Cross Cut (11 page)

She smiled. “I suppose there is a distinction, of sorts.”

Kacie interrupted us and invited the doctor to sit. She declined politely and continued to look at me.

“I fear if I sit, I would remain until the meeting, and I still haven’t had lunch. Am I right in assuming you were discussing our killer?”

Kacie nodded in confirmation and Bingham grunted and said, “Until you entered.”

Doctor Bishop smiled and took a single step back. “I think I will return later, when there is a little objectivity in the room. Perhaps you would like to join me?”

I couldn’t really decide whether that was aimed at me, Kacie, or both of us. As it turned out, the decision was made for me, when Kacie excused herself awkwardly, saying she had to make a phone call. I doubt she was skittish or insulted about it. She has a boyfriend—or girlfriend, I can’t remember.

On her way out, she said, “Oh, Ader, you might want to get a copy of the stuff on Guy Lynch for Miss Genius. Come by my office in—”

“Oh, a half hour is long enough for lunch, wouldn’t you say?” Doctor Bishop said.

I nodded casually and did likewise to Kacie, who returned it, then stumbled on her half turn before walking into the labyrinth of cubicles.

15

Cassandra Bishop, whom I shall no longer address as Doctor, because she told me not to, sat at a shaky table in the cafeteria a floor below. I opted for a single sandwich to be polite. Roast ham and egg. The sandwiches in my car had probably turned by now, thanks to the mayonnaise.

She ate her chicken Caesar salad delicately, with a single fork. Not that I minded, but Ryder would hate such an act. Eat with a single fork? Grotesque.

“I take it you and that profiler don’t see eye to eye,” I said.

“Oh, he’s just bitter because I disagree with him.” She dabbed her cheek with a paper napkin and smiled. “Much like yourself.”

“I thought you were a psychiatrist?”

“Indeed I am. But that doesn’t mean I conform to the menial profession that is
criminal profiling.
”

“Oh. So what do you conform to?”

“I would hardly say I conform to anything. I prefer adapt. It sounds more willing. Over the years, one gains knowledge, of course, which may adjust one’s thinking on certain subjects. But, in answer to your question, I learned a long time ago that people aren’t as one dimensional as testing would suggest. The notion we are all beings of order, and that we as a race act within logic and reason.”

“Because if we act without reason, we act in chaos. But perhaps there is also reason within chaos.”

She lifted her head up and nodded. “Very apt way to put it. I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be,” I said. “Something my boss said this morning. At least, I think she said it like that.”

She gave a small chuckle. “I’d very much like to meet this Kendra Ryder. I think we would get along.”

I readjusted myself and ignored that statement. I had no doubt Ryder would never have time for her. I decided to get back to the point at hand.

“So, you think the FBI has it wrong? That this killer is beyond profiling?”

She dabbed her cheek again and laughed. “Oh, no. Nothing like that. I think on the whole they are heading in the right direction.”

“Well, make your mind up. I thought you said you don’t agree with criminal profiling?”

She shook her head. “I said I didn’t agree with the idea of criminal profiling, in the sense that all the energy and psychological focus is geared toward a criminal mind. But, like I said, the profile they have ticks the majority of the boxes. Their problem is they can’t decide the contributing facts toward the profile they allegedly have. They keep flip flopping with ideas. For instance, they’re entertaining the idea that the latest victim was the act of a copycat.”

“What do you think?” I leaned forward.

“It’s a solid enough consideration of the facts. But the change in the incisions needn’t be linked as such. There are many reasons why the cuts changed in ferocity, or why the horizontal cut was significantly lower.” The left side of her mouth curled up a little and she blinked. “But, therein lies a problem. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. Anything can be reasoned to sound plausible.”

I returned the blink and my eyes probably tightened in a frown. I kind of understood Ryder’s distaste for psychiatrists, and their need to be so damned ambiguous.

“So, forgetting what’s plausible—what is your take on the Cross Cutter?” I asked.

I could say she smiled again, but the truth was, the smile seemed constant, permanently engraved on her face. “Like your employer, I normally charge for services.” She rose from her chair and handed me a business card. “Come to my office later and we can talk.”

Well, I knew what reply that would invoke. We wouldn’t be prepared to pay her and I’d never make the visit. Nevertheless, I pocketed the card and rose politely. I’d no more faith in psychiatrists than Ryder, but there was something in her. Something that could perhaps help us.

“Even if you do not acquire my services, I would very much like to see you again,” she said. “I think it’s your face. You have a good, trusting face, slightly mischievous, though.” She smiled some more and held out her hand. I returned my own and we shook.

“Okay—” I said. “Aren’t you staying for the meeting?”

“I’ve changed my mind. Did you know the BI will be here too? The room will be full of ideas. A dozen chefs stirring the soup, so to speak.”

“Fair enough. I’ll head to Agent Cordell’s office before I go. See you soon.”

“Hopefully.” She gave her last smile, replaced her glasses and then walked off toward the exit of the cafeteria.

I stood for a while and pondered her. It seemed odd to me that she invited me for lunch just to discuss psychiatry, to only give me a business card and an offer of service.

But, then again, perhaps she was fishing for business and the FBI weren’t paying her, just like they weren’t paying Ryder.

Ryder can’t be the only one needing a check to deposit.

16

I reached Kacie Cordell’s
office
a few minutes before 3PM, and she was frazzled. Rushing about in the ten by five foot room, shouting at her desk drawers.

I entered, calm and flippant as ever.

“The hell,” I said, “you said you had an office—this is a closest with a desk.”

“Oh, shut up,” she barked, and then looked up at me. “Sorry. I’m late. I can’t find my reports.”

“I won’t bother asking for mine, then.”

“Oh, I found them. Just my luck.” She took one step backward and took a box from the single filing cabinet in the corner and dropped it on her desk. “Go nuts.”

“Will do.” I opened the lid and decided it wouldn’t do any harm to look at its contents. “Mind if I check it over in your
office
?” I said, making the quotation sign with my fingers.

She walked toward the door and nodded. “Stay out of my drawers.”

Kacie left in a hurry without her reports. I decided to make myself at home and took her cheap swivel chair round the front of the desk and parked myself right there, the door still open. I didn’t particularly care if anyone saw me.

There were completed autopsy reports, well detailed, so I decided that could wait for Ryder, to go along with my own personal report of the restroom.

Some of the photographs showed things I didn’t see at the restroom. The overflowing wash basin and the faucet, which was found in the middle of the room. The faucet was also in the inventory list of evidence. The thought that it could be the blunt instrument that struck Lynch on the back of the head would have had more weight if there was any evidence other than blood, but there wasn’t. I had to question the idea of dismantling it for that purpose, too.

Further examination revealed a small amount of blood in and around the wash basin, something I attributed to the killer cleaning up after cutting Lynch.

I checked it over and noticed something. What I saw took a while for my brain to process. I just sat there and waited for my heart to sink. When it hit the chair, or there about, I jumped up and rubbed my forehead. I looked at the photograph from all angles and it still didn’t change; the still picture of a silver bracelet with the image of an omega symbol. I recognized it immediately and the very idea swelled inside my head. What did it mean, and what could I do?

Suddenly, ideas came into my head. Partly conjecture, some of the events since Monday making half-sense.

There was nothing for it. I had to get to Kacie before that meeting and ask her about it. I rushed to the meeting room to find it empty. Not a soul in there. Even the profiler, Bingham, had vacated his seat at the far end.

I retreated into the main room and saw numerous agents milling around a desk, looking at a white board. Dust spiraling in the air as the sun crept through the window. They then walked away in different directions. Some of them on cell phones. I saw Kacie among them and tried to intercept her, but she just stared at me, blankly. The other agents scowled and left her.

“Hey,” she said. “I—gotta go, something’s come up. You should go too. See a movie or something.”

“Movie—the hell you talking about?”

“Nothing.” She sighed. “We got a lead. I can’t tell you about it, though. I gotta go.”

“Wait—about the report—”

She turned and stared blankly, as if she wanted to divulge something. She turned quickly again, with a visible amount of distress. “Just go. I’m sorry—”

She practically ran to the exit. With her reaction, I knew what was up. It seemed like curious timing, but what I had found in the evidence file had obviously reached them somehow, although I couldn’t figure why.

I ran to the nearest hallway where my cell phone could get signal. I dialed the number for the beach house and had to wait six rings.

“Hello?” Melissa answered.

“Hey, it’s me. She there?”

A pause. “What’s up with you? You know she’s at the pier for three o’clock,” she said.

I sighed. “Dammit. Never mind. Look, listen to me, okay. You need to do something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Pack a bag. Essentials. I’m high tailing it back to the office and I’m taking you somewhere.”

“Where? I told you before I’m not—”

“I don’t know where I’m taking you. But anytime soon, the FBI and God knows what else will be at our door. And they’re coming for you.”

“For me? Why?”

“Because you dropped that goddamned bracelet when you killed Guy Lynch.”

17

Driving hastily down the highway, I can be forgiven for being somewhat dumbfounded. My brain wasn’t really functioning beyond the task of moving a steering wheel.

Did Melissa kill Guy Lynch? Nerks. That’s all I could think. At such a time it’s probably best not to think, but I did anyway.

She had no motive—at least, none that I knew of. I suppose an even more absurd question would be: is she the Cross Cutter? Again, nerks. But I could clarify that, as I’m pretty sure she would alibi out on a few of the previous murders.

But the whole scenario of Guy Lynch’s murder, even though it was farfetched in most respects, didn’t fare too well for Melissa. The bracelet withstanding, there was the fact she’d been out during the time of his death. Melissa was at the beach house when I got back, but that wasn’t until 2.30PM, and the time of death was judged to be
around
two o’clock; a close call time wise, something the lawyers would argue both ways about. Also, there was the business card. Naturally, the feds and company assumed Lynch had it on his person from the meeting with Ryder. We, however, knew the real Guy Lynch was never at our office, and Melissa does carry cards with her. Maybe Lynch had snatched one from her.

All this hardly seems worthy of mention, though, unless I was actually doubting her myself, and I wasn’t.

The reason I said to her, ‘Because you dropped that goddamned bracelet when you killed Guy Lynch,’ was just a quick ploy to obtain a reaction from her, and she seemed distraught over the fact I would insinuate such a thing. And, if she had killed him, the nonsense with the impostor Lynch wouldn’t make any sense, either. One plausible reason for the impostor, as I see it, was a way to alibi out, in which case, Melissa’s timing would’ve been completely counterproductive. If you’re going to kill a guy and use such a trick, you’d be there with him (in this case, the impostor, posing as him), alive, in front of witnesses, and not leave those witnesses until his death. Melissa wasn’t even in the office when the impostor Lynch came for the appointment. She’s no dope, either. She’d realize trying to con Ryder would be the dumbest trick to try to pull.

The question remained, though, why was the bracelet in the restroom? What connection did Melissa possibly have to Lynch, or the Cross Cutter? I wanted answers quickly, and I hoped to get to the beach house before the FBI.

I was still speeding down the highway when I dialed the beach house again.

“Me again,” I said. “You packed?”

“Yes but—I didn’t do anything, I swear. What’s happening?”