Just like the fable he’d circled in the book at his house.
“It’s good to see you, Patrick.”
Because of the missing teeth and the stab wound in his jaw I expected his words to be raspy or coarse, but he sounded chillingly normal and for a brief moment I had the sense that he really was some sort of superhuman monster, that he was incapable of feeling pain or letting it affect him.
I took a seat across the table from him and set my phone beside me, making sure there was no way he would be able to reach it. “I’ll be recording our conversation.” I tapped at the screen to pull up a voice recorder.
“I assumed we were already being recorded.” He nodded toward a small hole in the ceiling near the southeast corner of the room where a camera was carefully hidden. But obviously not hidden well enough. “Watched too.”
“This is for my own personal use.”
“Ah.”
“How many?” I trusted he would know what I was referring to.
“Bodies? Victims?”
“That’s right.”
“I could thank you for not killing me back at the marsh, but from what I’ve heard, you did.”
I chose not to reply.
“But I would like to thank you for not leaving me that way. It would’ve added too much irony to the scene — the marsh where I disposed of the dead becoming the place where I ended up expiring, myself. Quite poetic. I’m glad it didn’t end like that.”
“Tell me about them. About the victims.”
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know if you’ll answer two questions.”
“I’m not here to make deals, Richard.”
“You’ll be wanting to hear what I have to say. There are more bodies than you think.” He paused. “Your team is searching the marsh, I assume?”
“They are.”
“It’s a large area.”
“Yes.”
“I can help you narrow down your search.”
“If I answer your two questions.”
A nod.
All of this was a power play, and I didn’t like the idea of him feeling any sense of power over me, over the investigation, over anything.
However, I was also aware that it’s not uncommon for killers to offer this type of information. Often, recounting their crimes or going to the site of the homicide with authorities to reveal the location of bodies allows murderers to relive the thrill of the kill all over again.
It’s not an easy call, trying to figure out what to do in a situation like this.
I decided to just go for it and see where that took the conversation. “What is it you want to know, Richard?”
“Did you ever wonder about the meat hook — why I said it hit me and that’s what broke my jaw? Back when you first arrested me?”
“The hook? That’s what you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“You wanted one thing to hold over me.”
A slight grin. “That’s so unlike you, Patrick. Delving into motives.”
“I’m branching out. What’s the second question?”
“I want to know if you’ve ever thought what it would be like.”
“To be like you.”
“Yes. I know you try not to enter the minds of the people you track, but do you find yourself climbing deeper into your own mind as you pursue them? Wondering what it would be like to be them? When you’re alone and contemplating the implications of the case, have you ever put yourself in my shoes? Tell me if you have and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Why would you tell me about other victims if I answer that question?”
“Because you’ve already caught me.” He sounded so matter-of-fact about it that it unsettled me. “I have nothing to gain by keeping my crimes a secret. And perhaps, by cooperating, I might find some favor with the judge.”
I didn’t buy it. Basque was too smart for that. He had to know that nothing he said or did at this point would bring him any less than life in prison or the death sentence.
“Yes,” I told him. “I’ve wondered.”
“What it would be like? To be like me?”
“Yes.”
“And where did that take you?”
To acknowledging that there’s a monster inside each of us looking for a way to get out.
It seemed petty to argue with him about the fact that I’d answered his two questions and was now ready for the information about the crimes. It felt almost like if I were to squabble with him, it would prove that he was somehow in control again.
“To the edge of myself,” I said. “To the places I refuse to go.”
He nodded slowly. “I’ve seen the look in your eyes, Patrick. Fourteen years ago when you apprehended me in that slaughterhouse, it was there. Then at my trial, at Dr. Werjonic’s funeral, just before Renee Lebreau’s death when we met at the lawyers’ office. It’s there. I know it is.”
“What’s there?”
“The darkness. You try not to feed it, but it’s there. I can see it. We’re not that different, you and I.”
“We are different. Because I fight against it and you don’t.”
He didn’t answer right away. “If you have to fight it, how do you know you’re always going to win? One day when you’re not so careful, when you’re in the wrong state of mind, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, you might lose.”
I knew that to a certain extent he was right — just as everyone is capable of fighting against his primal desires, everyone is capable of losing that fight.
From out of nowhere a saying came to me: There but for the grace of God go I.
It’s more true than we care to admit.
“I told you what you wanted to know. Tell me about the other victims.”
He leaned back. “Tomorrow.”
More games. More manipulation.
Not a huge surprise.
“I’m not coming back tomorrow, Richard.”
“I think you’ll want to. You’ll finally get the answers you so badly want.”
“No.” I pocketed my phone. “I’ll see you at your trial. We both know you’ll never be a free man again. I’m going to be very thorough when I testify.”
“I’m counting on it.”
Irritated that he’d succeeded in getting me irritated, I returned to my car.
The meeting had been brief, and that was okay by me.
Now I could get over to the Blue Whale.
If the information we had was correct, in less than fifteen minutes the team would be moving in on Valkyrie.
And then neither Basque nor Valkyrie would ever see the light of day again.
I left Headquarters and aimed my car in the direction of the distribution center to join Ralph at the command post.
Even though the dance had started already, there were still a lot of kids outside the school, posing and taking pictures with their dates in the quickly fading light.
Aiden led Tessa toward the front doors. He seemed to know everyone and they all greeted him and gave Tessa mildly intrigued looks. Normally, no one paid her much attention and tonight it kind of got to her. Made her self-conscious.
She wondered what they were thinking, seeing a guy like him — a track star — with a loner girl who argued with their English teacher about the etymology of words.
Despite herself, she placed her left hand over the scars on her arm to hide them from the other kids.
Aiden found some friends, and they all handed phones around, taking each other’s picture, and finally Tessa started to calm down, at least a little.
She was here.
She was with the guy she’d liked all semester.
Tymber was nowhere around.
There was no reason to let anything ruin her night.
They went inside the dimly lit gymnasium and stepped into some kind of boppy song Tessa had never heard before, and she started to dance with her date.