The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [68]
“I see your point.”
“But I imagine with all the traveling you do, it’s still rough. Nothing spells cop—or agent—like d-i-v-o-r-c-e.”
Quincy shrugged. The breakup of his marriage still bothered him. “Yeah, and then guys like Bundy are getting married and fathering children from death row. I’ll never understand women.”
“Not that you’re bitter.”
Quincy laughed reluctantly. “Not that I’m bitter,” he agreed.
“So, Agent, do you have any good news for me?”
“I have news,” Quincy said with a sigh. “But I don’t think it’s good.”
He led Houlihan over to the small working space he’d managed to claim. His laptop was already open and running. “Okay, so Beckett has a pattern.”
“You solved Beckett’s pattern?”
“We did, and you’re going to like this. We’ve been looking at numerology, astrology, lunar cycles. I had a friend of mine from the CIA—a decoder specialist—looking up longitudes and latitudes of crime scenes and trying to crack an encrypted message. Computers have been chewing away on this stuff, all because we know how clever Jim can be. And you want to know the answer? I’ll show you the answer.”
Quincy turned his computer so Houlihan could see the screen.
“Shit,” the lieutenant said.
“Absolutely. Strictly grade-school stuff. You know how hard he must have been laughing over this in his prison cell? He’s so clever, he makes stupid look good.”
Quincy shook his head. It was all there on the screen and he’d discovered it purely by accident. He’d been listing all the female victims in order in one column. Then he’d listed the crime scenes in order in the next column. He’d glanced at the column. If you took the first letter from each city and scrambled them, they read: Jim Beckett. The bastard had spelled his name in dead women.
“Help me out here, Agent. What does this mean?”
“It means there’s method to his madness. It means his talk of discipline isn’t completely smoke and mirrors. And, Lieutenant, it means he isn’t done.”
“Sure he is, he spelled his name. No letters are missing.”
“These are the dead women, Lieutenant. His past work. Then he attacked his wife in Williamstown—”
“He didn’t kill her.”
“Nope, he didn’t. But he was sent to jail, and there he killed two prison guards. At MCI Cedar Junction in Walpole.”
Lieutenant Houlihan fell silent. Then, “W. He wanted the letter W. Jim Beckett w. What does that mean?”
“It means he has more to say. Maybe Jim Beckett was something or Jim Beckett wants something. I don’t know. But there’s a phrase in his head and he won’t stop until he’s gotten it out. He’s not done, Houlihan. He’s not done.”
“Lieutenant,” a voice called across the room. “I have Lieutenant Berttelli from Connecticut on the phone for you.”
Houlihan and Quincy exchanged glances. Houlihan took the call at a nearby table. It lasted just a few minutes.
“They found Shelly Zane. You coming?”
“Yes. What city?”
“Avon. Avon, Connecticut.”
Quincy added it to his column.
IT TOOK THREE hours to drive to the cheap roadside motel outside of Avon. The crime scene photographer had just finished up, and now the Connecticut task force officers were bagging the evidence. Two officers were trying to figure out how to move the queen-size bed, which was bolted to the floor. Finally they decided severing the bolts would disturb the crime scene too much, so they instructed a rookie to crawl beneath the bed and retrieve the victim’s fingers.
When Quincy walked in, that was the first thing he saw—some rookie’s butt sticking up from beneath the bed as he reached for Shelly Zane’s fingers. Those were the games Beckett liked to play. He liked to mutilate his victim’s hands and he liked to mess with cops. Somewhere right now Jim was probably driving down a highway and chuckling at the thought of some rookie on his hands and knees recovering bloody fingers and trying not to retch.
Quincy walked into the bathroom, where Shelly Zane