Tell No Lies (18 page)

“Yeah.”

“I pretty much have his metabolism. Someday I’ll look like Nell Carter, but till then? Clam garlic pizza.” She picked up a battered soft-leather briefcase. “Come on. Let’s find a booth somewhere. Don’t want to talk on the street.”

They crossed Columbus, passing Club Fugazi, a florid theater poster announcing
Beach Blanket Babylon
as the longest-running musical revue in history. A performer in cabaret stockings sat on a planter outside, struggling with a hat the size of a garbage can.

They turned in to Capp’s Corner, a checkered-tablecloth Italian joint, and found a quiet table.

Daniel’s impatience had reached boiling point. “Well? What happened?”

“We went with the parole officers to roust each of the group members, but naturally everyone was safe and sound. Been in bed all night, they claimed. Just like on the nights Jack Holley and Marisol Vargas were murdered. Of course, none of the killings have occurred when your group was in session.”

“That’s why the murders were all planned for midnight,” Daniel said. “No one expects anyone to be anywhere then.” He realized he was twisting his napkin obsessively. “Did they search the houses?”

“Houses?” She laughed. “We’re talking shithole apartments or garagelos at best.”

“Garagelo?”

“Converted garage with a futon and a space heater.” A smirk. “It’s how the other half lives. Yes. Every residence was searched top to bottom. Nothing unusual was found. But generally felons whose places can be searched at any time don’t leave a bloody knife sitting out on the coffee table. Oh—and big surprise, we didn’t find any motorcycles. None of them have registration on a bike either, for what that’s worth, so A-Dre must’ve borrowed or stolen the one you saw him on. Or I should say
heard
him on. Or
mistook
hearing him on.”

“Did you find Kyle Lane?”

“Still missing. Didn’t show up to work today. Which, in his employment history, has happened exactly never.” She regarded her hand, lying flat on the table, as if it were something she wanted to smash.

“Jesus,” he said quietly. “Do you think he’s dead already or being …
kept
?”

Theresa grimaced. The waiter drifted up, flicking open a notepad, but she waved him off. Daniel, too, had lost his appetite.

“So what next?” he asked once the waiter had withdrawn.

“We’ll keep eyes on all of them as best we can. Sit an unmarked car outside each of their places. But running surveillance on six people isn’t cheap or easy. We’ve got some budget leeway given the profile of this case, but still. Given we can’t be a hundred percent certain that the suspect
is
one of those six, my LT’s patience ain’t gonna be endless.”

“And in the meantime you what? Just wait for another death-threat letter to pop up?”

“We watch every move of those six,” Dooley said. “Just like you will in session.”

The waiter returned, plunked down two glasses of water, took in the mood at the table, and retreated. Theresa’s stare had not left Daniel’s face.

He cupped his hands around the sweating glass, the cold biting his palms. “I can’t do that,” he said. “I’m quitting.”

Her nostrils flared. “
What?
Why? The danger? We have a plan for—”

“No, not the
danger.
”

“What then, Brasher?”

“I have a duty to the people in my group. How can I do the job if I’m suspicious of all of them?”

“What do you think I deal with every day?”

“I’m not a cop.”

“No,” Dooley said. “But you know the suspects like no one else. Which means you are uniquely positioned to stop this.”

“It’s not that simple—”

“Of
course
it isn’t. We don’t have the luxury of
simple.
Look, I get your professional concerns. But this isn’t black and white. Nothing is.”

“Don’t some things
have
to be? If we start bending a rule here and a rule there, where are we gonna wind up?”

“People are being
killed,
” Dooley said. “You saw what he did to Marisol Vargas. Hell, you
heard
it from a room over. I understand you’re worried how you’ll feel if you don’t do right by a patient. You think you’ll feel any better if someone else’s throat gets sliced and you know you might have helped prevent it?”

He thought about the damp smell of potted plants in Marisol Vargas’s dining room. The horrid burbling from the kitchen. Those pictures of Kyle Lane framed on the piano, frozen images in an empty house. His grip had intensified around the glass, and he let go, an ache cramping his knuckles. “No. But how I’ll feel isn’t the point.”

“You have your bullshit definitions of right and wrong,” she said, “but this is real life. And real life is dirty.”

“Is this the lecture part? Because we tried this route once.”

“Apparently it didn’t sink in, so we’re gonna do it again.” Her slender frame rose and fell with a silent breath. “There is a way to navigate this. To do right by yourself and by them and to do right in general, too. God knows it’s not easy walking that line, but with what we’re looking at, isn’t it worth trying?”

He stared out the window but still felt the heat of her gaze on the side of his face.

A few moments passed, and then she added, “I thought you said you liked challenges.”

He took a sip of water. Set down the glass. Crunched an ice cube between his molars. “
If
I do this—”

She exhaled.

“—I’m not gonna report to you everything that goes on in that room.”

“You are legally required to disclose information if a patient is a danger to others.”

“Right. But we don’t know
which
patient is.”

“So what do we do?”

“I’ll continue running the group. See what I can figure out and tell you anything as it pertains to the case.”

“How will you determine what pertains to the case?” she asked.

“You’ll have to trust my judgment.”

She simulated a smile, then flashed back to deadpan. “Guess we’re stuck with each other, then.”

“So where do we start?” he asked.

“With your selection criteria. How do you determine who gets into the group?”

“I assess candidates in an intake session. Group therapy doesn’t work for a lot of people. They have to be drug-free, higher intelligence, not too introverted.”

“Great,” Dooley said. “Guy we’re looking for is intelligent, coherent, highly organized. So you prescreened a suspect list.”

“But I should’ve
also
screened out psychopaths,” Daniel said.

“Maybe the killer’s not a psychopath.”

“Or maybe I screwed up during the screening process.”

“Do you think you did?”

He considered. “No.”

Theresa hoisted the briefcase onto the table and tugged out a stack of files, one for each group member. Flipping through the tabs, Daniel acquainted Dooley with each member’s nickname.

“I haven’t managed handwriting samples for everyone yet,” she said. “And samples taken under duress aren’t accurate.”

“I already looked at samples,” Daniel said. “No matches.”

“Are you a handwriting expert?”

“I’ve had some training. But it’s clear as day. No one from my group wrote those notes.”

She searched his face. Gave a little nod. “Okay.”

“Someone else could be doing the writing for them,” Daniel said. “Spouse, girlfriend, accomplice, whatever.”

“We’ve been looking at that,” she said. “Of the group, only Big Mac is married, is that right?”

“Yes. Martin
was
married, but his wife died of skin cancer four, five years ago.”

She flipped a few pages. “We got no record of a dead wife.”

He replayed Martin’s phrasing—
My lady, she died when I was inside—
then
cast his mind back to the early sessions. “Right. Sorry. She was a long-term girlfriend, not a wife.”

“He bullshitting it?”

“His grief over her loss is real. No way he could feign that.”

“And Lillian”—she caught herself—“
Lil
was married, too.”

“Yes. But her ex-husband’s in jail. Bank robbery.”

“Not anymore,” Dooley said. “He’s been out six months.” Daniel’s surprise must have shown, because she asked, “She didn’t mention that?”

“She probably doesn’t know he’s out.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Daniel’s discomfort registered, finally, as an emotion. Beyond the shock and anger and betrayal he’d felt since finding his business card, he realized there was sadness, too. Over the months they’d been in that room, sweating and arguing and grinding away, he’d developed a genuine regard, even affection, for each of the group members. Beneath all the discussion and stressful analysis, a plain fact remained: He didn’t
want
any of them to be the killer. But there was a dirty reality at hand and a missing man and an answer owed to the question Dooley had raised.

“No,” he said. “Lil didn’t mention it.”

“You know who else is out of prison? A-Dre’s brother. Just got out last month.” She slid a photo across the table. “About the right size and shape, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah. He’s built like A-Dre.” Daniel shot a breath up past his bangs. “So he could be the person who wrote the death threats
or
the assailant. Every turn leads to more suspects.”

“Welcome to Homicide,” Dooley said. “And you wonder why I haven’t slept in two weeks.”

They ran through the others, Dooley raising what she’d gathered about Martin’s girlfriends and brothers, the guy who was likely the father of the child Xochitl had given up to foster care, and myriad other acquaintances and relatives. Daniel contributed where he felt it was relevant and pointedly didn’t answer other questions, which was giving answer enough.

“Should I just bring the usual, Dooley?” The waiter, hovering at a safe distance, broke the spell of their discussion.

Dooley said, “Yeah, thanks.” Back to Daniel. “In your opinion, who in the group best matches the profile of a murderer?”

“I honestly can’t answer that. My gut instinct tells me none of them are capable of this, and yet they’ve all committed violent crimes.”

“Big Mac’s offense was the most brazen. An attempt on an armored truck.”

“Guard in an elevator.”

“Yeah, drew a gun on an armed security guard—”

“—but he surrendered without incident.”

“Only when he hit the ground floor and was clearly outgunned.” She leaned back in the booth, folded her arms. “Martin was also taken down for armed assault. He held up a number of grocery stores, convenience stores, all that.”

“How many robberies?” Daniel asked.

“We busted him for three, but there were a number of others that fit the profile. We sniffed around the cases, couldn’t make ’em stick. But still. We have the guy shoving a gun in the face of multiple innocents.”

“And A-Dre planning a prison break,” he said. “And Lil sitting lookout for a bank robbery. And Fang nearly beating a kid to death. Xochitl raping a girl with a stick. None of them are model citizens. How is this getting us anywhere?”

“You’re right,” she said. “Why don’t we try a different tack? The course you offer. Reason and Rehabilitation. They get to choose their instructor?”

A prickle of heat along his collar. He sensed where this was heading. “No.” Reluctantly, he added, “But they can put in for which counseling track they’d like to take. And they can specify a male or a female counselor.”

Dooley posed the inevitable question. “And how many Reason and Rehabilitation courses are taught by male instructors?”

He bit the inside of his lip. “One.”

“So they could have chosen
you.
”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

The waiter appeared and off-loaded a laden tray—garlic bread, spaghetti and meatballs, calzone, salad. Daniel slid the plates away, the heat and rising scent suddenly off-putting. Theresa, of course, twirled a fork in the pasta and lifted a twined bulb to her mouth.

Daniel said, “You’re thinking it isn’t a coincidence that the killer whose mail I got ‘accidentally’ happens to be in my group.”

The idea had occurred to him over the past few days, though he’d been holding the ramifications at bay.

“I’m not thinking anything,” she said through a full mouth. “I’m
exploring.
” She swallowed, set down the fork. “It can go either way. One: The killer was in fact shocked to see you at Marisol Vargas’s house, decided to keep a closer eye on you after that. Or two…” She let this hang as she wolfed down a piece of garlic bread. “The killer sent you the notes in familiar gray department envelopes.”

“They weren’t addressed to me.”

“But they were in your box. Highly organized suspect. Coincidences chafe me.”

“We don’t want you chafed.”

“No, we really don’t. Makes my skin all ashy.” She swiped her lips with a napkin. “You always seem to be in the thick of it, don’t you?”

Heat rose beneath his face. “Am I a
suspect
?”

“No. That would be way too convenient.” She pursed her lips to one side, an unconscious lost-in-thought gesture that struck him as uncharacteristically youthful. “Any idea why someone would want to target you?”

“None whatsoever.”

“The woman in the rain? She pointed at you.” Theresa leaned forward on her elbows. “Was your wife with you when that happened?”

“She was next to me—” His unease hardened into anger.
“Why?”

“Could the woman have been pointing at Cristina?”

“Why would she do that?”

“Why would she point at you?”

“So it’s gonna be this kind of conversation,” he said. “Where we answer questions with questions.”

“Why don’t you answer my question with an answer, then?” she said.

“I told you: I have no fucking idea. I haven’t done anything wrong to anyone.”

Dooley leaned away from his glare. “Quite a broad claim.”

“Fine. I’ll rephrase. I haven’t done anything to elicit someone’s murderous attention.”

“Okay.” She bobbed her head. “I believe you, and I’m not inclined toward naïveté. So as I said. Maybe this has to do with Cris. She’s got a worse background than you—”