group. Imagine living inside their fucking heads for the past twenty years.â
I couldnât even begin to imagine. I said so.
âDamn straight. On the plus side, Barnes has a gut like nobodyâs business. When the DNA on the Ohio vic came in, the Cleveland cops asked for the Bureauâs help with the lab stuff. Somehow Barnes got wind of it. Then, when there was a match to an earlier assault on a hooker, he got into the data base andââ
âFound the other cases, the other prositutes whoâd been raped and strangled.â
âThen all he had to do was contact Jessupâs company, get the info on where their rep was working on any given date, and match up the locations to the scenes of each girlâs death. Barnes himself led the FBI team to pick up Jessup at the Cleveland county jail.â
âWhat happened at the trial?â
âOpen and shut. So no media circus. Another reason the story stayed regional. A couple news cycles in Ohio, not even that in Kentucky and Indiana. Plus the timing was bad. One or two blogs about it from the crime junkies, and then it was back to March Madness. They take their basketball pretty seriously in that part of the country.â
âAnd Jessup never said anything? About his motives, his fantasies? Did they do a psych eval?â
âSure, his defense attorney insisted, and Jessup was declared legally fit to stand trial. Which was all the prosecutor needed. Some hotshot female in the Cleveland DAâs office, making her bones with the Jessup conviction. Judge mustâve felt the same way, since he sentenced the guy to four consecutive life terms.â
âBut whatâs all this have to do with me?â
Alcott unhurriedly flipped to another page in the file. Bringing me into this may not have been his idea, but he was still determined to stay in charge.
âRelax, will ya, Doc? Like I said, none of this stuff is particularly unique. Multiple murderers are a dime a dozen. Got a lot of âem locked up in SuperMax prisons. Bottom-feeder serials like Jessup. Gang shooters. Mob hit men. The crap floating in the sewers under society.â
I had to smile. âNice one, Alcott. A good soundbite for your next media shot.â
âYeah, I like it, too.â A broad, unconvincing wink. âAnyway, John Jessup gets sent up to Markham Maximum Correctional in Ohio, nobody gives him another thought. Until he starts getting the letters.â
âWhat letters?â
âFan letters. Again, nothing new. You oughtta see the fan letters Charlie Manson still gets. Hell, Ted Bundy got marriage proposals. All these whack jobs have groupies, people sendinâ them pictures, lockets, whatever. Lotta strange folks out there in the heartland, Doc. But I guess I donât have to tell you that.â
âBut you said Jessup wasnât a celebrity in that way.â
âHe wasnât. Maybe if heâd killed a dozen women. Or carved his initials on their tits or something. But Iâm telling you, the jails are full of guys like him. Maybe theyâre nuts, maybe theyâre just evil pricks. But as far as I can tell, there wasnât anything special about Jessup.â
âWere all these letters from the same person?â
âLooks like it. Though all with different postmarks. All typed on some kind of electric typewriter. A Sears Coronamatic, circa 1970. I mean, who even uses a typewriter anymore?â
âWhat were in the letters?â
âIn a nutshell? How much the writer admired Jessup, thought he was brave, a maverick in a soulless society. How the people who put him in jail were the real criminals, part of the oppressive establishment. The usual conspiracy bullshit, with some groupie ass licking thrown in.â
âWas the writer ever identified?â
âNo. But he always signed the letters the same way. Well, typed them, I mean. Always ended them with the words âSincerely, Your
Learning to Kill: Stories