At the Stroke of Madness

by Alex Kava

  He flipped the notebook closed and put it and the pen in his pocket. In the reflection of the store window he saw a man watching him from behind, from across the street. Was it Marley? He didn’t want to turn around to look. Didn’t want the man to know. He stood still, pretending to look at the knickknacks in the store that used to be Ralph’s Butcher Shop. He looked between the hanging wind chimes and colorful wind socks, the same area where the rows of salami used to hang. He looked for the man’s reflection and couldn’t see it. Luc stole a quick glance over his shoulder. The man was gone.

  Luc stared at his feet, at the slippers that he couldn’t remember putting on that morning. Had there even been a man following him? Or was he really just imagining things?

  CHAPTER 33

  Maggie moved her room service tray aside, snatching one last piece of toast. She glanced at her watch. She had plenty she needed to do today, places to go, people to talk to. Adam Bonzado had tracked her down first thing this morning, inviting her to his lab at the university to take a look at one of the victims. He seemed under the impression that she was officially on this case. Maybe Sheriff Watermeier had even told him so. She wasn’t sure why she was considering it. Most likely it wouldn’t help her find Joan Begley. Except that his lab was at the University of New Haven, the same university where Patrick was.

  She glanced at her watch again and dug out her cell phone. She had been putting this off long enough. She punched in the number from memory.

  Gwen answered on the second ring as if she was expecting the call.

  “It’s not her,” Maggie said without stalling, then waited out her friend’s silence, letting it sink in.

  “Thank God!”

  “But she is missing,” Maggie said, not wanting Gwen to misunderstand. She shoved aside a file she had thrown on the hotel desk. She opened it, but only to retrieve a photo. A photo of Joan Begley that Gwen had given her last week.

  “Tell me,” Gwen said. “Tell me whatever you’ve found out.”

  “I was in her hotel room last night.”

  “They let you in?”

  “Let’s just say I was in her hotel room last night, okay?” She didn’t have the patience this morning for a lecture from her friend, the same friend who had managed to finagle someone into telling her Joan Begley had missed her flight. “It looks like she’s been gone since Saturday. But I don’t think she just left. Her things are scattered around the room like she intended to come back.”

  “Is it possible he may have talked her into running off without her things?”

  “I don’t know. All her cosmetics? And her checkbook? You tell me, Gwen. Is she the type who would do that?”

  There was silence again and Maggie used it to examine the photo. The photographer had interrupted Joan Begley, making her look up from a metal sculpture, her welding hood’s protective glass mask pushed up, revealing serious brown eyes and porcelain-white skin. In the background were framed prints, bright splashes of red and orange and royal blue, beautiful explosions of colors with black streaks and slashes through the middle. And in the reflection of the glass, Maggie could almost make out another image. Sort of ironic. A portrait of the artist with a self-portrait of the photographer.

  “No,” Gwen Patterson finally answered. “She’s not the type who would run off and leave her things. No, I don’t think she would do that.”

  “I’m going to need your help, Gwen.” She hesitated again, making sure she had her friend’s attention. “Now’s not the time to be holding back any client-patient confidentiality.”

  “No, of course not. No, I wouldn’t do that. Not if it was something that might help find her.”

  “You said you had an e-mail from her that mentioned this man she may have been meeting. You said she called him Sonny, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Can you forward that e-mail to me?”

  “Sure, I’ll do it as soon as I get off the phone with you.”

  “I talked to Tully earlier. He’s going to see if he can get into Joan’s apartment.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “She’s been gone long enough to file a missing persons report. I want him to look around her place. Maybe see if she has a computer and if he can get into her e-mail. We need to find out if there’s anything more about Sonny. If possible, Tully’ll be going over later today. Would you be able to go over with him?”

  More silence. Maggie waited. Had Gwen even heard her? Or had she asked too much?

  “Yes,” she finally said, and this time her voice was strong again. “I can do that.”

  “Gwen, one other thing.” Maggie examined the photo again. “Did Joan ever mention a man named Marley?”

  “Marley? No. I don’t think so.”

  “Okay. I’m just checking. Call me if you think of anything.”

  “Maggie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank me when I find her. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  She barely clicked off and the phone started ringing. Gwen must have forgotten something.

  “You remembered something?” Maggie said in place of a greeting.

  “Agent O’Dell, why the hell am I seeing you on TV?”

  It wasn’t Gwen. It was her boss, Assistant Director Kyle Cunningham. Damn!

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “It says a rock quarry in Connecticut. I thought you were supposed to be in your backyard and I see you’re profiling a case in Connecticut. A case I don’t remember assigning you to.”

  “I’m here on personal business, sir. It was a mistake yesterday when Sheriff Watermeier said I was profiling this case.”

  “Really? A mistake? But you were there at the quarry?”

  “Yes. I stopped by to check on—”

  “You just stopped by? O’Dell, this isn’t the first time you’ve just stopped by, but it better be the very last time. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir. But they may actually need a profiler. This certainly has all the signs of a serial—”

  “Then they need to request a profiler. Perhaps their own FBI office has someone available.”

  “I’m already familiar with—”

  “I believe you’re on vacation, Agent O’Dell. If you have personal business in the area, that’s on your own time, but I better not see you on TV again. Do you understand, Agent O’Dell?”

  “Yes, sir. I understand.” But there was already a dial tone.

  Damn!

  She paced the room, stopping to watch the morning traffic down on Pomeroy Avenue and Research Parkway. She checked her watch again. There was still time for one stop. She swung on her jacket, slipping her key card into the pocket, and grabbed her notebook with directions already scrawled inside. She started out the door when she hesitated. What would it hurt? She went back to her computer case, unzipped the pockets until she found it. Then without giving it any more thought she shoved the envelope into her notebook and left.

  CHAPTER 34

  Lillian did something that she had never done in all the years she had owned the bookstore—she called Rosie and told her she’d be late. Now as she sat in her car looking at the old house where she had grown up she couldn’t help wondering if this was a mistake.

  The entire place looked worn and run-down, from the peeling paint on the other buildings to the rusted old cars deserted in the yard like some graveyard for unwanted vehicles. There were a few she didn’t recognize, added since her last visit, alongside the old panel station wagon, the one that had been first to be exiled after their mother’s death. Somehow it had seemed inappropriate for either of them to use it without her permission.

  Lillian stared out her own car window, her hands still on the steering wheel as she tried to decide whether to stay or leave. How in the world did her brother, Wally, live out here? Why did it not bother him to do so? That was something she had never understood. All those years growing up here and wanting, needing to escape. She couldn’
t imagine staying here, living here and not remembering, not being haunted by those memories. But Wally didn’t seem to mind.

  She tried to hold on to the courage, the determination she had started the morning with. She tried to imagine herself as one of the sleuths in the many mysteries she so enjoyed. She tried to go back to last night when she was putting pieces of the puzzle together and coming up with theories and ideas that even Henry admitted were exactly what the FBI profiler had come up with. And if all else failed, she needed to at least put to rest her nagging suspicion that Wally had anything to do with those bodies they were finding stuffed into barrels. If anything, maybe he was covering something up for Vargus. Yes, that would make sense. That was something Wally would do.

  By the time she stepped up to the front door, she was having second thoughts. Yet, she reached under the nearby flowerpot for the spare keys. She wasn’t sure why he bothered to lock the door. What could he possibly have that anyone would want? But that was Wally. Always suspicious of others. Always paranoid that someone was out to hurt him.

  The house smelled musty, almost as if it had been closed up and unused except for the pungent smell of burnt food, quickly contradicting her initial impression. He had piles everywhere. Piles of newspapers and magazines and videotapes. But the kitchen looked spotless. No dirty dishes in the sink. No crusted pots and pans on the stove. No trash in the corner. She couldn’t believe it.

  She should check the refrigerator. She braced herself and opened the refrigerator’s freezer, ready to wince. Henry had mentioned missing body parts but hadn’t elaborated. She wasn’t sure what she might find. But there was nothing unusual. Some frozen pizzas and hamburger patties. What did she expect? What in the world was wrong with her?

  She shook her head and glanced into the laundry room off the side of the kitchen. This looked more familiar, piles of dirty clothes on the floor in no order of separation, such as whites from darks or delicates from heavy duty. She turned back to the kitchen when she noticed a white T-shirt crumpled and tossed into the corner on top a black trash bag.

  This was silly, she told herself. She needed to get to the bookstore. She was getting carried away, lost in her imagination as usual. But she went to the corner and picked up the T-shirt, gasping as she unfolded it. It was caked and crusted and reddish-brown. And Lillian was convinced that it was blood. Her hands were shaking as her mind tried to reason it away.

  Wally got nosebleeds as a child all the time. He probably still got them. He was always complaining about some ache or pain. The man was not healthy. Of course, he probably still got nosebleeds.

  “Lillian?”

  She jumped at the sound of his voice at the door, dropping the T-shirt and turning to find him scowling at her.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I was looking for you,” she lied, immediately recognizing what an awful liar she was. For someone who lived inside her imagination, she should be better at coming up with stories.

  “You never come out here.”

  “I guess I was feeling nostalgic. Maybe a little lonely for the old place.” The lies only got worse. Even she wouldn’t believe them. “Can I be honest with you, Wally?”

  “That would be a good idea.”

  “I was looking for…I wanted to see if I could find…that old blue vase Mom had.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, that blue ceramic one. Do you remember it?” Now, this was good. She could see that she had him trying to remember. “It was the one Aunt Hannah gave her.”

  “I don’t know why you want that now.” But the suspicion was gone from his voice. “I think it’s up in the attic. I’ll go see if I can find it.”

  He was a good guy. A good brother despite everything their mother had put them through. He couldn’t possibly have done any of the things Lillian had imagined in her overzealous imagination. It simply wasn’t possible. But as she heard him on the stairs, Lillian plucked the bloodied T-shirt up from out of the corner and stuffed it into her handbag.

  CHAPTER 35

  Washington, D.C.

  R. J. Tully paced in front of the brick apartment building, his hands in his pocket jingling change. He made himself stop. Leaned against the handrail and glanced up at the dark clouds. Any minute now they would surely burst open. Why didn’t he own an umbrella?

  In his younger days it had been a macho thing. Men didn’t use umbrellas. Now as the breeze turned chilly and he lifted his jacket collar, he decided staying dry was more important than being macho. He remembered Emma telling him once that there was a fine line between being macho and being a dweeb. When had his fifteen-year-old daughter become so wise?

  Tully checked his wristwatch and searched the sidewalks and street. She was late. She was always late. Maybe she’d decided she didn’t want to be alone with him. After all, they had done a good job avoiding that since Boston.

  Boston…that seemed like ages ago. Then he saw her, walking a half block up the street, black trench coat, black heels, black umbrella and that silky strawberry-blond hair, and suddenly Boston didn’t seem so long ago.

  He waved when she finally looked his way. One of those wide, open-palmed, counterclockwise waves, like some idiot directing traffic. Something like a total dweeb might do. What was wrong with him? Why did he get all nervous around her? But she waved back. There was even a smile. And he tried to remember why they had decided to forget Boston.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Dr. Gwen Patterson said. “Have you been waiting long?”

  “No, not at all.” Suddenly he easily discounted the twenty minutes of pacing.

  The building superintendent had given him the security code and key to Apartment 502, but he failed to mention the open freight elevator they needed to take up to the loft. Tully hated these things, metal gates instead of doors and nothing to hide the cables or muffle the groan of the ancient hydraulic system. None of it seemed to faze Dr. Patterson.

  “Have you ever been to her apartment before?” he asked, offering chitchat to fill the silence and take his mind off the screech of a pulley in need of a good oiling.

  “She had a show about six months ago. I was here then. But that was the only time.”

  “A show?”

  “Yes. Her loft is also her studio.”

  “Her studio?”

  “She is an artist.”

  “Oh, okay. Sure, that makes sense.”

  “I’m surprised Maggie didn’t tell you that.”

  Tully thought she sounded almost pissed at O’Dell. He had to be mistaken, and he studied her profile as she watched the number at the top, indicating each floor as they ground past the levels. He decided to leave it alone.

  He would have known soon enough about Joan Begley’s profession. The loft looked more like a studio than living quarters, with track lighting focused on pedestals of sculptures and walls of framed paintings. In the corner, piles of canvases leaned against easels and more pedestals. Some of the canvases were filled with bright colors, others were whitewashed, waiting their turn. Chrome shelves held clusters of supplies, brushes still in jars of purple-green solution, paint tubes with missing caps, soldering tools and what looked like drill bits, alongside pieces of twisted metal and pipe. Interspersed among this mess were miniature clay figurines, thumbnail models of their larger finished counterparts. The only signs of living were an overstuffed sofa with matching pillows that tumbled onto the hardwood floor and in the distant corner a kitchen separated by a counter with empty take-out containers, discarded bottles of water, dirty tumblers and a stack of paper plates.

  “Looks like she may have left in a hurry,” Tully said, but was wondering how someone could live in the middle of her work space. He knew he couldn’t.

  “You might be right. She seemed very upset about her grandmother’s death.”

  “So you spoke to her before she left.”

  “Just briefly.”

  Tully ignored the art stuff, a challenge in itself, and began searching for a desk
and computer. O’Dell had given him a list of things she needed him to check out.

  “Where the heck did she keep a computer?” He glanced back at Dr. Patterson, who stayed at the wall of paintings, looking with a tilted head as if she could see something in the random splashes of paint. Tully could never figure out art, despite his ex-wife Caroline having dragged him to gallery after gallery, pointing out social injustices and brilliant interpretations of individual pain and struggle where Tully could see only blobs of black paint with a mishap of purple splattered through the center.

  “Do you have any idea where she may have kept her computer?” he asked again.

  “Check the armoire.”

  “The armoire? Oh, okay.” The cherry wood monstrosity took up almost one wall, and when Tully began opening doors and drawers it grew, spreading out into the room with swiveling shelves and sliding hideaways and, yes, a small laptop computer that seemed to be swallowed up inside.

  “Do you know if this was her only one?”

  Dr. Patterson came over and ran her fingertips over the armoire’s surface, almost a caress.

  “No, I think she had a couple of them. She liked the mobility of laptops. Said she could go to the park or coffee shop.”

  “So she may have had one with her in Connecticut?”

  “Yes, I’m sure she did. She e-mailed me from Connecticut.”

  He opened its lid, carefully, touching it on the sides with the palms of his hands, purposely not disturbing fingerprints or adding his own. Then he used a pen to press the on key.

  “I should be able to get into her e-mail with a few tricks. It may take a while,” he said, as he brought up her AOL program. He hesitated when the screen asked for a password. “I don’t suppose you could save me some time. Any idea what she may have used as a password?”