"How did you know that name, Jack?" she asked.
"What name?" I replied, though I knew.
"Gladden, Jack. William Gladden."
"I did my homework. How did you people come up with it?"
"I can't tell you."
"Rachel… Look, this is me, okay? We made, uh…" I couldn't say it out loud for fear it would sound like a lie. "I thought there was something between us, Rachel. Now you're acting like I'm some kind of leper or something. I don't… Look, is it information you want? I'll tell you all I know. I figured it out from the newspapers. Big story on this guy Gladden in the L.A. Times on Saturday. Okay? The story said he knew Horace the Hypnotist in Raiford. I just put two and two together. It wasn't hard."
"Okay, Jack."
"Now you."
Silence.
"Rachel?"
"Are we off the record?"
"You know you don't have to ask me that."
She hesitated a moment and then seemed to relent. She began.
"We arrived at Gladden through two separate leads that just happened to click at the same time. That gives us a high sense of reliability that he's our man. First, the car. Automotive ID traced the stereo serial number to a car which, in turn, was traced to Hertz? You remember this?"
"Yes."
"Well, Matuzak and Mize went down to the airport and traced the car. Some snowbirds from Chicago had already rerented it. They had to go up to Sedona to get it back. It's been processed. Nothing usable from it. The stereo and window had been replaced. But not by Hertz. Hertz never knew about the break-in. Whoever had the car when the break-in occurred replaced the window and the stereo on their own. Anyway, the rental records put the car in the hands of an N.H. Breedlove for five days this month, including the day Orsulak was killed. This Breedlove turned it in the day after. Matuzak put the name on the computer and got a hit on the ID net. Nathan H. Breedlove was an AKA turned up during the investigation of William Gladden in Florida seven years ago. It was a name used by a man who had placed ads in the papers in Tampa offering his services as a children's photographer. He molested the kids when left alone with them, took dirty pictures. He wore disguises. The Tampa police were looking for this Breedlove at the same time the Gladden case broke. The molestations at the child care center. The investigators always believed Gladden was Breedlove but they never made a case because of the disguises. Besides, they didn't press it because they thought he'd be going away to prison for a long time on the other case.
"Anyway, once we had Gladden's name from the ID net's alias data bank, from there we picked up the wanted that LAPD put out on NCIC last week. And here we are."
"It seems…"
"Too easy? Well, sometimes you make your own luck."
"You said that before."
"Because it's true."
"Why would he use an alias that he must've known was on file somewhere?"
"A lot of these people find comfort in tradition. Plus, he's a cocky son of a bitch. We know that from the fax."
"But he used a whole new alias when he was arrested by Santa Monica police last week. Why would he-"
"I'm only telling you what we know, Jack. If he's as smart as we think he is, then he probably has several ID packages. They wouldn't be hard to come by. We have the Phoenix field office working on a subpoena for Hertz. We want Breedlove's complete renting history going back three years. He's a Hertz Gold customer no less. Again it shows how smart he is. Most airports, you get off the plane, walk to the Gold lot and your name is on the board. You go to your car and the keys are in it. Most of the time you don't even have to talk to any clerks. You just get in your car, show your license at the gate and you are out of there."
"Okay, what about the other thing? You said there were two leads to Gladden."
"The Best Pals. Ted Vincent and Steve Raffa in Florida finally got hold of Beltran's records with the organization this morning. He'd been Best Pal to nine young boys over the years. The second one he sponsored, this is going back something like sixteen years, was Gladden."
"Jesus."
"Yeah. It's all starting to fall together."
I was silent for a few moments as I considered all of the information she had revealed. The investigation was advancing at exponentially increasing speed. It was seat-belt time.
"How come the field office out here didn't pick up on this guy? He's been in the paper."
"Good question. Bob's going to have a heart-to-heart with the SAC about that. Gordon's flag landed last night. Somebody should've seen it and put two and two together. But we did it ourselves first."
A typical bureaucratic snafu. I wondered how much sooner they'd have been on to Gladden if someone in the L.A. office had been a little more alert.
"You know Gladden, don't you?" I said.
"Yes. We had him during the rapist interviews. I told you about that. Seven years ago. He and Gomble, among others at that hellhole in Florida. I think our team-Gordon, Bob, me-spent a week down there, we had so many candidates for interviews."
I was tempted to bring up Thorson's call to the prison's computer but thought better of it. It was enough just to get her to talk to me again like a human. Telling her I had rifled through the hotel bills was no way to ensure that she would continue. This dilemma also created a problem in regard to nailing Thorson. For the time being I would have to sit on his hotel phone records as well.
"You think there is any connection between Gomble supposedly using hypnotism and what you are seeing on the Poet cases?" I said instead. "Think maybe Gomble taught him his secret?"
"Possibly."
She had regressed to the one-word reply.
"Possibly," I repeated, a thin line of sarcasm in it.
"Eventually, I'll go to Florida to talk to Gomble again. And I'm going to ask him that. Until I get an answer one way or the other, it's possibly. Okay, Jack?"
We pulled into an alley that ran behind a row of old motels and shops. She finally slowed down to the point where I let go of the armrest.
"But you can't go to Florida now, can you?" I asked.
"That's up to Bob. But we're close to Gladden here. For the time being I think Bob wants to put everything we have into L.A. Gladden's here. Or he's close. We can all feel it. We've got to get him. Once we have him, then I'll worry about the other things, the psychological motivation. We'll need to go to Florida then."
"Why then? To add data to the serial killer studies?"
"No. I mean, yes, there's that, but primarily we'll go for the prosecution. Guy like this, he's got to go the insanity route. It's his only choice. So that means we'll have to build a case on his psychology. One that shows he knew what he was doing and he knew right from wrong. The same old thing."
Prosecution of the Poet in a courtroom had never entered my mind. I realized that I had assumed that he would not be taken alive. And this assumption, I knew, was based on my own desire that he not be allowed to live after this.
"What's the matter, Jack, you don't want a trial? You want us to kill him where we find him?"
I looked at her. The lights from a passing window flicked across her face and for a moment I saw her eyes.
"I hadn't thought about it."
"Sure you have. Would you like to kill him, Jack? If you had a moment with him and there were no consequences, could you do it? Do you think that would make up for things?"
I didn't like discussing this subject with her. I sensed more than just a passing interest from her.
"I don't know," I finally answered. "Could you kill him? Have you ever killed anyone, Rachel?"