In darkness, I reached for the phone and dialed my mother’s number.
It rang and rang.
III
18
ON a cold, clear Halloween morning, the world watched Washington, D.C., as city police, FBI, Secret Service, and a myriad of media swarmed the White House. It had begun before dawn.
At 4:30 A.M., a jogger running down East Street noticed a pile of cardboard boxes stacked in the frosty grass of the Ellipse, close to the site of the national Christmas tree. Upon returning home, she called 911.
By the time the police arrived, the Secret Service was already on the scene, and suspicion immediately arose that the boxes might contain explosives. So the president was flown to a safe location, the White House staff evacuated, and the quarter-mile stretch of East Street behind the White House occluded.
In Washington, bad news travels fast. By eight o’clock, local and network news crews were camped along the perimeter that the police had established two hundred yards from the boxes. The story broke on every news channel in the country, so by nine o’clock, as a bomb-squad robot rolled toward the portentous heap of cardboard boxes, the world was watching.
For two hours, cameras zoomed in on technicians in bomb-resistant suits as they utilized the robot and X-ray unit to investigate each cardboard box. When a box had been cleared, it was set inside an armored truck. Each was opened, but the cameras were too far away to determine what, if anything, was inside. There were at least a dozen boxes, and the bomb squad treated each one as if it contained a nuclear bomb. Their precision made the task tedious, and eleven o’clock had passed before the last box was cleared and the armored truck drove away.
Speculation began. What was inside the boxes if not a bomb? A hoax? An assassination attempt on the president? Rumors and unconfirmed reports swirled through the coverage until a statement was issued by the FBI at 1:30 as East Street reopened.
Special Agent Harold Trent addressed the nation of reporters, speaking into a cluster of microphones, the back side of the White House visible behind him beneath the late October sky. Twelve boxes, most between one and three cubic feet in volume, had been taken into possession by the FBI. No explosive devices had been found. Inside each box was what appeared to be a human heart and a corresponding name.
The reporters fired questions: Were the names those of real people? Would the names be released? Were there any suspects? Why were the boxes left near the White House? Agent Trent refused to theorize. The investigation had only begun, and a special FBI task force would be assembled to work with state and local police until the person or persons responsible had been taken into custody.
Agent Trent took a deep breath, his exhaustion already evident on the screen that transported his image into my living room. He looked into the cameras and spoke words that would be repeatedly broadcast as sound bites in the coming days.
"There’s a long road ahead of us," he said. "It’ll take some time to verify if these are actually the hearts of missing persons or known murder victims. I pray it’s not the case, but this appears to be the work of a serial murderer. And if it is, he’ll continue to kill until he’s caught." The sturdy black agent walked away from the microphones as reporters shouted questions that he ignored.
The nation was captivated, and the media fueled its obsession. Rampant speculation ignited as the country fell in love with its own fear. Even before the FBI confirmed that the hearts represented actual murders, the media had conceived and birthed a monster.
To the dismay of doctors, they would call him "the Heart Surgeon," the professional title marred from that day forward. No one could say the words without provoking images of FBI agents and the Washington, D.C., bomb squad loading cardboard boxes, the work of a madman, into an armored truck.
How strange it felt to be the only one who knew.
19
MIST whipped my face as my boat crawled toward the middle of the lake. I could hear nothing over the gurgling clatter of the outboard motor mounted to the stern of my leaky rowboat. The evening sky threatened rain as I glided across the leaden chop, scanning the empty lake for Walter’s boat.
A half mile out from my pier, I cut the motor. The cold, darkening silence closed in on me, and I wondered if I’d make it home before the rain set in. Though I despised coming out on the lake, I couldn’t speak to Walter in my house anymore without fear that Orson was eavesdropping.
I heard the groan of Walter’s boat before I saw it. My nerves took over, and I regretted not having knocked back several stiff drinks to facilitate what I had to tell him. Walter pulled his equally powerless rowboat beside mine, tossed over a rope, and I tied us together.
"What’s up?" he asked when he’d killed the motor.
"You see the news?"
"Yeah."
He pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights from his brown raincoat and slid a cigarette into his mouth. From a pocket on my blue raincoat, I tossed him a butane cigar lighter. "Thanks," he said, blowing a puff of smoke out of the corner of his mouth and throwing the lighter back to me. "The media’s tickled pink," he said. "You can see it in their ambitious little faces. I’ll bet they blew their load when they got the tip."
"Think they were tipped, huh?"
"Oh, whoever planted those boxes knew exactly what they were doing. Probably called a dozen newspapers and TV stations after the drop. I’ll bet he told them there was a bomb behind the White House. Then that jogger called nine-one-one, confirming the story, and boom…media frenzy." Walter took a long drag from his cigarette and spoke as the smoke curled from his mouth. "Yeah, the only person happier about those hearts than the press is the sick fuck who left them there. He’s probably sitting in front of a TV right now, jacking off, watching the nation drool over his —"
"It’s Orson," I said. Walter took in a mouthful of smoke, attempting to look unfazed.
"How do you know?" he asked, coughing a little as he exhaled.
"He keeps the hearts. In his cabin in Wyoming, there was a freezer full of them. They’re his trophies, his little keepsakes."
"Andy…"
"Just listen for a minute, Walter."
A gust banged our boats together, and a raindrop hit my face.
How do you tell a man you’ve endangered his wife and children?
"The thing in Washington," I said, "is small potatoes. My mother’s dead. Orson strangled her last night. He videotaped it…. It’s…" I stopped to steady myself. "I’m sorry. But I think I’ve put you in danger." His head tilted questioningly. "I don’t know how, but Orson knows or suspects that I told you about the desert."
"Oh Christ." Walter flicked his cigarette into the water, and it hissed as he put his face into his hands.
"I should never have told you anything about —"
"You’re goddamn right you shouldn’t have."
"Look —"
"What did he say?"
"Walter —"
"What the fuck did he say?" His voice rang out across the lake. A fish splashed in the water nearby.
"The exact words aren’t —"
"Fuck you." He wiped the tears from his face. "What did he say?" I shook my head. "Did he mention my family?" Tears, the first of the day, streamed from my eyes as I nodded. "He mentioned my family?" Walter hyperventilated.
"I am so —"
"How could you let this happen, Andy?"