I wasn't quite sure what to bring with me when I was getting my information together to come down to the precinct. Everything was such a jumble of illogical nonsense that it became hard to tell what was real and what wasn't. Or, at least in his mind.
I packed up as many of his handwritten notebooks as I thought would be relevant, along with some notes of my own. I also took my downloaded materials from his computer files...and a few of Jacob's "Gone From Daylight" books as well. Just in case he was the diehard fan that Jacob expected him to be.
So strange. So very strange.
As soon as I walked into the station, Monica gave me a slug in the arm. "You're gonna have to wait for two paydays before I get you that Kuma burger! My kid needs a Little League uniform...and I'm pretty sure that you're cheating me when it comes to identifying these creeps ahead of time." She said.
"They're not hard to single out, once you figure out the formula." I told her. "One thing about psychosis and disorder...it's highly predictable. The obsession always feeds off of a particular blueprint. A continuous loop in their behavior. Every last one of them can be easily pinpointed and dealt with once you know what to look for."
"Yeah, so you say." She replied, handing me a folder. "Waylon Clark, is his name. We were able to, at least, get that much out of him between manic tears and panic attacks. We gathered as much information on him as we could in this binder...but it isn't much. You'll basically be walking into the room with mild scraps at best."
"I can't say that I expected much more, to be honest." I asked, "Were you able to get us a place to talk?"
"Room 2D is all yours if you want it. Clark doesn't even want any kind of legal representation. He just wants to get out of here and run as far away from the city of Chicago as his finances will take him. He doesn't seem to be able to trust any other course of action."
"It's that bad, huh?"
"I'm telling you, Winston...at this point, I'm surprised he didn't try to use his own fingernails on the concrete to dig his way out of lock up. I don't think he's faking. Something about this raid has really got him spooked." Monica said. "If you think you can reach him, you're more than welcome to try. Just say the word and we'll bring him out when you're ready."
"Yeah..." I said. "Grab him for me and put him in 2D, will ya? I'll be in there in about 20 minutes or so. I'll let him sweat it out for a bit. Get anxious. And then we'll see what he knows." I added, "And get him a cup of coffee. Leave the pitcher in the room with him. I want to get him caffeinated up, a little bit jittery...let's see what he knows."
"You got it, boss man." Monica replied, but before she could leave, I had one more question to ask of her.
"Hey, Monica...have you ever heard of a book series called, ‘Gone From Daylight'?"
She gave me a strange look with a smirk. "What are you talking about? Everybody's heard of ‘Gone From Daylight'. What rock have you been living under?"
"Have you read any of it?"
"Not much of a reader. I've seen the movie though. Good for some weekend entertainment. Why?"
Trying to get my thoughts together, I asked, "What are the odds that a story like that could...stir up trouble with average folks?"
"How do you mean?"
"I mean...if someone were to take a story like that seriously...if they just, dove into it, hardcore...what are the chances that they might do something irrational over a thing like that? Copycat what's going on?" Monica looked confused, and I asked, "I'm not making much sense, am I?"
"No. Not at all." She grinned. "It's a movie, Winston. That's all it is. A few blockbuster movies, a few best-seller novels, a couple of ‘Hot Topic' T-shirts...it's entertainment. Nothing more. Mostly good for selling toys and video games. Nothing harmful to society, I don't think."
I didn't know how else to pursue the idea, so I decided to let it drop. "Yeah. I guess you're right. Maybe I just need to rest a bit more. I feel like my brain wires are getting mixed up, more often than not."
"Well, if you had spent more time with your significant other when the flick first hit theaters, you might be a bit more informed about the ‘GFD' saga...detective!" She grinned.
Cheap shot.
Biting back, I said, "I'm gonna want that cheeseburger, hot and ready, payday after next. Don't think I'm gonna forget." I smiled, causing her to shake her head.
"You know the deal..."
As I walked towards my office, I said, "Get that uniform. I hope your boy is good at Little League. Don't bet on the games though. Gambling is, obviously, not your strong point."
"I just know that I have a few middle fingers to toss your way around here, somewhere. Oh wait! HERE they are!" Monica stuck her tongue out, and flipped two, enthusiastic, birds in my direction. All in fun, of course. I expected that. Hell...I earned it.
I took my time, waiting for them to bring this ‘Waylon Clark' guy into a holding room. I let him sit there for a while...watching him on camera to see if I could gauge certain aspects of his personality and figure out the best way to approach him when I went in there. But...what I saw was baffling to me. I've seen my fair share of criminals before. I've taken down some of the best. And they all seem to have this...sense of entitlement. They feel elevated above the rest of humanity. Even above the people that caught them doing wrong. But not Waylon.
He was scared.
Helpless.
Petrified!
I watched him on that camera, and I was confused by his timid behavior. I have to admit that I was intrigued.
I finally walked into the room after telling Monica to block all interruptions, and I was able to close the door behind me, looking this man in the eye and seeing the fear that resided there.
I quietly put his file on the table between us, and asked, "Waylon Clark. Do you know why you're here today?"
"You have to let me go..." He replied, his bottom lip quivering. "I can't stay here. It's dangerous for me. It's dangerous for ALL of you! Please...just let me GO!"
Calmly, I sat down across the table from him, and I said, "You are in violation of at least 16 federal internet laws, Mr. Clark. Illegal viewings, trading of private information, identity theft...not the best things to get caught with, I assure you. Some of these violations carry some pretty serious charges. Mandatory jail time, no matter how clever and expensive your lawyer is. I think you and I both know that you're not going to be able to walk out of this situation without facing some level of justice."
"Peanuts!" He said. "Anything that you could do to me is peanuts in comparison to what's REALLY going on out there in the streets of Chicago!"
"That may be true, Mr. Clark. But...unfortunately, you're not an A-list celebrity or a politician, so you're stuck dealing with the real justice system now and the letter of the law instead of a bullshit fabrication reserved for the rich and famous. Basically...you're not wealthy or powerful enough to get by with the crimes you've committed so far."
"And you really think that counts?" He asked me. His eyes were still red from crying all night, his foot bouncing underneath the table. "Nothing matters. None of this. You think you're safe...but you're not. NONE of us are safe! We're just a part of the buffet."
He was getting agitated, and I wanted to de-escalate the situation, but I also wanted to find out what he was talking about. What is his delusion? And how can I use it to my advantage to find the truth?
Opening his folder and looking at his file...I asked him, "Do you know what ‘literary forensics' are, Mr. Clark?"
He seemed confused by the question. "Literary what?"
"Literary forensics." I took out a few papers from his file. Printed out emails. And I laid them on the table in front of him so he could see them clearly. "Literary forensics is the art of simply paying attention to the way people act and react online. The same way that I can look at your body language and detect your tone of voice, right here, face to face. People believe that they can escape this method online, because it's just text on a screen. But that simply isn't the case." I told him. "Sure...they use different names, different email accounts, different bullshit IP addresses...all in a valiant attempt to pretend to be someone they're not. They try to FOOL people by creating a new identity, and they think that will work. It doesn't. Not to anyone who's paying attention." I said. "You see...people are who they are. There's no escaping that. One would think that it doesn't show up in their text, but it does. All the time. People...misspell the same words. They use the same sentence structure. They tell the same stories about their lives. They laugh at the same jokes. No matter how HARD you try to hide yourself online...your true self will eventually break through, and you will be exposed as a fraud. Over and over and over again. Anyone who knows anything about you at all can effortlessly pick you out of a crowd...and laugh at you as you try to keep up the facade. Believe me, Mr. Clark...you are much more intellectually ‘naked' than you think you are when you try to lie online."
"I don't understand what you mean..." He said softly, realizing that he had been caught.
"I'm looking at 6 different personalities that you've had online, Mr. Clark. Right here...in these printed emails. One where you pretended to be a 14 year old boy looking for photos of another young boy in California. Different identities, different backstories, different LIES told to cover your tracks…you really went out of your way to convince people online that you were someone that doesn't represent the real you at all. And when you were found out...you attempted to contact your victims multiple times with a new identity entirely." I said. "This, alone, constitutes a legal argument concerning harassment and fraud...but that's not what really bothers me here."
In a meek voice, he said, "I didn't mean to hurt anybody. And I stopped doing it. I swear."
"That's my question, Mr. Clark." I said. "Why? These emails...you were faking your identity and trying to fool people into feeding your narcissistic need for validation and approval...and then you stopped. Cold turkey. All of your communications after April 1st have been honest. Even desperate. You didn't even use a screen name, but your real name. Your real IP. Your home address in certain instances. It's a part of the reason that you were so easy to find." I said. "At first, I thought...well...maybe he just got sloppy. But none of your previous efforts to hide yourself seemed to gel with that theory. You've been masking your online activity pretty well since you've been on the dark web. So why suddenly give yourself up now? You're not the kind of guy who would make such a clumsy series of mistakes."
I was surprised to see a single tear drop from his eye, and he gritted his teeth as he said, "Please...just let me go. I can't stay here. I've seen too much. They know how to find me now."
A bit bewildered by his response, I reached into the folder and pulled out another printed sheet from my home computer. "Mr. Clark...I'd like to ask you about a hidden file that I found on your hard drive."
"You have to let me out of here!" He said in a panicked voice. "You don't understand!!!"
Ignoring his paranoid rants, I paused briefly before asking him, "What can you tell me about a file titled, ‘Sector-V'?"
I swear...I could literally see all of the blood drain out of his face when I said the words aloud. I half expected him to pass out from the reaction.
"You...you found the file? You discovered the hidden frequency…." He whimpered.
"I did. It wasn't as hidden as you'd like to think it was. Took some work, but it wasn't impossible to crack once I figured out what I was working with." White as a sheet, Waylon began to tremble in horror. "Don't look so surprised, Mr. Clark. Finding hidden files on corrupted hard drives is what I do."
"Did you open it?" He asked, abruptly.
"There are some, rather, off the wall areas of the internet that are best left alone if you're looking to..."
"DID YOU OPEN IT?!?!?!" He shouted.
"I did." I said, and he began to cry. Exactly, what was going on here? He seemed so...broken. I tried to get his focus back. "The videos in the Sector-V file seem a bit strange to me. Why don't you tell me what you think they mean?" I said.
"You shouldn't have done that. You should have left it alone..." He said. "If you opened that folder...if you've seen what I've seen...then it's already too late." I watched as more tears rolled down from his eyes.
"Too late for what?" I asked, but he seemed to be rapidly falling apart at the seams. "Talk to me, Waylon. Let me in."
"You're already dead..." He sniffled. "They see you now. The ‘hooded ones' are watching. And they'll come for you once they get the order. You won't survive this. Neither will I. They KNOW we know now, don't you see??? They can't just let us go!"
Attempting not to fall into the trap of his suspicious ramblings, I tried to calm him down. "What happened with that scar on your neck? Did you burn yourself...?"
"You're not HEARING me, detective!!!" He said, suddenly springing up from his seat and looming over me at the table! "I did this to myself in order to fake a safeguard mark...but it CAN'T be faked! And, at the end of the day, it may not matter anyway!!! They FEED off of us! We're their only food supply! Do you think they give a FUCK whether or not we tried to buy our way out of being hunted down like fucking ANIMALS in the streets?!?!?"
He was getting loud and hyper aggressive now, so I tried to bring him back down from the heights of fury. "Waylon? You need to take it down a few notches, ok? The last thing you want is a small army of police officers rushing in here to make sure you behave. So...let's mellow out, shall we?" I said, using a hand gesture to get him to sit back down in his seat. "That's better."
"It doesn't matter who you are." He mumbled in a defeated tone of voice. "Nothing matters. We're all just food. Food for the gods." I know that Monica told me he was a bit of a nutcase, but seeing his performance in person like this...I have to admit...he was pretty convincing.
"And who are these...'gods' you speak of, Mr. Clark?"
He looked as if he was about to rip his own hair out of his head as his fingers tugged at it, nearly ripping it out at the roots. "The VAMPIRES!!! The fucking...the fucking vampires!!!"
Okaaaaay...so maybe this is an interrogation better suited towards a licensed therapist, then?
"They're coming for me. They'll be coming for you too. This is the biggest secret in human history! And they know that you know! They...they KNOW!!!"
"It's ok. I'm pretty sure that the safest place for you to be right now is in our custody." I said, but he wasn't buying it.
"THERE IS NO SAFETY!!!! Don't you fucking get it?!?!?!"
"Mr. Clark..."
"NO!!!" He screamed. "Just a few weeks ago, those ‘things' came after a goddamn real estate mogul!!! Some guy in a high rise condo! KINCAID!!! That was his name! They fucking ripped him apart in the parking lot outside of his own home! And he had a safeguard mark! Right here...on his neck! Where I tried to get mine!"
"I'm having a bit of trouble processing everything that you're telling me here..."
"They're REAL!!! Vampires are REAL!!! And they are feeding on us! Every night! All the time! The government knows about it! YOUR bosses...they know about it!" He cried, almost hysterical. "Have you seen them? Those black vehicles with the tinted windows that patrol the streets at night? Do you know what's in the back seat of those cars? A freezer! A fucking freezer! They chop up the leftover dead bodies and toss them in the back for disposal at one of the local facilities around here! They call them Slag hunters..."
Interrupting his delusion, I said, "Settle down, now. let's try to take this one step at a time..."
"You've seen them..." He said. "...Haven't you? They begin watching you from a distance...but they always get closer. Closer and closer. Closer and CLOSER! You've seen them, right?"
After another brief pause, I tried to draw him in further. "Seen who, Mr. Clark?"
"The children!!! The missing! The vanished! They start them off young these days! So young. They look innocent...but they are NOT innocent! No! They promise the hooded ones eternity, ya see? They promise them everlasting life...and they'll do anything to get it Anything! They're coming for you! If they haven't already...they will! You'll see! You'll see like I've seen!" He cried. "If you opened Sector-V...then they already know where you are. They know how to find you. They're coming, detective. Een during the day...they're coming." He sobbed and sniffled right there in front of me. "They'll send the hooded ones to take care of you. To ‘end' your snooping. They said not to come looking. To NEVER come looking! You shouldn't have opened that file, detective. Now...you're just as fucked as I am." He put his head down on the table and started to weep. I can't imagine this line of questioning being more odd and awkward if I tried.
So I decided to pull out the wild card. Just to see if this ‘Waylon Clark' was as mentally disturbed as I assumed he was.
I took the hardback "Gone From Daylight" books out of my bag and tossed them out onto the table in front of him.
"Do you recognize these books, Mr. Clark?" I asked. "Because...what you're telling me sounds an awful lot like the content that I read in these texts, here."
He wiped his eyes free from tears, and took a moment before he said, "You can't buy into those. They're all lies. It's not what they make it out to be. It's all a part of their agenda."
"Please, answer the question, Mr. Clark." I said, pushing with a little more determination for a logical answer.
"This is FICTION!!! They put this out there to throw people off of their scent!"
"Do you know what this story is?" I said louder.
"YES!!!" He shouted! "But, I'm not some lunatic with a fanboy addiction! That's what they WANT you to think!!! But it's not true!" He sobbed. "PLEASE!!!! For the love of God...you HAVE to let me out of here!!! They're tracking everything we do! They know that you found their hidden frequency, and when they find you, they're going to tear you to shreds!!! You, and everybody you love! You should run! Run to some place FAR away from here! Take me with you! PLEASE!!! We don't have much time!"
"A conspiracy theory...based on a series of vampire fiction. This is your reasoning for doing what you did on the dark web?"
"It's vampire fiction..." He whimpered, "...Based on a real conspiracy. It's real. And no one can help you. No one will believe you. Your only choice is to ‘run', detective. Run...or die." He leaned back in his chair and burst into tears...leaving me feeling uneasy, and quite possiblymore confused than when I came in. "Run...or die..." He said again...meekly. "It's gonna hurt. They're gonna make it hurt so much! They're gonna make an example of us both..."
I emerged from that interrogation room about five minutes later. Feeling unsettled. Maybe even experiencing a little paranoia of my own after such a bewildering discussion. I was planning to spend the better part of my day grilling him on the contents of his computer and the theft of funds that he used to try to get out of the country as quickly as possible...but...
...He was able to spook me in twenty minutes or less.
Monica saw a distressed look on my face when I walked by her desk. Silent. Not saying a word. Lost in my thoughts, I suppose.
"Winston?"
"Huh..." I said, shaking myself out of a daze. "...Sorry. I'm...I'm just trying to put things together."
"YOU? Having a tough time putting things together?" She said. "And here I thought you were the department's savant when it came to this kind of thing."
"I hate to say this...but...even though his delusions are all over the place, switching from one extreme to the next...they still manage to line up."
"How do you mean?" She asked.
"Usually, when people lie about these things, even with some sort of grand delusion driving them...there are inconsistencies. Plot holes. Contradictions. I'm just...I'm not gettting that from him. At all."
She grinned, "Well, it's not like I didn't warn you before you went in there. The guy's a few sandwiches short of a picnic. And we're not gonna be able to hold him here forever. So we'd probably be doing him a favor by letting him out and traveling to whatever distant place he's was looking to get to. Let this fruitcake be somebody else's problem."
Thinking about it some more, I said, "I don't know if he's as much of a ‘fruitcake' as we'd like to believe he is, Monica."
She raised an eyebrow. "You're not saying that you BELIEVE that what this wacko is saying is true, are you???"
I replied, "I believe that HE believes what he's saying is true. And considering he doesn't seem to show any of the typical symptoms that would accompany any mental health issues that would create such a delusion in a rational mind...I'm left wondering what it was that's got him so genuinely scared." I looked back down at the hardback novels, and I said, "I'd like to talk to him some more. Maybe later on tonight. Is that doable?"
"It's your rodeo, Boss. Just don't let this guy get in your head, ok?" She said. "You may not be totally sane...but I like having you maintain a ‘manageable' level of crazy. I consider it a part of your charm."
"Thanks, Monica." I said, and took another quick peek at the security monitor. Waylon had his hands over his face, weeping openly over his predicament. It soured something in my gut instinct. "Do me a favor, will ya? See if you can call in an extra officer or two to give this guy a bit extra on his security detail. Alright?"
"You sure?" She asked.
"I'm sure." I said. "Anything that's got him THAT messed up in the head, has got to be one hell of a threat. Better to be safe than sorry on this one. You know?"
I think I've got a bit more homework to do before I press him any harder on Sector-V. There's something driving right in my blindspot concerning this case, and it's driving me crazy.
Hopefully...it will remain a ‘manageable' level of crazy.