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Answers: I don’t have any, ergo my use of the term “wonder.”
Last question: What about Greg Downing? Surely, he must have known the truth.
Once again, there is more than one school of thought.
The first is that Greg didn’t know at all. The couple had a strange relationship, according to Greg. He told the authorities that he and Grace often traveled separately and lived apart for months at a time. There were only—and I realize “only” in this sentence is extraordinarily relative—six definitive kill scenes over the course of five years. That is a little more than one per year. How hard would it be to keep that secret from your partner? There are many instances where a male serial killer has kept his thirst for death from a partner. Most recently, the wife of Rex Heuermann the Long Island killer has claimed no knowledge of her husband’s barbaric crimes. Most of us accept that she is being truthful. Might it be sexism to think that Grace Konners wouldn’t be able to keep all of this from her boyfriend?
Good question.
The second school of thought is that Greg did suspect what was happening, or perhaps Grace worried that he was getting too close to the truth. That, of course, would contribute to her decision to plant his DNA at the Callister murder scene.
It adds up, I suppose.
There may be holes, I say to Myron (and by extension, you), but if so, they seem small to me. I have never seen a murder case that didn’t have at least a few discrepancies. If a case is too solid, well, haven’t we all just learned a valuable lesson about murders that seem too open and shut?
Either way, I tell Myron, it is over. We may learn a few more things, like how the victims were found or chosen or if there were additional motives. But I don’t see how that will change things in a material way. The FBI seems more interested in putting out the fires this murder spree created rather than adding fuel to them. Greg is traveling again, having purchased a ticket to Cairns, up by the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. There are rumors he may get lured back to coach the New York Knicks, but for now, he is staying off the grid.
So that’s the end.
I have compressed months of personal debriefings with Myron into those above few pages. You probably guessed most of it. I hope that I was able to scratch whatever last itch remained.
I give Myron this summary too when he is well enough. He stays silent throughout, which is something I’m still not used to. Myron is normally a talker. He likes to interject, probe, distract, interrogate, cajole, agitate. But talking exhausts him now. Today he just sits up in bed and listens without uttering a word.
When I finish, when I say to him, as I have above to you fine people, “So that’s the end,” Myron speaks up for the first time:
“No it isn’t.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
It is six weeks later.
Myron sits alone in the dark in room 982 at the Royal Mansour hotel in Marrakech. Yes, in Morocco. I am next door, in a connecting room with Terese. If Myron needs me, I can be with him in seconds. Cameras and audio are in place. Myron’s health is somewhat better, but nowhere near a hundred percent. Or even fifty percent. We could have put this off a bit longer—Myron’s doctor pretty much insisted upon it—but I know that doing so was robbing Myron of sleep. I detest the word “closure,” but there is little doubt that for Myron to heal, he will need it.
My man watching the elevator sends me and Myron a one-word text:
HERE
Terese reads the text over my shoulder. “I don’t like this.”
“He’s safe,” I tell her.
She doesn’t seem satisfied with that. I understand.
Room 982 has been booked for the last six nights under the name Arthur Caldwell. That’s not his real name. He waves his key card in front of the lock and opens the door. The lights are out. He enters and closes the door behind him. He hits the light switch and walks into the hotel room.
He pulls up short when he sees Myron.
“Hey, Greg.”
Greg Downing startles for a second but to give him credit, only for a second. “Is there any point in asking how you found me?”
It wasn’t all that difficult, I think. When the FBI was done with him, Greg started his journey, as I mentioned before, in Cairns, Australia. I figured that Greg would want to change his identity as soon as possible. My people found three suppliers of fake identities working in Cairns. I offered a quarter million dollars to the first one who could tell me Greg’s new identity. One came forward immediately, took my cash, and gave me copies of all the paperwork on Arthur Caldwell.
There is no honor amongst thieves.
“You look thin,” Greg says.
That is an understatement. Myron has lost thirty pounds. His cheeks are sunken. There are times it is hard for even me to look straight at him and not wince.
