“What did he say to you during the first conversation this morning?” Agent Kavanaugh asked.
We had been sequestered in the back of the panel van for something close to half an hour by now. She had all but dismissed my objection to the idea that Eldon Porter was using any type of firearm, as well as my suggestion that she talk to Ben for an explanation as to how I could be so certain. Of course, I don’t suppose that his answer would have been any more convincing than mine.
“Which part?” I asked, still trying to temper my impatience at the “hurry up and wait” overtone of the current situation.
The order of the moment was taking the form of an in-depth interview of yours truly. The questions that comprised the Q amp; A ranged from the expected to the seemingly non sequitur. She had already made several queries that appeared to come from far left and well over the horizon, leading me at times to simply stare back at her with a dumbstruck gaze.
She gave me a quick shake of her head. “Any details you can remember. Any at all.”
“Let’s see,” I sighed heavily. “He quoted a few Bible verses to me, then informed me that he intended to rape my wife. Is that what you want to know?”
The abruptness in my voice was unmistakable. Any attempt at disguising my anxiety was effectively rendered null and void by my rapidly hardening attitude.
Kavanaugh stared back at me for a moment, wagging the ballpoint pen back and forth between her thumb and forefinger as she drummed it on the legal pad in her lap. The rhythm of the nervous tick wasn’t helping my headache in the least. If anything, it was simply reminding me that it was there. I was just about to reach out and snatch the pen from between her fingers when she stopped.
“Mister Gant,” she began. “I know this is hard, and trust me, I realize this doesn’t seem important to you, but each detail gives us something more to work with.”
“Forgive me,” I told her. “But some of your questions really haven’t made much sense to me.”
“On the surface, to most people, they don’t,” she agreed. “But we aren’t in a normal situation here. Specific details are important to the overall profile of both the individual and the situation.”
“Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t see how some of the things you’ve asked can relate to all of this.”
“Believe me, Mister Gant, you would be amazed by what seemingly insignificant details can sometimes mean the difference between peaceful resolution and tragedy.”
“Maybe so, but ten minutes ago you asked me what color coat he was wearing earlier today. I mean, come on…”
“Do you play chess, Mister Gant?”
“Yes,” I answered. “And will you please call me Rowan? I’ve been getting ‘Mistered’ and ‘Sir’ed’ to death today.”
“All right, Rowan,” she continued. “As a chess player, you are certainly familiar with the concept of a stalemate, correct?”
“Of course.”
“Well, that’s exactly what a hostage scenario is. A stalemate. A big, hairy, no-win situation. The thing is, the hostage-taker doesn’t know this. We do, but he doesn’t. His mental state usually places him in one of two frames of mind. Either he believes he has the upper hand and will be able to force his demands on us, or he is in such a state of desperation that he believes he cannot win.
“The second state is the worst because that is usually when he will start killing hostages in an attempt to regain perceived control of the situation. Our job is to make an end run around the stalemate by convincing him that we are as concerned for his well being as we are for the hostage or hostages.”
“I understand that,” I said. “But the color of his coat?”
“Sometimes, even when you think it is going well, something that appears wholly unrelated can make everything go sour.” Kavanaugh sighed. “Let me give you an example. I worked a hostage negotiation three years ago in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a bank robbery gone bad. The gunman had five hostages, but things had stayed fairly calm. We were in the ninth hour, and everything was going by the book. It really looked like we were going to be able to bring on a positive resolution with no casualties, not even the gunman.
“As a good faith move for the release of one of the hostages, we gave in to a request for soda. A specific brand of root beer actually.” She paused for a moment. There was a distant look in her eyes that bespoke of repressed sadness and maybe even a modicum of self-blame. She looked down at the notepad in her lap then back to me. “Two minutes after we sent it in, the gunman went berserk, and without warning he killed the hostage he had told us he would release. He shot her point blank in the back of the head as he shoved her out the door.
“Her name was Becky, and she was a twenty-three-year-old teller-trainee with a husband and a one-year-old daughter.” She paused again as if taking a moment to force the memory from her mind, and then asked, “Do you know why he killed her?”
I simply shook my head.
Her expression moved in the direction of controlled anger for a pair of seconds and then blanked to a professional, matter-of-fact countenance as she looked me in the eyes. “Because the soda was in a can instead of a bottle. We had missed a detail.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say that I was sure hadn’t already been said. I let out a heavy breath and closed my eyes. I had been able to feel the burst of anguish that came from Agent Kavanaugh as she relayed the incident. To be honest, when she had first started, I wasn’t entirely sure the story was going to be anything more than a textbook example. That thought proved itself to be wrong within the first few sentences.
Still, had it not been for the empathic connection now presenting itself, I’m sure I would have believed she had fabricated the whole thing simply to benefit her explanation. I think maybe Ben’s jaded attitude had done more than just begun to wear off on me. It had become an integral part of my personal makeup.
“So…” She stopped short. I watched as she consciously took a deep breath herself, and then she began again. “So, I know that some of my questions might seem off the wall to you, Rowan, but there is a reason for them. Everything matters even if you don’t think it does.”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered.
She shook her head. “Don’t be. I didn’t tell you that story to make you sorry. I want you to understand. As long as you do, that’s all that counts.”
“I think I do.”
“Good. Now can you give me any details from that call?”
I nodded. “I can try.”
I searched my memory for a moment, trying to remember specifics of a conversation that seemed to have taken place ages ago but in reality was no more than twelve hours old. My thoughts were muddy from lack of sleep and an overabundance of sensory input. I swam through the murk and seized on the snippets I found floating about the dark mental waters.
“His biblical references were all Satan specific,” I finally recalled aloud. “Ecclesiastes three, three. Second Corinthians, Book of Revelation. I’m pretty sure they were all from the King James Version.”
Kavanaugh scribbled a note on the legal pad. “Why does that stick out in your mind?”
“Because he follows the covenants and procedures of the Malleus Maleficarum,” I told her and then added a short explanation. “It’s a Witch-hunting text that was written by a pair of inquisitors posing as theologians in the year fourteen eighty-four. The King James version of the Holy Bible wasn’t published until over one hundred years later in sixteen eleven.”
“What do you think is the significance of that?” she pressed.
“It’s probably just a part of his mental state,” I offered. “It may be nothing. Truth is, the King James version of the Bible is the most commonly available, but what is so peculiar to me is that he has gone to a great deal of trouble to research things. From the Malleus Maleficarum, to various practices of the Inquisition, and even the pomp and ceremony of the executions. When I had my run-in with him last year, he was wearing the clerical collar of a Catholic priest. So in a way, I would have halfway expected him to use the version of the Bible connected with that period of history. All of it is the Christian faith, yes, but the translations aren’t exactly the same.
“However,” I said, “The prison ministry that is most likely responsible for sending him down this path is Evangelical, Old Testament, fire and brimstone. His indoctrination would have come from the KJV, so the discrepancy might be moot.”
“You never know. So your perception is that he is confused?” Kavanaugh asked as she scribbled.
“Absolutely,” I agreed. “Or at the very least, mislead.”
“What about his threat to rape your wife?”
“That was yet another thing that tied in to his research,” I stated flatly. “And he even told me as much. The fact is that it wasn’t uncommon for inquisitors to rape the accused as a form of torture. But the real reason he made the threat was to piss me off. What started out for him last year as a re-establishment of the fifteenth century Inquisition has now become focused on a personal vendetta.”
“Because you shot him?”
“That’s part of it, probably,” I acknowledged. “But I have a feeling that I was on his list long before that. When he makes references to me being the spawn of Satan, it’s not just a metaphor. I think he honestly believes, that by killing me, he is effectively beheading the monster. Eliminating the source of WitchCraft.”
“Why do you think he became so focused on you?”
“Just lucky I guess,” I quipped and then made a dismissive gesture of apology. “I’m sorry. Seriously, if I had to guess, it was probably because at the time he started his crusade I was in the public eye. There was a newspaper article running about me because I was teaching an ongoing alternative religion and tolerance seminar for the city police department.”
Kavanaugh nodded thoughtfully and underlined a couple of specific passages in her notes. “Is there anything else you can remember from that conversation?”
I took a sip of the coffee from the thermos cup and realized it had cooled considerably. Still, it wet my throat and that was primarily what I was after.
“His manner of speech, maybe,” I replied.
“How so?”
“This morning he was much more formal. He seemed calm, and his selection of wording was less conversational and more like it was staged. That’s pretty much how he was that night on the bridge as well. Deliberate and rehearsed.”
“That’s not uncommon when dealing with a psychosis,” she returned, making a quick note. “The insane will often slip between conversational and non-conversational English. It’s an indicator of the individual’s current state of stability.”
“Yeah.” I nodded in agreement. “But this whacko is a wildcard. It’s when he sounds rational that I really get worried.”
“That’s how most of them are,” Agent Kavanaugh replied with a curt nod as she proceeded to circle a few more spots within her page of notes. “I want to go ahead and get this out to the team so they can get it up on the board for the negotiator,” she told me as she stood up, still perusing the handwritten words. “I shouldn’t be gone for very long. There’s an agent right outside…”
“…To make sure I stay inside,” I completed her sentence.
“I was going to say, in case you need anything,” she replied flatly.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, unable to keep all of the sarcasm out of my tone.
“But since you brought it up…” She purposely allowed the comment to go uncompleted.
“I’ll be good,” I replied. “But could you do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Ben Storm,” I said. “The detective I was with. Could you let him know where I am? He tends to worry like a mother hen.”
“He already knows,” she told me. “But I’ll say something to him.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“No problem.”