“I did,” I say.
“How is he?”
“Dead.”
His eyes go wide. “Oh. Well. I’m—”
“Don’t say sorry. I’ve heard that too much. I can’t remember. What does your father do for a living?”
“He was a programmer. I, too, followed in my father’s footsteps.”
“And how’s your mother?”
“Dead.”
I don’t blanch with his similar reply to mine. This job prepares you for about anything. “I see,” I say simply. “How?”
“Heart attack when I was in college. I met my wife shortly after. She helped me get through it. Oh, how are your grandparents?”
“Good. Well,” I reluctantly add, “my grandfather has dementia. But otherwise good.”
“Ouch. That’s rough. He was a brilliant mind, if I remember correctly. Why does it always happen to them?”
“I don’t know.”
We’re solemn for a moment and then he brings up one of our old teachers. That leads us to talk about a few of the other students, and I’m surprised by how hard I end up laughing. “Those were good times,” I say, relaxed now.
“Except for that one incident. The boy who died.”
Unease I can’t explain slides down my spine. I know the incident. Of course I do. We lived in a small town and, while I was home sick the day of our poetry studies, one of my girlfriends told me about another student, poor awkward Henry, being mocked during his reading, and then beat up after class. Later, his bully ended up dead. Why even bring this up? “The murder,” I say, looking for a reaction.
“That’s what they said way back when. All I know is we were all different after whatever it was happened.” His cell phone rings and he grabs it. “Wifey.” He holds up a finger. “Hey, honey. Yes. Yes, I can bring home milk. Yes, I can help with homework. I’m on my way. Love you, too.” He disconnects. “Well, this has been fun. I’d better run.” He motions to the folder. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“I will.”
I watch him leave, and I’m bothered by the talk of the boy who died, but I set that aside. I didn’t feel that familiar evil with Nolan. I didn’t feel it with Newman, either. Newman was a different kind of evil. I’m not going to ignore my feeling this time and hyper-focus on the wrong person.
Chapter 103
Friday, I sign the papers on my new house and then it’s back to work. I head to my home office, otherwise known as the room with the coffee pot, and follow up with the lead tech at the FBI office in San Antonio, who I’d tasked with researching the list of Nolan’s hundreds of employees. I drink my late morning coffee while chatting about our possible suspects, but the bottom line ends with a less than encouraging result. We don’t have a good suspect, and I’m left feeling like I need to depend on me.
Determined to figure out what we’re missing, I spend most of the rest of my day in my apartment, staring at the poetry now plastered on my upstairs wall. I read through random expert opinions about deeper meanings of each work to no real end. The answer to who The Poet is, and how to find him, has to be in the poems. I just can’t figure out the puzzle they represent.
Hours later, I settle into bed, still working the puzzle, scribbling notes on a pad of paper. When I finally lie down and drift into sleep it’s with that pad on my chest. It’s not a restful sleep, either. The nightmare haunts me again, the one about my father dying and the man in the hoodie watching us, ignoring my plea for help.
I wake with a vise around my chest and a call from Wade. “We got him, baby. My manhunt is over. The bastard killed five people, but he didn’t get another after I got involved.”
“I had no doubt you would get him. I just hate that so many people died.” We talk a bit about the manhunt and all that went into it as I try to shake off a bad night of no real rest.
“I’m coming home tonight,” Wade says. “How about a late dinner out?”
I counteroffer. “How about a working dinner? I’m going to my grandfather’s birthday party this afternoon and I’m still no further ahead on this case.”
“That works. I’ll be there. I’ll call you when I land.”
We disconnect, and I head out for my morning run. I end with my normal coffee stop, and this time when I exit to have the neon shoe guy run by, I feel an odd tingle of discomfort. I hand my coffee to a stranger and take off after him, but by the time I reach the corner, he’s gone. I call Chuck and ask him to check the traffic cameras, but our luck is no better this time. The runner’s hat covers his face, and he disappears off camera not far from my apartment.
This incident bothers me all morning, tangling with my nightmare for top billing. With excess energy and a few hours to kill, I head to Ava’s neighborhood. Once there, I grab another egg salad sandwich and head to the library. Fortunately, my little table I’d enjoyed on my prior visit is available. I load up on poetry books, sit down, and start to scan the stack for any clues to my unsolved puzzle that is The Poet and the messages he’s left with his victims.
I’m halfway through my sandwich when my hand stills on a book titled The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot’s Contemporary Prose by T. S. Eliot. It’s a version of the same book that my grandfather had been reading when I’d visited him. The coincidence is chilling, almost as if the universe is trying to tell me something.
I open the book and manage to land on the optional signature card. Ice slides down my spine with the scripted signature of a name I know well: Ava Lloyd.
Inhaling sharply, I do not like the idea that my grandfather had a version of this book out in his room, only a few days ago. I calm myself with a reminder that this is a famous work, used regularly in many classrooms. This isn’t about my grandfather. It’s about a madman I call The Poet. The clue here could very well be leading me full circle, back to the classroom and Roberts’s first nickname for The Poet: The Professor.
I dial Chuck. “Are we looking at Ava’s professors yet?”
“None of them fit the profile.”
“Look deeper, at their families and friends. We need to look for any class that includes an analysis of The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot’s Contemporary Prose by T. S. Eliot. And find out if any of the other victims, in any city or state, took a class that included that book in their curriculum.” My brows dip with a thought. “Ava offered private tutoring. Maybe she used it herself in her curriculum. Find out if CSI has anything that might indicate poetry in her curriculums, especially this work.”
I certainly used it, I think. I highlighted it in my poetry club for its unique structure and content, but I did so because I was inspired by my grandfather’s love of the work. Someone might have inspired her to love it as well.