Bone Thief (13 page)

“She stopped breathing,” Driscoll sighed, “but the CPR unit brought her back. They got there just before I did. I could have lost her, Elizabeth. The call arrived when I was kissing my assistant. Imagine that. I'm kissing Margaret, feeling emotions I forgot I had, and the cellular starts ringing. It was three o'clock in the morning! I should have been home in bed, not out getting it on with another woman.”

“Is three o'clock after your curfew?”

Doctor Elizabeth Fahey was Driscoll's psychotherapist. She had nursed Driscoll's soul through his near collapse at the loss of his daughter and the onset of his wife's coma.

“Curfew. What curfew? I'm not a teenager, for Christ's sake!”

“Well, you're the one out necking at three o'clock in the morning.”

“She stopped breathing. I'm out gallivanting, and she stops breathing.”

“Let's not even think about the shape you'd be in if the two of you had had sex.”

Driscoll looked at her. “You're really off to the races now.”

“Tell me you don't see the message here.”

“So, this is all about guilt?”

“Irish Catholic guilt.”

Driscoll slouched back in his chair. “I know I'm gonna sound like a broken record, but I still don't think you understand how much I miss my wife. She was my first love, remember, the first woman in my life. I adored her. Everything about her. I still carry her in my thoughts everywhere I go. Just the other day the phone rang. This woman with a French accent was looking for some guy named Claude. A wrong number. It sounded just like her. I hung up the phone and cried. Then I remembered she's not dead. She's just in the other room.”

His eyes moistened. “Like we discussed from the onset, it's like I'm married, but I'm not married. I have Colette at home, but I live alone. I see her every day, but she doesn't see me. She doesn't even know I'm there! We both know this is not grounds for an annulment. Not if you're a Catholic. Married for life am I. Do I like it? Can't say that I do. Can I do anything about it? Damned if I can. What's down the road for me is one lonely day after another. There certainly can't be any future with Margaret.”

“There's not even a present. Tell me more about this woman.”

“She's beautiful.”

“And you're a handsome man. That can account for the physical attraction. But tell me more. What's she all about?”

“She comes from an Italian-American background. Her father, the bastard, was a cop. She followed in his footsteps.”

“Why did you call him a bastard?”

Driscoll sat back in his chair, thoughtful. His eyes drifted toward the floor.

“Margaret didn't exactly have what you'd call a happy childhood,” he said.

“Who does?” Tell me about hers.”

Driscoll felt a pang of guilt. Should he reveal a confidence that Margaret admitted to him over a couple of beers? He scanned Fahey's face. This was his therapist, for God's sake.

“She was sexually abused as a child.”

“By whom? The bastard father?”

Driscoll nodded. “Then when Margaret was seventeen, the son of a bitch drank himself into a stupor and took his head off with his service revolver. If you ask me, the parasite had it coming.”

“Well, that explains a lot of things. Is she in therapy?”

“She was when she was a teen. I don't think that continued, though.”

“The human mind is a very protective device. Often victims like Margaret are able to block out the memory of their abuse, or at least the emotions she was feeling at the time of her abuse. But what she'd likely to be left with is an anxiety disorder with both an attraction and a distrust of men, on an unconscious level, of course. Her father killing himself doesn't help. It raises abandonment issues. How long have you two been working together?”

“Four years.”

“I'm willing to bet this is the first time you two are tracking down a serial killer of women.”

“It is.”

“Whether they block out their emotions or not, incest victims never fully recover. The earlier the age, the more severe the psychological trauma. A trauma that unconsciously determines their every move. Right on through adulthood. It's probably why she became a cop.”

“What's this serial killer got to do with it?”

“This isn't your run-of-the-mill serial killer. He's not using a shotgun to take out his victims. He's boning them, dissecting their flesh. This is a very intimate method of murder. The intimate slaughter of women. Much like her own intimate slaughter.”

“So you're saying there's a connection.”

“Absolutely. She relives her destruction at every crime scene. Unconsciously, what resonates in her is fear. A child's fear. Remember, it's why she became a cop. And to this frightened cop, you represent the knight that is out to slay the dragon, this butcher of women. And in so doing, you'd be avenging her own desecration.”

“Her fear is what attracts her to me?”

“You are the way out of her nightmare. In you, she's seeking a father imago.”

“You mean some sort of replacement father figure?”

“No. An imago. It's a clinical term. Suffice it to say, Margaret, the little girl, is looking to you for protection, all on an unconscious level, of course. Margaret the adult then translates that urgent need into something else. Something more grown-up, the best example being a relationship. It's what two adults have when they're attracted to each other, for whatever the reason. That's how her conscious mind reconciles her feelings toward you.”

“So her feelings aren't real.”

“There as real as these four walls, but they stem from her childhood. Her unconscious primal fear.”

Driscoll's eyes widened. He then shook his head.

“You gotta be right, Elizabeth. I've been working with her for four years, but she's only shown an interest in me since the onset of this investigation.”

“She can't help herself. It's a form of self-preservation rooted deep within her psyche.”

“So, the child in her is looking to me for protection and the adult is looking for a relationship.”

“You got it.”

“But I'm a married man!”

“You really like to beat that drum, don't you? Tell me something. Do you honestly believe Colette would want you to spend the rest of your life alone?”

Driscoll looked plaintively at Fahey. He always felt like he was doing something wrong when asked to consider what Colette's wishes might have been.

“The other night with Margaret, she had on this Johnny Mathis song, “Chances Are.” Was she trying to tell me something?”

“You're the detective. What do you think?”

“Could be.”

“Could be? Does she have to wave a checkered flag?”

“But I shouldn't even be in the race.”

“You, or the Irish Catholic altar boy that lives inside you?”

“Come on.”

Fahey hummed “Chances Are.”

Driscoll crossed his arms as though he had made a decision. “Checkered flag or no checkered flag, Margaret's gonna be real disappointed.”

“Like she isn't already?”

Driscoll sighed heavily.

“You know, Elizabeth, I can only admit this to you, but sometimes I wish Colette had died in that terrible accident. Does that make me a bad person?”

“No, John. It makes you human.”

Driscoll toyed with his wedding band and remembered the notion he had of it being a hangman's noose. He had to admit that the feelings he had for Margaret were as real as the feelings he had for Colette. That truth was undeniable and inescapable. Sure, the feelings were different. Hell, the women were different. Though he wished he could, he couldn't turn back the hands of time. He had crossed the line. He had acted on his feelings. Should he face the gallows for such an offense? All he did was kiss another woman. But it wasn't just another woman, it was clearly a woman he had feelings for. While still married to Colette! He knew Elizabeth was right. This was all about guilt.

“If you don't mind, I'd like to change the subject,” he said.

“Does it have to do with the case you're working on?”

“There you go, reading my mind again.”

“You want a therapist's view on what makes him tick. No?”

“Exactly. Like I explained briefly on the phone, the guy is dissecting them and stealing their bones. What I didn't say is that he's taking their heads, hands, and feet, too. I wanna know why.”

“How does he leave what's left of the bodies?”

“He nailed one to a boardwalk in Rockaway Beach. Another we found in an abandoned boathouse in Prospect Park. The third we recovered from the Canarsie Sanitation Dump. The last victim had been eviscerated and stuffed in a trash bag.”

“Why do I get the feeling your guy's just warming up?”

“That's what I'm afraid of.”

“Your guy despises flesh. Feminine flesh. I'd say his crimes are not sexually motivated, not in the usual sense. He's collecting something he needs and wants, and in each woman he goes for something hard and imperishable in their softness. Their bones. He's a skilled cutter?”

“The guy knows his anatomy. Whadya figure his motive to be?”

“Did Genghis Khan need a motive to build mountains from human skulls? What you could have here is a display of an archaic war rite, where women are his quarry. He guts them and takes their skeletons as hostages. What he does with the head, hands, and feet puzzles me. But there's a good possibility this savage has a war room, an intimate museum filled with the souvenirs of his expeditions. That's where he'd store his human medals. You've got to find that treasure chamber, that gallery where he showcases his loot.”

“This sounds like Anthropology 101.”

“Sure it does. He's got the mores of his Neanderthal ancestors.”

“So I should be looking for some guy covered in animal skin, wielding a stone ax?”

“More chance he'll be wearing Armani.”

“Then I'll have to strike at the beast behind the broad lapel.”

“Make it a sure strike.”

“Is he curable?”

“The prognosis is not in his favor.”

“Then I have no choice. I'll have to take him down.”

“That'd be my advice.”

Driscoll looked haunted. “Is my hour up?” he asked.

“Twenty minutes ago.”

“Thanks for the extra time,” he said as he stood up. “As always, I feel better after seeing you.”

“Give some more thought to what I suggested about Colette's wishes. The doctors are unanimous about her condition, aren't they? She's never coming out of the coma.”

Driscoll's eyes were fixed in a blank stare.

Elizabeth continued, “But you don't believe them, do you?”

“What are you getting at?”

“You haven't given up on that fantasy, have you? You think she's gonna get up from that bed and brew you some French Roast coffee. Tell me the truth. You're just waiting for that day, aren't you?”

“You don't give up. Do you?” Driscoll said, smiling harshly.

“What kind of a therapist would I be if I did?”

Margaret and Driscoll were once again seated before the NYPD computer monitors inside Driscoll's office at the Command Center. They were going through the motions of searching the Internet, but their thoughts were elsewhere. And so were their voices. Their awkward silence was interrupted only by the pecking of keys.

Thomlinson entered. A glaring look from Margaret told him he'd stepped into a minefield.

“Catch you guys later,” he said, ducking out the door.

Margaret lifted her fingers from the keyboard and did a one-eighty in her swivel chair. “I think we need to talk about it,” she said. “Ignoring it isn't gonna make it go away.”

“You're right. We do need to talk about it.”

“I'm not sorry it happened. Are you?”
Please say you're not
.

“I can't say that I'm sorry. But I gotta be honest with you, I am filled with guilt.”

“That's a good sign. It means you have a conscience. But you shouldn't be too hard on yourself. You were only acting on true feelings. Right?”

“Yes, I was acting on true feelings, but I shouldn't have had those feelings. I'm a married man.”

That she didn't need to be reminded of. “Feelings are feelings. They're neither good nor bad. They're just feelings. You shouldn't beat yourself up over having them.”

Driscoll fingered his wedding band. “It's one thing to have the feelings. But it's a whole other ball game when you act on them.”

Time to muster some courage
, she thought as her heart pounded inside her chest. “I'm about to say something, John, that'll have you thinking.”

“Go ahead.”

“Colette would understand.”

A quizzical look filled Driscoll's face. “You're the second female inside of two days to say that.”

“Well, I'm not gonna ask who the other bright visionary is, but take it from me, given the circumstances, your wife would understand.”

“Part of me is beginning to believe that, but the larger part is calling for harsh punishment.”

“Penance? You want penance? You're being much too hard on yourself.”

“I need some space, an emotional rest so I can sort things out. For now, let's just try to get on with our lives and focus our energies back on the case.”

“OK, we will. But, you don't have to beat yourself up. Trust me. I know I'm right about how Colette would feel.”
At least I hope so
, her inner voice said as her mind raced.

“Space. Just a little space. OK?”

“You got it.”

The telephone chimed and the Lieutenant answered it. “Driscoll here.”

“I gotta talk to you.” Moira's voice was filled with apprehension.

“So, talk.”

“Not on the phone. I don't trust AT&T.”

“Moira, you caught me at a bad time.”

“They make an awesome bacon cheeseburger at the Empress Diner.”

“What is it you want?”

“I told you, I won't discuss it on the phone.”

“Then come to my office.”

“Your office is like Grand Central Station at rush hour. It's no place for conversation.”

“E-mail me.” Driscoll cradled the phone under his chin and threw both hands in the air.

“Just give me ten minutes. The Empress Diner.”

“You've got five. And it better be worth it.”