"When will he be available?"
"This is about the murders, isn't it?"
"That's right, ma'am."
"Do you have a suspect?"
"I can't really go into that. But I would like to talk to your husband."
A hesitation. "The thing is…" Her voice lowered and Altman suspected that her "unavailable" husband was in a nearby room. "He hasn't been well."
"I'm sorry," Altman said. "Is it serious?"
"You bet it's serious," she said angrily. "When Andy heard that the killer might've used his book as a model for the crimes, he got very depressed. He cut himself off from everybody. He stopped writing." She hesitated. "He stopped everything. He just gave up."
"Must've been real difficult, Mrs. Carter," Altman said sympathetically.
"I told him it was just a coincidence – those women getting killed like he wrote in the book. Just a weird coincidence. But the reporters and, well, everybody, friends, neighbors… they kept yammering on and on about how Andy was to blame."
Altman supposed she wasn't going to like the fact that he'd found proof that her husband's book had indeed been the model for the killings.
She continued, "He's been getting better lately. Anything about the case could set him back."
"I do understand that, ma'am, but you have to see my situation. We've got a possibility of catching the killer and your husband could be real helpful…"
The sound on the other end of the line grew muffled and Altman could hear her talking to someone else.
Altman wasn't surprised when she said, "My husband just got back. I'll put him on."
"Hello?" came a soft, uneasy voice. "This's Andy Carter."
Altman identified himself.
"Are you the policeman I talked to last year?"
"Me? No. That might've been the case detective. Sergeant Bob Fletcher."
"Right. That was the name."
So Fletcher had talked to the author last year. There was no reference in the case file to it and he supposed that Carter hadn't provided any helpful information. Maybe now, after this much time had passed, he'd be more cooperative. Though Altman soon found that wasn't the case. He reiterated to Carter what he'd told his wife and the man said immediately, "I can't help you. And frankly, I don't want to… This's been the worst year of my life."
"I appreciate that, sir. But that killer's still free. And -"
"But I don't know anything. I mean, what could I possibly tell you that -"
"We have a sample of the killer's handwriting – we found some of his notes in a copy of your book. And we'd like to compare it to any letters from fans you might've received."
There was a long pause. Finally the author whispered, "So he did use my book as a model."
"I'm afraid he did, Mr. Carter."
Altman heard nothing for a moment, then a cryptic noise – maybe a sigh. Or maybe the man was crying softly.
"Sir, are you all right?"
The author cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I can't help you. I just… it'd be too much for me."
Altman often told young officers under him that a detective's most important trait is persistence. He said in an even voice, "You're the only one who can help us trace the book back to him. He destroyed the library computer so we don't have the names of who checked your book out. There's no match on the fingerprints, either… I want to catch this man real bad. And I suspect you do, too, Mr. Carter. Don't you, now?"
There was no response. Finally the faint voice continued, "Do you know that strangers sent me clippings about the killings? Perfect strangers. Hundreds of them. They blamed me. They called my book a 'blueprint for murder.' I had to go into the hospital for a month afterwards, I was so depressed… I caused those murders! Don't you understand that?"
Altman looked up at Wallace and shook his head.
The reporter gestured for the phone. Altman figured, why not?
"Mr. Carter, there's a person here I'm going to put on the line. I'd like him to have a word with you."
"Who?"
He handed the receiver over and sat back, listening to the onesided conversation.
"Hello, Mr. Carter." The reporter's gaunt frame hunched over the phone and he gripped the receiver in astonishingly long, strong fingers. "You don't know me. My name is Gordon Wallace. I'm a fan of your book – I loved it. I'm the one who found the circled passages… No, I'm not with them; I'm a reporter for the Tribune here in Greenville… I got that. I understand that. My colleagues step over a lot of lines. But I don't operate that way. And I know you're reluctant to get involved here. I'm sure you've been through a tough time.
"But I just want to say one thing: I'm no great novelist like you – I'm just a hack journalist – but I am a writer and if I have any important belief in my life it's in the freedom to write whatever moves us. Now… No, please, Mr. Carter, let me finish. I heard that you basically stopped writing after the murders… Well, you and your talent were as much a victim of those crimes as those women were. You exercised your God-given right to express yourself and a terrible accident happened. That's how I'd look at this madman: an act of God. A couple of people got killed and you were injured because of that. You can't do anything about those women. But you can help yourself and your family to move on. And there's something else to consider: You're in a position to make sure nobody else ever gets hurt by this guy again."
Altman lifted an impressed eyebrow at the moving sales pitch. Wallace fell silent and, glancing at the detective, shrugged. He held the receiver to his ear for a moment, listening. Finally he nodded and glanced at Altman. "He wants to talk to you." Altman took the phone. "Yessir?"
"What exactly would you want me to do?" came the tentative voice through the phone.
"All I need is for you to look through your fan mail. See if you can find anything suspicious. Any fans who might've written something about these passages in the book." He told Carter which ones had been circled and then added, "And look for any letters from people who asked about how you researched the murders. Particularly from people within, say, a hundred miles or so of Greenville."
Carter protested, "I've got thousands of letters. It'd take a couple of days to go through them all."
"That's fine. We'll follow up on other leads as best we can… But I have one more request, sir."
"What's that?"
"Can we get those letters in person?"
"You want me to come to Greenville?"
"Yessir, I do." Silence.
The detective persisted. "Depending on what we find, it could be real helpful to have you here. The city'll pay for the mileage and a room if you stay overnight."
"Sir," Carter said slowly, "there's not enough money in the universe to get me to come to Greenville." Altman took a breath to set out his argument, though before he could speak the man continued, "but I'll come anyway."
Altman started to tell the author how much he appreciated the help, but after a moment he realized that the man had hung up and he was listening to dead air.
Andy Clark turned out not to resemble either a sinister artist or a glitzy celebrity but rather any one of the hundreds of white, middle-aged businessmen that populated this region of the Northeast. Thick, graying hair, neatly trimmed. A slight paunch (much slighter than Altman's own, thanks to the cop's fondness for his wife's casseroles). His outfit wasn't an arm-patch sports jacket or any other authorial garb, but an L.L. Bean windbreaker, polo shirt, and corduroy slacks.
It had been two days since Altman had spoken to Carter. The man now stood uneasily in the detective's office, taking the coffee that Josh Randall offered and nodding greetings to the cops and to Gordon Wallace. He slipped off his windbreaker, tossing it on an unoccupied chair. The man's only moment of consternation in this initial meeting was when he glanced at the top of Altman's desk and blinked as he saw the case file that was headed, Banning, Kimberly – Homicide #13- 01. A brief look of dismay filled his face. Altman was grateful that he'd had the foresight to slip the crime-scene photos of the victim's body to the bottom of the folder.