Vail pursed her lips. “Well, that’s certainly…an impressive record. We’d be silly not to consider this guy a prime suspect.”
“I thought we already did,” Yeung said.
“We did. But we’ve been running all over the place tonight looking at Stephen Scheer.”
“And?” Carondolet asked.
Dixon bent over the laptop beside Vail and scrolled down. “And he’s looking guilty. Of what, it’s hard to say. But something isn’t right with him.”
“How old is the guy?” Vail asked. “MacNally.”
“Apparently,” Dixon said, paging down a document, “a spry and fit 79.”
“A few other things you should know,” Yeung said. “He was involved in a number of violent altercations. One with a guy you’re familiar with: one of our vics, Harlan Rucker, who he apparently had some bad blood with dating back to Leavenworth. Rucker and an accomplice attacked MacNally in Industries with a knife.”
“I’m liking MacNally more with each passing minute,” Burden said. “What else?”
Yeung cocked his head. “There was a clergyman at Alcatraz by the name of Finelli. He tried to pass a letter from MacNally to his son, but it apparently got returned unopened. The kicker is that there’s a warden’s note saying that Finelli tipped off prison officials about MacNally’s plans to escape, and the attempt ended very badly.”
“Badly for who?” Dixon asked.
“Everyone. An officer was killed, and an inmate who was in on the escape with MacNally also got killed.”
“Who killed the CO and inmate?” Vail asked.
“The reports of the incident are sketchy,” Carondolet said. “The file says it was unknown who killed the officer, MacNally or the other inmate. It also says MacNally fell down the rockbed during his escape attempt and the responding officers rescued him from drowning.”
“But?”
“But when I was a ranger we were told that rumors were rampant at the time among the inmate population that MacNally killed both the guard and the prisoner. And that revenge was dished out by one of the guards who found MacNally in back of the Powerhouse, on the Old North Caponier. Tuned up MacNally pretty badly. The doc, according to the rumor, covered for the CO and wrote a bogus report.”
“Let me guess,” Vail said. “The doctor’s name was Martin Tumaco.”
“Give that lady a pat on the ass,” Carondolet said. “And the officers involved were-ready for this? Russell Ilg and Raymond Strayhan.”
“Holy shit,” Burden said. “We’ve got our guy. MacNally is our fucking UNSUB.” He looked at Vail. “Right?”
Vail pushed up from the hood. “Maybe.” Something’s still not adding up. “It looks that way. But…a couple of things are bugging me. MacNally is a violent criminal, I get that. But I’m not seeing convincing evidence he’s a psychopath. The behaviors we’ve observed at the crime scenes, particularly what he did to the women… It doesn’t fit, at least not given the information we’ve got.”
Burden sighed. His frown telegraphed the disappointment that was now burnished on his face. “You said there were two things bothering you.”
“Scheer. He threatened Hartman to get dirt on me, and when Hartman was all too happy to give it to him, that information ended up in my hotel room along with the type of key that the offender left at crime scenes.”
“You’re wondering,” Dixon said, “what the connection is between a deadbeat journalist with a shady past-and present-and a former Alcatraz con.”
“Shady past?” Yeung asked.
“Scheer’s got a sealed juvie record,” Dixon said. “And remember, his wife didn’t exactly paint a Man of the Year portrait for us.”
“Scheer’s his son,” Vail said softly.
“What?” Burden asked.
Vail curled some hair behind her ear. “MacNally had a son. Maybe it’s Scheer.”
“But I thought Scheer was adopted.”
Vail shook her head. “We don’t know that. It’s a likely explanation for the two birth certificates. But it’s just a guess.”
“Even so,” Dixon said, “big deal. MacNally’s son could’ve been adopted.”
“Could Scheer be a psychopath?” Bledsoe asked.
Vail sighed deeply. “Psychopaths are very skilled at deception, so it’d be possible for us not to pick up on it. Not to mention he had us running all over the goddamn city, keeping us busy while he readied his grand show: killing John Anglin and placing him in his original cell for us to find. Everything he’s done has been planned, calculated. But he also works off what we do and shifts strategy on the run if he needs to.” Vail massaged her forehead. “So yeah, it’s possible. I need something to eat. And some coffee.” And some sleep. “I’m having a hard time thinking straight.”
“What happened to MacNally?” Burden asked. “Where is he now?”
Carondolet moved in front of his laptop and clicked, then scrolled. “Here it is.” He read a moment, then said, “That head injury was pretty bad. He had brain damage to-”
“Brain damage?” Vail nearly shouted. “That could change everything. You numb nuts didn’t think to tell us that earlier?”
“Excuse me,” Yeung said. “You’re not the only one who’s been up all night. Back off.”
Vail held up a hand. “You’re right. I’m sorry. My ASAC wants me to play nice with you guys out here because I may be making more trips out to California. So let me rephrase. You numb nuts didn’t think to tell us that earlier?”
Carondolet and Yeung looked at Burden, who was merely studying the ground, shaking his head. And doing his best to stifle a laugh.
“His injury was to the prefrontal cortex and frontal lobe,” Yeung said with a tight jaw. “According to the doc’s report in the file, that means he-”
“Suffered from severe impairments in judgment, insight, and foresight,” Vail said. “My colleague’s done a lot of research on brain trauma and violent crime, and this kind of frontal disinhibition syndrome was something he briefed us on a few months ago. If that’s what MacNally has, that might explain a lot. I can dial him up, see if he can shed some more light on it.”
“So where’s MacNally now?” Dixon asked.
“After Alcatraz closed in ’63, he was transferred to Atlanta, then to the new max pen at Marion when it opened a few months later. He served another fifteen years and was released in ’77.”
“Released,” Burden said. “That’s freaking great.”
“We all know that’s common,” Yeung said. “Last known whereabouts, he was in Chicago. But that was back in ’78. He fell off the radar after that.”
“Please tell me one of you guys put out a BOLO,” Vail said.
Yeung closed the lid of his laptop. “Done.”
“All right, look,” Burden said, rubbing his hands together as if trying to generate warmth. “We can’t stand out here all night. Let’s go back to Bryant. Get some food and coffee, give ourselves time to clear our heads, then attack it fresh.”