Habit (11 page)

With these ideas tumbling through his mind, still sitting up on the couch, his shirt unbuttoned, the ice cubes snapping in his glass of grape juice as they melted, Brendan laid back on the couch.

It wasn’t until he was flat out that he realized how exhausted he was. It had been one hell of a day. And as he dropped into an inevitable unconsciousness, his day finally came to an end.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN / FRIDAY, 7:03 AM

His cell phone was ringing. At first, Brendan was disoriented. He thought he was back in his house on Elmwood where he’d lived with his wife and daughter for two years. He could see their faces.

He picked up the phone and answered. “Hello?”

“Detective Healy?”

“Yes.”

“This is George Mace at the lab. I work with Stan Clark. Did I wake you?”

“No.” Brendan’s eyes felt puffy, and he could barely see.

“Okay. Ah, I thought you’d like to know right away. The laptop recovered from the trash at the victim’s house. Well, it’s crispy. There was no data we could get from the hard drive, which is melted to almost nothing. But we got something else.”

“Yes?”

“We were able to raise a serial number from the drive casing, which is metal. We got most of the numbers of the SN. Partial on the last two. So you’ll have a couple of possible permutations. I mean, twenty possible combinations. But, it’s something. Like to have what we got?”

“Yes,” said Brendan. He sat up straight and fumbled for his pen. He wrote down the string of letters and numbers that the analyst gave him.

* * *

Brendan had a quick shower and a cup of black coffee, before heading to the offices in Oriskany. The day promised to be cooler than the previous one, according to the weather report on NPR’s “All before Eight” program. It was only supposed to reach the upper seventies. The sky overhead was the color of brushed steel, and the large cumulus clouds floated along with bright cottony nimbuses from the rising sun.

As he drove, Brendan made his mental to-do list. He still hadn’t spoken with Deputy Bostrom. The day had been so hectic he hadn’t even gotten a statement from the first person to arrive at the scene of the crime. He needed to check back in with the lab later, of course; prints not belonging to the victim had been found throughout the house and the core scene of the victim’s bedroom. They would be run through the AFIS system to see if they matched anything on record, but Brendan’s job was to provide suspects who might match the prints. The lab would check Kevin Heilshorn, of course, but there was no probable cause to check the prints of Donald Kettering. He had already admitted to having been in the house anyway, and his alibi was strong. Unless a felon matched the prints, they’d get nowhere with them.

The boot print on the door was the same story. The size and make of the shoe could be determined from the lifted print, with any luck, but matching that to the bottom of a real person’s shoe was a long way off. He only had the first name of Rebecca’s ex, Eddie, the supposed father of Leah. A cursory online search, pairing her full name with his first name, had yielded no salient results. He would have to look into it more thoroughly.

As he turned onto Rome-Oriskany Road, Brendan thought that there might be an even more pressing issue. Kevin Heilshorn had agreed to be the one to contact the parents. Kevin’s personal identification had been enough to qualify him as a viable next-of-kin to identify the victim. As far as Brendan knew, the Coroner hadn’t placed a call to Rebecca’s parents. Perhaps now that he also had Kevin’s body on the slab, and his relation verified posthumously, Clark would have placed a call, but Brendan couldn’t be sure. It was possible that no one had yet contacted the parents of now two dead children. As far as he knew, their only two children. It might fall on him to break the news.

He lit a cigarette as he pushed the Camry up to sixty-five miles per hour. The first cigarette of the day always felt like a mistake, like a relapse. He understood habit to be a very primal situation in the brain. All habits could be broken down into a simple equation: cue, routine, reward. Right now, his nerve cell receptors were being rewarded by the release of dopamine. What was curious, even after years of neurobiological study, was that Brendan could feel the physical satisfaction of the nicotine as its molecular components triggered the neurochemicals in his brain, yet he also felt the guilt.

Nothing he’d seen in six years of study was able to account for what human beings call a conscience.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN / FRIDAY, 8:11 AM

Brendan saw News Channel 6 was camped out in front of the Sheriff’s Department, and parked in the lot behind the building. A white van was there with the Syracuse News insignia on the side. A sliding side door rolled open, and a reporter and cameraman hopped out.

“Shit,” he said inside his car. He banged out the door and walked briskly to the rear entrance of the Department, the reporter and her cameraman chasing him as he went.

“Investigator. Investigator, please have a word with us.”

Brendan’s mind raced. He hated this sort of attention. This was what they meant when they called a case “high profile.” A dead girl in a well-known farmhouse in the region. Not only dead, but stabbed repeatedly. Grisly, unexpected, sensational.

He had two options. He could dart inside and see himself on TV later running from a news crew, or he could stop and face them. His heart thumped in his chest. His skin grew hot despite the cool morning. He turned to them before he reached the door.

“Investigator.” The reporter was a young man, a little breathless. His brown hair was perfectly coiffed, and his face looked like it had just been painted. “What can you tell us about the young woman murdered in Remsen?”

Brendan felt all his nerves firing. The camera light beamed upon him. The reporter stuck a microphone in Brendan’s face.

“We’re working on it.”

The microphone flipped back to point at the reporter’s mouth. “Any leads?” The microphone switched back.

“We’re developing and following up leads as swiftly as we can.” His voice sounded like someone else was saying the words coming out of his mouth. He was reminded of standing over Kevin Heilshorn’s bleeding, dead body. Brendan’s skin rippled with gooseflesh.

“And what can you tell us about yesterday’s police shooting? Is it true that the victim is actually the brother of the deceased Remsen girl? Is he a suspect in the murder investigation?”

Brendan smiled grimly. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get to work. We will be giving the press an official statement later.”

He quickly made his way inside, leaving the reporter calling after him.

* * *

Delaney was not yet in the building. Brendan kept his head low as he walked along the corridor of the third-floor of the Department, and slipped into his office quietly, shutting the door behind him.

He sat at his desk, opened his bag, and got out the case-file. He took a few moments to slow his pulse, to get himself under control. He stared at the binder and then, after a minute, he slid it aside. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his small notebook and flipped through it until he came to Olivia Jane’s number. He picked up the phone on his desk and dialed.

The voice on the other end sounded wary. “Hello?”

“Ms. Jane? I’m sorry to call so early. This is Investigator Healy.”

“I know who it is.” She didn’t sound upset, only tired; a little feisty.

He sat back in his chair, fiddling with the phone cord. He’d called her on impulse, and now he wasn’t sure what to say. He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she said. “That was . . . I just needed to get out of there.”

“I understand, I understand.” He leaned forward again and put his elbows on the desk. “How are you?”

“I didn’t sleep. I locked all the doors and checked them three or four times during the night.”

Brendan searched for the right words, something comforting, but his mind drew a blank. She continued, “There was a cop outside for most of the night. At first it scared the hell out of me – I saw the headlights sweep over the front window. God, it’s still a mess in here.”

“We’ll get that cleaned up,” he said right away, remembering the windows in the dining room exploding as the gunman, Heilshorn, opened fire on the house. The memory was surreal, like it had been no more than a dream. Or a nightmare.

He sat back again, his knees bouncing as his feet jittered on the floor. “Have you eaten anything?”

“I just keep seeing it,” she was saying. “The way all that glass went flying. I have bullet holes in my wall.”

“I know. I know. We’ll get it cleaned up, I promise. Listen, are you going to be able to sleep today?”

“I have clients today.”

“In your home?”

“Yes.”

He realized he hadn’t been in Olivia’s home long enough to see her office. But he knew she was licensed for private practice and saw her patients from a home office, as well as making house calls and assisting with crime scenes. “You’ll have to cancel them, Ms. Jane.”

“Olivia. I can’t cancel them. These people . . . there’s a woman that . . . I can’t just cancel on my patients at such short notice.”

“I understand your reluctance. You don’t want your personal circumstances to affect your professional life.”

“It’s not that, Investigator. I don’t give two barbarians at the gate about that.” She stopped herself, and he could hear her rustling against the phone, like she had started pacing around. He found himself grinning, just a little, at her comment. He thought it was a euphemism for not giving a shit. “I just can’t
leave
them. Okay, a couple of them, its maybe not such a big deal. But I have two patients in particular that really need their sessions right now.”

“Ms. Jane. Olivia.”

“Yes?”

“Far be it for me to tell you how to do your job. You sound like a very dedicated therapist. I understand your need to not let down your patients.”

“You keep saying you understand.”

She was clearly tired and a bit off the rails. Brendan could scarcely imagine the woman he’d met the day before being irritable or insulting in any way. The situation was clearly ungluing her.

“Olivia, you’ve just been involved in a very serious incident. And you’re now part of a criminal investigation that involves a murder, and two dead people. The man that attacked us yesterday, well, we don’t know if he was after me, or you, or us both, or what.”

“Did you send the police out last night? To check on me?”

“I made a call, yes. Listen . . .” He sighed unintentionally, and then took a deep breath. She was silent this time, waiting. “I’m not saying you
can’t
see your patients today. I do need to speak to you, and you are intertwined in this case now, no matter whether it interferes with your life, or not. I’m sorry for that. But what’s more important here is whether or not you are in a condition to even be of the best help you can be to your patients today. Don’t you think?”

He winced a little, bracing himself for a backlash. He hadn’t intended to insinuate a lack of professional capability on her part.

He heard her take a breath, too. The exhalation made for a digital ruffle of air on her end of the conversation. “You’re right,” she said in a quiet voice. “There’s no way I can compartmentalize this one. I mean, Jesus.”

Brendan remained silent now, and let her continue to think it through. After a few moments, he said, “You need to eat something. I’m going to come by to pick you up at ten. We’ll get some food in us, and we’ll talk it through, okay?”

She was silent, perhaps hesitant.

“I need to have your official evaluation of Kevin Heilshorn.” He realized what a crazy thing that was to say and added, “Before.”

“My evaluation? I’m not a psychiatrist working for the DA, Investigator Healy.”

“Brendan.”

“My job is to
counsel
, to listen and respond to the needs of someone involved in a tragedy.”

“I’m sorry, I misspoke. I mean to say, I’d like to hear your opinion about how you found Kevin Heilshorn to be yesterday morning, when you had your time with him.”

“That’s still the same thing. You want to know whether or not I found him to be acting guilty. Did he seem to be experiencing grief, or guilt concealed as grief. Or, did he appear unemotional. Remorseless. So you can put it in your report and call on me when you need a witness for the prosecution. I told you, I don’t do that. I don’t know how long you’ve been doing this, but this isn’t how you get a professional witness on the stand. First of all, I’m not her. Second of all, this isn’t the way. Coercing someone out for a meal so you can use them to ratchet up your investigation.”

The conversation fell so abruptly silent that Brendan thought she’d hung up. He pulled the phone away from his ear for a second, and then put it back.

“Did you hang up?”

There was one last moment of silence. Then she said, “I don’t hang up on people. I’m thirty years old. But I am going to go now, Mr. Healy. Good luck.”

And then she did hang up.

Brendan slowly set the handset back in the cradle. He stared at the black phone with its multiple lines and telltales for a moment. “That could have gone better,” he said to it.

* * *

Sheriff Taber came into Brendan’s office a few minutes later. Brendan read the fifty-year-old’s face: It looked like he had news he was conflicted about revealing.

“Morning,” said Taber.

“Morning, Sheriff.”

“Get any sleep?”

“I’m not sure you’d call it sleep. I was unconscious for a few hours.”

Taber grinned, but his eyes belied this other agenda.

Brendan sat back and folded his hands. He took a breath. “What is it, Sheriff?”

Taber, as ever, came right to the point. “I’m wondering if you need time. After yesterday.”

Brendan felt as though he’d been punched in the solar plexus. He’d expected this question, but it still drove the air from his body. His first case for Oneida County and he was involved in a shooting. Now all eyes were on him. His competence would be in question, no matter everyone’s support and best intentions.

“I’m fine, sir. I’d like to continue.”

“Good,” said the Sheriff. “I’d like to keep you on.” His expression reflected that other purpose again, and he said, “We’re adding an investigator from the State Trooper’s Squad to the case. His name is Rudy Colinas.”

Brendan looked into the Sheriff’s eyes. “Okay.”

“This is a big investigation. As you know, it’s not unusual for the State to assist us, especially since we’re still lacking another department investigator.”

“I understand. Can I just ask you one thing?”

“Of course.” The Sheriff was still standing with the door closed behind him. He looked hopeful.

“Does this have anything to do with the shooting yesterday afternoon?”

The Sheriff sighed. “Yes and no.”

“That’s honest.”

The Sheriff shot him a look, perhaps probing for insolence. Finding none, he continued. “Delaney is working the evidence. That’s his bag. He’s got a laptop, a cell phone, a vehicle, fingerprints, boot print, tracks on the property – in fact, a whole property to continue combing. He’s working with the Deputy Coroner on the bodies, as you know. Your job is statements from any witnesses, neighbors, anyone who passed by the house during the timeline for yesterday morning. And suspects. It’s a tall order, and you need help.”

“Because I tend to shoot my suspects.”

The Sheriff looked at Brendan, again trying to gauge the younger man. Brendan had to wonder at the words coming out of his own mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said right away. “I just . . .”
I just got off the phone with a woman who handed me back my best intentions,
he thought.

The Sheriff waved a hand in dismissal. He then looked around Brendan’s small office like he was searching for something. “I want to have a conference with you and Delaney and Colinas this afternoon at one o’clock. In the meantime, bring him up to speed, and work your suspects. What’s the word so far on the father of the victim’s little girl?”

“I’m working on it next.”

The Sheriff nodded. “And the parents?”

“Do I need to call them?”

The Sheriff narrowed his eyes. The notion of the detective who had killed their son calling the parents of the deceased was almost absurd. “The Coroner has called them. There’s no way you’re allowed to communicate with the Heilshorns at this time. But we need to know everything about them.”

Brendan understood. With few suspects and an unknown motive, everyone needed to be looked at for potential culpability. The conflict of interest for him to do the investigation on this situation was enormous. “Then Detective Colinas will work them while I find out more about Eddie.”

“Eddie?”

“Possibly the biological father of the little girl. All I have right now is his first name.”

The Sheriff lingered for a moment. Then he nodded again, and opened the door behind him. “I’m going to send in Detective Colinas.”

“Okay.”

The men held each other’s gaze for a second, and then the Sheriff left.

* * *

Rudy Colinas had an olive complexion and eyes so dark they appeared as all-pupil. His tight, curly hair was carved into a brick. He was well-built, in his forties, and spoke with a slight lisp, as if his tongue pressed against his front teeth for a fraction of a second longer on his Ts. He wore a well-fitting suit, dark grey, and no tie. He had a binder with him and a pen clipped to his shirt pocket, which he slipped out and clicked.