ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel) (37 page)

“
Where shall I meet you?” he asked.

“
How about Harry’s Bar on Chartres Street?”

“
Great choice,” he said, surprised that she knew it. Harry’s was a local joint where residents of the French Quarter hung out, the perfect place to talk without attracting attention. “I’ll be there by six-thirty.”

_____

When he walked into Harry’s she waved, smiling at him, the same sexy lopsided smile that had captivated him in Omaha. Seated on a tall stool at a table by a window, she wore a white sleeveless jersey that contrasted with her arms, tanned and muscular from riding. Today, her long sable-brown hair was pulled into a ponytail, exposing gold studs in her ears, an attractive intelligent woman, a respected psychotherapist who wore a wedding band even though she had no husband. Why was that, he wondered.

He pulled a stool around the table and sat beside her, telling himself this would facilitate the exchange of sensitive information.

Bullshit. He wanted to be closer to her.

“
I’ve got a helluva nerve,” she said, “expecting you to meet me on short notice. Thanks for being flexible.”

“
I’m good at improvising. I played trumpet in my college jazz band.”

To his surprise, this elicited a squinty-eyed stare. “You play trumpet?”

“
Yeah. Why? Does that make me a monster?”

“
Not at all. Sorry, Frank.” She touched his arm and flashed a smile that didn’t quite ring true. “My brother was a trumpet player.”

He got the feeling she didn’t want to talk about her brother. “The service is slow here,” he said. “Let me go to the bar and get us a drink. Want a beer? Wine? A mixed drink?”

“
A beer would be good. Draft is fine.”

When he returned with two foaming mugs, she set hers on the table untouched. “I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me last Saturday, Frank, but when I re-read my notes it hit me right away.”

He glanced at the crowded tables nearby. The funky jazz on the sound system would cover their conversation and if it didn’t, the convivial banter and hoots of laughter from patrons relaxing after work would. Still, the sharing of sensitive information gave him an excuse to lean closer, close enough to inhale the cinnamon scent of her perfume. “Tell me about it.”

“
After months of therapy I finally got Tim to talk about his childhood. He said one day after Nanny tortured him—
his
word, not mine—he found a wire trap in the cellar. His father used it to catch raccoons in the woods around their house. Tim baited the trap, went out and set it up in the woods. When he went back the next day a squirrel was in the trap. He poked it with a stick and the squirrel went crazy, trying to escape.”

She paused, gazing at him, somber-eyed. “Then Tim went and got the garden shears. And cut off the squirrel’s tail.”

The hairs rose on his forearms. He rubbed his arms, appalled by the deliberate cruelty. “Animal torture is an early warning sign of—”

“
Of serial killers. I know. I’ve read the criminal psychology books.”

“
What did he say about cutting off the tail? Why did he do it?”

“
Tails, plural. He was eight when he did the first one and he kept it up for years.” She rolled her lips together and looked away. “He said he wanted the squirrels to feel the way he felt. Trapped and tortured.”

“
Tortured by whom?”

“
The nanny most of the time, and his father, sometimes.”

“
You think it was a symbolic castration?”

“
I think it had more to do with how Tim felt about himself.”

A burst of laughter from two men at the next table jarred him.

He leaned closer to Dana. “I talked to a homicide detective down in Washington, D. C. Tim was a student at Georgetown University in 1990. A college coed was murdered that year. Her tongue was cut.”

“
Another one, way back then?” She gazed at him, her expression somber. Her sable-brown eyes had gold flecks in them, he noticed.

“
Yes, but that case was different. In the New Orleans murders the tongues were cut postmortem. In the D.C. case, the woman was still alive.”

Dana’s eyes widened in a look of horror.

“
Yeah. It was bad, blood all over the place. I’m not positive it’s related, but our killer is smart. He might have learned from his mistake and revised his technique. The detective got hold of a Georgetown yearbook from 1992, the year Tim graduated. He was a member of the Newman Club. The victim went to Trinity College, and she belonged to
their
Newman Club.”

“
What’s the Newman Club?”

“
A Catholic social club, basically. According to McGuire, the Trinity girls go to Newman Club mixers at Georgetown to meet boys.”

“
A possible connection. But that doesn’t mean Tim killed her.”

She doesn’t want to believe that her former patient is a killer.

“
No, it doesn’t,” he said, truthfully. “My partner and I interviewed him yesterday, got nowhere, and right now I’m flat out on a teen runaway.” He grinned. “The girl’s father is in town for a movie shoot so you might see it on the news. I don’t want you to think I’m loafing.”

She tipped back her head and laughed. “Loafing? Last time we talked you were in Omaha working on a weekend. Hell, you’re a workaholic, like me. When was your last vacation?”

He shrugged. “Can’t remember.”

“
Three years for me.” Her expression grew somber and she turned to look out the window. In profile her prominent nose lent character to her face. He wondered if she had come to Harry’s Bar with her husband.

“
It’s hard to believe the kid I treated is a killer. He reminded me—”

She gulped some beer and wiped foam off her top lip with a cocktail napkin. “Tim was sexually abused, but he refused to acknowledge it. That’s not unusual. Many abuse victims are in denial, and as I told you, his paintings displayed generalized rage: bloody knives, black clouds and blood-red rivers. He didn’t tell me how much he hated the nanny until later.”

“
The second Mrs. Krauthammer. What’s her name?”

“
Ingrid. I saw it in the paper once, Ingrid Krauthammer. But Tim always called her Nanny.”

A waiter delivered a round of drinks to the men at the next table and cocked an eyebrow at Frank. Frank waved him off.

“
Did you ever meet her? Talk to her?”

“
No, and it’s just as well. Some of the things Tim said she did to him were horrible.”

“
Could he have been lying?”

She remained silent, grooming her ponytail with long slender fingers. “Not about that. His descriptions were vivid and fluent, stream of consciousness almost. I did catch him in lies about other things, but that goes with his narcissistic personality.” Her lopsided grin appeared. “You studied psychology. You know the symptoms.”

“
Tell me. Narcissistic types have a range of behavioral issues.”

“
Tim was very intelligent, tops in his class, despite the speech disfluency. His IQ was Mensa-level, above one-fifty. Like most narcissists, he had an inflated sense of self-importance. He believed others envied his intelligence and academic achievements. He considered himself special, which didn’t endear him to his peers. It wasn’t just his stutter that turned people off.”

Right, and he hasn’t changed much.

“
What about empathy? Did he feel compassion for others?”

“
None that I saw.” She raised her arms and stretched, as if to relieve the tension. “Let’s take a walk, okay?”

She slipped off her stool and headed for the door. He followed, dug out his cellphone when he reached the sidewalk and punched in a number. Dana raised an eyebrow. He held up a finger as a woman answered.

“
Hello, Sister. This is Frank Renzi. Could I speak to Father Tim?” He covered the phone and said to Dana, “Time for another talk with Tim.”

Moments later Tim’s voice said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Renzi?”

Using the civilian salutation, in case anyone should overhear and get suspicious. From the tone of voice, Tim wasn’t overjoyed to hear from him.

“
I just got some new information. We need to talk.”

“
Information about what?”

“
Lots of things. How about squirrels?”

Silence on the other end. He wondered if Krauthammer was blinking.

“
I’m too busy. Father Cronin’s away and I’ve taken over his duties.”

“
How about lunch tomorrow at the Patisserie Cafe?” When that got no response, he said, “Okay, I’ll come to the rectory. We can talk there.”

“
No,” Krauthammer snapped. “The cafe, one o’clock.”

There was a sharp click and the line went dead. He punched off.

“
Tim wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect of talking to me again.”

No response from Dana, who turned to watch a mule clip-clop down the street, pulling a small white carriage with two couples and a tour guide. When the carriage disappeared around the corner she said, “Let’s walk down to Jax Brewery. I love watching the river at night.”

Another place she went with her husband.

“
Seems like you know New Orleans pretty well,” he said.

“
I came here to visit my brother a few times. He lived here for a while.” Abruptly, she turned and walked away.

What’s the problem with her brother, Frank wondered.

_____

“
Thankyou, thankyou,
thankyou
!” she exclaimed, clutching the cellphone in her sweaty hand. “I was about ready to kill myself if you didn’t call, Tim.”

It was true. She’d been waiting in her shitty little motel room since five o’clock, drinking Diet Sprite as she watched the sun go down, dust motes floating in the light slanting through the dirty window blinds. But now, after an eternity of waiting, her Knight in Shining Armor had called, a handsome older man who actually liked her, an educated man who quoted poetry and smiled at her, and, most important of all, listened to her.

“
Goodness, I wouldn’t want you to kill yourself because of me.”

Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. He was right. She sounded desperate. Lisa the loser. No, wait. At the bar she had told him her name was Marie, thinking if she stopped being Lisa her luck might change.

She realized he was waiting for her to speak and uttered the first thing that popped into her mind. “How come you’re calling so late?”

“
I had to work overtime tonight. Some of my cases are, well, to be honest, they’re at the critical stage.”

She dug her fingernails into her palm. Did that mean he wasn’t going to see her again? She wouldn’t be able to stand it. What would she do? Go back to that dump of a bar and wait for another decent-looking man to talk to her? Fat chance. The guys in the camo shirts and biker outfits scared her. She knew enough to stay away from them.

“
But,” Tim said, “I was thinking we might get together tomorrow.”

Her heart soared. “We could do that. Shall we meet at the bar?”

She loved his kinky sense of humor, joking about killing some girl who’d bitten his finger. It probably happened at work. Tim was a social worker, a serious professional, working overtime to help screwed-up people.

“
No, not there. Have you still got your rental car?”

“
Yes. Why?” She studied her image in the dresser mirror. Damn, what an awful haircut. The stupid woman had scalped her.

“
Well, on top of everything else,” Tim said, sounding distressed, “my car’s on the fritz. I was hoping we could use yours.”

“
Sure, no problem. Want me to pick you up?” She glanced at the new dress she’d bought, hanging in the alcove, a slinky red number with a V-neck.

“
No, no, that won’t be necessary. I’ll come to the motel.”

“
Uhh, what would you like to do?”
How about if you smother me with kisses and throw me down on the bed and rip off my clothes and—

“
I thought we could have a nice dinner somewhere and talk.”

A warm glow flooded her chest. Tim was lonely, she realized. He didn’t expect to have sex with her right away. That made her feel special. No one in her whole life had ever made her feel special, not her father, and not her drug-addict mother, that’s for sure.

“
That sounds perfect,” she said.

“
Great. I’ll call you tomorrow and we’ll make a plan.”

What
time
will you call, she wanted to ask. She didn’t want to hang around for hours waiting like she had today. But she didn’t want to sound anxious and needy, either.

“
Okay,” she said. “Talk to you tomorrow. G’night, Tim.”

CHAPTER 24

As they strolled along the Jackson Square pedestrian mall at twilight, Dana remained silent and withdrawn. Maybe it’s the gloomy sky, Frank thought, or the saxophone player in front of the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the park, pumping out a mournful blues for a handful of tourists.