Denial (31 page)
"Frank!" Lucas yelled.
I kept walking.
* * *
Emma Hancock was driving up to the curb as I headed out of the building. She lowered her passenger window. I walked over. "What did he have to say?" she asked.
"He's ranting about being framed. He says we're all in on it. You, me, half a dozen other doctors at Stonehill. He even mentioned Kathy."
She clicked her nails once. "You're not saying he's crazy..."
"Not for a second. He knows right from wrong. He chose wrong."
"Well, fine, then. He can say anything he likes between now and the morning. He's shut off. No phone calls. No visitors. Nothing in, nothing out. Red Donovan wants no loose ends. Tomorrow he'll be in maximum security at Concord, and he'll be somebody else's problem."
"Good."
She nodded and smiled a greeting at a cop passing by. "I'm told you had contact with the young lady from Chelsea who was killed."
Contact
. "And..."
She shrugged. "And that connects you to three dead bodies. Sarah, Monique and this Rachel."
This Rachel
. The anonymity of the words wounded me, but I kept my game face. "So I'm connected to dead bodies. Me, and anyone else from Stonehill Hospital who visits the Lynx Club. What are you getting at?"
"I suppose nothing. I just wish you wouldn't put yourself in compromising situations — not to mention immoral." She stared at me. "What's with Levitsky? Why is he still insisting that all four bodies are tied together?"
"He's a statistician. It violates his scientific view of the world to think that four murders within fifteen miles and a few days of each other could be committed by more than one man."
"Another body in Lynn and I'm through."
"With the campaign?"
"The campaign. My job. My badge. The City Council would destroy me. And rightfully so. But you know what? None of that matters. All that matters is that I got the man who killed Monique. They treated me like a hero at the funeral today. If the killer were still—"
"My gut tells me you don't have to worry about another body. And so does yours. It may be the first time we've agreed on anything."
That seemed to calm her, but she told me to stick around in case things went badly. I promised I would. I thought of mentioning my captivity in the emergency room, but decided to let the episode fade — including Kathy's role in it.
"The funeral's tomorrow, at noon."
"Monique's? I thought you just said—"
"Rachel's," she interrupted. "Over at Korff's Funeral Home in Swampscott." She paused. "I didn't know how close the two of you might have gotten."
I cleared my throat. "Thanks, Emma," I said. "Call me if you need me."
* * *
I spent a night of broken sleep, parked beside Kathy's Volvo in the Stonehill Hospital garage. I wanted to be sure she didn't try to enhance Lucas’ alibi with a fifth body. Then I drove over to Korff's, a monument of a building lost between three shopping malls.
I parked on the opposite side of the street and watched as cars streamed into the parking lot and mourners in black started toward the huge carved doors. I wondered whether Rachel's uncle was in the crowd. My jaws clenched as I fantasized about finding him and dragging him out to the pavement, taking my time bloodying him on the concrete slabs. But then I closed my eyes, realizing Rachel wouldn't have chased him away. She would have welcomed him to make his peace with her, maybe even with himself.
I sat there a minute, then started the Rover. It was only a few miles from Korff's to Salem Station. I drove the whole way telling myself I was being silly to go chasing after the past, but never turning around. When I got inside, I walked back and forth along the platform opposite Track 4, the far wall of which was decorated with a mosaic of green and white tiles. Those tiles were familiar. A few people were waiting for the train, but they receded from my mind as I focused on the tracks. A mixture of fear and longing gripped me. I wanted to remember the scene as it was, in every detail. But the mind is sometimes wiser than the heart. Only a single image took shape. I saw my father's face, covered by a day's growth of beard, framed by the rails, looking much more at peace than I had ever remembered it. And then what he intended to be his last words echoed in my mind.
I'm sorry. Please forgive me
.
The sound of a train startled me. I opened my eyes and watched it approach the platform. And still, above all the noise, I heard those words from my father. I waited until the passengers had boarded and watched the train pull away.
I could have made better time driving 95 north, but I wasn't in any rush, so I took 1A, passing by sleepy communities like Topsfield, Rowley and Georgetown. About halfway to Plum Island, I pulled over, slid under the Rover and yanked out the LoJack box; I didn't need Malloy tracking me on any computer screen.
The sun was setting when I crossed the causeway and reached the main building at Walton's, a two-story wooden structure built on the sand. I parked and headed up the front stairs to the office. No one was there, but I had called to reserve our old cabin, and an envelope taped to the door had my name on it. I ripped it open and found the key to Cottage 6.
The cabin was as I had remembered it — small and rustic, with unfinished pine paneling covering the walls and ceiling. An efficiency kitchen was tucked in an alcove, and a folding screen separated the bed from a sitting area that ended in sliding glass doors onto the beach. I watched the waves pound the sand, the last of their white froth petering out just a half-dozen yards from me. A flock of birds flew in formation overhead. It was a place full of peace, which only made me more aware of my anxiety. I checked my watch. It was 6:25
P.M.
I reached into my jacket pocket for the hypodermic syringe and vials of liquid Haldol and Ativan I had brought with me. I drew up 3 cc of each, the dose I had used as a psychiatry resident to sedate violent patients in the emergency room. I walked over to the bed, knelt down and laid the syringe on the floor under the headboard.
I needed to rest, but I didn't want to risk falling asleep, so I sat down on the couch and turned on the evening news. I was too wound up to follow the stories, but the anchor and correspondents provided enough white noise to keep my mind from turning in on itself.
Not ten minutes later I heard knocking — soft at first, then louder. I clicked off the television and walked to the front door. I took a deep breath and opened it.
Kathy was standing there, clutching her black leather overnight bag.
I stared at her, as if I might see into the madness behind her. Part of me wanted to grab a handful of her hair, drag her inside and make her feel some of the pain she had inflicted on others. On
me
. But I doubted that I could make her feel anything. Her own suffering had deadened her.
"Here I am," she said. She bit her lower lip and looked down at the light pink dress she was wearing. It was a takeoff on a man's shirt, with fake pearls where buttons would be. She had opened it low enough at the neck to expose the gentle sloping of her breasts. "I stopped at Ann Taylor for something new so I could look pretty for you." She shrugged and scuffed a shoe on the ground.
I noticed that the shoes were new, too — black patent leather penny loafers. "You look perfect," I said.
"So I can come in?"
I held out a hand. She took it. I suppose I had expected to sense something chilling in her flesh, but I didn't. Her hand felt warm and familiar, and I marveled at how normal it felt to draw her into the cabin and into my arms. But why be surprised? She was the same woman, after all, who I made love to hundreds of times. Her perfume still soothed me, and her caresses on my neck made me groan with real pleasure. It was not until we kissed, opening our mouths for one another, that revulsion surged in me. I stepped back.
"Shy, all of a sudden?" she whispered.
My jaw was set. I took one side of her collar in each of my fists and ripped her dress open to the thighs. I looked at her. She was naked and freshly shaved and every bit as magnificent as the first time I had had her.
She smiled and caught her lip in her teeth again. "Be as rough as you want. I deserve it."
I watched as she slipped off her dress and stepped out of her shoes. My anger and excitement, close cousins before, became one thing. I grabbed her shoulders and forced her onto the bed, facedown. She struggled against me only weakly as I whipped off my belt and bound her wrists. I knotted the leather strap around one bedpost. Then I kneeled behind her. Her blond hair was fanned over her back, and the cheeks of her ass quivered slightly. I could hear my pulse in my ears. I pulled her hips up off the mattress and yanked her head back by her hair. I wanted to and I would have rammed myself inside her had I not been restrained by a memory. It was Trevor's loaded question the night we had met at the Lynx Club:
Why does she scream ‘Daddy!’ when I put it in her ass?
I let go of her and ground the heels of my hands into her eyes.
Kathy flipped onto her back. "What's wrong?" she asked. She spread her legs. "You want me this way?"
"I was thinking of your father."
"You were
what?
"
"Your father. I was thinking how he hurt you."
"My father would never hurt me." She closed her legs. "He loved me."
I sat on the edge of the bed. "I found the note about Blaire. The one you wrote when you saw him visiting her at night."
"Why the fuck are we talking about this? Untie me."
"Tell me how she died."
"You're insane!" She pulled against the leather strap, trying to loosen it.
"Did you see the fire start? I want to know. I need to know."
Her eyes thinned with rage. "You're such a dummy," she said in a child's voice. She pulled harder on the strap, but the knots only tightened. "You don't need to ask where I was when Blairey got punished." Her voice returned to normal. "You already know."
"Punished?"
The child's voice again: "For being a sneak."
I was almost certain Kathy was flipping back and forth between mature and immature parts of her psyche. In psychiatric lingo, she was
dissociating
. "Did you start the fire?" I asked.
"Blaire made me, by taking Daddy," she whined. "I didn't want to use the matches. I tried other stuff first."
"Like?"
"Cutting off my hair... down there. Daddy said he didn't like ape girls."
"But that didn't work."
"Did, too." She bit her lower lip and blushed. "For a while. Until the bleeding."
"And then?" I got up and walked to the end of the bed, where Kathy had dropped her black leather overnight bag. I picked it up.
"Then it didn't. So a fire started under Blaire's bed, while she was sleeping."
My eyes filled up. I had to fight to keep my hands steady enough to unzip the bag. Kathy's scrubs were balled up inside. A length of pipe lay between them, the fur handle of my hunting knife protruding from it. I drew out the knife. The blade was caked with dried blood. "What about the others? Like Sarah and Monique?"
Kathy's lip curled. "They were cunts," she said. "Humiliating me."
"And the man? Michael?"
"Disgusting." She pulled so hard on the strap that it ripped her skin. For a moment she seemed calm, watching a trickle of blood start down her arm. Then she fought against the leather even more fiercely. The trickle ran faster and thicker. "You missed one, Frank. I mean, as long as you're getting off hearing about what you and Trevor forced me to do. You know who. Rrrr..."
"Kathy, don't. Please."
"Rrrr. Rrrrayyyy. Rachel."
I was sweating. My temples ached. I tightened my grip on the knife and walked to the bed.
"Your little whore dancer."
I straddled Kathy's waist. She kicked wildly, to no avail. I pictured plunging the knife under her sternum and severing the aorta. Or, better yet, I could make her watch me take her breasts. I ran the blade lightly under one nipple, imagining the flesh giving way. Then Rachel's words echoed in my mind:
There's no original evil left in the world
.
I stopped and closed my eyes, remembering Rachel teaching me what no professor of psychiatry had ever managed to get through my head — that the brightest light greets those brave enough to lay open their eyes to darkness.
I got off Kathy and knelt by the side of the bed. I reached under the headboard for the syringe.
She saw me bring it out. "Don't you dare put anything in me," she sputtered.
I reached into my pocket, took out a tourniquet and knotted it above her elbow.
"Get away from me!" she yelled.
I pictured Rachel pleading for her life. I felt light-headed. I uncapped the needle. I tried holding Kathy steady, but she was jerking back and forth, and the needle scraped bloody lines across her arm. I noticed she didn't grimace at all. On my third attempt I managed to bury the tip in her biceps. I put all my weight on her to keep her from dislodging the needle and slowly pushed the plunger down.
She stared at the empty syringe in my hand. "You fucking bastard. I'll
kill
you!" She kicked and twisted some more, but her strength was already being drained by the Haldol and Ativan. She turned her face away from me and started to sob. I got off her, sat on the edge of the mattress and waited. Her breathing slowed and deepened. Not a minute later she lay perfectly still.
* * *
In injected Kathy with another dose of Ativan to make sure she stayed deep while I went for the Rover. Without turning on my headlights, I drove onto the beach and parked in front of the sliding glass doors to the cabin. I took a blanket from the back seat and went inside.
