by Neal Baer
“Sure,” he said. “That eye.”
“I knew it,” Claire said, pointing to the Eye of Providence. “It’s just like the eye on your father’s kite.”
“I wasn’t talking about that one,” Doug said, pointing up at the other eye. “That one’s on an album cover from the eighties.”
“An album cover?” Hart scoffed.
“Yeah. My father used to sing me to sleep with one of the songs. That drawing’s been up there since I was a kid.”
“What was the song about?” Claire asked.
“A guy who was lost and had a dream and didn’t know where to go, even though the answers were right there,” Doug answered, staring at the eye.
Claire gave Nick and Hart a sharp look. This was too much to ignore. “I think your dad is telling us something,” Claire said.
“I’ll get a tech up here,” Hart replied, and he headed off.
“Over here!” yelled the technician. The search had gone on for two hours with no results except for the discovery of some small animal bones. Until now.
Hart and Nick ran over to where the tech was stopped with his ground-penetrating radar unit, about ten feet in from the tree line—directly in view of the graffiti eyes.
“What is it?” Nick said as they reached the tech, who pointed to the monitor on his unit.
“Call me crazy, but that sure looks like bones to me,” he said.
They looked at the screen. The outlines of a human skull and several long bones were unmistakable.
“How far down?” asked Nick.
“About four feet,” replied the tech.
Hart looked around, quickly found what he was looking for. He picked up a long stick and rammed it into the ground, marking the spot.
“Get the crime scene guys up here,” he shouted to anyone who would listen. “And tell them to bring shovels.”
Claire and Doug had gone back to the staging area, where a portable canteen truck was set up to feed the cops helping with the search. They were about to sit down with sandwiches at one of a dozen hastily set up folding tables when a dark blue van whizzed by them, turning up the small dirt road in the direction of the water tanks.
“What the hell’s going on?” Doug asked, trying not to breathe in the cloud of dust raised by the vehicle.
Claire looked up from her food just long enough to catch the lettering on the back of the van.
“That’s the medical examiner,” she said, moving away from the table. “They wouldn’t have been called unless—”
She didn’t finish her thought. She began running, Doug keeping pace with her as they disappeared into the thicket.
It took only a few minutes before Claire and Doug, breathless, their clothes soaked through with sweat from the summer humidity, reached the water tanks. Claire made sure to look at the time on her phone. It was just before ten in the morning.
“There,” said Doug, pointing.
Through the trees, Claire could see the area was already cordoned off by yellow police tape. Inside the perimeter, three crime scene techs with shovels carefully dug at the spot marked earlier by Hart, who stood aside, waiting for what he was sure he’d see.
“Here we go,” said one of the crime scene techs. “We’re ready for the camera.”
A tech with a Nikon strapped around his neck began snapping photos.
“Okay, folks,” the first tech said to the group. “We clear the dirt from here by hand.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” Claire asked Nick as she and Doug reached the taped perimeter.
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to see this,” he said.
He’s looking out for me, Claire thought, her anger evaporating.
“Thanks,” she said. “But I’m okay.”
“They found remnants of what looks like a plastic trash can liner,” Nick informed them. “One of those big, thick leaf bags.”
“Bones!” shouted the lead crime scene tech. “We’ve got bones.”
Hart turned to a nearby uniformed Rochester cop. “Let’s get the medical examiner in here.”
He caught Claire’s eye before turning back to the task at hand.
“How long before we’ll know?” asked Claire.
“Homeland Security’s helping out on this,” Nick replied. “They have some new technique where they can get preliminary DNA results in about an hour. It’s still in the testing phase, but one of the biotech labs here in town has it and got permission to use it on this case. The DNA from the bones will also be processed the traditional way. But it has to be her, Claire. It has to be Amy.”
The reality of it was too much for Doug. He turned and walked away. Claire looked at Nick, then went after her new friend.
“What is it?” she asked him when she caught up.
When he turned to face her, there were tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”
He turned away, not wanting her to see him crying.
“We wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for you,” she said. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. And nobody has to know he’s your father.”
Doug tried to hold back his tears. Out of nowhere, Nick appeared, putting his arm around him. “C’mon, pal,” he said, meaning it. “I’ll get you out of here if you want. Before the news vans show up.”
The son of the serial killer shook his head.
“No,” he said, with a sudden burst of determination. “I have to face this. Before what he did kills me too.”
Nick looked at him with new respect. “Why don’t you get in the shade and sit down for a few minutes,” he said.
“Yeah,” Doug replied. “I think I will.”
He looked at Nick and Claire with gratitude. Then he turned and headed for the tree line.
As they watched him sit under a towering oak, Nick said, “I was wrong about you shrinks.” Claire managed a small smile, moved by how far they had come since their first meeting. “You know they’re calling you a hero, don’t you?”
“I don’t want to be a hero,” she said, turning her eyes back to the crime scene. Between the figures of two techs, she could see the medical examiner, a woman, lifting with a gloved hand a dirty object from the ground.
Claire realized it was a skull.
Amy’s skull.
And all at once it hit her. Tears began to fall from her eyes. But, somehow, they were tears of satisfaction.
“I don’t want to be a hero,” she said to Nick again, her voice breaking. “I just want her to have a decent burial. I wanted to bring her home to her parents.”
“You wanted closure,” Nick said, putting his arm around her. “And you got it.”
“Are you ready?” Claire shouted. “We have to go or you’ll be late.”
She was sitting at the dining room table in her parents’ home, car keys in her hand, waiting for Nick to come downstairs so she could drive him to the airport. As she waited, Claire thumbed through the transcripts of Peter Lewis’s court proceedings that Doug had given her.
“Be down in a second,” came Nick’s muffled voice from the second floor.
It had been five days since Amy’s body was discovered and positively identified by DNA. Claire felt a relief she had never known. The small, burning pain in the pit of her stomach she had woken up with every morning was gone.
The remainder of the week had been a whirlwind of official debriefings and interviews with the media. As far as the cops were concerned, she had brought them the solution to one of the longest, most frustrating child disappearance cases in Rochester’s history.
Immediately after the DNA results were confirmed, Claire accompanied Hart to notify Amy’s parents. As soon as they saw Claire on their doorstep, they knew they would finally have peace. Amy’s mother pulled her into a tender embrace and stroked her hair as if she’d been reunited with the child she lost. Claire told them that Amy’s remains had been found and that the man responsible was serving a life term in prison. And, at their request, Claire spoke at Amy�
�s funeral. For her, the closure was complete.
But with all this came sobering news. The DNA sample given by Doug Lewis, along with the sample taken from under Claire’s fingernails after she scratched Peter Lewis’s face, had turned up hits in several unsolved homicides of young girls around the country: Phoenix, San Francisco, and New Orleans. And the list was sure to grow. Arrest warrants for Peter Lewis were issued, and the governors of Arizona, California, and Louisiana were demanding that the Justice Department extradite the elder Lewis back to the United States to stand trial.
Canada was refusing to cooperate. But it wasn’t because of the deal Lewis had bragged about to Claire. Instead, it was because Canadian law forbade extradition to any jurisdiction for crimes in which the accused could face the death penalty. Arizona, California, and Louisiana all had active capital punishment statutes.
Knowing that Lewis would likely never face justice in the United States, Claire thought the least she could do was try to find more of his victims. She went over the hundreds of pages of court transcripts from Doug Lewis’s basement, looking for any clue that might lead to the recovery of another body.
As she heard Nick bound down the stairs, however, she was coming to the conclusion that the court proceedings were little more than a formality.
“Any luck?” asked Nick, dropping his small suitcase as he entered the living room.
“I wish,” Claire answered, never taking her eyes off the page. “Just a lot of legal gobbledygook. Motion to plead insanity—or whatever it’s called in Canada—and they’re about to call in the prosecution’s . . .”
“The prosecution’s what?” Nick asked.
But there was no answer. He looked up at Claire, who was staring at the paper in front of her. In shock.
“What? What’s wrong?” Nick asked, alarmed.
“Take a look at this,” Claire said, “and tell me I’m not hallucinating.”
Nick hurried across the room, donning his reading glasses as he reached Claire at the table. She pointed. He read.
His eyes grew wide. “Oh my God,” was all he could manage.
Nick had just read the name of the psychiatrist who was hired by the prosecution to testify that Peter Lewis was fit to stand trial in the Canadian murder case.
Dr. Paul Curtin.
CHAPTER 25
Claire sat beside the window of the Airbus A320, staring out at the wispy strands of clouds just below. They look like a spiderweb, she thought. Much like the spiderweb that the story of her best friend, Amy Danforth, had become. And in the middle of the web was her mentor, Dr. Paul Curtin.
Claire now knew that Curtin’s testimony had put Peter Lewis in a Canadian prison for life. Peter Lewis, who pled guilty to raping and murdering a young girl in 1994. Peter Lewis, aka Mr. Winslow, who killed Amy back in 1989. It was why she was with Nick on the short flight back to New York, to ask Curtin about this strange turn of events. A phone call would have been insufficient. She had to see the look on Curtin’s face when she confronted him with this bizarre coincidence.
After all, that’s what it is, right? A bizarre coincidence?
Claire’s mind played a tug-of-war, looking for an explanation: How was Curtin involved in all this? She noticed that the clouds below her had taken on the shapes of faces. Amy with her pigtails. Lewis with his crooked smile. Ian, his disarming eyes making her ache for him. Quimby. In a rage.
The clouds disappeared, revealing the endless, clear blue sky. “Hey there . . . Claire. Claire,” Nick said, trying to get her attention.
Claire turned to him. “What is it?” she said, her face blank.
“You’ve been staring out that window since we took off.”
She let out a deep, quiet sigh. “It’s a coincidence, right, Nick?” she asked, her tone unsure.
“It’s got to be,” Nick answered. “If you were prosecuting a monster like Peter Lewis, wouldn’t you bring in the best shrink in the business?”
“I guess you’re right,” Claire said, sounding relieved but feeling far from it. “He’s testified at hundreds of murder cases.”
Nick gave her a knowing look. Over the weeks they’d worked together, he knew the signs that Claire’s mind was at odds with her words. Her cheeks would turn red and her eyes would narrow.
“Think about it for a second,” Nick said, trying to reassure her. “How could Curtin possibly know about you through Lewis? Your name never appeared in those court transcripts.”
Claire smiled at him. He knows me too well.
“Look, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll go with you to see him,” Nick offered.
“That’d make it seem too official, like we suspected him of something.”
“You do suspect him of something,” Nick said, leaning toward her. Their faces were almost touching.
“Not necessarily. I just want to see his reaction.”
Nick smiled. “So you’re going to call him and set up an appointment?”
“No,” Claire said. “I think I’ll surprise him.”
“And then you’ll call me right after,” Nick said in way that made her know she had no choice.
Claire nodded. We’re in this together, she thought.
Claire walked through the entry to Manhattan City Hospital, still wearing the jeans and light blue top she’d worn on the plane. She hadn’t taken the time to change in her rush to get to Curtin’s office and had left Rochester in such haste that she hadn’t yet thought about where she’d stay while she was in town.
She headed for the Psych Unit and checked her watch. It was 4:27 in the afternoon. She looked up and saw one of the fellows down the hallway, writing in a chart. He must be finishing rounds, Claire thought. Which meant that Curtin would soon be heading back to his office.
Claire dodged another fellow by turning down a hallway. She knew the news of her role in tying Peter Lewis to Amy’s death had gotten play in the New York media, and she wasn’t up to facing her colleagues or the questions with which they’d undoubtedly ply her for hours. She could hardly blame them, though. One of their own had now nailed not just one, but two serial killers in just a few weeks. If she’d become a minor celebrity over ending Todd Quimby’s spree of murder, the Lewis case surely made her a rock star in the eyes of her peers.
She imagined what they would ask her: What was it like, interrogating the man who almost murdered you? Were you scared? Did you feel like a victim? Or were you able to maintain professional distance?
Claire found herself walking down the corridor to Curtin’s office. She’d been lost in her thoughts, and yet somehow she’d been pulled to the right place as if by some powerful magnet. She turned the knob slowly as she wondered why she felt compelled to do this. What am I really looking for here?
Curtin’s assistant, Bonnie, was sitting at her computer, staring at the screen, perplexed as always when she heard the door open. She looked up to see Claire walk in and did a double take.
“You? You’re back already?” Bonnie asked in her thick Bronx accent, her ever-demanding tone always making Claire feel tense.
“Yes, but just for today. Is Doctor Curtin available?”
“Sorry, hon,” Bonnie replied, letting up on the attitude. “He’s been out with the flu since last Tuesday and his schedule’s a mess,” she added, pointing to the computer screen. “I’m canceling all his appointments for the rest of the week.”
Claire was shocked. Among one of Curtin’s more annoying traits was his bragging that he’d never missed a day of work because of illness, which was more than most of his fellows could say. The guy was a triathlete and in great shape. The possibility he’d be out sick had never even occurred to her.
“Oh,” was all Claire could say.
Bonnie shot her a look of pity. “You didn’t come all the way down here from upstate just to surprise him, I hope.”
“No,” Claire lied. “I just happened to be in town and thought I’d stop by.”
“You know,” Bonnie said, a sly smile appearing
on her face, “we all heard about what you did up there. With that other killer and all. Don’t tell him I told you this, but Doctor C was really impressed when he heard about it.”
Her words took Claire by surprise. Maybe there was a side to Curtin that she hadn’t seen—or that he had purposely kept hidden from his students.
“Too bad he’s not here to tell you himself,” Bonnie continued. “Timing is everything.”
Claire couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t I know it,” she said. “So do you think there’s any chance he’ll be in at all this week?”
“I just spoke to him an hour ago, and he still sounds like death on a cracker,” Bonnie said. “But I’ll pencil you in for next week if you can come back.”
“I’ll see if I can hang around for the weekend. Thanks, Bonnie,” Claire said, turning to head out.
“Whoa, not so fast,” Bonnie called after her, prompting her to turn back. “You never left me a forwarding address.” She wobbled as she stood up like someone who spent too much of their life sitting, and grabbed some mail and a large manila package from atop the file cabinet. “I got stuff for you that came in since you’ve been . . . on leave.”
She handed the pile to Claire, who looked at the manila package. The return address immediately caught her eye—a post office box in Bedford, New York.
Bedford. Tammy Sorensen’s parents lived in Bedford.
And then she realized.
Tammy’s medical records. From her doctor.
She was excited again, but her face gave away nothing.
“Okay,” Claire said. “I think I will stay in the city so I can see him. How about next Monday?”
“Well, today’s Wednesday, so I can’t imagine he’ll still be out,” Bonnie said, back at her computer, typing away. “Monday at ten it is.”
“See you then,” Claire said as Bonnie looked up. “Thanks. For the mail too.”
The mini-suite at the New Amsterdam Hotel had a kitchenette and a pleasant, small living room, and most importantly it was clean. Claire had given up the apartment she’d shared with Ian when she left town, knowing she could never enter it again after the horror she’d witnessed. She’d found the hotel room on the fly after leaving the hospital and had settled in. Now, as she looked through her mail, she ate a piece of buttered toast and thought of Ian. He’d made her toast every morning. It was her favorite food; she loved the flavor and the crunchiness. Savoring it brought back good memories of their time together.