Confession (6 page)

“I'm telling you they caught the Saint,” she repeated just as he pushed the long flat needle into a vein.

His hands started to shake. “No. They didn't.”

“Oh, but they did.”

His fingers fumbled. Sweat stung his eyes. His vision blurred, and he couldn't pop the needle into the vacutainer.

“Turns out it's that illegitimate Jericho brother—­Dante, and he
confessed.
Do you believe it?”

“No!” His hand seized, plunging the needle deeper. He jerked his arm back, and the needle ripped her skin before flying across the room. The empty purple-­top vacutainer rolled onto the floor between his feet.

“You miserable little fool! Look what you did!”

Big fat drops of watery purple blood oozed down her forearm and dripped onto his gloved hands. Dripped onto his trousers—­soiling them over the fly. “I'm sorry. It was an accident,” he whispered hoarsely.

“You stupid, stupid boy.”

Lazy, dirty boy. You're a scourge.

Expecting her fists to rain down on him, he protected his head.

Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes went so wide he could see white all the way around her irises.

“I can clean up my mess.” He grabbed some gauze and swiped at the blood on her arm, but she knocked his hand away.

“I'm going to have to report you.”

Dirty boy! Wait until I tell the other Sisters what you did.

“No, please don't tell anyone . . . I'll lose my job.” His voice sounded weak, plaintive. He was good with the needle. He knew exactly where and how hard to poke it in. It was all her fault for not holding still. He got his needle in the vein, but she wouldn't be still, she wouldn't shut up. She'd unmanned him with her nasty remarks. His eyes flicked to his pants, wet with blood and ruined. He crossed his hands over the wet spot. “I'll clean up my mess. I promise, Sister.”

“Are you a retard?”

He looked up through his tears, expecting to see Sister Bernadette, bounding to her feet, shaking her fist at him. But it wasn't her.

Bernadette was dead—­he'd killed her years ago.

For the second time that morning, he fell to his knees, and the oddest thing happened. As he wiped the blood drops off the floor, they burned right through his glove. Right through his skin, sizzling like spilled acid. He saw blisters rising on his arms, the blood boiling inside his veins. If he didn't get the blood off him, his whole body would catch fire. “No! No! No!” Tearing off the bloody gloves, he crawled across the floor, as far and as fast as he could go.

Wilhelmina screamed for help.

He covered his ears.

Curled into a tight ball.

Began to cry.

 

SEVEN

Tuesday, July 23, 9:00
A.M.

F
aith winced at the clock in the police interrogation room. Nine in the morning. She'd been here since seven, and the detective who'd insisted she arrive promptly had just now swaggered into the room. Last night, despite her weariness, she'd tossed and turned for the better part of the night, unable to forget about either Dante's confession or the black-­haired man in her kitchen. New locks and the authorities' assurance that the man would not likely return had been some comfort, but not enough to result in a restful night. And now, thanks to the tardy detective, she hadn't gotten her morning run in, which meant she wouldn't be sleeping tonight either. It was far too easy for her to regress to her old insomniac ways. Ways that harkened back to the time of her parents' accident.

Closing her eyes, she pictured Grace, sitting at the foot of her bed offering a cup of warm milk, after Ma and Da died.
Do you want me to sing you a lullaby?
Grace had asked. But Faith had declared she only wanted Ma to sing to her and turned her sister away.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat and set down her water bottle, glaring around the stark room. Detective Howard Johnson referred to this oversized closet as an interview room, but she knew it was the same place the police interrogated murderers and thieves. Wire cages that covered not only the windows but the ceiling tiles as well were strategically placed to prevent suspects from escaping through the vents. The whole ambience was designed to wrest control from the interviewee and give the interviewer a decided psychological advantage. Which was all well and good for prisoners and suspects, but she was neither. She was a trained professional, and she was cooperating fully. Narrowing her eyes at the big two-­way mirror on the far wall, she barely managed to resist the urge to shoot the bird at whoever was behind it.

Sleep deprivation made her cranky.

“Nobody there. They're all across the hall watching us on computer screens. These two-­way mirrors are practically obsolete, but it's not worth tearing them down.” Detective Johnson balanced his beefy body, made even bulkier by the Kevlar vest buttoned under his shirt, atop a flimsy laminate table, and swung his feet off her side. Rather than sitting across from her in the opposite chair, he loomed over her, invading her personal space. A controlling and completely unnecessary move.

When one giant, swinging shoe narrowly missed her kneecap, she flinched. “Is there some particular reason you're treating me like a hostile witness, Detective?”

“You've got the wrong idea there, little lady.” He winked at her and followed that up with a loud belch, making her wonder if he'd just had a long leisurely steak-­and-­egg breakfast while she sat waiting obediently in an interrogation room that stank of body odor and sour milk.

Her teeth clenched, and she deliberately relaxed her jaw, smiled sweetly. “Do I really have it all wrong,
Howie
?”

His face flushed. “I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this very serious matter. You wanna Coke or something?” He snapped his fingers and addressed the camera. “Somebody bring Dr. Clancy a Coke. She thinks we don't treat her right.”

“No, thanks.”

“Coffee? I can't really recommend the brew here, but we'll scare some up if you like.”

“No, thanks. You said you wanted to talk to me about Dante Jericho?”

“If you're sure, then.” He trailed a hand through his close-­cropped wheat blond hair. “Heard you had a possible break-­in at your home last night.”

“Not a
possible
break-­in. I saw a man in my kitchen.”

“But there was no sign of forced entry. Nothing missing.”

“Not that I can tell so far, no. But I saw a man in my kitchen window. It wasn't my imagination.”

He gave her the once-­over. “If he wasn't after money, maybe he was after you. If I were a pretty lady living all alone, I'd keep my doors locked.”

“The doors were locked. But thanks for the tip.” The sarcasm in her tone matched the condescension in his. Bring it on. She'd rather be mad than scared any day, and the macho detective was providing a nice, fat, diversionary target.

“You look beat, Doc. You sleeping okay?”

“No,” she snapped. “Look, Detective, I came down here voluntarily, and I'm prepared to give you all the help I can. But I don't know what you want from me. I've already told you everything I know.”

“Doctors got a funny way of thinking their responsibility is to their patients. But a cop's responsibility is to the public. See,
my
job is to look out for Jericho's victims.”

“Allegedly, Jericho's victims.”

“He confessed. But okay,
allegedly.
And you just proved my point with that remark . . .
little lady.
” Johnson leaned as close as he could get without touching her.

She could smell that coffee he couldn't recommend on his breath.

“So maybe you can understand how I might want to be sure I'm getting the whole story from you. That you're not holding anything back.”

Her hands twisted in her lap. Johnson's argument wasn't without merit. She had a duty to warn the public about a potentially dangerous criminal, both legally and ethically, and she'd fulfilled that duty. But Dante Jericho was technically still her patient. She had real moral and legal obligations toward him, too, and she felt the weight of those rather heavily at the moment. What the Saint had done to his victims froze her bones and cracked her heart into little pieces, but what if Dante Jericho wasn't the Saint?

Dante's grasp on reality ebbed and flowed with the phases of the moon. Surely, the police should confirm the facts, gather some evidence, before accepting his confession and closing the case.

“We've subpoenaed your records on Dante Jericho,” Johnson said.

“And they've been provided to you.” Faith used an EHR, an electronic health-­record-­keeping system, and that meant no waiting for transcriptions or photocopies like the old days. The police had been given full access to everything in her files the same hour she received the subpoena.

“They weren't much use.” Johnson shrugged and slid a consent for release of information, signed by Dante, into her line of vision. The release wasn't necessary. Unlike the communication between a lawyer and a client, doctor-­patient confidentiality didn't extend to criminal matters. Plus there was the subpoena. The fact that Johnson obtained a consent that was entirely superfluous confirmed her belief he didn't trust her. He was trying to preempt any possible protest on her part.

She tried again to set him straight on her intentions. “Detective, I'm not going to pretend I enjoy being interrogated.”

“Interviewed.”

“Whatever. But I won't withhold information. I want the truth to come out as badly as you. So maybe we can just get down to it.”

“Got places to go?”

Her only patient was in jail. She hadn't a single friend in town, and Johnson likely knew both of those facts.

“I've got an important conference later today, and I need time to prepare for it.” Not a complete lie. She
hoped
she had an important conference. On Saturday, she'd e-­mailed Dr. Caitlin Cassidy, requesting a consultation.

Dr. Cassidy was the foremost expert in the country on false confessions, and she had recently been involved in the release of a man on death row—­a man who'd been clearly exonerated by DNA evidence after new witnesses came forward. It was absolutely possible Dr. Cassidy would respond to her today.

“An important conference.” He made a harrumphing sound. “Well then, down we'll get.” Johnson slapped a photograph of a young woman in front of her.

Faith immediately recognized Nancy Aberdeen. In this photograph, which had been plastered all over the news, Nancy posed with a cherry pie, a big blue ribbon, and a hometown-­sweetheart smile. Nancy wore a gingham dress and had her hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. Her skin shimmered with a rich, inviting sheen, like a bowl of cream waiting for a cat. Her wide eyes sparkled with happiness, perhaps because of that big blue ribbon she'd won, or perhaps because happiness was simply in her nature. Nancy Aberdeen was both a breath of fresh air and a blast from the past. The perfect picture of more innocent times. An unexpected teenager. Why had the Saint chosen this particular girl?

“That picture was taken at the state fair.” Johnson's face contorted, covering whatever emotion the photograph called up in him. Not good for his tough-­cop image to show he cared.

“And this.” He slapped a second photo down beside the first. “This is Nancy Aberdeen after the Saint got done with her.”

All Faith had in her stomach was water, and she had to fight to keep that down. Tears welled behind her eyes, and she blinked those back, too. She forced herself to keep her gaze on the picture. The girl had been hog-­tied, her skull blown apart by a shotgun blast. What was left of her face was shrouded in blood, unrecognizable. In her hand, she clasped a rosary. “You're a real jerk, Howie, you know that, right?”

“I could give a rat's asshole if I am.”

“What the hell do you want from me?” She refused to allow her voice to quiver.

“I wanna know every single goddamn thing you know about Dante Jericho, the bastard who killed this sweet sixteen-­year-­old girl.” She could practically hear his teeth grinding.

“I'm afraid you're going to have to narrow that down a bit.
Tell me everything you know
covers a lot of ground. What's your question?”

“You call this cooperating?”

“You call this an interview?” She leapt to her feet.

Raising one hand, Johnson's expression turned coaxing. “Sit down . . . please.”

He pulled out her chair, politely.

She sat back down—­her legs were shaking anyway.

“I wanted you to see his evil with your own eyes. I apologize for not preparing you first. I may have been out of line.”

Swallowing hard, she met his eyes. “Apology accepted.”

His shoulders relaxed, and a bit of the fight seemed to go out of him, as if he'd finally realized she might not be the enemy after all—­or maybe that was her remembering he was one of the good guys.

“Did Jericho ever mention the name Nancy Aberdeen or the names of any of the other victims to you before last Saturday?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“For the record, please.”

“No, he never mentioned the names of any of the Saint's victims.” Turning toward the camera, she enunciated clearly. “Not that I recall. But I've only been treating him a ­couple of weeks.”

“Is there anything you might've omitted from your notes that could help us?”

“Anything that seemed important to me at the time, I put in the notes. Of course, I wasn't looking for clues to catch a serial killer.”

“But looking back, is there anything at all that would've suggested Jericho might be the Saint.”

“He never said anything to me that would specifically connect him to these crimes.”

“Other than his confession.”

Ah. The condescending Johnson she knew and loved.

“Right.”

“If you think of something, you'll let me know.” He handed her his card. Twisting his mouth like he was spitting out a bite of sour apple, he said, “Sorry if I shocked you with the photo.”

She nodded. A not-­so-­random thought came to her mind. “Detective, I've been wondering. Were any of the victims sexually assaulted?”

His brows shot up in surprise. “I can't disclose that information.”

“They weren't. I can see by the look on your face. Seems unusual. So many serial murders are sexually motivated. And based on what I've read in the papers, I don't see a common thread among the victims. Finding that thread and pulling it would be the key to unraveling the mystery—­wouldn't it?”

He opened the door to the interrogation room, seeming suddenly anxious to see her out. “Make you a deal, Doc. You stick to head shrinking, and I'll stick to crime solving.”

B
efore leaving the police station, Faith ducked into a bathroom to splash cold water on her face, then hightailed it out of the building, racing down the front steps two at a time, occasionally reaching for the handrail to keep from falling. Her car was parked in a lot to the left. She turned right. She needed fresh air. Needed to walk it off. Being forced to look at a picture of Nancy Aberdeen's mangled corpse had scalded her skin like acid injected beneath the epidermis. Only someone who'd lost all connection to his fellow man could've committed such a crime.

Outside, the sun shone as brightly as before, going about its business oblivious to the evil in the world. She halted and closed her eyes, wishing she could be that strong. The street was quiet at this hour. With most ­people manning their desks on a weekday morning, there was very little foot traffic, giving her room both to open up her stride and to stop and breathe whenever she liked. As the clean air filled her lungs, she felt the toxins washing out of her system.

She scoured the area, searching for a good thing—­any good thing. A waft of sweetness drifted by when a flower vendor carrying armfuls of Castilian roses passed. Faith spotted a street performer and crossed the street to listen to him wail on a tenor saxophone. Three tunes later, she tossed a twenty into his instrument case.

“God bless you, ma'am.”

“God bless you, sir.” She smiled, then turned around, headed back to her car. With every step, her shoulders felt lighter. A pang of hunger reminded her that she hadn't had breakfast, and she quickened her pace, imagining a nice plate of waffles at Denny's.

Pulling up short to avoid a toddler barreling down the street in front of his mother, her hand came up to shade her eyes against the sun's blinding light. When the child's laughter faded away, she took off again, but this time, she heard footfalls padding close behind her.