"Yeah, I'm going to bring that pick-up in for an overhaul." "Thanks." "Points, plugs, carburettor, the whole deal." " What can I get you tonight, hon?" " A beer and a tuna salad sandwich." " Will that be it for you tonight, hon?" " Yeah." "There you be, hon." "Thanks." "We're about ready for a check." "Anything else for you?" "See you." "Evening." "Evening." "A package for Mrs Annie Tisman?" "Could you sign here?" "I haven't ordered anything." "Are you sure it's for me?" "It's the correct name and address?" "Oh, yeah, sure." "I've been Annie Tisman more years than I like to count." "You have a good day, ma'am." " Are you feeling any better?" " A little." "I don't understand this." "Why would someone do this to me?" "I never hurt anyone." "Is there someplace we could sit down and talk?" "Are they going to take that away soon?" "It's a crime scene." "I can't let you in." "That's OK, Connelly." "It's Frank Black." " The other room." "We can talk in there." " Wherever you'd be more comfortable." "Bletcher give you any details?" "Yeah." "Has anybody spoken to the delivery service?" "Package was left in a drop-off box with a bogus billing code and a bogus return." " You seen what you need to see?" " Yeah." "Let's get this evidence bagged and tagged." "Frank?" "Spare me a minute?" "I sent her to be with a friend." "You saw her?" "Was she any help at all?" "Doesn't seem to be any reason why it was sent to her." "She's a book-keeper for a florist." "No problems at work." "Widowed ten years ago." "No romantic involvements." " On good terms with the family." " No one with any grievances she's aware of?" "Doesn't make any sense." "This isn't the first time that you've seen one of these, is it?" "Over the last four years, we've had human fingers, partial hand, sent to three individuals, locally." "No discernible reason why they were chosen, and no connection between any of them we're able to find." "A finger's one thing." "A guy can live without a finger." "But a tongue..." "The victim is dead, Bletch." "We need your expertise on this, Frank." "I guess that goes without saying." " Have a good evening, ma'am." " Thank you." ""The bear never told the rabbit, the badger or the crow that his honey was missing from the hollow tree. "" ""But he looked at them differently. "" " Why?" " We'll find out later." " Were you expecting a package?" " Yeah, files from Bletcher." "I'll look at it downstairs." "Won't take long." " Can you read the rest before bed?" " Sure I will, honey." "That's the last of the photos." "Have you read the pathology reports?" "What strikes me is the examiner's prior conclusion the parts were removed while the victims were alive." "It's possible the victim or killer weren't acquainted." "So the perpetrator's been hard to catch." "But the owners of the body parts?" "Given the four years' activity, we can infer the killer's been careful in disposing of the remains, selecting victims whose disappearance wouldn't draw unusual attention." "Frank?" " Dinner's on the table." " In a minute." "There's an unusual mindfulness associated with the violence." "The local ME could use an educated opinion." "I've got a call in to Cheryl Andrews." "Anything else?" " No." " Enjoy your dinner, Frank." "Thanks." "We're aware other body parts were all sundered while the victims were alive, but this tongue was removed after death." "Also, the instrument wasn't as sharp or as skilfully used." "Would that point to rage, loss of control?" "Doubtful." "The cuts aren't unusually forceful, just imprecise." "A few false starts, repetitive blade strokes." " Frank?" " We do have a pattern change." " Unlikely to be intentional deviation." " So how do we account for it?" "The victim died prematurely or the killer was interrupted." "The perpetrator may be getting lazy, becoming more casual as his activities lose their novelty." "So it doesn't tell us much, then." "He's less concerned about being discovered, but no less dangerous." "There's nothing here to indicate that this is gonna stop." "A wet, raw night." " What can I get ya?" " Rain without, rain within." " A glass of water." " Really?" "Be careful of the tone you take." "And bring Mr Bardale another round now." "What are you at?" "You've been released from prison, newborn in the world." "You like it?" "If you're some queer thinks he got lucky..." "Queer?" "Since the age of 15, you've been released six times." " Your total time out's less than a year." " Are you a cop?" "You're out this time after eight years for robbery with violence." " Never tried for most of what you've done." " Parole?" "I got 24 hours to report in." "Two murders." "The girl in Tacoma your last time out." "The man who picked you up hitchhiking." "You were 17." "He was homosexual." "Others you killed in prison." "I admire your capacity for action." "I want you in the world." "Your nature can serve a higher purpose." "You wanna keep me from going back to prison?" "Without me, you'll be in custody within days." "Sooner, perhaps." " I will keep you in the world." " You're a lawyer, right?" "No, Mr Bardale, I'm not." "I'm ajudge." "Sentence carried out contrary to just instructions of this court." "I had to be practical." "It's hard to cut a guy's tongue out when he's still alive." "I meant to get him unsuspecting, but he bled out in the parking lot and croaked before I got the tongue." "You acted as agent of this court while impaired." " One beer is all..." " Remember I am who I am." "How was the corpse of the condemned disposed of?" " The same way as usual." " You've forgotten." "You feel you can lie as freely to me as to yourself." "They'll never find it." "I had to hurry." "Carl Nearman, you've acted selfishly." "You've ignored justice and the procedures of this court." "I'm discharging you from the court's service." "Mr Bardale..." "Stand and receive sentence." "Achilles!" "Achilles, you come right here, girl!" "Come on!" "Achilles, come here now." "Come on!" "Achilles!" "What in heaven's name have you got there?" "Oh, God." "The most appalling smell." " Eugh!" " Achilles, come on now." "What you got?" "What do you want with that foul, smelly old thing, huh?" "What do you...?" "Terry?" "Terry?" "Don't panic, but there's a person there." "A dead person!" "Frank?" "Catherine." " How was work?" " Fine." "Frank, that package that you got the other night..." " What are you working on?" " Why?" "I had lunch with someone from the office." "She's been counselling a woman who had a tongue delivered to her." "Annie Tisman." "She couldn't give me her name." "Has anyone spoken to her about her history?" "The police interviews weren't productive." "Her husband was sent to jail for robbery about 12 years ago." "He was appealing on the basis that the testimony against him was perjured." "What was the outcome?" "The husband was murdered in prison before the matter was resolved." "Thanks." "I just always feel like a trespasser down here." "Neither of us should feel at home with what I do." " Yeah." " Frank, it's Bob Bletcher." "The corpse was barely concealed." "Garden clippings tossed over it." "The tongue cut out." "We caught a break here, Frank." "Body's on its way up." "The pathologist will be right with us." "Is this our guy?" "Everything's a match." "White male, fifties, good health." "Blunt object trauma to the skull, probably prior to these stab wounds." "No defensive injuries." "Any or all of these wounds might have caused death." " Frank, that's an unrelated DOA." " Who is this man?" " Is that the John Doe from the tracks?" " Yeah." "Vagrant." "Railway cops found him early AM." "Died from a massive loss of blood." "Probably tried to hop a freight and slipped and his legs swung under." "Happens three or four times a year." "Rail yard bulls hate it." " Interrupts their poker." " Want to take a look?" "I got an ID from the prints." "You're looking at Jonathan Mellen." "A former Seattle police officer." " He was a cop?" " Retired seven years." "Divorced." "Had a reputation for being argumentative." " These two are connected." " What?" "Mellen and the DOA there?" "Frank?" "One's a murder." "The other is death by misadventure." "Miles apart, Frank." "Days apart." "Who was this man, the man from the freight yard?" "Do we know that yet?" "You'll find the evidence that connects these two." "It's here." " Yeah, Frank?" " Penseyres?" "Can you hear me?" "A lot of links and patches between us." "I'm travelling." "I may lose you." "I'm looking for older documentation." "Court records archived on hard copy." "If it can be found, it will be." "The records pertain to the husband of the woman who received the tongue." "Tisman." "T as in Tom, I-S-M-A-N." "He was a state prisoner." "He would have filed a post-conviction appeal between nine and twelve years ago." "OK." "We ID'd the body." "An ex-Seattle police officer." "He may figure in the record of the court proceedings." " I'll check it." " I'll be in touch." "500 years ago, you would have been burned as a witch." "Nothing I do is magic, Bob." "A lot of people shouted that from the middle of a bonfire." "You were right about the two bodies." "Pathologist found tissue under the nails of the rail yard corpse." "Tissue blood types matched." "DNA will confirm it." "They were killer and victim." " What do we know about the killer?" " Ex-con named Carl Nearman." " What's his history?" " Half a dozen bits at state prisons." "Robbery, theft." "Released five years back." " No record since?" " No." "Clean, by all accounts." "Never even missed a date with his parole officer." "Not your model citizen, but..." "You were right, Frank." "I wanted you to hear it from me." "It doesn't fit, Bob." "What are you talking about?" "I gave you the rundown." "A violent repeat offender, repeatedly jailed." "Habitual criminal, not someone capable of acting with this kind of purpose." "This one's in the books." "You made the connection." "It must have made sense to you." "There is a connection, but the easy thing to do is to overlook the complexity." "There's an act of hubris at work here, a perverse calculus." " I know these men." "I've chased them." " Uh-huh." "There's someone else in this, Bletch." "Oh, boy!" "Frank, you know, sometimes if it quacks, it really is a duck." "The accused removed lighting from his apartment building's common stairwell." "This action resulted in a female client, aged 62, sustaining fatal injuries as a result of a fall." "It is now my duty to pronounce sentence." "You are to apprehend the condemned as instructed." "Having transported him to the place designated, amputate his right leg." "I got it written down from earlier, Judge." "I like the foot." "The son of a bitch, he kicked that old lady down the stairs." "The prisoner shall be conscious prior to the amputation." " Make him aware of the court's sentence." " I'll rub it in good." "The hood may seem superfluous to you." "I pronounce sentence to honour what we do, and to set it apart from frying bacon or passing gas." "Oh, I respect that, Judge." "Only, the two of us here, it seems like law court." "Mine is not a court of law." "It is a court ofjustice." "We cannot address every case." "Our scope is not broad like the common law courts." "It is narrower." "Deeper." "More pure." "Ourjudgment, final." "I'd better get going." "You're doing the right thing like this." "It feels good." "I'm real grateful, Judge." "Oh, dammit!" "I could really use a hand, mister." "Come on." "Please." "There's no windows." "You know, what do you see these days?" "Don't mind the no windows after a while." "I been here six years, working security." "It's important." "You know you're contributing." "Foot!" "Turn it back!" "Turn the belt back!" "Go for a damn supervisor!" "I ain't got it for this crap." "I got training for bombs." "Well, going by the state of decomposition, assuming no refrigeration," "I put the amputation within 36 to 100 hours." "Got to be the same guy, Nearman, we made for the others." "Who was the addressee?" "Guy's name is Philman, widower, due to retire this year." "Time stamp on the package?" "It could have sat in the drop box over the weekend." "Another five or six hours before getting sorted, stamped and shipped." "Plenty of time for Nearman to do it." "We're assuming the same perpetrator." "Nothing else makes sense." "The time frame works." "We see the established pattern." "Amputation with the victim alive." "That's not the established pattern." "It's the return to the established pattern." "The guy who killed the cop, Mellen, he didn't do this." " Then who did?" " Someone else." "These impressions on the calf." "Was there a sock?" "Yeah, yeah." "Right here, Frank." "We've got our guy." "Every piece of evidence says he did it." "No." "This is the old pattern." "This limb belongs to someone who may still be alive." "We recess for a debate, that may change." "Yeah." " Did you receive the records?" " I'm looking at them." "Cements the connection between the cop and the lady who was sent the tongue." "The dead police officer, Mellen, was a prosecution witness in the Tisman trial." " The conviction turned on his testimony." " Possibly false." "Annie Tisman was sent the tongue of the cop who perjured himself against her husband - why?" " Somebody's righting wrongs." " A New Age vigilante?" "This person is directing the killer or killers, and there's nothing new about that." "I've got something here." "Soil composition suggests a bog." "Absence of pesticide, with the presence of cranberry seeds, indicate it was once a working cranberry farm." "Geibelhouse!" "I need you to listen to this." " Are you familiar with Chelan County?" " Yeah, sure." "If you get a topo map, we could narrow this down to a few specific sites." "Geibelhouse!" "You keep working this area." "You two, follow me." "The man we're looking for is in this area." "He could be covered, hidden in debris." "Get on the radio." "I want everybody down here." "Where's those EMTs?" " Get them up here right now!" " Get that stretcher!" "Lieutenant!" " Lieutenant!" " We found our victim." "There's no rush." " How long has he been dead?" " Two hours." "Maybe a little less." " Improvised tourniquet kept him alive." " Used his own belt." "How do you imagine?" "The pain..." "Knowing you're gonna die." "Those are the orders of execution." "The killer's following a protocol." " Resuming the MO." " Orders from whom?" "A controller." "Calling the shots." "Out of caution or distaste, he's chosen to avoid direct action." " He's found a new surrogate." " To carry on the killing." "Predisposed to an alternative theory of justice." "Disillusioned, credulous, naive." "We're looking for two guys?" "The killer's capable of a high level of violence, someone who's been in the justice system, done time." "Ex-con, moves in similar circles outside." "Limited number of places these people go." " Limited ways they socialise." " I know the kind of places you mean." "Thanks a lot." "Nothing." "Muscle-head bartenders!" "Know nothing and try to keep it a secret." "I don't know, Frank." "We've pretty much done the circuit." "Even if this controller exists, it doesn't mean we're going to find him." "This might not be the night." " Come on." " We'll check parole records..." "Not now, Bletch." "The killer's inside." "Pale and pasty, hadn't been out of doors lately." "Relatively recent jailhouse tattoo on his neck." "If he is just out, what makes him right?" "What says he's our guy?" " He recognised us." " I look like a cop." "Maybe you do too." "He made eye contact." "He didn'tjust know we were law enforcement." " He was expecting us." "He didn't panic." " OK, we'll detain him." " We want the guy who runs him." " He'll give that up, if he's the killer." "And there's always physical evidence." "We'll prove it." "Wait till he gets in his car." " My judicial privilege shelters you." " Yeah, but what do I do?" "We cannot be called into account by a court at perpetual odds with the justice they presume to assure their existence." "There are cops riding circles and you're on yourjustice horse." "Shut up, Bardale!" "Don't let fear make you insolent." "The cops in the bar." "Are they looking for you?" "You're an afterthought, Bardale." "They want me." " Why?" "Why would they, Judge?" "If you saw them, they saw you." "If they wanted you, they'd take you." "Then they'd miss me." "If they left you, they have some idea I exist." "I've been wanting to meet the man who could find me." "They will come to me and, as I promised, I will protect you." "Now, do as I say." "Take my car." "Drive away." "OK." "I can't wait for this guy any longer." "Go." "You've got the description." "Didn't go right, didn't go left." "Right down the middle." "That's gotta be it." "It's what the killer was driving." "That's gonna lead us to the man in charge." "It shouldn't." "That car should be hot, plates stolen." "I have a feeling that the man we're after doesn't operate that way." "Detective Lieutenant Bletcher, Seattle PD." "We'd like to ask you a few questions." "I've been expecting you." "Come in." "We'd like you to come with us." "I've reviewed journals from the suspect's home." "There's material linking him to the body part recipients and victims." " He's in this." " You're the ADA." "Do we charge him?" "I called my boss." "He said no." "We don't have enough from the scrapbooks." "There's over a thousand names, but nothing to satisfy motive." " Did you get a statement we can use?" " We're working on it." "That's a no?" "Once more, do you recognise this man?" "Once more, it could be Carl, a hired man who cared for my hogs." "A drifter and an alcoholic." "I never asked his last name." "Where is he?" "He looks dead, but since you won't say, I won't guess." "We have evidence that your hired man committed at least one murder." "A man named Mellen." "Does that name sound familiar?" "No." "This man." " It looks something like Mike." " Another pig guy you barely know?" "Didn't I say so?" "If that is Mike." " You said you're a livestock auctioneer." " I got 15 going on 15.5." "15.5, 15.5 for this good steer right here." "Thank you, sir!" "Can I have 15.50?" " 15.50 for this steer." " Shut up!" "Damn!" "Well, it's gonna take another ten minutes, but we're going to have to cut him loose." " Who's in there with him?" " No one." " I never took his belt or laces either." " I'd like to talk to him." " You know he asked for you last night." " Talk to him." "He's going home soon." "He called you "The Outsider"." "Sit down." " What should I call you?" " Judge." "Or the name on the report." " "My name is Legion. "" " Legion?" "When Jesus expelled demons from a herd of enchanted hogs, story has it that the demons told him their name was "Legion"." " How would you like to work for me?" " Work?" "You mean killing." "Every man finds his own path to justice." "You needn't commit now." "The offer's open." "A month, a year..." "Many benefits." "I know you're sometimes scared for your family, your wife." "There's a child, yes?" "When you spoke to Bardale, what did you say when he called from the bar?" "Bardale." "Who can speak to Bardale, a slave of echoes?" "I can talk to you." " We're after the same thing." " How's that?" "I can show you an absolute justice, an unconstrained justice." "You'd have freedom to act without fear." "Bardale and his kindred, they fear me, they obey me." "Your family would be safe from such threats." " Uh-huh." " The police are about to release me." "You and your associates have never been as close to me as I've allowed this time." "I wanted you to hear my offer, feel its truth, see my strength." " We're going to find Bardale." " Oh, yes." "My congratulations in advance." "Well, it's time to go." "And remember, the offer's open." "If I'm hard to reach, don't make the conventional assumptions." " What'd he say?" " He offered me ajob." "If something's bothering me, all I do is eat." "It's been going on for almost a week, Frank." "You want to talk about it?" "The man I had Bletcher pick up has filed a half a dozen lawsuits." "City attorney's ordered the police to stay away." "Want this?" "No, thanks." "There's nothing to be done to bring this man to justice?" "He flouts the system and gets away with it, as if his private justice was a higher, purer form." "He uses conventional law to protect himself." "When you believe in nothing, everything is acceptable." "It's a game to him." "He sits at home, a free man." "He's taunting us." "What about the accomplice, the man you saw at the bar?" "Can't find him." "He may be dead." " He couldn't be hiding?" " He's not good at hiding." "He'd be seeking his own comfort." "I shouldn't be here." "I shouldn't be this close to his place." "I think Bardale's in there." "That's why we can't find him." "I can't go near there." "I step on this property and Bardale's not there," "I put the department in real legal trouble." "Stay close by." "I can't advise you to go there yourself." " You a cop?" " No, I'm not a cop." "I'm a private citizen." "Like me." " You looking for someone?" " Where's the guy who lives here?" "Around." " You have nowhere to go." " Back to prison." "I was always going back to prison." "Where did you get those cuts?" "On business." "Man wasn't no judge." " What was he?" " Well, who cares now?" "He was no judge of me." "That's how it turned out." "He betrayed you." "In prison you don't have it both ways." "You're either an inmate or a convict, a man or a piece of worthless crap." "Judge said the system was worthless crap, then he gets in bed with the system." "He was a pig, like the rest." " He promised to take care of you." " Who gives a rat's ass?" "Wasn't what he said, it's what he was that mattered." "He was bitch enough to let the cops take him, file lawsuits after he let them do it." "Bitch in the heart." "Wasn't any kind ofjudge." "Bitch was pure pig." "I want you to come outside with me." "You know what Gary Gilmore said right before they shot him?" "Well, then..." ""Let's do it. "" "OK, Bardale." "Have it your way." "Get him out of here." "He's not talking to me." "It's just convict to cop." " What did he say to you?" " He said the Judge was a pig." "Bardale killed him and put him in there." "Probably hamstrung him, then dumped him in there." "Probably." " You don't know?" " I don't want to know." "Frank, the bodies we never found, we'll find what there is to find in there?" "It's over." "I'm going home now."