“Yes.” I wondered if Calvin had discovered the link even before I did. “But how did you-”
“What are you calling him? Not ‘The Day Four Killer,’ I hope.”
“John.”
Calvin was quiet for a moment. “Yes, that is appropriate.” Then he added, “Patrick, I believe he’s done it before.”
I dropped onto the bed. “You have evidence he’s committed prior homicides?”
“Yes, by reenacting other stories. Specifically, ‘The Man of Law’s Tale’ in England last May. The story is from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. As you may know, more than 20 percent of the stories in The Canterbury Tales are based on-”
“Yes, yes,” I said. “I know: The Decameron.”
“Precisely. Well, in lines 428-437 of ‘The Man of Law’s Tale,’ several people are stabbed and then hacked to pieces while seated at a table. I believe your man, John, reenacted this crime and killed four people last year on May 17th at a wedding in Canterbury, and I’m certain the city of the crime was not chosen randomly.”
“No,” I said numbly, trying to let all of this register. “I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“Later in the story, a man’s throat is slit and the bloody knife is left in his lover’s bed. And this very crime occurred the next day, May 18th, in Gloucester.”
“How did you figure this out?”
“Research,” he said simply. “But there are two more. In the next section of the tale, a man is killed for lying, perhaps by God; the context leaves it open for interpretation, and he falls to the ground so forcefully that his eyes pop out of their sockets.” Then he added grimly, “After removing Dr. Roland Smith’s eyes on May 19th, John let him live. The professor committed suicide a week later. At the time of his death, he was England’s leading expert on Geoffrey Chaucer.”
I sat in stunned silence. The implications of what Calvin was saying were staggering.
“And last, in lines 687-688, a false knight is slain. And on May 20th, a man named Byron Night was killed in London, Chaucer’s hometown. That one was harder to connect, but-”
“The progression of the crime spree and the timing of the murder would have made the crime too much of a coincidence.”
“Spot on.”
“Unbelievable.”
As Calvin spoke about this last murder, I was reminded that yesterday, immediately before ending his phone call to me, John had said that dusk would arrive today, “just like it did in London.”
It’s him, Pat. He was connecting the dots for you.
Could there have been more crime sprees? More murders that we didn’t know about, perhaps based on the other authors who drew material from Boccaccio-Tennyson, Longfellow, Shakespeare, Faulkner. .. Right now, I couldn’t afford to think about that. It was too overwhelming.
“So, before now,” I said, “no one linked the crimes in England because each was so different.”
“Yes. A different modus operandi, signature, cause of death, as well as no evidentiary connection between the victims or similar motives for the crimes.”
“Linkage blindness.”
“Exactly.”
Even though Calvin’s information bore relevance to the killings in Colorado, he’d started the conversation by telling me that his research had uncovered something relevant to my testimony. “Calvin, a minute ago you said this had something to do with today’s trial. What did you mean by that?”
“I no longer believe Richard Basque is guilty of the crimes for which he is being tried.”
I found myself staring at the floor in shock. “What are you talking about?”
“I believe John was responsible for at least four of the murders, possibly more. I can’t go into all of my reasons at the moment. Remember the DNA discrepancies that Professor Lebreau’s students at Michigan State found which precipitated Mr. Basque’s retrial?”
I anticipated what he was about to say. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I believe it is the DNA of the man you refer to as John.”
“Do you have any proof?”
“I’m still in the process of collecting it.”
My mind raced forward and backward through the case. Sorting, analyzing. One moment, everything seemed to make sense, the next moment, nothing did.
If John, rather than Basque, had committed the crimes thirteen years ago, it would explain the DNA discrepancies, as well as the newspaper articles at the ranch: John wouldn’t have been chronicling Basque’s crimes but rather celebrating his own.
It might also explain the attempt on Basque’s life-since, if Richard Basque were dead, the case would in all likelihood go away and John would never come under suspicion.
I tried to wrap my thoughts around everything Calvin had just told me. “Where are you?”
“Denver.”
I rubbed my head. “What?”
“I think I might know who John is. I’m going to-”
A rush of adrenaline. “Who?”
“First, I must try to prove myself wrong.”
“You have to tell me.” My voice had become urgent. Intense.
“I’m sorry, Patrick, but I’m afraid I no longer have the confidence in our system of justice that I used to. Quite frankly-”
“No, Calvin, wait. I’ll be back later today. Wait for me. You have to-”
“Hopefully, this case will be resolved by then.”
“Listen to me-”
He hung up.
Immediately, I punched in the number for cybercrime to have them trace the call, even though I expected that Calvin would be too careful to let us find him.
But they did find him, or at least the location of the phone he’d used.
The call had come from police headquarters in downtown Denver.
Steven James
The Knight
92
I speed-dialed Kurt and told him what was going on. “Calvin’s there, right now, at HQ. He just called me from one of your phones.”
“Hang on. I’ll be back in a sec.” As I waited, I thought of what Calvin had told me: one of the victims in England had been the country’s leading Chaucer expert.
John told you he was updating Boccaccio’s story for our culture. .. An idea.
I snapped my laptop open, cruised to my media files. Then, while Kurt spoke on another line with the officers at the headquarters’ front desk, I clicked to the video I’d taken of the interior of Elwin Daniels’s ranch house.
A media player appeared on my screen.
On the phone, I heard Kurt assigning officers to each of the building’s exits. Finally, he said to me, “What do you want us to do if we find Dr. Werjonic?”
“Hold him for questioning.” I was dragging the cursor along the video. I knew what I was looking for; it would be somewhere in the middle of the footage. “I have reason to believe that Calvin has criminal intent.”
A moment of hesitation. “You sure about this?”
Even though Calvin hadn’t made any specific threats on the phone, I knew what he’d been implying. “I believe a man’s life might be in danger.”
I came to the footage of the bathroom.
“All right,” Kurt said. “I’m trusting you on this one, Pat; but I can’t believe you’re telling me to hold Dr. Calvin Werjonic.”
The medicine cabinet.
The countertop beside the sink.
I pressed “pause.” Enlarged the image as much as I could and found what I was looking for-tiny, almost indistinguishable stippled marks on the four tubes of toothpaste. “And Kurt, get some officers to Dr. Adrian Bryant’s and Benjamin Rhodes’s homes immediately. Go to Bryant’s first.”
“You think one of them might be the killer?”
“No. I think they might be the next two victims.”
“What?” he exclaimed.
“I’ll explain later.” I felt helpless being in Chicago when all this was going down in Denver. “But if you find the men, get them to the hospital immediately. I think they’ve been poisoned. John put the bufotoxin in their toothpaste.”
“You’re not making any sense, Pat.”
“Just do it, Kurt. Move.” He told me he’d get back to me as soon as he had more, and I reminded him to call me on Tessa’s phone. As I ended the call I noticed the time: 7:14 a.m.