Guilt (19 page)

Ravitch rubbed his hand back and forth across his mouth. “That's not even the worst. Couldn't get back to sleep at all after this one.” He cracked his knuckles and stared down at his hands. “I was the bomber.” As if in sympathy, a distant roll of thunder rumbled.

“So
you
were the bomber?” Peter said, keeping his voice even.

“Uh-huh. I had it in a paper bag with my lunch. I took it out, and it was like, you know, one of those cartoon bombs, a bowling ball with a lit fuse on top? And I gave it to Leon, and”—Ravitch's mouth twisted into a grimace and he clenched his hands together—“and he takes it from me, and you know what he does? He bites off the fuse. I try to tell him stop, but he's already bitten into it, like it's an apple, and then he just stands there chewing. Then he hands the rest of the bomb back to me. I'm panicked. I want to throw it outside, bury it, but when I look down I see there's nothing but a pile of ashes in my hand. And I want to run away because I know what's going to happen. And I want Leon to come with me, only the bomb's inside him now.”

Peter sat back. There were pills for depression, pills for anxiety, but not a single goddamned pill for guilt. All he could do was offer a sympathetic ear.

Ravitch went on. “So I don't know what to do, and I'm pleading with Leon, Tell me what to do. And you know what he does? He says to me, ‘Don't sweat it, Rudy. Life's too short.' When I wake up, I can still hear his voice ringing in my head, and I'm soaking in my own sweat.”

Peter waited before saying anything, respecting the feelings and the story he'd just heard.

“You've been through a terrible trauma, and these dreams, they're your mind's way of coping. You wanted to rescue him, so you keep having dreams in which you try to make it come out right.” He could explain it, but he couldn't fix it. Medication and a good therapist could get Ravitch through the weeks and months to come, but they'd never fully put these issues to rest.

Before the hour was up, Peter had made the necessary referral for follow-up care and promised to write a letter supporting Ravitch's claim for disability.

“Hey,” Ravitch said as he was leaving, “one good thing: I quit smoking. Haven't had a cigarette all week. Haven't wanted one. Did you do that? When I was hypnotized?”

“No, you did that yourself. Congratulations.”

Ravitch shook his head in wonder. “I been trying for years. Helluva way to quit.”

*   *   *

Ravitch left, and Peter checked his phone messages. Rain beat on the window and clattered on the copper roof overhead. There were a dozen calls, most of them routine hospital business. He jotted notes to himself as he listened.

“Hey, you promised to get back to me. I know you're been busy … hey, who isn't?” The high-pitched voice with a slight lisp sounded familiar. The man identified himself as Walt Waxman, reporter from the
Boston Phoenix
. Peter remembered the earlier call.

“I just have a couple of questions. Is there a profile of the type of person who does this kind of thing?” His voice had turned to a monotone, as if he were reading. “Why is he quoting American patriot Thomas Paine?” A pause. “Do ‘raptor' and ‘maw' suggest the influence of violent computer games?” Peter could hear papers shuffling. “Is there—”

Peter pressed
SKIP
and the voice cut off. Didn't the police have an official press liaison this guy could pester?

The next message was from Neddleman. “Call me back,” and a phone number. That was it. Peter knew he'd want to know if there'd been a reply to his email.

Peter logged in and checked. Twenty-two new messages. He scanned the list. There it was. Peter felt a grim sense of satisfaction. CANARY911 had taken the bait.

The subject line was DON'T KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING, DO YOU, DR. ZAK? That was a corrupted phrase from Bob Dylan's “Ballad of a Thin Man.”

You are so transparent. Plans are taking shape that you, misguided soul, would never imagine. You look right at Us and see nothing.

 

What is the end game? Prison? Death? This life only keeps Us from higher pursuits. As a poet once said, “You want to hang me, OK, poke me, shock me, just gonna last for three minutes, five minutes, two minutes, then you're dead.” Death would be Nirvana. Prison bliss. Instead We are torn asunder, ripped apart.

 

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites Anarchy.

 

We are merely the agent of change. The work continues. This purging must be finished. First the spawn. Then the workers. And now the drones where they sit, swollen and glowing scarlet with their own self-importance, obsequious parasites fawning over their Queen, or should I say King.

 

The Fleet Center? That is a place only the Maw could drive Us.

Peter forwarded the email to Neddleman and called.

“Interesting. You haven't answered him yet?” Neddleman asked after he'd read it.

“Of course I haven't. I called you as soon as—”

“Yeah, right. Well, there's that at least.” There was silence on the line. Peter could imagine him rereading the message. “You know who he's quoting?”

“Bob Dylan. ‘Don't know what's happening—'”

Neddleman snorted. “Not that. I meant that other part. ‘You want to hang me, poke me…' It's that kid, the DC sniper. That's what he said to the police when they asked him if he thought he'd be executed. This guy hasn't an original thought in his head. I wonder who else he parrots. Timothy McVeigh? Osama Bin Laden?”

“I agree with you about one thing,” Peter said. “I don't think this is about anarchy, per se, or any organized movement. It's a load of pseudointellectualized philosophy, all in the service of a really schizophrenic delusion. This person feels trapped between this maw of his and—what does he call it?—the marshal. This has nothing to do with people outside of himself. He's blowing things up because he believes he can restore balance and bring his world back from the maw.” Peter skimmed the message on his own computer screen. “He's going to keep doing this.”

“So, is there any good news?”

“Only that he's talking.”

“But what the hell does it mean?” There was a long pause. It sounded as if Neddleman had his hand over the receiver and was talking to someone. “We're having a status meeting later tonight. Any chance I could get you to come over? I'd like the other members of the task force to hear your thoughts on what we're dealing with here.”

“Sure.” Peter would have to break a dinner date he had with Annie, but she'd understand. “But you know, I'm not—”

“I know, I know. You're not a profiler. But this guy has tuned into you, for some reason. We need your expertise on board.”

20

T
HE RAIN
had stopped by the time Annie walked back to her office from family court. It had turned colder, and the intermittent drizzle had turned to an occasional flurry of snow. She zipped her leather jacket, turned up the collar, and walked back along Third Street holding her arms crossed in front of her. She'd found what she was looking for, and most of it was predictable.

Brenda
. That was Joe Klevinski's first wife's name. Née Mulvaney. Married him when she was just eighteen years old. Now she'd be thirty.

Annie had a page of scribbled notes. After four years of marriage and three restraining orders, Brenda had filed for divorce, saying her husband threatened to kill her and their son. Klevinski was awarded only supervised visits with his son. That must have pissed the hell out of him. They were back in court twice, wrangling over visitation rights. He began threatening the social worker who drew the short straw and had to supervise the visits. Six years ago there was another skirmish in court, and Klevinski lost all rights to visit his son. Then nada. Zilch. The paper trail ended.

What had happened after Klevinski lost his visitation rights? The silence seemed ominous. Annie found it hard to swallow that he'd clicked his heels together, saluted, and left Brenda and Joey to get on with their lives. Maybe they'd gone into hiding when Brenda realized that court order or no, there was little to protect them from such a determined and violent abuser.

At least now Annie had a name, a social security number, and a prior address in North Cambridge. She also had the name of Brenda's divorce attorney, Rachel Bernstein. Annie knew her. Bernstein had occasionally referred clients.

Annie quickened her pace back to the office. Hurrying made no sense—Brenda Klevinski had been missing for years. Still, she broke into a run. There was a chance Bernstein hadn't yet left her office for home.

She found the number, called, and was relieved when Bernstein answered. Yes, she remembered Brenda Klevinski. No, she hadn't heard from Brenda in years. Not since the last custody hearing.

“I know you probably didn't have a personal relationship with her, but I wonder if you had a sense of whether Brenda Klevinski was afraid of her husband. Was she desperate enough to go into hiding?” Annie asked.

Rachel Bernstein didn't answer right away. “She was afraid of her ex. And yes, enough afraid that she'd want to run away.”

Want
to run away? Annie sensed a note of hesitancy in her answer. “But?”

“I just thought it was odd, that's all. She didn't pay my last bill. I do a lot of work for people who don't have much money. This case was through Legal Aid, so it wasn't a big-ticket item. It happens. It's just that I can usually tell who's going to stiff me.”

Annie hung up the phone and sat in the semidarkness trying to digest what she now knew. So, she thought, addressing the shadowy figure she imagined sitting across the desk from her, have you changed your name? Pulled your life together? Were you just flat broke and that's why you didn't pay your attorney? Or did you need every penny you had to make your escape?

What about Joey? Was he all grown up and in junior high now? Hanging out with a crowd, downloading music from the Internet and wanting to get himself tattooed? Would he ever meet his spunky half-sister?

Annie's computer glowed, inviting her to take the next step. If only Annie could find Brenda and convince her to share what had really happened, maybe that would show Jackie what kind of man she'd married. She set to work.

First she ran a social security trace. Back came information, an address that hadn't been updated in ten years. As far as the U.S. government was concerned, Brenda Klevinski was alive and well and living in North Cambridge. That must have been where she'd shared a home with Joe. The only prior address was Worcester. Maybe that was where she grew up.

Next Annie went to a crisscross directory and typed in the North Cambridge address. Paul Shortsleeves was listed as living there now. A boyfriend or husband? Seemed unlikely. If Brenda were still in North Cambridge, then why would Joe tell Jackie that she'd run off. Still, it was possible that Paul Shortsleeves or one of his neighbors had known Brenda.

When Annie entered Brenda's prior address in Worcester, “S. Mulvaney” came back. She felt the familiar rush she got when two pieces of information meshed. Mulvaney was Brenda's maiden name.

Annie chewed her lip and gazed at the computer screen.
Move ahead, take the next step,
her inner voice urged. She wanted to jump in her car and drive over to North Cambridge and have a chat with Paul Shortsleeves or whoever was living in the apartment Brenda and Joe had once shared. She checked her watch. It was rush hour. Should she call first?

The phone rang as she was reaching for it.

“I got another email,” Peter said without so much as a hello. “Sounds like he's planning his next attack.”

Annie's stomach turned over.

“He's teasing us with hints about what he's going to do next. The task force wants me to come help them sort out what it means. This evening. I know we were going to have dinner. You don't mind, do you?”

Annie felt a guilty pang. She'd been so caught up in tracking Brenda Klevinski that she'd forgotten their date.

“It's okay. Actually, I thought I'd—” she started. She knew Peter had qualms about her hiring Jackie. He thought she was too involved in Jackie's life. You couldn't be friend, employer, and counselor all at the same time. On top of that, Peter thought Joe Klevinski was bad news. If Peter weren't so sweet on Sophie, no doubt he'd have raised a stink about Pearl babysitting her in the afternoons. Problem was, Peter was right. Klevinski was a bomb waiting to go off. That was why she had to gather whatever information she could to convince Jackie to stay away from him.

“I thought I'd work a little more, talk to a few people, then go home and take a hot bath. I'm pretty pooped.”

It wasn't a lie, not really. Besides, he had a full plate. He didn't need to be worrying about what she was up to.

*   *   *

Ten minutes later Annie was on her way. She took Hampshire Street to Porter Square, up Mass Ave, then cut over to side streets. With any luck, by the time she got to his North Cambridge house, Paul Shortsleeves would be home from work, settled in front of the TV having a beer.

The address turned out to be a modest triple-decker, a lot like Annie's. The lights were on in the windows on all three floors. Only a few peels of pale blue paint remained on the front steps, and what must have once been a shingled façade had gray asbestos siding slapped over it. The house next door had had a makeover, complete with stained glass and skylights. A sign planted in the flower bed by the front steps proclaimed the house protected twenty-four hours. The house on the other side was falling-down decrepit and had a sign planted in front, too, stuck in the patch of dirt that passed for a front lawn:
FOR SALE
. Even teardowns in this neighborhood could fetch upwards of half a million. The world had gone nuts.