A Rage To Kill And Other True Cases

stacks of pornographic videos. Where
had
he taken her during her visit seven years earlier?
    His parents admitted that Silas had been easily angered during his last visit home. He had spent those twelve days in October with them, and he had been angry that they had to wait in line at the restaurant—the incident Daniel Cool related to Steve O’Leary. Silas had insisted that they leave the line and go to another restaurant, his parents said. Yes, he had been angry at the neighbor’s dog for barking, and he had yelled at it. But what was neurotic about that, they asked? Anyone would have.
    Although Silas’s parents had sent him nearly $700 a month, plus gifts at Christmas and on his birthday, the airplane tickets to fly home in October, and his aunt had been very generous, he was frustrated because he didn’t have any income that he’d earned himself. He felt that he was a burden on his parents, which, of course, he was. His mother sometimes thought that there must be
some
job that he could do with his hands, a job that wouldn’t strain his back.
    “He was just wasting his life, when you think about it,” she said sadly, “But what can you do?”
    Ena showed Eric Sorensen the last postcards that Silas had sent them. He called them “E and D” and the cards read like a normal, cheery, communiqué. He spoke of a PGA golf tournament that was to be held in a Seattle suburb, and of his walk to Albertson’s grocery near Green Lake. He asked if their ancient cat was still growing fatter. He told them what he had eaten for supper, and about riding a bus. He sounded like the son they wanted so badly to believe in.
    Toward the end of his life, his mother said she had urged Silas to move back home. His room was still there for him, a small room with barely space for a bed, a dresser, and a postage stamp of a desk. He had resisted that idea, because he needed to move around. “He said he could do more there [in Seattle],” Ena Cool said. “He could get around on buses and go where he wanted to go, whereas here [without a car], you’re pretty stuck.”
    At length, Ena Cool said tentatively, “He seemed on the very withdrawn side [in October] if you know what I mean.”
    “It was the back pain,” Daniel said quickly. “I think his nerves were in such a state . . .”

    Indeed they were. Within six weeks, Silas’s “nerves” were at the point of exploding. Clearly, the problems that had undoubtedly haunted him for years had started to unravel and the tightly controlled world inside his apartment and inside his own head were threatening to burst forth. It was only a matter of when and on which bus.
    Not surprisingly, the bulk of the information that was coming into the Homicide unit was in response to the pictures of Silas Cool that were posted at bus stops. A woman recognized Cool, and said she had spoken to him on the bus earlier in the fall. He’d been complaining that the bus drivers were rude, that people were generally rude. He had shown her a small gun that he carried, and commented that things were getting so bad he was going to buy another gun.
    And, apparently, he had.
    The last person to talk to Silas Garfield Cool before he erupted on Bus Number 359 may have been Dorna Stone, who served free Thanksgiving Day meals at the University Temple United Methodist Church. She remembered a neatly dressed man carrying a backpack. He was tall and handsome and scarcely looked like a “street person.” He came in and sat down at a table where she was talking with several other volunteers. As he enjoyed the holiday meal, he told them that he knew which churches served free meals.
    He also told them about which dumpsters held the best food. It was an odd conversation to have with a man who looked like a middle-aged corporate executive who was dressed down on his day off in a plaid sports shirt and jeans. He struck Stone as a nice guy who didn’t seem to be stressed or unhappy. He spent about fifteen minutes in the church basement eating his meal, and then stopped on his way out to ask for more food, which he took with him.
    She was quite sure that that pleasant, good-looking man had been Silas Cool.

    John Nordlund, Steve O’Leary, and Gene Ramirez continued to question survivors as their condition improved enough to warrant it. They found nothing new; some had seen the man in dark clothing stride up to the bus driver and shoot him twice without exchanging so much as a word. Some had been sleeping, reading, or