The Poet by Michael Connelly

bureau had forwarded was produced by an agent listed on the report as Rachel Walling. It contained a host of generalities that were largely worthless to the investigation because while the characterizations were in depth and possibly even on target, they did not necessarily help the detectives winnow down the millions of men who might qualify as suspects. The profile projected that the killer was most likely a white male, twenty to thirty years old, with unresolved feelings of inadequacy and anger toward women, hence the gross mutilation of the victim’s body. He was probably raised by a domineering mother and his father probably was not present in the household or was absorbed in earning a living and forfeited child rearing and development to the mother. The profile classified the killer as “organized” in his methodology and warned that his seemingly successful completion of the crime and escape from detection could lead him to try further crimes of a similar nature.
    The last reports in the first file were investigative summaries of interviews, tips that were checked out and other details from the case that might have meant nothing at the moment they were typed up but could be pivotal later.
    Through these reports I could chart Sean’s growing attachment to Theresa Lofton. In the initial pages she was always referred to as the victim, sometimes Lofton. Later on, he began referring to her as Theresa. And in the last reports, those filed in February before his death, he called her Terri, probably having picked up the diminutive name from her family and friends, or maybe from the back of the photo of her first day on campus. The happy day.
    With ten minutes left I closed the file and opened the other one. This one was thinner and seemed to be filled with a hodgepodge of investigative loose ends. There were several letters from citizens offering theories on the killing. One letter was from a medium who said Theresa Lofton’s living spirit was circling somewhere above the ozone layer in a high-frequency sound belt. She spoke in a voice so fast that it sounded like a chirp to the untrained ear, but the medium could decipher the chirping and was willing to ask her questions if Sean wanted to. There was no indication from the file that he did.
    A supplemental report noted that Theresa’s bank and auto repair shop were within walking distance of the campus. Three times detectives walked the routes between her dorm room, the day care center, the bank and the repair shop but came across no witness who remembered seeing Theresa on the Wednesday after classes ended. Despite this, my brother’s theory-outlined in another supplemental-was that Lofton had been abducted sometime after calling her mechanic from the day care center but before she got to the bank to get money to pay him.
    The file also contained a chronological record of the activity of the investigators assigned to the case. Initially, four members of the CAPS squad worked the case full-time. But as little headway was made and more cases came up, the investigative effort was winnowed down to Sean and Wexler. Then just Sean. He wouldn’t let it go.
    The last entry in the chronological record was made on the day he died. It was just one line: “Mar 13-RUSHER at Stanley. P/R info on Terri.”
    “Time.”
    I looked up and Wexler was pointing to his watch. I closed the file without protest.
    “What’s P-slash-R mean?”
    “Person Reporting. It meant he got a call.”
    “Who is Rusher?”
    “We don’t know. There’s a couple people in the phone book with that name. We called them, they didn’t know what the fuck we were talking about. I ran something on NCIC but with just a last name didn’t get anything to work with. Bottom line is, we don’t know who it was or is. We don’t even know if it’s a man or woman. We don’t know if Sean actually met anybody or not. We found nobody at the Stanley who saw him.”
    “Why would he go to meet this person without