A little piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
“You knew William Orton there?”
“Marshall did.”
I threw a curveball at him. A possibility that had been growing in the back of my mind.
“Is he the Shrike?”
“No.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know. What happened to Marshall?”
“The Shrike broke his neck, then tried to make it look like he hanged himself in his home lab. How do you know Orton is not the Shrike? Do you know who the Shrike is?”
“I figured it out.”
I wrote it down. I knew my next words to him might be the most important part of the conversation.
“Okay, listen. There is a way for you to help your situation — if you want to.”
“How?”
“Tell me who the Shrike is. The FBI needs to stop him.”
“The FBI?”
I immediately realized I had misspoken. He didn’t know that this had come to the attention of the FBI. I sensed that I had to keep him on the phone by going in another direction. I blurted out a question.
“How do you think the Shrike found Marshall?”
There was a pause but then he finally spoke again.
“He made contact.”
“Who did? Marshall?”
“Yes. We knew about the ones who died. Clients told us that we had — that some of our profiles were... defunct. Marshall looked into it. He checked the downloads and found the link between them. It was him. Marshall reached out. He told him he had to stop.”
That was all the explanation he gave, but again it helped me put more pieces of the story together.
“And that’s how the Shrike found him? He traced the contact?”
“Somehow. We took precautions but somehow he found him.”
“‘We’?”
“We agreed to send the note. Marshall sent it.”
“Let’s go back to Orton. Marshall fixed his case, right? The DNA.”
“I’m not talking about that.”
“Then Orton owed him. He gave you the DNA.”
“I told you, I—”
“Okay, okay, forget it. What about the Shrike? You said you know who he is. Give me a name. You do that and you won’t be a villain in this. You’ll be somebody trying to stop it. Like you said, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“And then you give the name to the FBI?”
“I can or you can. Doesn’t matter as long as you are the one who gives it.”
“I’ll think about that. It’s all I have.”
I guessed he meant that the Shrike’s ID was all he had to trade in exchange for not being prosecuted.
“Well, don’t think too long,” I said. “If you found it, the FBI will eventually find it and then you’ve got nothing to give.”
He didn’t respond. I realized I was asking for the Shrike’s ID when I didn’t even have my source’s real name.
“What about you? Can you give me your name so I know who I’m talking to?”
“Rogue.”
“No, your real name. You know my name — why don’t you tell me yours?”
I waited. Then I heard the connection go dead.
“Hello?”
He was gone.
“Shit.”
The interview was over.
The Shrike
33
He watched the reporter across the parking lot. He seemed to be going from one call to the next. And he had snuck a photo of the two men leaving the coroner’s office. They were obviously cops — homicide detectives, since this was where they brought dead people. The whole thing was curious. How much did the reporter know? How much did the police know?
He had followed him from the office, making the identification off the photo on the FairWarning website. The reporter had been in a hurry then, running through yellow lights and driving in the carpool lane on the freeway even though he was clearly alone. Now he had slowed down and was just sitting in the Jeep making calls. The Shrike wondered what he had learned inside the coroner’s office.
He drummed his fingers on the center console. He was agitated. Things had gone wrong and were spinning out of his control. He was still frustrated and angry about Vogel. Once he had started interrogating the man from the mall, he quickly learned he was not Vogel but had to finish the kill. He now wondered who had warned Vogel or how he had known it was a trap. Maybe it was Vogel who had trapped him.
Finally, the reporter pulled out of his parking space and headed to the exit. The Shrike had backed in so he could also make an easy exit and not lose his quarry. From the coroner’s office he turned left on Mission and then took the next left on Marengo. The Shrike stayed with him and followed the reporter as he drove onto the northbound 5 freeway.
For the next thirty minutes he followed the reporter on freeways going north and then west into the San Fernando Valley. He finally realized that he was heading toward the mall where the Shrike had been just that morning.
Again, he seemed to know things.
The reporter pulled into the parking garage and then continued up the ramps to the top level. He parked and walked to the spot, crossing without hesitation under the yellow tape the police had left in place. He looked down over the concrete balustrade. He used his phone to take photos. He backed away from the edge and took more.
The Shrike realized several things. The killing of the man here had already been identified as his work. The reporter knew about it, indicating he had sources inside the police department and medical examiner’s office. The questions that remained were about Vogel. What did he know and who had he shared it with? Was he talking to the police or was he talking to the reporter?
Final conclusion: eliminating the reporter now would be a mistake when he might be the best chance of getting to Vogel.
The Shrike changed his plans, deciding to let the reporter live. For now.
Jack
34
I got back to the office in the late afternoon and started feeding the new quotes and information from RogueVogue to Emily. She had already put together a fifteen-hundred-word story, which was generally considered the line at FairWarning when reader exhaustion starts to set in. But the new stuff was vital. RogueVogue was one of the two men who created Dirty4 and had set a killer down the path of death and destruction.
“I’m just going to have to tighten up other parts,” she said.
“We can also keep some of the minor stuff for the follow-up stories,” I said. “I’m sure there will be many.”
We were sitting together in her pod.
“True,” she said. “But if we have good stuff now, there’s no reason not to try to get it in.”
“You think Myron’s going to throw a flag because we only have his online name?”
“Probably. Are we one hundred percent sure he’s the guy?”
I thought about it for a moment and nodded.
“He responded to the email I sent to the address that clearly belonged to Hammond’s partner. And he expressed enough knowledge about the site and what was happening to verify who he was. So, we don’t have his name, but it’s him. For sure.”
Emily didn’t nod in agreement or say anything. This told me she was still uncomfortable with putting her name on a story that contained information she wasn’t completely sure of.
“All right,” I said. “I was hoping to avoid having to do this but I will call Rachel and see if the bureau has made any headway in identifying the guy.”
“Why are you avoiding calling her?” Emily asked.
I realized I had just talked myself into a jam. I would have to reveal to Emily the rift that had opened between Rachel and me.