“I’ve got to buy something. I’ll be right out.”
O’Rourke let the door shut. “I’ll wait for you.”
Fine, then. She walked over to the tiny aisle lined with shampoo and toothpaste and crouched, the weight inside her shifting like heavy sand, to grab a box of tampons from the bottom shelf. She carried it over to the counter and glanced sidelong at O’Rourke, whose face had screwed into an involuntary wince.
“Tough guy like you can handle the sight of a little blood, right?” Sarah said.
Jane coughed away a laugh and pulled the charge slip from the machine.
“I had a wife once,” O’Rourke said. “I’d rather talk about murder.”
Sarah winked at Jane and took the package. “Okay,” she said, lowering her voice as they passed two flawlessly made-up women in jogging suits. “Why would he want the heroin so strong?”
“Could be he was gonna dilute it and sell it for double. And somebody wanted to keep him off their territory.”
“Your cop friend?”
“Or his baby-girl dealer. Or somebody at the school.”
“It’s a Catholic prep school, O’Rourke. Philip was an anomaly. Most of these kids are just trying to figure out how to pass trig and get at least one date before college.”
“Bet you’d be surprised. But, okay, maybe he wanted to off himself.”
Sarah leaned against the light post. “I just can’t see it. He was dramatic, not depressed. I think somebody killed him.”
“And how would this other person know he’d bought extra-strong heroin to make their job easy?”
“Then it was an accident. But who took the syringe?”
“Whoever he shot up with. The other kid’d be scared to death. Who’d he hang with?”
She thought a minute. “He was kind of a loner. I think a lot of the boys liked him. But he probably scared them a bit, too. At that age, you have to be pretty brave to align yourself with somebody that nonconformist.”
He sighed. “Give me the whole roster. I’ll see what I can dig up. And you be careful. I can’t watch your back 24/7, and if your guy’s a sociopath he won’t stop with one. They thrive on danger and risk.”
She couldn’t suppress her smile. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, O’Rourke, but so do you.”
*
The voice in the outer office was thin and cultured, precise as a tuning fork. Colin grimaced, pushed aside Monday’s mail, and waited. After allotting the requisite two minutes for pleasantries with Connie, Ehrlich appeared.
“I just wanted to make sure the boys were coping,” the bishop said, “and see if there was anything we could do to help you.”
“Thank you, and yes, there is. Did you receive my email?”
“I did. And no, I most certainly will not ask the Dennisons to pull Graham from school. There is no good reason to do so.”
Colin stared. Murder wasn’t enough?
“Past history is not sufficient,” Ehrlich continued. “Especially when it’s as inconclusive as his.”
He sounds like he’s arguing to protect a paedophile, Colin thought angrily, then rebuked himself. That wasn’t fair. The paedophile would have to be a major donor.
He tried to sound reasonable. “Bishop, at this point, I’d need a reason not to think he’s guilty. He’s the only likely suspect. Do you seriously expect me to let him stay and risk another student getting killed? I never should have let him come here in the first place.”
“You were doing the godly thing by accepting him.”
“I was endangering the other students,” Colin said, jaw clenched. “And, as it turned out, I − we − got one of them killed.” Careful, he warned himself. You’re way past insubordination.
It was almost a disappointment when Ehrlich responded with calm sympathy. “You don’t know that, Father McAvoy.” It was a brilliant tactic − offering reassurance kept him squarely in the seat of power.
“I never intended this to be a rehab centre,” Colin snapped. “A school should be a safe place. You had no right to make me take him.”
Ehrlich’s thin lips pressed into a single line, curled down at both ends. “That, Father McAvoy, is a false and childish assertion. Your authority is subsumed by that of the archdiocese. You. . .”
Colin’s cell rang, and he glanced at the display. Sarah, with her usual flawless timing. He decided to piss Ehrlich off by answering.
“Hey, have you seen a young woman on campus?” she asked.
“Sorry, but I’m in a meeting now,” he said quickly. “We’ll have to discuss that later.” He clicked off before she could respond. Hearing her voice, warm and lively and engaged, had dropped his guard. All he wanted was to leave this stupid battle and go sit by the fire with her, eat one of her weird junk food pairings and pet Simon and unburden his heart. And just thinking that made him feel stared at, like one of those dreams where you stand to sing the opening hymn in church and realise you forgot to put clothes on. Avoiding Ehrlich’s eyes, he slid his phone into his pocket.
“I suggest, Father, that you concentrate on fulfilling your responsibilities as head of school and leave the crime detection to the police,” the bishop said.
That was rich. Let law enforcement take over. The church had hidden its crimes from law enforcement for centuries.
When Colin didn’t answer, Ehrlich rose to leave. “It’s the first tenet of American jurisprudence, Father McAvoy. The boy is innocent until proven guilty.”
Or until someone else died.
*
Not about to be hung up on, Sarah had marched over to Colin’s office − and run smack into Ehrlich as he left.
“He didn’t even apologise!” she complained afterward. “Just glared at me and brushed off his wool coat.”
“We are all lint to the bishop.”
“So, back to the girl. Her first name’s Story, and she’s a drug courier.”
Colin swung his feet up on the desk and leaned back. “I found a girl in Philip’s room a few weeks ago. Redhead, absolutely besotted with him. Giggled at everything he said. I reminded them there was no visitation, and she left. Maybe that was our Story. I’ll ask Jimmy if he’s ever seen her.” He jotted a reminder, then looked up. “So, wait − you actually met with this cop?”
“Yep. O’Rourke introduced us.” She shuddered. “The guy was vile. But at least now I’ve got a better sense of how the stuff gets distributed in private schools.”
He gave her a pained look. “You’re enjoying all this a little too much.”
“Not what happened, I’m not.” Her voice was grave. “But if you want to keep your school, we have to figure out what happened.” As she said it the cramps redoubled, trapping her in a muck of pain and self-pity that kept her from thinking clearly.
“Ehrlich called again,” Colin said. “Cardinal Dolan’s already talking about shutting us down.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Maybe he should.”
“Colin!”
“Sorry. I don’t really mean that. It’s all just a bit much.”
“So, we figure it out.” She crossed her arms over her stomach and leaned forward, hoping she just looked interested. “Tell me more about Ricci’s map.”
Colin recited in a monotone: “He painted and lettered the original in 1584. Later somebody snuck a copy and did wood-block prints of it. They were so popular, he worked on a more elaborate map with the help of the palace eunuchs, and they finished it in 1602. Six recopied rice-paper versions survived. One’s in the Library of Congress − they bought it for one million dollars.”
“And you had another?”
“No. Ours was copied from the original. It’s less elaborate, but it’s older.”
“Who would want it? Are there people who collect Jesuit artefacts?”
“I’ll ask Padberg. He runs the Institute of Jesuit Sources, and he’s the most cosmopolitan ascetic I’ve ever met. He loves fine art and good wine and convers
ation, and wealthy donors adore him.”
“Excellent. Next, we pry. Any other students who used heroin?”
“Jimmy’s trying to find out.”
“Good. What do you want me to do?”
He thought a minute. “Let’s go back to where we started. See what you can find out about Graham.”
*
Bed-making usually struck Sarah as a waste of energy, but she desperately needed just one thing in her life to be neat and tidy. Pulling the fitted sheet taut, she shoved the extra fabric deep beneath the mattress. Graham hadn’t been at the school long enough to develop some murderous grudge against Philip, she decided, snapping the top sheet like a bullfighter’s cape. If he’d killed for no reason, that pretty much defined psychopath.
She plumped the pillows and smoothed the spread. Then she flopped across it and called Ian Rossert. A forensic psychiatrist, Ian had a way of absorbing pain and craziness without turning cynical. At Sean Aldington’s murder trial, he’d done the psych evaluation, probing to see why a 14-year-old would grab a shotgun and kill his mother. Liking Ian’s compassion, Sarah interviewed him at length for her book, and after a few sessions over beer and burgers, he let her glimpse the dark humour that kept him sane.
She caught him between patients and told him everything she knew, omitting only Graham’s name. “How would you decide if somebody like that is a sociopath?”
“I’d have to see him for weeks, Sarah. There are a lot of early signs in what you told me − rage, detachment, lies, calculated charm − but they all have other possible causes. What you’re really looking for is the absence of conscience.”
“Can you tell that by talking to somebody?”
“Sometimes. Psychopathy − the clinical term for what you’re calling a sociopath − shows up differently in every child. In general, they tend to be less responsive to reward and punishment, less worried about what other people think of them. They’re often highly intelligent. I suspect that, like politicians, they achieve more because they’re not hampered by a conscience.”
“Ouch. Anything else?”
“Emotionally, they’re ice cold. But a really withdrawn, cerebral kid can seem cold, too.”
“Sean killed his mother, but it wasn’t cold and calculated.”
“And that, as you know, was the point I tried to make on the stand. Sean was depressed and delusional, and he may have been psychotic. But he wasn’t a psychopath.”
She rolled onto her stomach. “Is this genetic?”
“We’re not sure. Autopsies have shown physical differences in the shape and size of certain parts of the brain, and scans show less neuronal connection. What I look for in therapy is whether another person’s pain even registers.”
She repeated the sentence to herself. “So, if the pain doesn’t register,” she said slowly, “it must be true that they can’t help it. Their brains simply can’t feel what somebody else is going through.”
“A lot of people have trouble with that notion. They think neuroscience is just making excuses for violent offenders. But I don’t think they can help it.” He paused. “In the old days, we would have called these people ‘soulless’. But if a psychopath is mentally incapable of moral reasoning, do we punish him for acting amorally?”
“That’s what I like about you, Ian. You have such a frivolous mind.”
*
Lost in thought, Sarah poured too many kibbles into Simon’s bowl and scooped half of them back out. There was no way she could penetrate Graham’s psyche by herself. She needed to know what had happened to his mother in that hospital room.
And the only other person who was there was his father.
She punched in the main number for the Post. “Rawlings Smythe please.”
The gossip columnist never let a phone call go to voicemail if he could help it. He came on the line right away.
“It’s Sarah Markham from Gateway, Rawlings. I need a favour. What do you know about a lawyer named Bryan Dennison?”
“Is he a friend of yours too?” he asked coyly. “I wouldn’t have thought you were his type.”
“This is for a story, and I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
His sigh was worthy of Chekhov. “You don’t, do you? I am crushed to the core. You don’t read my column anymore?”
“You wrote about Bryan Dennison?”
“Not by name, sweetheart. But I did have one juicy little item. I called him the crusader who sold out for silk stockings. Seen in a five-star restaurant − our town’s only five-star restaurant − with a lovely young thing who certainly wasn’t acting like a client when they headed over to the Hyatt after lunch.”
“Interesting. Thanks, Rawlings.”
“Wait one little minute, sugarplum. Why are you asking? Is there some . . .”
“Kisses!” she called. “Gotta go!”
She hugged her knees and thought some more, then Googled Bryan Dennison. The oldest article was his wedding to Laurel Vandeventer, Ladue Chapel, reception at St. Louis Country Club. Whoa. So the wife came from old money − so old, there was a street named for her family. The newspaper mentions started sparse, but increased every year. Interspersed among the recent articles were several pages of black-tie society photos, the most recent a fundraiser for a mental health foundation. Laurel sat on the dais. Her husband, in a separate shot, had his arm draped around a young redhead. At another fundraiser, he was bent toward a blonde woman and whatever she was whispering put a knowing smirk on his face.
Pulling up the Missouri bar’s database, Sarah found his registration number and tracked his cases. After jotting a list of client names, she did a Lexis news search for articles since 1990. In the recent cases, he defended corporate giants against pebbles hurled by outraged activists. Deeper in the search results lay a few human-interest stories from his public-defender days, rescuing folks who hadn’t been starched and pressed for the world’s approval.
He’d wanted out of that world. Had he wanted out of his marriage, too?
Graham’s file was still on the couch. Sarah found Dennison’s cell, then went to the TelcoData site on her laptop and keyed in his area code and first three digits. Sprint was the original carrier for that block of extensions. She called O’Rourke. “Remember that kidnapper you shoved into the volcano? Wasn’t the kid’s dad pretty high up at Sprint?”
“Whaddya need?”
“Bryan Dennison’s cell records for the past year.”
“The lawyer who stopped defending the scum of the earth and switched to the scum of the one per cent? That’s your crazy kid’s father?”
“Yep.”
“Nuf sed. Where you goin’ with this?”
Flipping through the file as she talked, she said, “I don’t know yet. But I think he’s a bit of a philanderer. And the wife’s the one with money.”
An appreciative chuckle. “You’re finally learning.”
CHAPTER TEN
The crime-scene tape was gone from Philip’s room, and through the half-open door Sarah saw Jimmy. “What are you doing?” she called softly. “Can I come in?”
“Please do. It’s eerie in here alone.” The bed had been stripped, but when Sarah looked at the mattress’ satiny tufts she saw Philip. Turning away, she knocked into his mannequin, its vaudeville-villain moustache drawn on with a Sharpie.
Jimmy reached out with one arm to steady it. “I’m trying to go through what’s left of Philip’s stuff before his father comes for it. No reason Northrup Grant should have to see articles on body hacking, hallucinogenic drugs and the Hounen Matsuri penis festival.”
“I keep wondering − how did Philip get away with such extreme behaviour at a school like this?”
“Because it wasn’t behaviour. Just intellectual exploration, as far as we knew. And Colin refuses to ‘censor the mind’.”
For once Jimmy sounded more bitter than admiring. She nodded and left him to his sorting. Halfw
ay down the hall, she stopped and went back. “Hey, Jimmy? Did you ever see a girl with Philip?”
Rifling through one of the magazine stacks, he held up a copy of Out Magazine. “I don’t think girls were the point.”
Her cell rang. Colin, sounding tense. “Lieutenant Morganstern’s here. She’d like to talk with you.”
“Yikes. Where?”
“My office. I’ll be up in my study if you need bail money.”
“Believe me, you’ll be the first person I call.” She cut off the connection and made a face. “I’m about to get grilled by the cops.”
“If I survived it, you can.” Jimmy grabbed a stack of magazines − the extra-glossy, entirely inappropriate ones − just as they slid. “I’m getting worried about Colin, though.”
“Yeah, he looks like he’s been to hell and back.”
“He’s barely sleeping or eating. Knowing Colin, he thinks if he worries hard enough it’ll ward off any damage. But all he’ll do is make himself sick.”
“At least you’re helping him hold the school together.”
“I’m doing my best.” He boxed the magazines. “I can’t make it all go away, though.”
“Nobody can.”
*
Morganstern had cleared away Colin’s towers of books and folders; his scratched-up mahogany desk now held only her silver laptop, one pen, and a neat stack of notepads. While she ended a phone call, Sarah took her measure. She wore a gold necklace formed with the letters of her children’s names − brave, for a female cop.
“Father McAvoy said you were here a few weeks ago,” Morganstern began.
How much had he told her? “He had a new student with a few troublesome incidents in his past, and he wanted an outside opinion.”
“Graham Dennison. Just what is his story?”
Direct and a little impatient, but not a flat by-the-book type. She laughed easily − always a good sign − and took charge without drawing attention to herself. If Sarah withheld information, Morganstern was smart enough to figure it all out anyway, and she wouldn’t look kindly on a lack of cooperation. So Sarah had summed up everything she knew about Graham.
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