Chapter Text
Will Graham sat Jack Crawford down at a picnic table between the house and the ocean and gave him a glass of iced tea, Crawford looked at the pleasant old house, salt-silvered wood in the clear light.
"I should have caught you in Marathon when you got off work," he said. "You don't want to talk about it here."
Graham bowed his head and stayed silent, the receding sunlight hit his bangs, shadowing his face in a cradle of golden hay. Crawford looked back, his gaze expectant.
Their silence was filled with the sounds of the sea and distant traffic.
Finally, Graham spoke, his voice weary and soft: "I don't want to talk about it anywhere, Jack. If you've got to talk about it, then let's have it...Just don't get out any pictures, leave them in the briefcase...Molly and Josh will be back soon."
"Well, " Crawford sighed and combed back his hair, "how much do you know?"
"Whatever was in the Miami Herald and the Times," Graham said. "Two families killed in their houses a month apart. Birmingham and Atlanta. The circumstances were similar."
"Not similar. The same."
"How many confessions so far?"
Crawford observed Graham before answering. The lashes that obscured his downcast eyes fluttered for the breeze. The corners of his mouth were strained and they twitched.
"Eighty-six when I called in this afternoon," Crawford sipped his tea quietly. "Cranks. None of them knew details. He smashes the mirrors and uses the pieces. None of them knew that."
"What else did you keep out of the papers?"
"He's blond, right-handed and really strong, wears a size-eleven shoe. He can tie a bowline. The prints are all smooth gloves."
Graham made a face. "You said that in a press conference."
"He's not too comfortable with locks," Crawford retorted. "Used a glass cutter and a suction cup to get in the house last time. Oh, and his blood's AB positive."
"Was he injured?"
"Not that we know of. We typed him from semen and saliva."
"Christ..." Graham slumped back into his chair and rubbed at his eyes.
Crawford looked out at the flat sea. "Will, I want to ask you something. You saw this in the papers. The second one was all over the TV. Did you ever think about giving me a call?" He turned back to Graham. "Why not?"
Hands still over his eyes, Graham replied: "There weren't many details at first on the one in Birmingham. It could have been anything- revenge, a relative."
"But after the second one, you knew what it was."
"Yeah. A psychopath. I didn't call you because I didn't need to. I know who you have already to work on this. You've got the best lab. You'd have Heimlich at Harvard, Bloom at the University of Chicago-"
"And I've got you down here fixing bloody boat motors."
Graham gave a rare smile, a thin line that didn't reach his eyes. "I don't think I'd be all that useful to you, Jack. I never think about it anymore."
"Really? You caught two. The last two we had, you caught."
"How? By doing the same things you and the rest of them are doing."
"That's not entirely true, Will. It's the way you think."
"I think there's been a lot of bullshit about the way I think."
"You made some jumps you never explained."
"The evidence was there," Graham said.
Crawford smiled now, he had successfully eased into harmless banter. "Sure. Sure there was. Plenty of it- afterward. Before the collar there was so damn little we couldn't get probable cause to go in."
"You have the people you need, Jack. I don't think I'd be an improvement. I came down here to get away from that."
"I know it. You got cut last time. But now you look all right."
"I'm all right. It's not about getting cut. You've been hurt."
"I have, but not like that."
"It's not that. I just decided to stop. I don't think I can explain it, I don't want to have to do it again."
"If you couldn't look at it anymore, God knows I'd understand that."
"No. You know having to look. It's always bad, but you get so you can function anyway, as long as they're dead. The hospital, interviews, that's worse. You have to shake it off and keep on thinking. I don't believe I can do it now. I can make myself look, but I'd shut down the thinking."
"Is it your nightmares?"
Graham did not answer.
They sat in silence again and watched the sunset on a watery horizon.
Once again, Jack Crawford heard the rhythm and syntax of his own speech in Graham's voice. He had heard Graham do that before, with other people.
Often, Graham would tell you what was sitting in your head, or ask a question you wanted to ask. At first, Crawford had thought he was doing it deliberately, that they were gimmicks to maintain the upper hand.
Later Crawford realized that Graham did it involuntarily, that sometimes he tries to stop and can't.
"These are all dead, Will," Crawford said as kindly as he could. He dipped into his jacket pocket with two fingers. Then flipped two photographs across the table, face up. "All dead," he said.
Graham stared at him in momentary disbelief. What Crawford was doing was, by all means, very predictable; shocking nonetheless.
Graham slowly picked up the pictures.
They were only snapshots: A woman, followed by three children and a puppy, carried picnic items up to the bank of a pond. A family stood behind a cake.
After half a minute he put the photographs down again. He pushed them into a stack with his finger and looked far down the beach where a boy hunkered, examining something in the sand. Molly stood watching, a hand on her hip.
Graham, ignoring his guest, watched the two for as long as he had looked at the pictures.
Crawford was pleased. He kept the satisfaction out of his face with the same care he had used to choose the site of this conversation. He's playing Graham well, and there was something twisted with the delight he felt.
Suddenly, three remarkably ugly dogs appeared; they wandered in circles and flopped to the ground around the table.
"My God," Crawford said.
"These are probably dogs," Graham explained. "People dump small ones here all the time. I can give away the cute ones. The rest stay around and get big with Josh."
"They're fat enough." Crawford nudged one away with his foot. "You've got a nice life here, Will. Molly and the boy, Josh. How old is he?"
"Eleven."
"Good-looking kid. He's going to be taller than you."
Graham nodded. "His father was. I'm lucky here. I know that."
"I wanted to bring Bella down here. Florida. Get a place when I retire, and stop living like a cave fish. She says all her friends are in Arlington."
"I meant to thank her for the books she brought me in the hospital, but I never did. Tell her for me."
"I'll tell her."
A bright butterfly lit on the table, it flew around Graham, Crawford watched the thing bounce around and felt a surge of guilt.
"Will, this freak seems to be in phase with the moon. He killed the Jacobis in Birmingham on Saturday night, June 28th, full moon. He killed the Leeds family in Atlanta night before last, July 26th. That's one day short of a lunar month. So if we're lucky we may have a little over three weeks before he does it again." He cleared his throat.
"I don't think you want to wait here in the Keys and read about the next one in your Miami Herald. Hell, I'm not the pope, I'm not saying what you ought to do, but I want to ask you, do you respect my judgment, Will?"
Crawford waited, he knew it was inevitable.
"Yes."
"I think we have a better chance to get him fast if you help. Hell, Will, saddle up and help us. Go to Atlanta and Birmingham and look, then come on to Washington. Just TDY."
Graham did not answer.
Crawford waited for five waves to lap the beach. Then he got up and slung his suit coat over his shoulder. It was time to retreat, the man needed to cook.
"Let's talk after dinner."
"Stay and eat."
Crawford shook his head. "I'll come back later. There'll be messages at the Holiday Inn and I'll be a while on the phone. Tell Molly thanks, though."
Crawford's rented car raised thin dust that settled on the bushes beside the shell road.
Graham returned to the table. He was afraid that this was how he would remember the end of Sugarloaf Key- ice melting in two tea glasses and paper napkins fluttering off the redwood table in the breeze and Molly and Josh far down the beach.