Guilt (21 page)

“Dr. Zak?” Neddleman's voice woke him from his thoughts. It was Peter's turn in the hot seat.

He jerked to his feet and spilled coffee on his pants. He set the cup on the floor and made his way to the front. Neddleman quickly introduced him and handed him the mike.

Officers in the front row sat with arms crossed and show-me looks on their faces. Peter shelved the talk he'd planned to give. They didn't need a lesson on schizophrenia.

“I live on a one-way street,” he began. It was such an unexpected beginning that, for the moment at least, he had their full attention. “This morning I get in my car, I look over my shoulder, I back out onto the street, and come this close”—Peter held his open palms an inch apart—“to hitting a red Camaro. I'd looked right at it but it didn't register. That's because I hadn't
expected
to see someone backing
up
the one-way street. I tell you this story because you need to know that this guy isn't what you're expecting. This isn't someone who's getting into bar fights; he's no street creature preaching the end of the world, or a wild-eyed mountain man like Ted Kaczynski. He doesn't smell funny or mutter incantations under his breath. If he did, you'd already have him. Think about how he's managed to slip under the radar. He could look like one of you.”

Now it was safe to move on to the psychology. “Okay, so he probably doesn't look like a crazy person. He's probably a schizophrenic, highly organized, with a set of ideals that, as distorted as they might be, he believes will save society. Yes, he's slipping off the edge, losing touch with reality as he becomes single-minded in his mission. He feels no guilt because he believes himself above the pedestrian notions of right and wrong.”

Next, Peter turned his attention to the email. “He says,
‘This Purging must be finished.'
” Peter pointed to the line on the screen.

MacRae came into the room. He was holding a piece of paper. He scanned the crowd, pausing when he saw Peter. An odd, speculative expression flicked across his face. Then his face went blank. He joined Neddleman in the back.

Peter continued, phrase by phrase, pointing out how it was logical, passionless, and how the bomber was targeting the legal system. “Pay attention to the metaphor…” Peter continued, feeling his voice rise as more and more heads turned to watch Neddleman and MacRae conferring. “Forget your preconceptions. He's smart, educated. He's working alone.”

“I'm sorry to interrupt,” Neddleman said, striding to the podium.

He gave Peter a crooked smile and took over the mike. There was a collective intake of breath. Neddleman held up his hands. “No new attacks. Just new information.” He cleared his throat. “As you know, we believe that the bomber may have had a court ID and key card to get past security at the courthouse. We've been checking everyone whose key cards were scanned that morning. So far, we've found four people whose key cards were scanned that morning who claim they weren't there.” A murmur swept through the room, and the word
four
echoed off the ceiling. “We've questioned these people. They all say they noticed their key cards were missing in the ten days or so before the bombing.”

Peter couldn't believe his ears. He'd been so sure that this was the work of one person, his emailer, a loner with a vendetta against the legal system. He shifted from foot to foot, uneasy, as Neddleman gazed at him like he, of all people, should have anticipated this latest development.

*   *   *

“Sometimes you get a break in a case and this is what happens,” MacRae said, sitting in his cubicle with Peter after the meeting. “It turns every assumption you had on its ear.”

MacRae showed Peter the list of people who claimed they'd either lost or had their key cards stolen in the week or two before the bombing. “These key cards were used at approximately one-hour intervals the morning of the bombing, the first one at nine thirteen,” MacRae told Peter. “The last one was at twelve forty-eight.”

Peter remembered that was about the time Rudy Ravitch said he'd gone on his break. He took out his crumpled copy of the bomber's email and smoothed it open on the table. He looked back and forth from the email to the list of names. A lone, highly organized schizophrenic or a gang of four? It was like a double exposure—there had to be a way to make the two images converge.

He recognized one of the names.

“This guy,” Peter told MacRae, pointing to Walter Waxman's name. “He's a reporter. He's been calling me, asking questions about the bomber.”

“Yeah, well, that's his job. We questioned him. He works for the
Phoenix.
He was covering the State House that morning. Wasn't anywhere near—”

“Hold on,” Peter said. He ran his finger under the words in the email. “
First the spawn.
He bombs the law school. Law students, baby lawyers.
Then the workers.
His next target is district court—working lawyers and court officers.” Peter continued to read.
“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.”

Peter felt his neck prickling. In his mind he saw an explosion ripping through the top of a huge golden dome, one that loosely speaking resembled an old-fashioned beehive. It made sense. Drones could be lawmakers, a logical next target. And the queen bee, or as the email said, king—that could be the governor.

He shared the thought with MacRae.

MacRae blinked as the realization settled. “The State House?”

22

A
NNIE HAD
the box containing Brenda Klevinski's mail in the backseat of her Jeep as she drove to Worcester the next morning. The neighborhood where Brenda had once lived was a quiet suburb. The houses up and down the street were identical small, split-level homes, but Brenda's was particularly nondescript. It had white siding, dark green woodwork, and the yews flanking the door were trimmed into perfect spheres. A chain-link fence separated a patch of groomed lawn from the street.

Annie felt anticipation building as she approached the house. Brenda had probably grown up here. Family members were still here.

She rang the bell. The opening notes of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” chimed back at her. A somber young woman wearing a loose-fitting denim jumper and wooden clogs answered the door. Maybe …

“Brenda?” Annie tried.

The woman recoiled as if Annie had struck her. “Brenda—” she stammered. “Brenda doesn't—”

An older man appeared behind her. He was an imposing presence with his stern, craggy face and ramrod stance. “Brenda isn't here. She's dead,” he said.

Even though Annie had speculated that this might be the case, she felt stunned, unable to ask the obvious questions.

“Da-ad,” the woman said, turning to the man and heaving a heavy sigh.

“Mommy,” called a child's voice. A girl about seven years old appeared behind the woman. She was wearing a denim jumper, too. “Can you help me with this?” She held out a piece of three-hole lined paper. “I don't get it.” A little boy, a head shorter, joined her. He had on a white shirt and pressed slacks, and he clutched a school workbook with A B C on the cover. His dark hair was slicked back, and a cowlick stuck up in back.

“You kids go back and do your work. Brianna, skip that example and I'll be there in a minute to help.” The kids lingered, their sharp eyes on Annie. “Scoot now.” They disappeared.

The woman turned back and studied Annie with a calm expression. Annie suddenly felt self-conscious in her faded jeans and leather jacket, like she'd arrived at a formal event in her PJs.

“Why are you looking for her?” the man asked.

Usually Annie had some version of the truth prepared for obvious questions like that, but she hadn't counted on facing this pair. If there'd been just one of them … As if sensing her dilemma, the woman turned to the older man and put her hand on his shoulder. “Dad, why don't you let me handle this?”

Annie was surprised when he didn't protest. Just before he turned away, his eyes filled with tears.

“I'm Maureen, Brenda's sister,” the woman said.

Go with the unvarnished truth, Annie decided. She introduced herself, and explained that she was a friend of the woman who was now married to Brenda's ex-husband.

“Ex?”

She told Maureen that Brenda and Joe had been divorced, that six years ago Brenda had disappeared. Annie admitted that she was a little baffled at finding herself on something of a mission to find out what had happened. She knew that, in part at least, it was to gather information that would convince her friend that Joe Klevinski was a dangerous man.

“I'm sorry. I realize none of this makes any sense.”

“Not everything in this life has to make sense,” Maureen said. She gave a quick glance over her shoulder and stepped outside with Annie on the front steps. She pulled the storm door closed behind her.

“I haven't seen Brenda since she left home years ago. She and my father, well, you see what he's like. Back then he was a hundred times worse. Brenda got pregnant. When he found out, he went berserk. They had a terrible fight. He threw her out on the street with nothing, just what she was wearing. Now, as far as he's concerned, she doesn't exist.”

“You didn't try to keep in touch?” Annie hoped it didn't sound like an accusation.

“I was only fourteen.”

“And your mother, did she—?”

“My mother died when I was a little. My dad's the one who raised us.”

Annie understood how Brenda Mulvaney could have been attracted to someone like Joe Klevinski. Like her father, he wanted things his way. Peter would call it a repetition compulsion, or some such psychobabble. Or maybe there was something genetic—a lemming gene. Either way, same result: however hard you tried to escape your past, you were doomed to relive it in Technicolor. She wondered if her friend Charlotte had survived her father's abuse only to end up in an abusive marriage of her own.

“She never tried to get in touch,” Maureen said. “And I didn't know how to find her. Of course, I always wondered what happened. I thought she'd come back, someday. She has a son?” Annie nodded. “If she needs help … if you find her…” She searched for the right words.

“I'll try to let you know, without making a ruckus here. You don't by any chance have a picture of her?”

“He tore them all up right after she left.”

“Would there have been a high school yearbook picture?”

“I guess so. Worcester High. But we don't have a copy.”

Mr. Mulvaney glowered at them through the storm door. Annie took a card from her pocket and slipped it to Maureen. “If you think of anything, here's how to reach me.”

What had she been thinking, anyway? Annie chided herself as she took the Pike back to Cambridge. If it was going to be that easy, she'd have found Brenda and Joey already. She could still check the junior highs around the Cambridge and Worcester area to see if Joey was registered—she'd call the school offices pretending to be a dentist's assistant who needed to let Joey Klevinski know that his dentist appointment for that day had been canceled. But she had a nasty feeling that she was going to come up goose eggs again. Otherwise she'd reached a dead end, used up all the resources she had at her disposal. To get any further, she needed official status. Whatever was still out there to find, an official police investigator could get without breaking a sweat. When she crossed Route 495, she took out her cell and called Mac.

“MacRae here,” Mac said, picking up his cell phone after the first ring. His voice was sharp. He'd been so short-tempered lately, like the A-bomber had taken a few strategic tucks in his shorts.

“It's me. You got a minute?”

“Not really. I'm about to go into a meeting.”

“I need some advice. Help, maybe.”

“You?” Annie could imagine him staring at the phone in stunned silence.

“Long meeting or short?” she asked. Before he could answer she added, “I'll be there in about thirty minutes.”

She hung up before he could argue.

*   *   *

There were Jersey barriers outside the police station to keep vehicles away, and a new security setup at the door. Annie took off her boots and passed through the metal detector. The guard checking her backpack found her penlight and emergency container of Mace. He made her show her permit to carry, then confiscated the Mace and gave her a receipt so she could get it on her way out. The penlight he let her keep.

She crossed the lobby and went up the stairs. Usually she recognized most everyone there. Not today. The place had become the nerve center for the A-bomber investigation and it was crawling with uniforms and suits. She found MacRae in his office talking on the phone. He motioned for her to sit.

“That's great. Listen, I gotta go,” he said. “Let me know when you get back.”

When he hung up, he gave Annie a big grin. “How the hell are you?”

“What's with you? I didn't know your face still did that.”

“Yeah, well, we got some good news for a change. That crazy guy that hangs out in the Square with a flag handing out leaflets? The one your friend Peter sent underground after finding out that he had a confrontation with the bomber? We got him. He showed up for a reading last night at the Harvard Coop, if you can believe it. He came to heckle that guy who invented the red-meat diet. And that's not all. Looks like we've got a bead on the bomber's next target.”

“You do?”

“You must not have listened to the news this morning. The State House. We've got it locked down. Finally we can do something instead of sitting here waiting to get hit.”