Triple Cross (Alex Cross #30)(16)

That irritated her. “To Thomas Tull, if you’ll be patient a moment. Most of northern San Diego County borders the Marine base. The second body was found in a canyon area about a hundred yards inside the boundary of Camp Pendleton, which got Thomas involved.”

“Okay. Did he solve the murders?” I asked.

“He did indeed,” she said. “The case made him. Writing about it in his admission essay is what got him into Harvard when he finally left the Marines and NCIS.”

“How old was he at that point?” Sampson asked, picking up a pen.

Liu thought about that. “Thirty?”

“Kind of late to be starting college,” I said.

The editor said Thomas had been a mediocre student in high school with little or no desire for higher education. Eight years in the Marines changed his mind. He wanted to study writing at Harvard because he thought the prestige of having a degree from that college would help his career in the long run.

“Did it?” Sampson asked.

Liu tapped the book on the left, Electric.

“Harvard helped Thomas long before he got his degree. He was able to get inside the investigation while he was living in Cambridge and attending classes.”

She said Tull was a sophomore when he got interested in the murders, all of which involved electrocutions. He started going around Cambridge and the surrounding towns asking questions.

“He’s good at that, I have to tell you,” Liu said. “Thomas has this ability to disarm people and get them to tell him things. Do you know that the three killers he wrote about in these books all love Thomas? They do. They consider him a friend, a good one, someone who’s on their side, even if he had a role in their convictions.”

“C’mon,” I said.

“It’s true,” she insisted. “They all say they were framed. They all maintain their innocence to this day. They say the police, the prosecutors, and the book had it wrong. And yet they consider Thomas their buddy. And to a man, they expect he will prove their innocence someday and rewrite their stories to reflect it.”

That was unusual and I said so, adding, “I’m still not seeing the basis for you thinking Tull is a killer.”

The editor hesitated before returning to her briefcase and coming out with a sheaf of paper about an inch thick. She set it on the table in front of us. “This is a copy of the book proposal he circulated in New York recently.”

In the middle of the first page were the words Family Man, by Thomas Tull. At the bottom was NDA in effect, followed by Suzanne Liu’s name, initials, and a date.

“Nondisclosure agreement?” I said. “You’re breaking it?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Liu said. “Look at the last two pages. Forty and forty-one. There are things there about the case that he could not have known when he wrote them. Things about the Carpenters and the Elliotts. See the date? He wrote this before they were killed.”

I picked up the document and flipped through it to page 40, which was headed “The Future.” Sampson moved closer to read.

Up to that point, the book proposal had focused on the Landau killings, which had taken place six months ago, and the Hodges killings, which occurred eight months before that. There seemed no doubt in Tull’s mind that the killer would strike again and at shorter and shorter intervals.

I looked up at Liu. “If you’re talking about Tull predicting a shortening of the cycle, we predicted the same thing. Most serial killers follow this trend over time.”

“They do,” Sampson said.

“Keep reading,” the editor said. “Last paragraph on page forty, first paragraph on forty-one.”





CHAPTER 16


I READ THE PARAGRAPHS out loud. “‘No one can say who the next victims will be, what family will be chosen, and how many generations will be wiped out. We don’t know if the killer will stick to the pattern or change. Will he shut down his operations in the DC area and move to other hunting grounds? We don’t know. And we don’t know if he’ll keep shooting his victims execution-style, high through the head. And what links the targets? What’s the connection? Will he continue to kill only white families? Or will he change his racial profile and attack Black families? Hispanics? Asian-Americans?’”

I turned the page and kept reading. “‘As I conclude this proposal, we just don’t know the answers to these questions and many others. But no matter who the Family Man targets or where and how he kills them, I will leave no stone unturned, no angle unpursued. I will go where the police fear to tread, without friend or favor, in pursuit of this story and the killer, who I believe wears hazmat clothing of some type. After all, who doesn’t leave DNA behind them these days?’”

“See?” Liu said when I finished. “He predicted the change in racial target and the hazmat suit. Is that what you believe the killer’s wearing?”

I nodded. “But we’ve suspected that for a while. Since the Landau case. He could have talked to someone in the department about it.”

“Or he was being logical,” Sampson said. “I mean, how else would you do it?”

Liu turned frustrated. “What about the Elliotts? Black dad. Hispanic wife. Blended kids? That fits.”

“I suppose,” I said, unconvinced. “The way I read it, Tull has no idea what the future holds, which is where we are as well. He’s speculating here so editors like you will cut him some slack if his theories about the case fall apart.”