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Despite the fact that the guy took all possible precautions, Beverly was still able to locate Will’s admirer after he had left an anonymous message on the Tattle Crime website.
Matthew Brown doesn’t look surprised when she shows up at his doorstep, he doesn’t even ask to see her FBI Agent’s credentials, suggesting she comes inside instead. Even the gun pointed right at him doesn’t seem to bother him all that much.
Having entered the apartment, Beverly promptly inspects the interior, searching for any clues about who the owner is.
Things are clean and orderly, like in an inexpensive but nevertheless very decent hotel room. There are mats and woven coasters everywhere. In the kitchen area of the small studio apartment, there are two well-kept trees with leathery leaves, entwined into a column in a single pot. Benjamin fig, that’s the name, Beverly remembers. Her mother bought one of those, but it was grown as a bonsai, when she took her shopping six months ago or so.
Brown wouldn’t have this place if it wasn’t for the reduction on housing and utilities.
Beverly has familiarized herself with his case: he hasn’t been clinically tracked for three years, six months and thirteen days. According to official sources, his psychiatric assistance has ended successfully; thus, his outpatient chart was shelved in the archive of the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, where he spent two years for arson, with clean record. But schizophrenia remains with him – as a lifelong disability.
If they had diagnosed him correctly. If he had let them diagnose him. Which Beverly doubts.
“I would appreciate it, if you took off your shoes, Agent Katz. Please.”
Beverly turns around and assesses Brown himself.
They saw each other in the Baltimore State Hospital For The Criminally Insane, but she hardly recognizes him not in his orderly uniform – that’s how effectively depersonalizing it is, that’s how well-chosen his disguise is, to hide in plain sight. The only scraps of memories she had of him from their brief encounters were about jingling set of keys, as well as his broad back and strong long neck. And his irked demeanor, which implied that he couldn’t care less about what’s happening around him.
Standing in front of him now, Beverly discovers that Brown has calmness and determination of a big predator in his eyes.
A tea kettle is boiling.
"Would you like a cup of almond tea?"
She must have lost her mind. That is, coming here was an even more desperate gesture than when she started going to Will.
When she doesn’t respond, Brown shrugs in a distinctive “I’m simply trying to have a civilized conversation with you” manner.
“No? Your loss. Then I’ll pour tea only for me.”
He doesn’t move from the spot, though. Only politely raises his eyebrows, elaborating:
“If I may.”
The TV is on: some music channel broadcasts “Doom And Gloom."
“Turn off the music.”
The incredulous look Brown gives her is more expressive than words (“The Stones? Are you kidding?”) could possibly be.
“Do it.”
Brown takes a remote control from the coffee table to set TV on mute, knowing to make no sudden moves.
“Not a fan, huh?”
In fact, Beverly loves them too. And the thought that maniacs have the same musical preferences as her is unpleasant.
Brown sits down on the sofa. First, he eyes the barrel of her Glock (without much interest). Then herself (with curiosity and an uppish smile that could have been charming).
“You can breathe out, Agent Katz. I have no intention of hurting you, unless you make things really difficult. The friend of my friend is my friend, too. By default.”
“Yeah, and the judge of your friend is your victim.”
“I had nothing to do with the installation in the courtroom,” he replies readily. And something in the dismissive way he does it gives Beverly the feeling that Brown isn’t lying. “You see, I was busy, actually taking care of Mr. Graham in the shithole the Ripper put him in.”
Beverly tries not to be unsettled by the amount of respect Brown manages to put in his mellow “Mr. Graham”.
She asks sharply, shaking her head:
“So, I am supposed to believe you that the Ripper killed the judge? That’s your version?”
“He was afraid that he’d lose points, if he didn’t make himself known once again after what happened to that bailiff. An astonishing lack of confidence for the Big Bad Wolf of the Chesapeake Bay, isn’t it, Agent Katz? Or perhaps I should say the ‘Green-eyed Monster of Maryland’.”
Then, seeing how she opens her mouth to interrupt him, Brown lets the thought go and switches to the earnest tone:
“Whatever your reason is, you are the only colleague who comes to visit him,” he says and pauses for a second, as to give her time to realize that she is being shown appreciation on behalf of Will .
“You mean a lot to Mr. Graham and he trusts you. Rightly. You have bright mind, and represent the best of law. I was hoping that we’ll have this conversation. Maybe not immediately in person… At least until we learn how to trust each other.”
“You are saying that message was an invitation for me ?” Beverly raises her eyebrows. “Well... Clever, but not too clever, since from here I take you directly to interrogation.”
Brown doesn’t appear shaken by her announcement at all. He slowly leans back on the sofa, and asks, putting hands behind his head and his cards on the table:
“Even if I tell you that Will Graham is right and I have evidence of that?”
Beverly's heart beat quickens. Here it is. She came here hoping to hear these words. But she is an agent who knows how to bluff, and doesn’t betray herself.
“In that case, I'll tell you that falsification of evidence is taken very seriously in this country. You can spend more time in prison than you have already served in medical institutions for that.”
“And what about a testimony?”
“Yours?”
“And of two other people, if my word is not good enough for you. There is one, whom Hannibal Lecter hides in his own house, and the other can be found in an abandoned warehouse in Somerville, VA. I haven’t seen her or him, but there must be a person. At least one. Though, I doubt that Lecter has a bunch of immigrants held in captivity. Seems unlikely given the amount of food he brings there. Not when he’s driving his Bentley, of course: he takes an unregistered truck, which he parks in a rented garage on the outskirts of Richmond, from time to time.”
To herself, Beverly begins to assemble what the department definitely knows about the Ripper and what Will said about him with what Brown has just shared with her. Maybe she is buying it too fast, but again… The guy in front of her is damn careful, he isn’t self-destructive and has a grasp on reality. Why would he expose himself and risk being caught like this, if he hasn’t got something ?
“And you have proof for what you’ve just told me?”
Very smug smirk.
“Galore, Agent Katz.”
Before proceeding to the concrete, Beverly states:
“Will Graham doesn’t like binding help.”
She must find out what kind of payment Brown expects to receive for his obliging detective services.
“I've been watching Mr. Graham for the last three months, Agent Katz, and, as for me, it‘s not like he can afford to be selective about the help he receives. Even if he would like to.”
Beverly bites on her cheek, all of a sudden bitterly ashamed of herself, and of Jack, and of all the others, who haven’t been able to protect Will’s interests.
She tries a different angle.
“A private investigation is quite a laborious campaign to help a guy you don’t even dare to speak with, only overhearing his conversations with others instead… So, what’s your deal?“
After her comment Brown becomes stiffer for a couple of seconds, but then responds sweetly and evasively:
“If anyone sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?”
Also a religious fanatic, Beverly sighs to herself. Just great. An omission on the part of Freddie Lounds not to call him “The Good Samaritan” instead of a faceless “admirer”. Brown probably would have been flattered.
Beverly feels worried about Will, whom this person contacts every day, while he doesn’t suspect anything.
“Just answer my question, goddammit. What do you want from Will Graham?”
Brown scrutinizes her, uncomfortably moving his jaw, obviously considering something.
He decides to give in.
“Would you be more satisfied with my answer if it would be very simple, as that I like Mr. Graham as a person?”
Beverly goes still for a moment and then narrows her eyes in disbelief.
“You… you have a crush on the guy? Really?!”
The look Brown shoots her tells her that she deserves strong condemnation for trivializing matters she has no idea about.
“I see myself in Mr. Graham,” adds Brown unwillingly in a tone, which implies that he doesn’t have anything else to say on the topic.
Beverly stares at him with puzzled bewilderment, trying to process this strange confession. But then she tells herself that it doesn’t matter, whether Brown sees Will as an extension of himself or… a counterpart. As long as he is willing to help and can actually do it, it’s none of her business.
She asks directly, one last time, with her arms crossed:
“Then, you want to protect Will?”
Brown gets off the couch to approach her. Closely.
Beverly looks up at him, something about half a foot shorter than him, despite her heels.
“Like you,” he says.
And Beverly again sees the charred remains of the bailiff before herself.
“No, you are nothing like me.”
Sick bastard.
And Brown doesn’t insist, just notes:
“Still, we agree that I am at least as effective as you and the FBI when it comes to helping Mr. Graham out, Agent Katz?”
Beverly puts her gun back into the holster.
"It doesn’t make us partners, Mr. Brown."
Brown grins triumphantly and goes back to the sofa, to pointedly reveal to her a tranquilizer gun that was lying behind one of the pillows.
Now it’s a fair play.
“Matthew. Let’s stick to the first names while we are working together... You must be interested in pictures and everything else I’ve managed to collect.”
When he turns around and goes to the cupboard, Beverly sits down on the sofa, feeling weakness in her legs.
“Yes. All you’ve got.”
“Like I said, there’s a lot of material. Are you sure you don’t want some tea?”