“Hold up there, Balint!”
He considered pretending not to hear—but didn’t dare. The surgeon shuffled up to him, red-faced and winded.
“Glad I caught you.”
“I’m in a rush,” answered Balint. “Jessie’s performing.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
Balint accepted the offer—what choice did he have?—and started toward the far corner of the lot at a rapid clip. Sugarman kept pace with obvious effort. His rumpled beige raincoat gave him the look of a fleeing flasher.
“I hear you had dinner with Gloria,” he said. “That she broke into my e-mail account and got some wild ideas into her head.”
Balint stopped short. He suddenly feared that his rival might have followed him to the parking lot to gun him down in cold blood—that he wasn’t the only one with lethal intentions on his mind. He kept Sugarman’s hands in his line of sight. “Did Amanda tell you that?” he demanded.
“No. When would I see Amanda?”
“Then how . . . ?”
“Gloria told me herself,” said Sugarman. “Or wrote to me, to be more accurate. In the nastiest e-mail message you’ve ever read.”
Balint didn’t respond. He waited for his rival to say more.
“I just didn’t want you to have the wrong impression,” Sugarman continued. “Gloria has a knack for putting a sordid spin on everything. She got it into her head that every woman I’ve ever corresponded with was some sort of mistress.”
“That’s none of my business,” replied Balint.
“Probably not. Nevertheless, I wanted to set the record straight. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not claiming to be a vestal virgin. Who is? But I’m also not the sex-craved Don Juan she makes me out to be . . .”
Balint resumed walking toward his car.
“I wouldn’t want any rumors to spread, especially around the hospital,” said Sugarman. “Even if I did cheat on Gloria here and there, what husband doesn’t supplement his income, so to speak, when the opportunity arises?”
“I don’t,” snapped Balint. “This is entirely between you and Gloria.”
Sugarman chuckled. “You’re too much, Balint. Half the hospital knows about you and that brunette . . .”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He clicked open the lock on the Mercedes.
“If you’ll excuse me,” said Balint—in a cold, steady voice. “I believe our conversation has ended.”
“Jesus, Balint. No need to get worked up.”
Balint shut the car door and pulled away. His colleague gazed after him, looking genuinely bewildered by his reaction.
JESSIE WAS the star of her recital—at least in Balint’s eyes. She pirouetted and pliéed with the verve of a professional. Her performance proved the ideal antidote to Sugarman’s accusations. Afterward they brought the girls out to his daughters’ favorite restaurant, Animal Palace, where the waiters dressed like exotic fauna, and he and Amanda shared the afterglow of the family victory. He wondered if Sugarman had told her about Delilah—maybe to deflect her anger over his own double-dealing—but his gut told him that his wife still knew nothing.
The following morning, Saturday, Balint didn’t even bother to ask Amanda her plans for the day. Instead he took it for granted that she had no intention of joining him for lunch with his parents. When he told her that he’d be back before five o’clock, she asked him to send her best wishes to his mother and stepfather—without offering any pretext or excuse for not joining them. This was the new normal, it seemed. Surprisingly the arrangement felt far easier than his pretending to believe her excuses. The only downside was that his parents would be unhappy that they weren’t going to see their granddaughters that weekend, but he couldn’t bring them, as he intended to retrieve more ribbon from the fishing cabin on the way home. As far as Amanda was concerned, he’d be dropping by the hospital to check up on a patient, a delay which dovetailed perfectly with her own plans.
His parents were waiting for him in their cluttered living room. Over decades of travel, the Serspinskys had acquired useless trinkets from six continents, an army of figurines and glass baubles and miniature portraits that filled countless display cases. Every inch of tabletop housed some exotic geode or intricate piece of scrimshaw. In the midst of this “gallery of junk,” as Balint thought of it, Henry Serspinsky relaxed, eyes closed, arms folded over his chest, listening to a recording of Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra. Balint’s mother stood in the kitchenette, attending to the final details of their lunch. Balint let himself in with his own key.
“You’re alone?” asked his mother—obviously disappointed.
“It’s not Amanda’s fault,” he explained. “I have to stop at the hospital on the way home. An urgent case.”
“She could have taken a second car. What’s the point of owning two cars, Jeremy, if you don’t use them?”
“Next time, Mom. How’s your hip feeling?”
“My hip is fine. But my mood is terrible. Doesn’t a seventy-two-year-old woman have a right to see her grandchildren every once in a blue moon?”
Balint’s stepdad blinked open his eyes. “Lay off the boy, Lilly. He’s doing the best he can.”
Henry Serspinsky rose to his feet and offered Balint a handshake. “It’s been a rough week here, Jeremy. The man next door—name was Fontanelle—died in his tub. And another couple we’ve become friendly with relocated across the quad to a higher level of care. So it has been somewhat stressful.”
Balint’s mother set the lunch tray on the coffee table. Bagels and blintzes. The word “variety” had long ago been erased from her vocabulary. “A very stressful week,” she emphasized. “We’re also worried about the Choker.” Balint must have appeared puzzled, because his mother added, “Please don’t tell me you haven’t heard about the lunatic who has been killing children and old people!”
“I’ve heard,” said Balint.
“It’s truly dreadful.” His mother served him a blintz. “But we’re not taking this sitting down. We’ve formed a neighborhood watch.”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme? There have only been three murders—and all of them far away from here.”
“That’s easy enough for you to say. If you were in the madman’s target age range, you might feel differently.”
“He has a target range? I didn’t even know it was a he.”
Balint’s mother shut off the record player and seated herself beside her husband on the divan. “Show him your invention, Henry.”
The retired veterinarian reached beneath the coffee table and removed an eight-inch-wide band of leather with Velcro tabs. As Balint watched, his stepfather fastened the device around his own neck. “It’s a security collar,” he explained. “Leather mesh with wire and razor blades concealed inside. If the Choker tries to strangle you, he’ll cut his fingers to shreds.”
“Why can’t he just remove it?”
“That will take time. You’ll have a chance to fight back.”
“But what if he hits you over the head from behind and knocks you out cold? Then he’ll have plenty of time to remove your collar . . .”
“Anything is possible,” conceded Henry. “But it’s better than nothing. This is only the prototype. I’m going to ask the board of managers to provide emergency funding for 200 of them . . .”
Serspinsky’s earlier inventions had included a foldaway birdbath and a machine for prechopping multiple strands of dental floss simultaneously. Balint recognized that there was no point in explaining the shortcomings of the “Iron Neck,” so he praised his stepfather’s ingenuity. “That being said,” he added, “I don’t think you have to worry about being strangled by a serial killer. You have a far greater chance of being struck by lightning—or kidnapped by pirates.”
“And since when are you such an expert?” demanded his mother.
“He’s a doctor, Lilly,” answered Balint’s stepdad as he removed the shield from around his throat, “so he
thinks he knows everything.”
BALINT LEFT his parents shortly after one o’clock and arrived at the fishing cabin before two. A thin veneer of snow already coated the path. Instead of purchasing a distinctive pair of boots, he had decided to wrap his own shoes in cloth, leaving behind a mysterious trail of broad, shapeless prints. Even if the police found these tracks, they could never trace them back to him.
He retrieved enough ribbon for at least two more killings. He dared not take more, as the coil already made his wallet bulge. But that was enough: by the time he next returned to the cabin, Sugarman would be dead. On the drive home, he found himself wondering if his rival were prepared for the end: Had he written a will? Did he own a burial plot? Would his dopey son receive any insurance payout? When Balint’s own father had died—without warning, at age forty-one—he’d left his widow and child utterly unprepared for the calamity. Before she’d met Henry Serspinsky, Balint’s mother had been bartending at a roadside pub to supplement her teacher’s salary. Even then, they’d barely made ends meet. So Balint didn’t feel particularly bad for Davey Sugarman, or for Gloria, whose alimony would likely cease. Life was unfair. If you had a lout for a father or an ex-husband, those were the breaks.
Balint saw the glow of the flashing lights before the police cars themselves came into view. There were six of them—lined up along the roadside opposite his house like enormous children’s toys. On the lawn, a detective in a white shirt spoke with a pair of plainclothes investigators. Balint’s pulse quickened. Had he screwed up? Could they possibly have connected the murders to him already? But there was also a fire truck parked in front of the Rothschilds’ house. And then he spotted an ambulance in his own driveway, the doors shutting, a siren suddenly piercing the suburban afternoon. This wasn’t a murder investigation, but something far worse.
He stopped the Mercedes abruptly—nearly blowing out the automatic transmission—and charged up to the trio of police officers. “I’m Dr. Jeremy Balint,” he announced. “Where are my daughters?”
The detective held up a hand to keep the two plainclothes officers from intervening. “The homeowner,” he warned them. Then he turned to Balint and said, “I’m afraid there’s been an incident, doctor.”
“What’s happened? I want to see my daughters!”
The detective was in his early fifties, a lean officer with a thick mustache. “Let’s step inside your house for a moment, Dr. Balint, if that’s all right.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on. Where are my children?” Balint was seconds from grabbing the officer by the throat and strangling him. Meanwhile, the ambulance backed out of the driveway and disappeared up the street. Its sirens faded rapidly, leaving behind a tense and chilling hush.
“I’m their father,” shouted Balint. “I have a right to know.”
“Your daughters are fine, Dr. Balint,” said the detective.
He didn’t believe the man. Fortunately, at that moment, Amanda stepped onto the porch with Phoebe clasped against her shoulder. “They’re okay,” said his wife. “I sent Jessie across the street with Bonnie Kluger.”
“Thank God!” exclaimed Balint.
He hugged both his wife and younger daughter in his arms. Then he followed the mustached detective into the house. Half a dozen cops of various ranks milled about his living room. Several carried clipboards and measuring tapes. The officers formed a two-way parade across Balint’s kitchen and into his backyard.
The detective steered him into the living room. In one corner of the room sat Matilda Rothschild, the sixtyish matron from down the block, attempting to comfort the seemingly catatonic Sally Goldhammer. His new neighbor mouthed inaudible pleas, rocking back and forth like a madwoman. As soon as Balint saw her, he understood what must have happened.
“Dead?” he asked the detective.
The man nodded. “In the pool. She’d probably been under for half an hour when we found her.”
Balint instantly understood that his position was tenuous. “I’ve been in litigation with the contractors,” he explained to the cop. “They damaged the pavings, but refused to repair them—and I couldn’t get anyone else to tackle the job while the matter remained unresolved.”
The last part wasn’t exactly true: other contractors would have done the work, but only if he’d compensated them upfront—while he’d decided to hold off on additional repairs until his lawsuit had settled. It was just his bad luck that the gap in the damaged pavers, frequented by rabbits and woodchucks, also was large enough for a toddler.
“So you were aware of the danger?”
“Obviously, I didn’t imagine anything like this could happen,” Balint objected quickly. “We do have a perimeter fence around the entire yard. I don’t understand how anyone managed to get around it.”
“She came through the front door,” said Amanda. “Jessie let her in while I was giving Phoebe her bath . . . and then she somehow opened the kitchen door on her own . . .”
“You’ve been home all afternoon?” asked Balint.
“Where did you think I’d be?”
“I don’t know,” he stammered. She’d caught him off guard. Was it possible that she’d terminated her affair with Sugarman? Or was this merely a strategic ploy, an effort to mislead him? “Out, I guess.”
“We were having a quiet day—just the three of us . . .”
Amanda shifted Phoebe to her other shoulder. Two officers walked past them carrying the disembodied wire gate to the swimming pool. Later, when Balint inspected the yard, he’d find the entire opening patched shut with yellow police tape.
“This was an accident,” Balint found himself insisting to the detective. “We have a perimeter fence. That’s all the law requires.” And we have homeowners insurance, he thought—although he didn’t know the amount of coverage offhand; that was the sort of detail he left entirely to Amanda. “You don’t really plan to pin this on us, do you? She has a responsibility to keep her daughter from wandering off, doesn’t she? And you can’t hold us to blame for the negligence of an eight-year-old child.”
The detective offered a reedy smile and gave nothing away.
“I’m not holding anybody to blame for anything, Dr. Balint,” he replied. “That’s not my job. I’m just gathering facts.”
THAT NIGHT Balint entered into his first serious conversation with his daughters about death. They’d had a more superficial discussion the previous year, when the gourami that Phoebe won at her school’s carnival expired after only three days, but at the time Balint had been careful to limit their talk to the fate of invertebrates. When Amanda’s father had died, the girls had been too young for any discussion at all. In contrast, the drowning of Abby Goldhammer required a family conclave. What struck Balint immediately was that both of his daughters looked petrified.
“The most important thing to remember is that what happened today wasn’t anybody’s fault,” he reassured them. “Sometimes, God is just ready for somebody to join Him in heaven and there’s nothing we can do about it.” Balint didn’t actually believe in God—he’d given up any faith in a higher being long before he’d first contemplated his killing spree—but he found the supernatural a useful fiction when explaining these matters to his daughters. And then an idea struck him—a premise he remembered vaguely from a European film. “Do you know what chess is?” he asked.
Amanda looked at him quizzically over the girls’ heads.
“That’s like checkers,” said Phoebe. “But harder.”
“Exactly. Well, life is like a game of chess that people play with God. And as long as you’re winning, God lets you stay down here on earth. But when God wins, that’s when He takes you up to heaven.”
“And God beat Abby?” asked Jessie.
“That’s a good way to think about it,” answered Balint. “God beat Abby at chess. So now she lives up in heaven with Him.”
A silence fell across the room as the girls digested this strange new information.
“Can you tea
ch me how to play chess?” asked Phoebe.
“It’s a very difficult game,” said Balint. “Maybe when you’re older.”
“But what if God wins before I learn how to play?”
Amanda shook her head at him. “We’re not going to let that happen, darling. I promise that daddy and I won’t let that happen. Because as much as God loves you and wants to be with you, we love you even more.”
NORMAN NAVARE returned to the hospital that weekend for another tune-up; his ejection fraction had fallen to 12 percent. This reminded Balint that, while in an ideal world he should have waited several months for the media clamor to die down before striking again, he could not afford to wait that long if he hoped to save Delilah’s father’s life. Another bizarre thought also crossed his mind: he didn’t want to get caught before he bumped off Warren Sugarman. Should that happen, his entire effort would have been an utter waste. The reason this notion struck him as bizarre was that he had absolutely no intention of getting caught at all, so the goal of avoiding getting caught before murdering Sugarman had no rightful place in his thinking.
He recognized that his next killing had to take place on Long Island. That would create a triangle around New York City, so that when he strangled Sugarman, it wouldn’t draw any particular focus to coastal New Jersey. The problem was that Nassau County was two hours away, which meant he needed to set aside four hours of travel time in addition to whatever was required for the killing itself. There was simply no way he could find that amount of time after dark. Even on a weekend afternoon, four hours was a long interval to desert his wife and daughters. It didn’t help matters that he’d already used up all of his good excuses—fake conferences and training sessions and drug company meetings—orchestrating trysts with Delilah. And then good fortune struck: Amanda announced that, the weekend before Christmas, she’d be attending an overnight bridge tournament in Maryland. He suspected that this was an outright lie, that she’d actually be meeting up with Sugarman at a hotel, and that her presence at home the previous Saturday had indeed been part of a maneuver to deceive him. But the last laugh, of course, would be his.
The Mask of Sanity Page 10