Neal Alcott, who sat tapping his fingers on the armrest between us.
âFirst, two weeks ago, the guard who killed John Jessup is shot,â I said at last. âThen, this morning, the judge who sentenced Jessup to prison. So the Bureau figures itâs the work of the same man, carrying out the promise he made in that last letter.â
âThatâs the way we see it.â
âA serial killer avenging the death of another serial killer?â
His fingers stopped tapping. âThe guy who shot Cranshaw and Judge Loftus is no serial. Just some garden variety murderer, with a hit list. Itâs personal.â
âFine distinction. The point is, I assume youâre worried that he hasnât finished his mission.â
âProbably not. Thatâs why weâve contacted the ADA who prosecuted Jessup, the jury foreman, the Cleveland cops who bagged himâ¦â
âWhat about Jessupâs defense attorney? The killer might blame him for providing an inadequate defense.â
âMaybe.â A sardonic smile. âWe could end up with a helluva long listâ¦â
We came to a stop at a deserted intersection, then turned down a side street. Like nearby Allentownâwhose economic collapse was memorialized in a pop song by Billy JoelâBraddock reminded me of nothing so much as a frontier ghost town. Foreclosed homes, shuttered family businesses. Streets needing repaired. Only the bars, neon lights buzzing against the hollow night, showed signs of life.
Then, just past the city limits, I caught sight of a low, brooding building off to my right. Easily twice the length of a football field, its knobby, uneven black shape stretched like a fallen giant against the foothills.
It was a steel mill. Or once had been. Abandoned now. Unworked, from the look of it, for many years. Smokestacks rose from its angled roof, no longer pumping clouds of soot into the sky. The blast furnaces that once burned like suns long since gone cold, dead.
Unlike Pittsburgh, whose seventeen miles of steel works had been torn down, victims of the economic cataclysm that ultimately revitalized the city, towns like Braddock had no reason to dismantle their dying mills and factories. Nothing was going to take their place.
By now I could see the blurred contours of a Motel 6 loom up out of the patchwork night. It was a squat, two-storied building half-buried under the past three daysâ snowfall. As we pulled into the lot, I noticed there were only a few other vehicles parked there, noses angled toward the lights of the motel, as though for warmth.
Alcott and I got out of the car, stepping into a bitter cold that seemed to cling, unyielding, like a carapace. Billy shut off the engine and joined us.
Moments later, the lights of the trailing black sedan swept the lot. The two field agents parked, then crunched across the snow to meet up with their boss.
âYou three wait in the lobby a while, okay?â Alcottâs gloved hand indicated Billy and the two agents. âProbably got a vending machine in there. Maybe get some coffee.â
âFine with me,â Billy said. âLong as itâs warm, I donât care where we go.â
One of the other agents nodded gravely. Then, without another word, the three men went into the lobby, a small, well-lit room under a snow-draped canopy.
Agent Alcott turned to me. âLetâs go, Doc.â Breath coming in frosted puffs.
I followed him up an exterior staircase to the second floor, through a heavy access door, and down the corridor. The air in here was warm, close, prickling on the skin after the brutal chill outside.
Walking briskly down the corridor, our footsteps muffled by the stiff green carpet, we passed closed doors on either side of us. Old, worn, paint-flecked. Somehow I sensedâ knew âthat the rooms within were all empty.
Then, approaching the end of the hall, I heardâ
âWhat the hell?â I froze, turned to
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