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I SHUT MYSELF AWAY to think,
to quietly obsess about Thomas Pierce and Mr.
Smith.
I made suggestions to Kyle Craig about
moves that Pierce might make, and precautions he
should think about taking. Agents were dispatched to watch
Pierce's apartment in Cambridge. Agents
camped out at his parents'house outside Laguna
Beach, and even at the gravesite of Isabella
Calais.
Pierce had been passionately in love with
Isabella Calais! She had been the only onefor
him! Isabella and Thomas Pierce! That was the
key -- Pierce's obsessive love for her.
He at sufferingfrom unbearable guilt, I
wrote in my notepad. If my hypothesis is
right, then what clues are missing? Back at
Quantico, a team of FBI profilers; was
trying to solve the problem on paper. They had all
worked closely with Pierce in the BSU.
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Absolutely nothing in Pierce's background was
con-
sistent with the psychopathic killers they had dealt
with before. Pierce had never been abused, either
physically or sexually. There was no violence of
any kind in his background. At least not as
far as anyone knew. There was no warning, no hint of
madness, no sign until he blew sky-high.
He was an original.
There had never been a monster anything like him. There
were no precedents.
I wrote: Thomas Pierce was deeply in
love. You are in love, too. What would it mean
to murder the only person in the world whom you loved?
Chapter 12 3
I COULDN'T MANAGE any sympathy, or
even a modicum of clinical empathy, for
Pierce. I despised him, and his cruel,
coldblooded murders, more than any of the other
killers I had taken down -- even SoneJi.
Kyle Craig and Sampson felt the same, and so
did most of the Bureau, especially the good folks in
Behavioral Science. We were the ones in a rage
state now. We were obsessed with stopping Pierce.
Was he using that to beat our
brains in?
The following day, I worked at home again. I
locked myself away with my computer, several books,
and my crime-scene notepads. The only time I
took off was to walk Damon and Jannie to school,
and then have a quick breakfast with Nana.
My mouth was full of poached egg and toast when
she leaned across the kitchen table and launched one of her
famous sneak attacks on me. "Am I
correct in saying that you don't want to discuss your
murder case with me?" she asked. "I'd rather talk
about the weather or just about anything else. Your garden
looks beautiful. Your hair looks nice."
"We all like Christine very much, Alex. She's
knocked our
socks off. In case you wanted to know but forgot
to ask. She's the best thing that's happened to you since
Maria. So, what are
you going to do about it? What are your plans?"
I rolled my eyes back, but I had to smile
at Nana's dawn offensive. "First, I'm going
to finish this delicious breakfast you fixed. Then I
have some dicey work to do upstairs. How's that? was "You
mustn't lose her, Alex. Don't do that," Nana
advised and warned at the same time. "You won't
listen to a decrepit old woman, though. What do
I know about anything? I just cook and clean around
here." "And talk," I said with my mouth full.
"Don't forget talk, old woman." "Not just
talk, sonny boy Pretty sound psychological
analysis, necessary cheerleading at times, and
expert guidance counseling." "I have a game
plan," I said, and left it at that. "You better have
a winning game plan." Nana got the last word
in. "Alex, if you lose her, you will never get
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over it."
The walk with the kids and even talking with Nana
revitalized me. I felt clear and alert as I
worked at my old rolltop for the rest of the morning.
I had started to cover the bedroom walls with
notes and theories, and the beginnings of even more theories
about Thomas Pierce. The pushpin parade had taken
control. From the looks of the room, it seemed as if
I knew what I was doing, but con-
trary to popular opinion, looks are almost always
deceiving. I had hundred of clues, and yet I
didn't have a clue.
I remembered something Mr. Smith had written
in one of his messages to Pierce, which Pierce had
then passed on to the FBI. The god within us is the
one that gives the laws and can change the laws. And
God is within us.
The words had seemed familiar to me, and I finally
tracked down the source. The quote was from Joseph
Campbell, the American mythologist and
folklorist who had taught at Harvard
when Pierce was a student there.
I was trying different perspectives to the
puzzle. Two entry points in particular interested
me.
First, Pierce was curious about language. He
had studied linguistics at Harvard. He admired
Noam Chomsky. What about language and words,
then?
Second, Pierce was extremely organized.
He had created the false impression that Mr.
Smith was disorganized. He had purposely
misled the FBI and Interpol.
Pierce was leaving clues from the start. Some o them
were obvious.
He wants to be caught. So why doesn't he
stop himself? Murder. Punishment. Was Thomas
Pierce punishing himself, or
was he punishing everybody else? Right now, he was
certainly punishing the hell out of me. Maybe I
deserved it.
Around three o'clock, I took a stroll and picked
up Damon andjannie at the Sojourner Truth
School. Not that they needed someone to walk them home.
I just missed the hell out of them. I needed to see
them, couldn't keep myself away
Besides, my head ached and I wanted to get out of the
house, away from all of my thoughts.
I saw Christine in the schoolyard. She was
surrounded by little children, I remembered that she wanted
to have kids herself. She looked so happy, and I could
see that the kids loved to be around her. Who in their
right mind wouldn't. She made it look so natural
to be turning jump rope in a navy business
suit.
She smiled when she saw me approaching across the
schoolyard full of kids. The smile warmed the
cockles of my heart, and all my other cockles
as well. "Look who's taking a break for air,"
she said, "three potato, four. was "When I was in
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high school," I told her as she continued to turn
her end of a Day-Glo pink jump rope, "I had
a girlfriend over at John Carroll. This was in my
sophomore and junior years." "Mmm, hmmm.
Nice Catholic girl? White blouse, plaid
skirt, saddle shoes?"
"She was very nice. Actually, she's a botanist
now. See, nice? I used to walk all the way
over to South Carolina Avenue just on
the off chance I might see Jeanne for a couple of
minutes after she finished school. I was
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