Fair Warning (Jack McEvoy #3)(69)

He looked at Ortiz as if throwing the ball to him.

“Autopsy has not been scheduled yet,” Ortiz said. “But the preliminary notes from the field indicate he was already dead when he fell.”

“How can they tell that?” I asked.

“We have witnesses,” Ortiz said. “He didn’t yell and he didn’t attempt to break his fall—which we would have seen in the injuries. Plus, you don’t see AOD in falls like this. A broken neck is common, but not AOD. There is no twisting of the neck in a fall like that.”

“You said he worked in a liquor store,” I said. “You mean, like behind the counter?”

“Correct,” Ortiz said.

“What else do you know?” I pressed.

“We know he had a criminal record,” Ortiz said.

Ortiz looked at Mattson as if for permission.

“The whole deal’s off if you hold back on me,” I said.

Mattson nodded.

“He was a pedophile,” Ortiz said. “Did four years in Corcoran for raping his stepson.”

Again, the information didn’t fit. I was expecting an Internet cipher, some sort of expert who handled the dark-web part of Dirty4. A woman-hating incel. Pedophile was not part of the profile that was emerging.

“Okay,” Mattson said. “Now it’s your turn to give. Tell us something we don’t know, Jack.”

I nodded and to buy some time I reached down to my backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out the notebook in which I had written the facts of the story. I flipped through the pages for show and then looked up at Mattson.

“The man you’re looking for calls himself the Shrike,” I said.





32

I sat in my Jeep in the parking lot of the coroner’s office and made calls. I didn’t want to be driving during these conversations. I also wanted to watch for Mattson and Sakai. They had stayed behind with Ortiz after our meeting and I was curious to see how long it would be before they left. I didn’t know what I would get from that but I wanted to know anyway.

The first call was to Emily Atwater to check on her status.

“I’ve started writing,” she reported. “So far so good. We’ve got a lot so I’m playing with the balance. What to move up, what to move down. As you know, Myron doesn’t like sidebars. So it’s got to be one story and follow-ups in the days after. What about you?”

“I was wrong about the second case being Hammond’s partner,” I said. “They think the Shrike might have made a mistake and killed the wrong guy. So we have to keep looking for him.”

“‘They’?”

“Yeah, the police were here. Mattson and Sakai. With the help of a smart coroner’s investigator they’ve put the cases together.”

“Shit.”

“Well, I made a deal with them. Traded information on the basis of exclusivity.”

“Can we trust them?”

“Not at all. I don’t trust them and I don’t trust the FBI not to leak. So I held back. I gave them Dirty4 but didn’t mention GT23 or Orange Nano or Hammond’s connection to the Orton case. I think they have a lot of catching up to do before we have to worry about them leaking.”

I saw a man and woman leaving the coroner’s office, arms wrapped around each other, heads down. I recognized them from the family room earlier. The man had tears on his face. The woman didn’t. She was supporting him more than he was supporting her. She walked him to the passenger side of a car and helped him get in before going around to get in behind the wheel. I saw a man in another car watching them as well.

“Jack, you there?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do they think the Shrike killed the wrong guy?”

“Because he was the wrong profile. Guy worked in a liquor store and was a convicted pedophile. Not the right fit. We are just guessing here but they think the Shrike tried to lure RogueVogue to a meeting at the Northridge Mall and somehow thought this guy—his name was Sanford Tolan—was RogueVogue. Tolan was there by himself, probably sitting around watching children in the mall. The Shrike followed him out to his car, broke his neck, and threw him over the edge.”

“That’s horrible. Do you think the Shrike knows he made a mistake?”

“You mean like he realized this is not the right guy but killed him anyway? Maybe. Hard to say. The whole idea of setting up the meeting is a guess.”

“What about the FBI? Have you heard from Rachel?”

“My next call. I wanted to check in with you first.”

“All right, then I’m going to get back to it. Let me know what you know.”

“You got it.”

Before calling Rachel I pulled up my email account to check for new messages. My pulse jumped when I saw I had received a reply from RogueVogue to the message I had sent earlier.


I don’t understand this. Who are you? Why did you send this to me?



I checked the time on the message and saw that it was sent well after the lifeless body of Sanford Tolan had dropped from the fourth floor of the mall parking garage. It was further proof that the Shrike had killed the wrong man. The message was short and simple and most of all innocent. No acknowledgment, no admission, just tell me more.

I considered how to answer in a way that would not scare him off: I can safeguard you … I can tell your story … I can be your go-between …