“There was one guy, if I remember my history,” Carondolet said. “MacNeil, or MacNally. Something like that. He was in on the escape but he thought Anglin cut him out at the last minute. True or not, who knows. But he’d be the first guy we should look at.”
“Good,” Burden said as his phone rang. “I think it’s time you officially joined our unofficial task force.”
“Come again?” Carondolet asked.
MacNally. Where have I heard that name? Vail looked around the cellhouse. Why isn’t Hartman back? Vail turned to Yeung. “Still nothing from Hartman?”
Yeung’s eyes narrowed. “No.” He pulled his BlackBerry and hit a few keys.
Burden hung up from his call and said, “One of the students found a pattern in the vics’ backgrounds. There were a few odd things that cropped up on two or three, but only one thing that’s common to all of them.”
“Let me guess,” Vail said. “Alcatraz.”
“You got it. Six were correctional officers. Two were former convicts.”
“Why didn’t this come up in our backgrounders?” Dixon asked.
“The damn place closed almost 50 years ago,” Burden said. “The people on his kill list moved on with their lives. According to what I was just told, the younger officers took jobs in the civil service system, or they moved to other Federal employment or they went into the private sector and retired after another thirty, thirty-five years of work. They had whole other lives after Alcatraz. The two inmates paroled out, got married, straightened themselves out. Didn’t happen often, but it did happen.”
Dixon wiggled an index finger at Burden’s BlackBerry. “Have them look up an inmate named MacNeil or MacNally. He would’ve been incarcerated here around the same time as John Anglin. Let’s also see what inmates had a problem with these murdered COs and cons. If this guy keeps coming up, I’d say it’s a bull’s-eye.”
Vail slapped a hand against the bars. “It’s MacNally. The guy who worked with Father Finelli, right? They had some kind of problem.” She turned to Carondolet. “Who’d have those records, the Bureau of Prisons?”
“Yeah. But if you want an answer tonight, you might be able to dig up some stuff on the Internet. Depending on the inmate, there is info up there. May not have what we’re looking for, but we could get lucky.”
“Good,” Vail said, “then let’s find out if this MacNally guy is still alive. If he is, get an address, cell phone, credit card-anything that’d help us pinpoint his whereabouts.” She looked at Yeung. “And where the hell’s Hartman?”
“Not answering,” Yeung said. “Went to voicemail. Probably in a bad zone, without cell service. I was warned about that on the way over from the city.”
Vail shook her head. “If Hartman walked out of here talking on the phone, and he’s not come back, either he’s still on the phone-which can’t be because he doesn’t have service-or he’s turned off his phone, or-”
“Something’s happened to him,” Dixon said.
Burden held up a hand. “Before we assume the worst, let’s get all available personnel together-”
“Wrong,” Vail said. “Assume the worst. The offender took Friedberg, and now he’s got Hartman. Count on it.”
Burden brought his fingers to both temples. “All right. We’ll do a grid search of the island. Hell with the crime scene. Anglin’s not going anywhere. Carondolet-you know this place. Coordinate.”
“Roxx,” Vail said. “Burden, you too. Can I have a word?”
“Now?” Burden asked.
“Now.”
“Get it together,” he said to Carondolet. “I’ll be right there.”
Vail led them down Broadway, to Times Square. Standing beneath the large clock and the West Gun Gallery, Vail took a deep breath and said, “There’s something you two should know.”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Burden said.
“Trust me,” Vail said. “It gets worse. There was a note. When the UNSUB broke into our hotel room, he left a note.”
“No, he didn’t,” Dixon said.
“Yes, Roxx, he did.” Vail locked eyes with Dixon, who was clearly not pleased. In fact, she looked angrier than Vail had ever seen her-and that was saying a lot. “Before you say anything, I apologize. I-I didn’t say anything about it but I’ve got a good reason. No-I’ve got a reason, but it’s not very good.”
Burden folded his arms across his chest. “Karen, get to the goddamn point.”
“Mike Hartman. He was my partner in New York, remember? Before I was promoted to BAU. Something…happened…during that time. No one knew about it except me and Mike.”
“And?” Dixon asked.
“And the note. It said, ‘I know what you did in New York.’”
“How the hell can the UNSUB know what you did in New York if only you and Hartman knew?”
“There was another person who knew. But she’s out of the picture.”
“And why’s that?”
“She’s dead. A few months ago.”
“Who was she?”
Vail bit her lip. “My CI.”
Burden held up a hand. “What the hell does an old confidential informant from New York have to do with a serial killer in San Francisco who did time on Alcatraz decades ago?”
“Nothing,” Vail said. “Like I said, she’s out of the equation. Which leaves me and Mike. And that really leaves Mike. That’s what I was trying to ask him, down on the dock. Actually, I’ve been calling him for a couple days now, but he wasn’t returning my messages. I called his field office and they told me he was out of town and due back tonight.”
“So let’s rule out Hartman as the killer,” Dixon said. “Right?”
“Mike’s got his issues, but he’s not a psychopath.”
“Okay,” Burden said. “So what’s the connection?”
“That is the question.”
“That’s not the only question.” Burden’s gaze was penetrating. “What did you do in New York? What’s the UNSUB talking about?”
Vail curled a lock of red hair behind her ear and broke eye contact. “Eugenia. My CI. For over two years, I paid her by the book, two to three hundred at a time for info she gave me on illegal firearms, drugs-her info was always spot on. Bureau’s very strict about how you handle, develop, and pay your CIs. Forms have to be filled out specifying the amount you’re paying them-and the CI has to countersign.”
Carondolet came jogging over. “I called for some backup, but it’ll be fifteen to twenty before they get here. And we can’t leave the Coast Guard cutter unsupervised, so there’s seven of us, plus the island security guard. I’m dividing us up into pairs, and the island into quarters. This isn’t gonna be easy without flashlights.”