Sacred Sins (31 page)

“Give me just a minute, and I'll take you in to Captain Harris.”

T
HEY
met in the conference room. Though the heater sent out a hopeful mechanical buzz, the floors remained chilly. Harris had lost his annual campaign for carpet. The blinds were closed in a fruitless attempt to insulate the windows. Someone had tacked up a poster urging America to conserve energy.

Tess sat at a table, with Ed lounging beside her. The light scent of jasmine steamed out of his tea. Lowenstein balanced on the edge of a small desk, idly swinging one leg. Bigsby hunched in a chair, an economy-sized box of Kleenex on his lap. Every few minutes he blew his already red nose. Roderick's flu had him in bed.

Harris stood beside a green chalkboard on which the names and other pertinent information on the victims had been aligned in neat columns. A map of the city stretched over the wall, pierced with four blue flags. There was a corkboard beside that. Black-and-white glossies of the murdered women were tacked to it.

“We all have transcripts of the phone calls Dr. Court received.”

It sounded so cold, so businesslike, she thought. Transcripts. They couldn't hear the pain or the sickness in transcripts. “Captain Harris.” Tess shifted her own
notes in front of her. “I've brought you an updated report, with my own opinions and diagnosis. But I feel it might be helpful if I explained these phone calls to you and your officers.”

Harris, with his hands linked behind his back, only nodded. The mayor, the media, and the commissioner were snapping at his ankles. He wanted it over, long over, so he could spend some time doting on his new granddaughter. Seeing her behind the nursery window had almost made him believe that life had its points.

“The man who contacted me called because he was frightened, of himself. He is no longer controlling his life, but is being controlled by his illness. The last …” Her gaze was drawn to the photograph of Anne Reasoner. “The last murder was not part of the plan.” She moistened her lips, glancing over only briefly as Ben walked in. “He was waiting for me—me specifically. We can't be certain how he focused in on the other victims. In the case of Barbara Clayton we can be all but certain it was coincidence. Her car broke down. He was there. In my case it's much more fine-tuned. He's seen my name and picture in the paper.”

She paused a moment, expecting Ben to slip into the chair beside her. Instead he stayed back, leaning against the closed door, separated from her by the table.

“The rational part of his mind, the part that keeps him functioning on a daily basis, was drawn. Here was help, someone who hasn't condemned him out of hand. Someone who claims to understand at least some of the pain. Someone who looks enough like his Laura to trigger feelings of love and complete despair.

“I think it's accurate to say that he waited for me the night of Anne Reasoner's murder because he wanted to talk to me, to explain why before he … before he did what he's being driven to do. From your own investigations I think it's also accurate to say that he didn't feel
this need to explain with any of the others. In your transcripts you'll see that time and time again he asks me to understand. I'm a hinge at this point. His door is swinging both ways.” She put her palms together, moving them back and forth to demonstrate. “He's asking for help, then his illness takes over and he only wants to finish what he's started. Two more victims,” she said calmly. “Or in his mind, two more souls to be saved. Me, then himself.”

Ed made small, neat notes in the margin of his transcripts. “What's to stop him from going off, taking someone else down because he can't get to you?”

“He needs me. At this point he's contacted me three times. He's seen me in church. He deals in signs and symbols. I was in church—his church. I resemble his Laura. I've told him I want to help. The closer he feels to me, the more necessary it would be for him to complete his mission with me.”

“You still think he'll target for December eighth?” Lowenstein had the transcript in her hands, but she wasn't looking at it.

“Yes. I don't think he could break pattern again. Anne Reasoner took too much out of him. The wrong woman, the wrong night.” Tess's stomach shuddered once before she drew herself straight and controlled it.

“Isn't it possible,” Ed began, “that because he's homed in on you this way, that he could go for you sooner?”

“It's always possible. Mental illness has few absolutes.”

“We'll be continuing our twenty-four-hour protection,” Harris put in. “You'll have the wire on your phone and the guards until he's caught. In the meantime, we want you to continue your office and personal routine. He's been watching you, so he'll know what they are. If you look accessible, we might draw him out.”

“Why don't you give her the bottom line?” From the door Ben spoke quietly. His hands were in his pockets, his voice relaxed. Tess only had to look in his eyes to see what was going on inside. “You want her for bait.”

Harris stared back. His voice didn't change in volume or tone when he spoke again. “Dr. Court has been singled out. What I want doesn't matter as much as what the killer wants. That's why she's going to have people on her at home, in her office, and at the damn grocery store.”

“She should be in the safe house for the next two weeks.”

“That's been considered and rejected.”

“Rejected?” Ben pushed himself away from the door. “Who rejected it?”

“I did.” Tess folded her hands on her file, then sat very still.

Ben barely glanced at her before he poured his rage on Harris. “Since when do we use civilians? As long as she's in the open, she's in jeopardy.”

“She's being guarded.”

“Yeah. And we all know how easily something can go wrong. One misstep and you'll be tacking her picture up there.”

“Ben.” Lowenstein reached out for his arm, but he shook her off.

“We've got no business taking chances with her when we know he's going to go for her. She goes in the safe house.”

“No.” Tess gripped her hands together so tight the knuckles whitened. “I can't treat my patients unless I go to my office and the clinic.”

“You can't treat them if you're dead either.” He spun to her, slamming both palms flat on the table. “So take a vacation. Buy yourself a ticket to Martinique or Cancún. I want you out of this.”

“I can't, Ben. Even if I could walk away from my patients for a few weeks, I can't walk away from the rest.”

“Paris—Ben,” Harris amended in a quieter tone. “Dr. Court is aware of her options. As long as she's here, she'll be protected. It's Dr. Court's own opinion that he'll seek her out. Since she's decided to cooperate with the department, we'll be able to keep her under tight surveillance and cut him off when he makes his move.”

“We get her out, and we plant a policewoman in her place.”

“No.” This time Tess rose, slowly. “I'm not going to have someone die in my place again. Not again.”

“And I'm not going to find you in some alley with a scarf around your neck.” He turned his back on her. “You're using her because the investigation's stalled, because we've got one jerky witness, a religious outlet in Boston, and a ream of psychiatric guesswork.”

“I'm accepting Dr. Court's cooperation because we've got four dead women.” It was the burning in his own stomach that kept Harris from raising his voice. “And I need every one of my officers at top level. Pull yourself together, Ben, or you'll be the one out of it.”

Tess gathered up her papers and quietly slipped out. Ed was less than ten seconds behind her. “Want some air?” he asked when he found her standing miserably in the hall.

“Yes. Thanks.”

He took her elbow in a way that would normally have made her smile. As he pushed open the door, the blast of November wind buffeted them. The sky was a hard, cold blue, without a cloud to soften it. Both of them remembered it had been August, hot steamy August, when it had begun. Ed waited while Tess buttoned her coat.

“I think we might get some snow by Thanksgiving,” he said conversationally.

“I suppose.” She dipped into her pocket and found her gloves, but only stood running them through her hands.

“I always feel sorry for the turkeys.”

“What?”

“The turkeys,” Ed repeated. “You know, Thanksgiving. I don't guess they're very grateful to be a tradition.”

“No.” She found she could smile after all. “No, I guess not.”

“He's never been tangled up with a woman before. Not like this. Not like you.”

Tess let out a long breath, wishing she could find the answer. She'd always been able to find the answer. “It just gets more complicated.”

“I've known Ben a long time.” Ed pulled a peanut out of his pocket, cracked it, and offered the meat to Tess. When she shook her head, he popped it into his mouth. “He's pretty easy to read, if you know how to look. Right now he's scared. He's scared of you and he's scared for you.”

Tess looked out over the parking lot. One of the cops wasn't going to be happy when he came out and found his right-front tire flat. “I don't know what to do. I can't run away from this, though part of me, deep down, is terrified.”

“Of the phone calls or Ben?”

“I'm beginning to think you should be in my business,” she murmured.

“If you're a cop long enough, you learn a little bit of everything.”

“I'm in love with him.” It came out slowly, like a test. Once it was said, she took a shaky breath. “That would be hard enough under normal circumstances, but now … I can't do what he wants.”

“He knows that. That's why he's scared. He's a good
cop. As long as he's looking out for you, you're going to be okay.”

“I'm counting on it. He's got a problem with what I do for a living.” She turned to face him. “You know about that. You know why.”

“Let's say I know enough to say he's got his reasons, and when he's ready, he'll let you know about them.”

She studied his wide, wind-reddened face. “He's lucky to have you.”

“I'm always telling him.”

“Bend down a minute.” When he did, she brushed her lips over his cheek. “Thanks.”

His color rose a little higher. “Don't mention it.”

Ben watched them through the glass door a moment before he pushed it open. He'd used up most of his temper on Harris. All that was left was a dull ache in the center of his gut. He knew enough of fear to recognize it.

“Moving in on my time?” he asked mildly.

“If you're stupid enough to make room.” Ed smiled down at Tess and handed her some peanuts. “Take care of yourself.”

Tess jiggled the nuts in her hand and said nothing as Ed disappeared inside.

His jacket unzipped, Ben stood beside her, looking, as she did, out over the parking lot. The wind sent a small brown bag racing across the asphalt. “I've got a neighbor who'll look after my cat for a while.” When Tess remained silent, he shifted. “I want to move in with you.”

She stared hard at the flat tire. “More police protection?”

“That's right.” And more, a whole lot more. He wanted to be with her, day and night. He couldn't explain, not yet, that he wanted to live with her, when he'd never lived with another woman. That kind of
commitment had been dangerously close to a permanency he didn't consider himself ready for.

Tess studied the peanuts in her hand before slipping them into her pocket. As Ed had said, he was easy enough to read if you knew how to look. “I'll give you a key, but I won't cook breakfast.”

“How about dinner?”

“Now and then.”

“Sounds reasonable. Tess?”

“Yes?”

“If I told you I wanted you to go because …” He hesitated, then put his hands on her shoulders. “Because I don't think I could handle it if anything happened to you, would you go?”

“Would you come with me?”

“I can't. You know I have to—” He broke off, struggling with frustration as she looked up at him. “All right. I should know better than to argue with someone who plays Ping-Pong with brain cells. You'll do what you're told, though, right down the line.”

“I have a vested interest in making this case easier for you, Ben. Until it's over, I'll do what I'm told.”

“That has to do.” He backed off just enough for her to realize it was the cop now, much more than the man, who stood with her. “Two uniforms are following you to your office. We've arranged for the guard in the lobby to take a vacation, and have already replaced him with one of ours. We'll have three men taking turns in your waiting room. Whenever it can be arranged, I'll pick you up and take you home. When it can't, the uniforms will follow you. We're using an empty apartment on the third floor as a base, but when you get in, your door stays locked. If you have to go out for any reason, you call in and wait until it's cleared.”

“It sounds thorough.”

He thought about the four glossies on the corkboard.

“Yeah. If anything, I mean
anything
, happens—a guy cuts you off at a light, somebody stops you on the street for directions—I want to know about it.”

“Ben, it's no one's fault that things have taken this turn. Not yours, not Harris's, not mine. We just have to see it through.”

“That's what I intend to do. There're the uniforms. You'd better get going.”