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.She had the aid of a bureau cryptologist and the FBI cipher computer, which had a database that made the RocAy's look like a comic book."Including your brother and Brooks, we came up with a total of five direct connections through the notes," she said."So in about three hours you did what it took me all week to do.How'd you get McCafferty without the note in the file?"She took her foot off the gas and looked over at me.Only for a moment, then she took the car back up to speed."We didn't count McCafferty.There are agents from the Baltimore field office on that now."This was puzzling because I had five cases, including McCafferty."Then what five have you got?""Uh, let me think.""Okay, my brother and Brooks, that's two."I was opening my notebook as I said this."Right? Reading my notes, I said, "You got Kotite in Albuquerque? 'Haunted by ill angels'?""Right.We have him.There was one "Dallas.Garland Petry.'Sadly, I know I am shom of my strength." From 'For Annie."""Yeah, got that.":'And then I had McCafferty.Who'd you have?""llh, something or other from Florida.It was an old one.He was a sheriff's deputy.I need my notes.""Wait a minute," I flipped through a few pages of my notebook and found it."Clifford Beltran, Sarasota County Sheriff's Department.He-2' "That's it.""But wait a minute.I've got his note as 'Lord help my poor soul." I read all the poems.That wasn't in any of them.""You're right.We found it somewhere else.""Where? One of the short stories?""No.They were his last words.Poe's last words, 'Lord help my poor soul."' I nodded.It wasn't a poem but it fit.So now there were six.I was quiet a moment, almost in respect to the new man added to the list.I looked down at my notes.Beltran had been dead three years.A long time for a murder to go unnoticed."Was Poe a suicide?""No, though I suppose his lifestyle might be considered a long suicide.He was a womanizer and a heavy drinker.He died at forty, apparently after a lengthy drinking bout in Baltimore."I nodded, thinking about the killer, the phantom, and wondering if he drew corollaries to Poe's life."Jack, what about McCafferty?" she asked."We had him as a possible but no note according to the protocol.What did you get?"Now I had another problem.Bledsoe.He had revealed something to me that he had not revealed to anyone before.I didn't feel I could just turn around and give it to the FBI."I've gotta make a call first before I can tell you.""Oh, Jesus, Jack.You're going to pull that shit after all I just told you? I thought we had a deal.""We do.I just have to make a call first and clear something with a source.Get me to a phone and I'll do it right then.I don't think it will be a problem.Anyway, the bottom line is McCafferty is on the list.There was a note."I looked through my notebook again and then read from it."'The fever called living is conquered at last." That was the note.It's from 'For Annie." Just like Petry in Dallas."I looked over at her and could tell she was still upset."Look Rachelan I call you that?-I'm not going to hold back on you.I'll make the call.Your agents from the field office probably already got this anyway.""Probably,""the said, in a voice that seemed to say, Anything you can get we can get better."Okay, so go on, then.What happened after you came up with the list of five?" She told me that at six o'clock Thursday evening she and Backus had convened a meeting of BSS and Critical Incident Unit agents to discuss her preliminary findings.After she trotted out the five names she had and explained the connections, her boss, Backus, became agitated and ordered a full-scale priority investigation.Waller was named lead agent, reporting to him.Other BSS and CIU agents were assigned to victimology and profiling tasks, and VICAP liaison agents from local field offices in the five cities where the deaths occurred were scrambled to immediately begin gathering and shipping data on the deaths involved.The team had literally worked through the night."What?""We're calling him the Poet.Every task force investigation gets a code name [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]