Field of Graves(27)

“I haven’t talked to him about it. I wanted to clear it with you first. If you give the word, I’ll call him right now and run it by him. He may tell me to go to hell. He’s already done that a few times. But I have some new information pertaining to his case. It might help pull him back in.”

“Loose cannons aren’t always the best people to have around a delicate situation, Garrett. I’d need your personal assurance that you’ll keep up with him, make sure he’s not going yahoo on me.”

“You have my word. I wouldn’t even think about asking for this if I thought it would backfire. He’ll either say yes or no. If he says no, well...”

“All right, man, if he’ll talk to me, I’ll talk to him. Though if I get any indications he’s not working out, I’ll be the first to cut the strings.”

Woods heaved out a sigh of relief. “I owe you one. If I can talk him into it, I’ll have him call you tonight to set things up. I’ll make it clear it’s only a consulting role. If there’s a problem, you let me know.”

“Will do, Garrett. You owe me more than a beer this time.”

After a few pleasantries and promises to keep in close touch, Price hung up the phone. He didn’t want to mention the call to Taylor just yet. He thought he’d see if the man called in first, then deal with the fallout. He shut off his office light and went home.





19



Dr. John Baldwin sat on the easy chair in his living room. The room was devoid of light except the flickering of the television, tuned to the local CBS affiliate, but muted. On the table next to the chair was a half-empty pint glass of Guinness and a Smith and Wesson .38 Special snub-nosed revolver.

Baldwin stared at the television, eyes unfocused. He was very drunk. Drunk enough to play the game. He was ready. With any luck, he’d have a little accident and there would be no more guilt.

Baldwin had been a handsome man once. He stood six foot four, had jet-black hair graying slightly at the temples, lively green eyes that could look into the very soul. But now he looked ten years older than his thirty-seven years. He had a week-old beard shot through with dense silver the color of moonlight that barely filled in the gaunt lines of his face. His eyes were shrouded with guilt.

He had been forced out of his job at the FBI six months earlier. Not by his bosses. By his own conscience. Six months to relive the shame, the embarrassment, the knowledge that he had caused three deaths. Six months of replaying the case. Reliving his actions. He had been the head of the Investigative Support Unit, thriving in the shadowy world of psychological profiling. Was the darling of the BSU. He had the book smarts, of course: PhDs and a law degree, and the years of field experience. He was a good cop. Used to be a good cop.

Then Harold Arlen had rocked his world.

Arlen, an inconspicuous mechanic in Great Falls, Virginia, had killed his career, definitely, but he’d also taken a chunk of Baldwin’s soul. Baldwin had seen so much in his years at the FBI, but Arlen went to new heights of hideousness. Once a week for six weeks, like clockwork, a young girl had been found in the woods near Great Falls, Virginia.

Every law enforcement officer, every neighbor, every member of the media, everyone thought Arlen was responsible. But they had no proof. Not a single hair, a minuscule fiber, a shred of mitochondria. Nothing.

Baldwin knew in his soul that Arlen was guilty. It was the way he acted in his interviews, playing, laughing. How he only truly came alive when they showed him the crime scene photos. It was all there. But there was no evidence.

Their last-ditch attempt to pin the murders on Arlen proved fatal. The evidence they’d been searching for finally appeared, stuffed into the back of an underwear drawer. Arlen had come home and found them rooting through his house, and had gone wild, whipped out a gun and started shooting. All the agents were caught by surprise. Baldwin’s bullets were the only ones that found their mark. He’d killed Arlen, but Arlen had gotten enough shots off before he was hit to kill the other three agents.

The guilt Baldwin felt was overwhelming. He’d lost three good men for no reason other than his own desperation to solve an unsolvable case. Arlen was dead, the case was done. Then another little girl turned up dead. They’d found hairs on her body, and a DNA comparison didn’t link them to Arlen.

There was an inquiry. Baldwin could see the judgment in the eyes of the agents around him. Getting scum off the street was one thing, and Arlen had been scum: a purveyor and seller of child pornography. Losing, no, sacrificing three good men, though, in the guise of taking down a killer? No one accused him directly, but he felt the eyes on the back of his neck. He sat with the ghosts of his friends every night. It was too much, and he left.

By the time he’d arrived at his boyhood home in Tennessee, Baldwin was already too far gone to save. A life sentence for murder would have been easier than a death sentence of freedom. He’d had no contact with his old life for six months, except the occasional phone call from his old boss, which never went well. He’d wallowed in guilt, drank to excess, popped every pill he could find. Anything that would make him numb.

He soon realized that there was only one way out. He didn’t have the balls to get it over with himself, didn’t quite have the nerve to meet his maker straight out. So for the past few weeks, every night, he sat in his chair, playing the game according to his own set of rules.