Death Match

by Lincoln Child

  Lash turned to the first blot. Below it, the administrator had recorded Lindsay’s responses verbatim.

  There were two steps to viewing each card: a free-association phase, where the subject stated his or her first impressions of the card, and an inquiry phase, where the examiner would ask the subject to justify their impressions. Lash noticed, from the arrow marked on the third free association, that Lindsay had on her own volition turned the card upside down and kept it that way. That was a sign of independent thinking: if you asked whether you could turn the card over, you got a lower score. Lash recognized this blot, and Lindsay had hit most of the typical responses: a mask, a bat. No doubt the examiner would have noted Lindsay’s reference to the devil, an extraneous remark that would need to be scored.

  The next sheet in the pile was the examiner’s scoring sheet for this first card:

  Lash quickly reviewed the way Lindsay’s four responses had been typed and scored. The examiner had done a thorough job. Despite the years since he’d last administered a Hirschfeldt test, the arcane codes came back to him: B stood for a response encompassing the whole blot; D for a response to a commonly noted detail. Human and animal forms, anatomy, nature, and the rest were all noted. In all four responses, Lindsay’s form factors had been marked OK: a good sign. She saw more images in the white spaces than usual, but not enough to cause any concern. In the “specials” category—where examiners listed deviant verbalizations and other no-nos—Lindsay received only one mark, MOR, for morbid content: no doubt for her characterization of the image as a “devil mask” and “scary.”

  He moved on to the second blot:

  Again, the examiner had carefully listed Lindsay’s responses.

  Again, Lash recognized this blot. Lindsay Thorpe’s responses were all within normal.

  Lash looked back idly at the blot. Suddenly, he stiffened. Completely unexpectedly, a series of associations flashed through his own mind as he stared: a quickly spreading sea of red across a white carpet; a dripping kitchen knife; the grinning mask of Edmund Wyre, handcuffed and in leg irons, as he was arraigned before a sea of shocked faces.

  God damn Roger Goodkind and his curiosity, Lash thought as he put the blot quickly aside.

  He leafed brusquely through the other twenty-eight blots, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Lindsay was characterized as a well-adjusted, intelligent, creative, rather ambitious person. He knew this already. The faint hope that had again stirred within him began to fade.

  There was still one more item to examine. He turned to the structural summary page, where all Lindsay Thorpe’s scores were put through a series of ratios, frequency analyses, and other algebraic convolutions to determine particular personality traits. One of these sets of traits was known as “special indications,” and it was to this Lash turned his attention.

  The special indications were red flags. If more than a set number of responses fell under a specific indicator—SZ for schizophrenia, for example—it was flagged positive. One of the special indications, S-Cluster, measured suicide potential.

  Lindsay Thorpe’s S-Cluster showed negative; in fact, she was coded as displaying zero out of eight possible suicide indicators.

  With a sigh, Lash put Lindsay’s results aside and picked up her husband’s.

  He had just finished ascertaining that Lewis Thorpe’s suicide cluster was as low as Lindsay’s when a beep sounded from his jacket pocket. Lash drew out his cell phone. “Yes?”

  “Dr. Lash? It’s Edwin Mauchly.”

  Lash felt mild surprise. He didn’t give out his cell number to anybody, and he certainly didn’t recall giving it to Eden.

  “Where are you right now?” Mauchly’s voice sounded different: clipped, brusque.

  “Greenwich. Why?”

  “It’s happened again.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “There’s been another one. Another double-suicide attempt. A supercouple.”

  “What?” Surprise vanished beneath a wave of disbelief.

  “The couple’s name is Wilner. Larchmont residents. They’re en route to Southern Westchester now. From your location, you should be able to make it in—” there was a brief pause “—fifteen minutes. I wouldn’t waste any time.”

  And the line went dead.

  NINE

  S outhern Westchester County Medical Center was a cluster of brick buildings on the outskirts of Rye, just over the New York border. As Lash screeched into the ambulance entrance, he could see that the ER was unusually quiet. Just two vehicles sat together in the shadows beyond the glass admitting doors. One was an ambulance; the other a long, low, hearse-like vehicle bearing the seal of the county medical examiner. The rear doors of the ambulance were open, and as Lash trotted across the blacktop he glanced toward it. An EMS technician was at work with a bucket and sanitizer, swabbing the interior. Even from twenty yards Lash caught the coppery tang of blood.

  The smell brought him up short, and he glanced hesitantly up at the building’s dark-red bulk. He had not been inside an emergency room in three years. Then, recalling the urgency in Mauchly’s voice, he forced himself forward once again.

  The waiting area seemed subdued. Half a dozen people sat in plastic chairs, staring vacantly at walls or filling out forms. A small knot of policemen stood in one corner, talking among themselves in low tones. Quickly, Lash headed for the door marked SQUAD ROOM, opened it, felt along the wall for the button that opened the automatic doors into the emergency room.

  The doors whispered open onto a far different scene. Several orderlies were at work, scrambling with equipment trays. A nurse walked by, liters of blood clutched in her arms. Another followed with a crash cart. Three EMS technicians were standing at the nurses’ station, not speaking. They looked dazed. Two were still wearing pale-green gloves heavily smeared with blood.

  Lash scanned the area for a familiar face. Almost instantly he spotted the chief resident, Alfred Chen, walking toward him. Normally, Chen moved with the slow, stately grace of a prophet, a smile on his Buddha-like face. Tonight, Chen was moving quickly, and the smile was gone.

  The resident’s eyes were on a metal clipboard in his hands, and he didn’t bother looking up at Lash. As Chen passed, Lash stuck out an arm. “Alfred. How’s it going?”

  Chen stared blankly for a moment. “Oh. Chris. Hi.” The smile made a brief appearance. “Could be better. Listen, I—”

  “I’m here to see the Wilner couple.”

  Chen looked surprised. “That’s where I’m headed. Follow me.”

  Lash swung in beside the resident.

  “Are they patients of yours?” Chen asked.

  “Prospective.”

  “How’d you hear about it so fast? They just got here five minutes ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “Suicide pact, according to police. Pretty thorough job of it, too. Radial vein, opened lengthwise from wrist to forearm.”

  “In the bath?”

  “That’s the strange part. They were found in bed together. Fully clothed.”

  Lash felt the muscles of his jaw tighten. “Who found them?”

  “Blood came through the ceiling of the condo below theirs, and the owner called the police. They must have been there for hours.”

  “What’s their condition?”

  “John Wilner bled out,” Chen puffed. “Dead on the scene. His wife is alive, but just barely.”

  “Any kids?”

  “No.” Chen glanced down at the sheet. “But Karen Wilner is five months pregnant.”

  Ahead, the nurse with the crash cart disappeared behind a drawn curtain. Chen followed, Lash at his heels.

  The space beyond was so crowded that at first Lash could not see the bed. Somewhere, an EKG was bleating out a dangerously fast pulse. There was a torrent of voices, talking over each other, calm but urgent.

  “Heartbeat’s at 120, out of sinus tach,” a woman said.

  “Systolic’s at 70.”

  An alarm sounded abr
uptly, adding its drone to the babel.

  “Hang more plasma!” This voice was louder, more insistent.

  Lash slipped along behind the blue-garbed figures, back against the curtain, working toward the head of the bed. As he squeezed into position between two racks of diagnostic equipment, Karen Wilner finally became visible.

  She was like alabaster, so pale Lash could see an incredible tracery of starved veins around her neck, across her breasts, down the sweep of her arms. Her blouse and bra had been cut away, and her torso swabbed clean, but she was still wearing a skirt and it was here the whiteness ended. The fabric was soaked through with blood. Twin IVs, turned wide open, were notched into her inner elbows: one of plasma, the other of saline. Below these, tourniquets were placed around her forearms, and doctors were at work, trying to suture the ruined veins.

  “We’ve got vasospasm,” said a nurse, one hand to the patient’s forehead. Karen Wilner’s eyes remained closed, and she did not respond to the pressure of the nurse’s hand.

  Lash slipped in closer, knelt down beside the motionless face.

  “Ms. Wilner,” he murmured. “Why? Why did you do it?”

  “What are you doing?” the nurse demanded. “Who is this guy?”

  The bleat of the EKG machine had slowed to a lazy, irregular rhythm. “Bradycardia!” a voice called. “Pressure’s down to 45 over 20.”

  Lash drew closer. “Karen,” he said, more urgently. “I need to know why. Please.”

  “Christopher, move away,” Dr. Chen warned from the far side of the bed.

  The woman’s eyes fluttered open; closed; opened again. They were dry and even paler than her skin.

  “Karen,” Lash repeated, placing a hand on her shoulder. It felt like marble.

  “Make it stop,” she said, the words more breath than voice.

  “Make what stop?” Lash said.

  “That sound,” the woman replied, almost inaudibly. “That sound in my head.”

  Her eyes slipped closed again, and her head lolled to one side.

  “We’re losing her!” a nurse cried.

  “What sound?” Lash said, bending closer. “Karen, what sound?”

  He felt a hand land on his shoulder, pull him back. “Away from the bed, mister,” said an orderly. His eyes glittered black above the white gauze of his mask.

  Lash retreated between the racks of equipment. The EKG was now droning a high, incessant note. The nurse scrambled forward with the crash cart.

  “Charged?” asked Dr. Chen as he took the paddles.

  “One hundred joules.”

  “Back!” called Chen.

  Lash watched Karen Wilner’s body stiffen as electricity coursed through it. The driplines hanging from the IV racks whipsawed violently back and forth.

  “Again!” Chen cried, paddles raised in the air. For a moment, his gaze met Lash’s own. Brief as it was, the glance said everything.

  With one final, searching look at Karen Wilner, Lash turned and left the emergency bay.

  TEN

  T his time, when Edwin Mauchly ushered Lash into the Eden boardroom, the table was full. Lash recognized some of the faces: Harold Perrin, ex-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board; Caroline Long of the Long Foundation. Others were unfamiliar. But it was clear the entire board of Eden Incorporated was assembled before him. The only person missing was the company’s reclusive founder, Richard Silver: although the man had rarely been photographed in recent years, it was clear none of the faces assembled here belonged to him. Some looked at Lash with curiosity; others with grave concern; still others with an expression that was probably hope.

  John Lelyveld sat in the same chair he’d occupied at the first meeting. “Dr. Lash.” And he waved at the sole vacant seat. Mauchly quietly closed the door to the boardroom and stood before it, arms behind his back.

  The chairman turned to a woman at his right. “Stop the transcription, if you please, Ms. French.” Then he looked back at Lash. “Would you care for anything? Coffee, tea?”

  “Coffee, thanks.” Lash studied Lelyveld’s face as the man made brisk introductions. The benevolent, almost grandfatherly manner of the prior meeting was gone. Now the Eden chairman seemed formal, preoccupied, a little distant. This is no longer a coincidence, Lash thought, and he knows it. Directly or indirectly, Eden was involved.

  The coffee arrived and Lash accepted it gratefully: there had been no time for sleep the night before.

  “Dr. Lash,” Lelyveld said. “I think everyone would be more comfortable if we got straight to the matter at hand. I realize you haven’t had much time, but I wonder if you could bring us up to speed on anything you’ve learned, and whether—” he paused to glance around the table “—whether there’s any explanation.”

  Lash sipped his coffee. “I’ve spoken with the coroner and local law enforcement. On the face of it, everything still points to the original conclusion of double suicide.”

  Lelyveld frowned. Several chairs away, a man who’d been introduced as Gregory Minor, executive vice president, moved restlessly in his seat. He was younger than Lelyveld, black-haired, with an intelligent, penetrating gaze. “What about the Wilners themselves?” he asked. “Any indications to explain this?”

  “None. It’s just like the Thorpes. The Wilners had everything going for them. I talked to an emergency room intern who knew the couple. They had great jobs: John an investment banker, Karen a university librarian. She was pregnant with their first child. No history of depression or anything else. No apparent financial difficulties, no family tragedies of any kind. The autopsy bloods were clean. It will take a thorough investigation to be certain, but there seems no evidence to indicate suicidal tendencies.”

  “Except the bodies,” Minor said.

  “The evaluator at their class reunion here made a similar report. They seemed just as happy as the rest of the couples.” Lelyveld glanced at Lash. “You used the phrase ‘on the face of it.’ Care to elaborate?”

  Lash took another sip of coffee. “It’s obvious the suicides in Flagstaff and Larchmont are related. We’re not dealing with coincidence. And so we need to treat these incidents as what, at Quantico, we termed ‘equivocal death.’ ”

  “Equivocal death?” Caroline Long sat to his right, her blond hair almost colorless in the artificial light. “Explain, please.”

  “It’s a type of analysis the Bureau pioneered twenty years ago. We know the victims, we know how they died, but we don’t yet know the manner of death. In this case, double suicide, suicide-homicide—or homicide.”

  “Homicide?” said Minor. “Just a minute. You said the police are treating these deaths as suicides.”

  “I know.”

  “And everything you’ve observed agrees with that finding.”

  “That’s correct. I mention equivocal death because what we have is an enigma. Every physical sign points to suicide. But every psychological sign points away from it. So we can’t close our minds to any possibility.”

  He looked around the table. When nobody spoke, he went on.

  “What are those possibilities? If we’re dealing with homicide, then it has to be somebody who knew both couples. A rejected suitor, perhaps? Or somebody who was rejected as an Eden client by your winnowing process and now holds a grudge?”

  “Impossible,” Minor said. “Our records are kept under the most stringent security. No rejected applicant knows the identities or addresses of our clients.”

  “They could have met in the lobby, the day they both applied. Or one of the couples could have bragged about their experience at Eden to the wrong person.”

  Lelyveld shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so. Our security and confidentiality procedures begin the moment somebody steps into the building. They’re transparent for the most part, but they would forestall the kind of casual interaction you describe. As for the other, we caution our couples against any boastfulness. It’s one of the things we monitor at the class reunions. And both the Thorpes and the Wilners were
discreet about how they met.”

  Lash drained his coffee. “All right, then. Back to suicide. Maybe there’s something inherently wrong with the makeup of a supercouple. Some psychopathology in the relationship, but very deep and subtle, something that wouldn’t show up in the usual screenings at your—what do you call them?—class reunions.”

  “That’s nonsense,” said Minor.

  “Nonsense?” Lash raised his eyebrows. “Nature abhors perfection, Mr. Minor. Show me a rose without at least a minor blemish. Pure gold is so soft as to be unworkable, useless. Only fractals are perfect, and even they are fundamentally asymmetrical.”

  “I think what Greg means is that, even if such a thing were possible, we would have learned about it,” Lelyveld said. “Our psychological assets run extremely deep. Such a phenomenon would have been picked up in our evaluations.”

  “It’s just a theory. In any case, homicide or suicide, Eden is the key. It’s the one thing, the only thing, these couples have in common. So I need to understand the process better. I want to see what the Thorpes saw, what the Wilners saw, as your clients. I want to know just how they were selected as perfect couples. And I’ll need access—unrestricted access—to their files.”

  This time, Gregory Minor rose to his feet. “That’s out of the question!” He turned to Lelyveld. “You know I’ve had reservations from the first, John. Bringing in somebody from the outside is dangerous, destabilizing. It was one thing when we were dealing with an isolated incident, something that affected us tangentially. But with what happened last night—well, the security risk is too great.”