Dreams in the Key of Blue

by John Philpin

  Father was like daughter; he created mind boxes.

  He did not describe the people he hunted only at the moments that they committed their murders. He absorbed everything—every habit, every quirk, every belief. He told the police that one man they wanted was afraid of the dark. He did not drive at night.

  I was mystified. How could he identify someone else’s fear?

  Lily knew about Stanley Markham from the time Katrina told her that I was her father.

  You arranged Markham’s escape, didn’t you? You set him free, then you went after him.

  I remembered the Michaels article and my reconstruction of Markham’s crimes. After three failed, lateafternoon abduction attempts, each one a twohour drive from Boston, there were victims in those same areas the next day. Markham killed within nine, eleven, and seventeen miles of each failed abduction, after police had swarmed into those towns and surrounding communities.

  The pairings of those attempts and kills were so close, so risky, and so far from where I believed he lived, I decided that the killer feared something more than being apprehended. He was afraid of the dark.

  Following an attempted abduction in western Massachusetts, police there had a good description of the suspect. They knew he drove a red Econoline van. Maybe he was sleeping in it, maybe he was sitting in a movie theater but, after dusk, he was not driving it.

  They caught Markham sitting in his van at the Holyoke Mall, reading Shadow of Death.

  Lily Dorman’s attention to detail was remarkable. She was disturbed, as Dr. Westlake said, intelligent, as Dr. Penniweather reported, and emotionally starved for a father’s attention. Harper Dorman was a sadist, so Katrina indulged her own fantasies and gave her daughter a new father. Lily devoured every scrap of information that she could get her hands on.

  When he was fifteen, Markham’s school sent him for psychological testing. I don’t remember all the words, but the article said he was aggressive, and that he had no interest in having relationships. What I didn’t understand, I looked up in my dictionary, then found books about personality disorders in the school library. Now I wonder if he had to take the same tests that I did.

  When he was sixteen, Markham quit school and lived with his sister. Police arrested him for burglary. A psychiatrist told the court that the most remarkable aspect of the B&Es was Markham’s choice of loot: a can of dog food, a used Gillette razor, an identification bracelet imprinted with the name Henrietta.

  My father said that the doctor missed the most important fact: all the victims were women who lived alone.

  When he was eighteen, Markham approached a woman walking alone on a dark Boston street. He held up a knife, but didn’t say anything. The woman thought she was being robbed, so she gave Markham her money. He stood there looking confused, so the woman ran.

  Markham said, “I saw everything in my mind’s eye.”

  He said he always knew what would happen ahead of time, and insisted that the women never gave him money.

  Much later, my father said that the words “in my mind’s eye” were the most important to understand Markham. He was able to split away from the moment while continuing to be in the moment.

  I wanted to know what I was doing when my head thought its thoughts and my body did something entirely different. Dad gave an excellent example: A man mows a lawn. Afterward he knows he cut the grass, but he has no memory of it, no proof except that he can see the cut grass, and he’s gripping the lawn mower. He did a good job on the yard, didn’t destroy any flowers or shrubs, trimmed neatly around the bushes, but he can’t tell you about it. He has been “in his mind’s eye.”

  I can’t decide whether I am more like my father or the people he chases. I have a mind’s eye. What I see and hear there are my blue dreams. Sometimes the dreams are sad. They are always violent. Perhaps if I were evil, Dad would have to find me.

  “I always think of this piece as music written in the key of blue.”

  Amanda Squires played the piano. In the seminar, she discussed murder.

  “Sydny Clanton dreamed the blue dream that never ends,” Squires said, attributing the remark to “a friend.”

  Shit. Something was wrong. I left the notebook on the desk and walked the length of the room.

  “I think there’s a confusion about what Lustmord means,” she said.

  I stood at the door and read about room rates, occupancy rules, and emergency exits.

  “Every time Clanton killed, she placed a small stone in the pouch. She was keeping score.”

  Clanton’s psychiatrist had told me that. There had been nothing in the media about the pouch, or the fact that her pocket had contained 31 small stones awaiting transfer to the pouch. It was 1967; stranger-stranger killings had yet to become a national plague. Little more than a year had passed since Albert DeSalvo had introduced himself to the American public. Besides, Sydny Clanton was a woman.

  How would Amanda Squires know about the pouch and the pebbles?

  Squires had presented me with a gift purchased two years earlier by Melanie Martin. “The Wreck of the Lily D.”

  “And the lady in the limo,” I muttered, returning to the desk.

  Something whole emerged from the fragments of Lily Dorman’s shattered personality. An entity, a complete and lethal being, evolved from her primal storm.

  Every day, my father saw people in his office. He talked with them, studied them, absorbed everything he could about them. He knew what went on in their minds, why they did the strange or hurtful things they did, and he helped them to understand and to change. He knew what debris lay behind them because his patients told him.

  When the police asked for his help to track Stanley Markham, there was no patient to study. He could only sit in his office and stare at an empty chair. All he had was the litter left in a killer’s wake.

  It was nearly ten P.M. when Jaworski rapped on my door.

  “You look like you’ve been through the wringer,” I said. “That and more.”

  Jaworski sighed. “Jasper knew I’d be seeing you, said I should bring you in. She’s got the feds pretty worked up.”

  “Markham’s dead. Whatever assistance I might have offered is no longer needed.”

  “She’s convinced you know more than you’re saying. I know your reputation. I’m inclined to agree with her.”

  “Herb, I don’t know anything. I have some ideas, possibilities. Shall I fax Jasper a list? It’ll give her something to file.”

  Jaworski ignored my sarcasm. “This business about a woman killing all these people…it doesn’t make any sense.”

  I dropped Lily’s notebook in his lap. “It’s the scenario that makes the most sense to me,” I told him. “Squires connects to Dorman, and Dorman is probably our limo lady.”

  “Lucas…”

  “What else can you tell me about Markham’s escape?”

  Jaworski looked from the notebook to me. “You know, I have a hell of a time following your train of thought.”

  “My daughter Lane says the same thing. That’s Lily Dorman’s journal. What about Markham?”

  Jaworski’s eyes darted from Lily’s notebook to his own, then back to me. “Markham had a twenty-minute jump on the guards. As soon as they realized he was gone, they put out an APB. The state police stopped everything moving, including the laundry truck. No Markham. Also, no stolen vehicles, no home intrusions. They figure he had help outside, but they don’t know who.”

  “Where did police find him?”

  “It was like you said. He was holed up in a fishing camp outside portsmouth. Couple of kids found him. Investigators are still working the scene.”

  “I have a couple of stops to make. Check with the U.S. Marshals. Ask them about Markham’s correspondence, any phone calls, visitors.”

  I walked to the door. “Anything from the Volvo?”

  “Nothing. Wiped clean.”

  “What about Weld’s house, Beckerman’s car?”

  Jaworski shook his head. �
��What do I tell Jasper?”

  “The truth. I blindsided you with a train of thought that doesn’t slow down at crossings. Herb, read the diary. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT WHEN I SLIPPED THROUGH the door into the Mellen Street apartment building.

  Amanda Squires had attended the memorial service with Wendell Beckerman. Gretchen Nash knew Becker-man. I wondered if Nash knew Squires.

  As I climbed the stairs, the door squealed and clicked shut behind me, and the old wood groaned beneath my feet. I was gambling. Gretchen Nash could be out or asleep. I tapped softly on her door.

  The scream from inside the apartment startled me. “You open that door and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

  I stepped back and to the side and leaned against the railing. “Ms. Nash, it’s Lucas Frank. We talked a few days ago.”

  “You’re changing your voice,” she shrieked, her voice vibrating with terror and rage.

  As I considered what to say next, a largecaliber gun exploded in the apartment. An entire door panel shattered into the hall and showered me with wood slivers. I dove to the floor as the gun discharged a second time and demolished the molding.

  “Gretchen, for chrissake,” I yelled.

  “Prove who you are or I’ll keep shooting.”

  “How can I do that?”

  I lay still in the silence, surrounded by rodent droppings and two fat, gray barn spiders.

  “What kind of tea did you drink when you were here?”

  “Oh shit,” I muttered.

  She had offered me several herbal teas, and something else… what was it? It was in a yellowish package. Twinings? “Earl Grey,” I called.

  This pause was shorter. “Stand in front of the door and open it.”

  “Gretchen, I don’t want to get blown away.”

  “If you’re who you say you are, I won’t shoot.”

  “Who the hell else would I be?”

  “Amanda,” she screamed.

  The hallway went silent again.

  “Just do what I told you,” Nash said, with meanness and determination in her voice.

  I pushed myself up. “Gretchen, I’m trusting that you won’t shoot me,” I said as I walked to the door, twisted the knob, and shoved.

  Gretchen Nash stood in the center of her studio-room. Both hands gripped a .44 Magnum aimed at my chest.

  “It’s you,” she gasped, lowering the weapon. “That woman was my friend. She slept here, for chrissake.”

  “Amanda Squires,” I said, but Nash paid no attention.

  “Nights that she was afraid to be home alone, she curled up on the floor in my sleeping bag. Then she shows up and goes fucking postal. I’ve got a bullet in my shoulder.”

  “Let me take a look at that,” I said, examining the wound high on her right shoulder.

  A burn that had to be painful surrounded a narrow flesh wound. The bullet had grazed her arm. The bleeding had slowed, almost stopped. I found a box of gauze in her bathroom cabinet, formed a compress, and applied pressure to the small crease.

  “We should get you to a hospital. That has to be cleaned.”

  “You made it hurt. It didn’t hurt until you did that.”

  “Sorry,” I said, relieving her of the gun. “When did you last get a tetanus shot?”

  She sighed deeply, shuddered, and sat on the edge of her bed. “Hospital smells make me sick,” she said.

  Nash seemed to be in a mild state of shock. She was not in medical danger, so I decided to wait until she was ready to seek treatment for the wound.

  “She killed Mr. Dorman,” Nash said.

  “Amanda?”

  I’d been nearly convinced that Martin was Dorman. Squires as Dorman? What the hell was going on?

  “Beckerman was stoned that night, but he thought he heard her voice, or thought he was talking to her, something. It was late, he said. I didn’t pay any attention to him because he’s always so fucking out of it. Now he’s dead, too.”

  Nash sobbed quietly to herself. “She was here that afternoon. We hugged, sipped tea, drank wine, had dinner, listened to music, talked. Jesus.”

  I tried again to get confirmation. “Amanda Squires?”

  “We were friends for… a long time. That night, I told her I was going to Barry’s installation. She always called Barry’s sculpting ‘soup cans in sexy poses.’ We joked about the show giving Jesse Helms shit fits. Amanda looked at my sketches. She asked me about the limo lady.”

  Nash gazed at the space vacated by her headless woman. “Amanda was here a couple of times after I put that up. She never noticed it. I told her I had to rush, just to leave the dishes in the sink and lock up when she left. I trusted her. I never had any reason not to trust her.”

  Nash turned to look at the shattered remains of her feng shui mirror. “The bullet must have hit there,” she said. “My chi flow is screwed up.”

  “When I talked to Wendell Beckerman, he thought he might have heard a woman’s voice in his room the night of the murder.”

  “He had his Bose really cranked,” she said. “I figured he was tripping. He usually is. Was. When I talked to him the next day, he asked me if I’d been in his apartment. Every time he hears a woman’s voice like that, when he’s taken acid, he thinks it’s his mother. She died a few months ago. I told him I was out, and he said it must have been Amanda. I called her after I talked to him. I was freaked. The cops had just gone. Somebody was murdered here in the building. I wanted to move out. So I called my friend. Makes sense, right? I called the fucking murderer. Woke her up. I told her what happened and asked her what time she’d gone home. She said, ‘I haven’t been home in years.’ Crazy. I told her to make some coffee.”

  She winced and gazed at the wound on her arm. “This stings.”

  ON THE SHORT DRIVE TO THE HOSPITAL, NASH SAT huddled in silence.

  I signed the register in the emergency room and joined her on a row of orange and green fiberglass chairs. We were alone in the waiting area.

  “There isn’t any hospital smell,” she said.

  I detected a faint odor of isopropyl alcohol. Otherwise, Nash was right.

  The E.R. receptionist walked in carrying a cup of coffee, glanced at the register, then sat at her desk. “Nash?” she inquired.

  We joined her as she fired up her computer and prepared to record the admissions information. Her name tag identified her as Mrs. Hackett. The brusque, permed, fiftyish woman wearing a laundered pink smock was a model of impatient efficiency. I looked behind me to make sure that the ill and injured were not arriving in droves and tripping over their crutches.

  “I don’t have insurance,” Nash said.

  Mrs. Hackett pushed herself away from the computer console.

  “Visa okay?” I asked.

  She accepted the card and rolled her chair into keyboarding position. “Are you the father?”

  “Friend,” I said.

  When she reached the section that required a description of the illness or injury, I explained, and suggested that she call Detective Norma Jacobs.

  Hackett whipped the forms from her printer and ushered us into a curtained area. “Dr. Kent will be with you,” she said, and bustled out.

  I stood, and Nash sat on a gurney.

  “When I talked to Amanda the day after Mr. Dorman’s murder, she said she left the building right after I did. She was just so cool about it. Like, ‘Don’t worry. The cops will figure it out.’ Then she said, ‘People die,’ as if it was no big deal. Jesus. I don’t think Mr. Dorman planned to do it so soon. I asked her if she was coming over. She said she didn’t have time. She had some errands to do.”

  Her errands probably took her to Ragged Harbor, I thought.

  WHEN DR. KENT HAD TENDED TO THE WOUND, HE SAID that Detective Jacobs was on her way.

  Nash wanted to wait outside. “Guess I don’t like hospitals,” she said. “It isn’t just the smells. Sound is so muted. I feel like I say something and the walls suc
k it up.”

  We stepped into the chill night air. “What happened tonight?” I asked.

  She sighed and said, “I wish I had a cigarette. I feel like I’m acting in a horror movie. They always smoke when they’re talking about what the monster did.”

  Nash took a deep breath. “Amanda came by late,” she said. “I was cleaning my work area, putting away tools. I figured it was one of those nights when she was afraid to stay at her place. She was jumpy. Amanda has nightmares. She never said much about them, just that they were scary, and that she didn’t want to be alone. Anyway, she was staring at my painting. Out of the blue she said, ‘I killed Harper Dorman.’ I looked at her, but she wasn’t looking at me.”

  As if she were reciting something that she had memorized, Amanda Squires had told Nash that she had waited in Beckerman’s apartment, then walked downstairs after two A.M. Dorman’s door had been open. She had looked in and seen him asleep, sprawled half on his cot and half on the floor.

  Nash paced the E.R. ramp, sliding her hand over the rail as if for guidance, not stability. “Dorman had a bottle of Jim Beam. That’s what he always drank. Amanda called it ‘Mr. James Beam.’ She said, ‘Mr. Jim smells like blood and beatings.’ I didn’t know what to say. She said she wanted Lily Dorman to see her tormentor sprawled and stinking, but that she always puked at the sight of blood.”

  I pictured Squires-as-Dorman in an abreactive state, all the horror from her past erupting with its original intensity in the present. Then I dismissed the image.

  You can’t have it both ways.

  You can’t be fragile and fragmented, and weave elaborate schemes that span years.

  “It took me a while to figure out that she didn’t have somebody else with her,” Nash said. “She was talking about herself. She’s two fucking people. Or more. She stood over Mr. Dorman with a gun and said, ‘My dreams are in the key of blue.’ What the fuck does that mean? That’s crazy. Then she shot him.”

  I listened to Nash’s words and imagined Dorman shudder—a quick, jerking motion, like one of his many spasms when he pleased himself under his daughter’s backside.