social rules, who cared nothing for morality, who refused even to distinguish between good and evil—“those twin chimeras, those modern myths,” as one caption quoted him.
For all this he won a following. A wide-angle photo of one of his public appearances gave a fair idea of what kind of following it was. Almost all his fans were young. Males outnumbered females, but not by as large a margin as Abby might have expected. Roughly half the crowd wore the black outfits and heavy mascara typical of the Goth movement. Many of the rest had chosen Nazi-like garb—knee-high boots, pseudomilitary jackets, runic symbols worn like insignia of rank. It was a merging of Goths and skinheads, and it gave Abby a cold feeling in her gut.
In the background of the shot, spotlighted before the crowd, stood Peter Faust.
The photo section ended. She flipped to the back of the book and found the newly included chapter, which recounted Faust’s more recent accomplishments. Skimming the paragraphs, she saw no mention of Elise, even though the girl said she’d been with Faust for three years. Apparently she didn’t qualify as a major development in his life.
Then she stopped, her attention caught by a name she knew.
Tess McCallum.
What the hell was Tess doing in Faust’s book?
She backtracked to an earlier page and located the start of the story. It was the case Wyatt told her about—the murdered girl, Roberta Kessler. Three years ago. Abby hadn’t known Tess back then, so even if she’d seen her name in connection with the story, it wouldn’t have stuck with her.
Faust reported that he had become a suspect, “for no good reason, but simply by virtue of who I am, or perhaps I should say, what I am.”
A search of his home, he wrote, had yielded no evidence—“although I was briefly concerned that the authorities, in their zeal to convict an innocent man, might plant evidence against me.” Even after the search, the authorities weren’t finished with him. They wanted him to be interrogated by someone from the FBI.
“By this point, I had acquired a certain leverage,” he wrote, “inasmuch as I had been the victim of their harassment and abuse. My attorneys advised me to refuse the invitation. Being of a generous nature, however, I permitted the indignity of an interview, on the condition that it be conducted by Special Agent Tess McCallum.”
He had wanted to meet her because of her highly publicized role in the Mobius case a short time earlier. “I was fascinated by the media accounts. She sounded like a gunslinger out of the Wild West, and her final showdown with mad Mobius was worthy of a Sergio Leone epic. She had killed a killer. I very much wanted to meet a woman capable of such a feat.”
The FBI complied. Faust flew, at his own expense, to Denver, where Tess headed the field office, and on a breezy September day he met her in an interview room.
He didn’t say much about his encounter with Agent McCallum, except that she had disappointed him with the plodding obviousness of her questions. Abby doubted this was true. Tess might be many things, but plodding and obvious were not among them.
Whatever the truth might be, Faust conceded a grudging respect for “the shootist ,” as he called her. “Like most Americans, she was fundamentally unimaginative and uncultured, but I could discern flashes of mental acuity and stubborn grit. I admired her for this, if for nothing else. I even sent a gift basket to her office as a token of my appreciation for her time. No doubt the basket and its contents were subjected to the minutest analysis by overzealous security personnel. Quite possibly no part of it reached her. I would like to believe so, as otherwise I am at a loss to explain her failure to send a thank-you note.”
That was all he wrote about Tess McCallum, but for Abby, it was enough.
Abby closed the book. She thought of what Faust had said to her. That she had been recommended by a friend. By someone in law
For all this he won a following. A wide-angle photo of one of his public appearances gave a fair idea of what kind of following it was. Almost all his fans were young. Males outnumbered females, but not by as large a margin as Abby might have expected. Roughly half the crowd wore the black outfits and heavy mascara typical of the Goth movement. Many of the rest had chosen Nazi-like garb—knee-high boots, pseudomilitary jackets, runic symbols worn like insignia of rank. It was a merging of Goths and skinheads, and it gave Abby a cold feeling in her gut.
In the background of the shot, spotlighted before the crowd, stood Peter Faust.
The photo section ended. She flipped to the back of the book and found the newly included chapter, which recounted Faust’s more recent accomplishments. Skimming the paragraphs, she saw no mention of Elise, even though the girl said she’d been with Faust for three years. Apparently she didn’t qualify as a major development in his life.
Then she stopped, her attention caught by a name she knew.
Tess McCallum.
What the hell was Tess doing in Faust’s book?
She backtracked to an earlier page and located the start of the story. It was the case Wyatt told her about—the murdered girl, Roberta Kessler. Three years ago. Abby hadn’t known Tess back then, so even if she’d seen her name in connection with the story, it wouldn’t have stuck with her.
Faust reported that he had become a suspect, “for no good reason, but simply by virtue of who I am, or perhaps I should say, what I am.”
A search of his home, he wrote, had yielded no evidence—“although I was briefly concerned that the authorities, in their zeal to convict an innocent man, might plant evidence against me.” Even after the search, the authorities weren’t finished with him. They wanted him to be interrogated by someone from the FBI.
“By this point, I had acquired a certain leverage,” he wrote, “inasmuch as I had been the victim of their harassment and abuse. My attorneys advised me to refuse the invitation. Being of a generous nature, however, I permitted the indignity of an interview, on the condition that it be conducted by Special Agent Tess McCallum.”
He had wanted to meet her because of her highly publicized role in the Mobius case a short time earlier. “I was fascinated by the media accounts. She sounded like a gunslinger out of the Wild West, and her final showdown with mad Mobius was worthy of a Sergio Leone epic. She had killed a killer. I very much wanted to meet a woman capable of such a feat.”
The FBI complied. Faust flew, at his own expense, to Denver, where Tess headed the field office, and on a breezy September day he met her in an interview room.
He didn’t say much about his encounter with Agent McCallum, except that she had disappointed him with the plodding obviousness of her questions. Abby doubted this was true. Tess might be many things, but plodding and obvious were not among them.
Whatever the truth might be, Faust conceded a grudging respect for “the shootist ,” as he called her. “Like most Americans, she was fundamentally unimaginative and uncultured, but I could discern flashes of mental acuity and stubborn grit. I admired her for this, if for nothing else. I even sent a gift basket to her office as a token of my appreciation for her time. No doubt the basket and its contents were subjected to the minutest analysis by overzealous security personnel. Quite possibly no part of it reached her. I would like to believe so, as otherwise I am at a loss to explain her failure to send a thank-you note.”
That was all he wrote about Tess McCallum, but for Abby, it was enough.
Abby closed the book. She thought of what Faust had said to her. That she had been recommended by a friend. By someone in law
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