Tick Tock (Michael Bennett 4)

With that premise in mind, I got a fresh cup of coffee and laid out the case files for the six incidents. Four of them had been in the mode of George Metesky, the Mad Bomber. Two of them had been approximations of the Son of Sam, and the latest had copied the Brooklyn Vampire, Albert Fish.

Could our guy actually identify with all three? I wondered.

I sipped coffee and sat back in my office chair, staring up at the drop ceiling and thinking about it. It didn’t seem likely. It seemed to me that although all three were violent weirdos, each was deranged in his own special way. The Mad Bomber had been a disgruntled employee of Con Edison, mostly seeming to seek revenge. The Son of Sam was more like Seda, a low-status publicity seeker who killed out of a twisted sense of empowerment, craving fame and attention. Albert Fish was more along the lines of a classic sadistic psychopath, like Ted Bundy, with no real interest in fame and who got off sexually on inflicting pain.

I lifted a pencil and twirled it between my fingers. How could one person not only seek revenge and twisted, freaky peekaboo thrills but also relish inflicting pain all at the same time?

He couldn’t, I thought, as I tried to stick the pencil into the ceiling and missed. It didn’t make any goddamn sense.

Chapter 56

THAT’S WHEN I PULLED the second-smartest move of my morning. Instead of just thinking like Emily Parker, I took out my cell and called the real McCoy.

“Hey, Em. Sorry to call you so early,” I said when she picked up. “I’ve been looking at your notes on that copycat Seda. He ID’d himself with the Zodiac, right?”

“Uh-huh,” Emily said, still groggy.

“Well, if our guy is doing the same thing, how can he feel empathy with all three New York nuts? I mean, one’s an organized technician, and one’s a disorganized catch-me-if-you-can loon. And the third one is a classic violent sadist. How can that be?”

“That is weird,” she agreed. After a yawn she said, “Maybe two of the modes are just a smokescreen for the real one.”

“But which one is real and which are the smoke?” I said.

“The only communication he made with you was about the bombings, right?”

“You’re forgetting the Son of Sam letter he sent me.”

“True, but that was almost a photocopy of Berkowitz’s letter.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Also, since we haven’t even seen any publicity-seeking taunts or manifestos sent to the media, I don’t think his heart is in copying Berkowitz.”

“I’d lean toward Metesky, too,” Emily said. “Our guy is definitely detail-oriented, and not only was the library bomb the first crime, it was the only one that didn’t have a copycat message.”

“It’s revenge, then?” I said. “This guy is trying to get back at the world for Lawrence? But what about the social skills that Cavuto attributed to him during their meetings? Berkowitz and Metesky were loner, loser types, while Fish was a married guy who was sly, manipulative, and charming. If someone is capable of channeling Cary Grant, how do they become a wound-up, light-’em-and-run sneak creep like Metesky?”

“But he has to be somewhat of a loner,” Emily argued. “How does Mr. Life of the Party prepare his bombs and clean his collection of vintage weapons without friends or family getting suspicious?”

I slumped in my chair. Trying to figure this guy out was like trying to build a castle with quicksand. Yet we were almost onto something. I could feel it.

My office chair made a snapping sound as I suddenly sat straight up.

“Wait a second. He is detail-oriented, isn’t he? This guy is all about the details. That’s about the only thing we know about him.”

“Yeah, and?”

I pulled out the sheets that showed the addresses of the historical crimes and compared them to the locations of the present spree.

“Emily, you know what I think? I think our guy is meticulous enough to have copied these crimes even better than he has. If he wanted to just reenact the crimes, he could have done the exact same thing at the exact same locations, bu

t he didn’t.”

“Why not?” Emily said.

“Maybe it’s not about the copying at all,” I offered. “Maybe the copycatting concept itself is the smokescreen. We need to take another look at the victims. Maybe the connection is with them.”

Chapter 57

THE REST OF MY DAY was nasty, brutish, and long.