5.30am, but remained at my desk.
I could've gone home and called Garrett from there, but depending on what he told me, I might want to make additions to the case file, and I had to do that here. McGuire said he'd OK a couple of hours of overtime, and there was always paperwork for me to catch up on while I was waiting for 8 o'clock to roll around.
I called Christine to let her know that I wouldn't be home in time to say goodnight to her. I got her voicemail and left a message saying I hoped to see her when she got up.