Silent Victim

by C. E. Lawrence

  The police cruiser sat in front of the house. A couple of small boys had stopped by on their bikes to talk to the officer behind the wheel. As soon as he saw Butts pull up, he got out of the car and strode over to greet them. To Lee’s surprise, it was Officer Lars Anderson, the young cop they had met at Ana Watkins’s house.

  “Hi there,” he said. “I heard it was you two and volunteered to come on over. You think we have probable cause to go in?”

  Lee showed him the text message on Butts’s cell phone and explained that, in all likelihood, it came from Charlotte Perkins.

  “That’s good enough for me,” Anderson replied, and led the way up the steps to the front porch. He paused and glanced at Diesel, then back at Butts.

  “Undercover,” Butts said in a confidential tone, and the trooper nodded.

  A round of knocking also brought no response, so Anderson whipped a towel out of his car’s trunk, wrapped it around his arm, and broke the bottom pane of glass on the door with one deft punch.

  “Looks like you’ve done that a few times before,” Butts remarked as he reached around to unlatch the lock from the inside.

  “That’s why I keep a towel in the trunk,” Anderson replied. “You never know when it’ll come in handy.”

  They followed him into the front hall, which was dark and deserted.

  “Anybody home?” Anderson called out, but was met with silence.

  They walked through to the living room, where everything looked to be in order. The piano keys gleamed ivory white in the morning sun. There was no sign of life in the first-floor parlor, the kitchen, or the butler’s pantry to the side of the kitchen. On the other side of the kitchen was an office that evidently served as a consulting room as well. It contained a couch and several armchairs, as well as a desk and built-in bookcase.

  When they had secured the first floor, they proceeded upstairs. The two small bedrooms in what must have originally been the servants’ wing were clear, but as they approached the master bedroom, they saw the blood. There were crimson fingerprints on the wall, as well as high-velocity splatter in all directions; some blood had even landed on the windowsill on the other side of the corridor. It was clear that someone had been viciously attacked in this hallway. The four of them stopped walking, and Officer Anderson put a finger to his lips. There was no need for silence, though; it was clear from the heavy stillness of the air that the violence had occurred hours ago. A trail of blood led into the master bedroom, apparently ending behind the slightly open door.

  Lee’s heart beat wildly as Anderson and Butts drew their revolvers. Butts waved to Anderson to indicate that he should continue down the hall to make sure the far bedroom was clear. The young cop nodded and crept down the hall, holding his gun stiffly in front of him.

  Moments later, he emerged from the room and called, “All clear.”

  Holding his revolver in both hand, Butts pushed open the door to the master bedroom with his foot.

  “Stay here,” he called over his shoulder as he went in. There was no need—Lee had no desire to enter what was obviously a crime scene. Through the open door, he and Diesel could see into the room—and Lee felt a shiver of relief when he saw the dead body on the floor. The sight that greeted them, disturbing as it was, was not Charlotte Perkins. His relief was followed by shame and disgust—shame at having been relieved, and disgust at what lay before them. Though his worst fears had not been realized, the murder scene was not a pretty sight.

  Martin Perkins lay on his back, arms and legs akimbo, his head smashed in by what looked to be a series of blows from a heavy blunt object. Though his face was bloody and disfigured, his eyes had not been removed, and there was no sign of a suicide note. There were, however, signs of frenetic rage and overkill. The expensive-looking carpet he was lying on had soaked up a tremendous amount of blood—no doubt the blood loss alone would have been enough to kill him. It was hard to tell how many times he had been hit, but it was clear that the amount of force used was far in excess of what was needed.

  Vines, twigs, and leaves had been piled on top of his body, some arranged in such a way that they looked as if they were growing out of his mouth and ears.

  “Okay, Doc,” Butts said, looking at Lee. “What’s with all the foliage? What does it mean?”

  All at once, Lee realized saw the connection.

  “He’s the Green Man,” he said. “His killer is mocking the whole idea of it, by turning Perkins into one after killing him.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Butts said, bending down to examine the body. “I think you’re right.”

  What Lee wasn’t prepared for was the smell. The odor of blood—so much blood—was unlike anything he had experienced. It seemed to penetrate a part of his brain, causing an aversion, a deep-seated feeling of distress that he thought must be genetic, ancestral. Ancient hominids, coming across this terrible and terrifying smell, must have taken flight immediately, knowing instinctively that death lurked around the corner. But he couldn’t flee, much as he wanted to. He continued to stare at the body until he heard Officer Anderson come up behind him.

  “Jesus,” Anderson said softly, and Lee realized this was his first murder scene. He looked at Butts for help, and the burly detective took charge at once. He beckoned them all to stay out of the room; putting his gun back in its holster, he proceeded to investigate the crime scene.

  Butts was in his element. Lee watched with admiration as the detective examined the body without touching anything, then managed to move around the room without transferring any of the blood to his shoes or in any other way compromising the evidence.

  After a few minutes he joined the rest of them in the hall.

  “No sign of the murder weapon,” he said, “though from the shape of the blows I’d say it was somethin’ long and narrow—a cane, or a thick stick of some kind. No sign of defensive wounds—looks like he wasn’t expecting this attack. You got CSIs on duty around here?” he asked Anderson.

  “Uh, in Trenton—that’s the nearest city,” the young officer replied, obviously shaken.

  “Then I suggest you call it in ASAP,” Butts said. Looking down at Perkins, he shook his head. “Whoever did this wasn’t looking to make a statement,” he said. “He just wanted Perkins dead.”

  Looking at the body sprawled on the floor in front of them, Lee had to agree. If ever he had seen a rage-driven homicide, this was it. Whoever had killed Martin Perkins was now spinning dangerously out of control.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  “What now?” Diesel asked as the three of them stood looking at the body while Officer Anderson reported the murder to his station house, which would then call the crime unit in Trenton. Butts had already called Chuck Morton to inform him, though there was little he could do at this point.

  “I think whoever did this has Charlotte Perkins,” Lee said.

  “Unless she did this,” Butts remarked.

  Lee had to admit that wasn’t completely unrealistic. She obviously had great resentment against her brother, with good reason—and it wouldn’t be the first time a victim of domestic abuse snapped and murdered her abuser. Lee wasn’t sure their relationship fit the legal definition of abuse, but he didn’t like what he’d heard from her. And so now Perkins was dead—Serves him right, he thought uncharitably—but where was Charlotte? And even more puzzling, assuming she was still alive, where was Krieger?

  “You think a—a woman could have done this?” Officer Anderson said, with a naïveté that was touching.

  Butts frowned at him. “Kid, one thing you learn when you’ve been a cop as long as I have is that anyone can do anything to anybody.”

  Anderson’s pale eyes widened. “But—I mean, wouldn’t it take a lot of force to deliver blows like this?”

  “Yeah,” Butts said. “But when a person’s angry enough, you’d be surprised how strong they are.”

  “I don’t think Charlotte did this,” Lee said, looking at the body. “She wasn’t angry—she was frightened.”
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br />   “Okay,” Butts replied. “But I’d sure like to know where she is.”

  “So would I,” Lee agreed. “Let’s have a look at his patient files. Perkins is dead now—we don’t need a warrant,” he added in response to Officer Anderson’s inquiring look.

  “Yeah—yeah, I guess you’re right,” the young policeman agreed. “Where do you suppose they’d be?”

  “Well, I kept mine in a filing cabinet in my office,” Lee answered.

  “So all we gotta to do is go back to his office,” Butts remarked, leading the way back downstairs to the consulting room at the back of the house.

  The room’s proximity to the kitchen made Lee guess it was originally a maid’s bedroom. Though not as large as the upstairs bedrooms, it was a decent size, as elegantly furnished as the rest of the house, and with the same obsessive sense of order. The books were lined up on the built-in bookcase so that the spines were exactly even, and on the desk, not a thing was out of place. Lee’s office was full of mismatched pens, pencils of different lengths and various stages of working order, all tossed in with dried-up Magic Markers and paper clips. Perkins’s desk had two pewter mugs (antique, no doubt): one for pens, and one for pencils. All the pencils were exactly the same length, sharpened to perfect points, a circle of tiny spears jabbing toward the ceiling.

  “Jeez,” Butts said, looking around. “Was this guy anal or what?”

  “I wonder if his underwear is alphabetized,” Diesel remarked, and Officer Anderson giggled nervously.

  “Yes, it does appear he had a case of OCD,” he said.

  “Try not to touch anything,” Butts admonished Anderson as he ran a finger over the shiny surface of a table, apparently amazed at the lack of dust. The young cop jumped as though he’d been stung, and gave another nervous laugh.

  “Yeah, right,” he said, and pulled a pair of rubber gloves from his uniform pocket.

  “Got any more of those?” Butts asked.

  “Uh, no—sorry,” Anderson said.

  “Go into the kitchen and see if you can find more rubber gloves,” Butts instructed him. “Surgical would be best, but kitchen gloves are okay.”

  “You think that’s necessary?” Lee asked.

  “The whole house is a crime scene,” Butts replied. “We have to avoid destroying evidence of any kind, and that includes prints, trace evidence, that kind of thing.” He regarded Diesel, chewing on his lip. “You shouldn’t be in here at all. You said your dad was a cop?”

  “Yes, he was,” Diesel replied, crossing his powerful arms over his chest.

  “Okay, tell you what,” Butts said. “Why don’t you go out and stand guard and make sure no one gets into the house? And when the boys from Trenton arrive, you can explain things to them, okay?”

  “You don’t have to treat me as though I’m ten,” Diesel replied, frowning. “I can just sit in the car.”

  “No, no—it’d be really helpful,” Butts said earnestly. “I don’t want the locals getting too curious, y’know?”

  “Very well,” Diesel said. Drawing himself up with a dignified scowl, he left the room.

  Officer Anderson appeared with a box of surgical gloves, holding them out to Butts with the pride of a child who has done a very clever thing. “Will these do?” he said eagerly. “I found these under the sink—a whole box of them!”

  “Fine,” Butts said, taking the box and handing a pair to Lee, while he put on another himself.

  Officer Anderson looked disappointed, as if he had expected a pat on the back, or perhaps a lollipop.

  Butts started looking through desk drawers, while Lee went to the wooden filing cabinet next to the desk. Starting at the top, he slid open the heavy oak drawer, and studied the folders inside. The top drawer was mainly about finances: the tabs, perfectly organized—and alphabetized—read, BANKING, followed by BILLS, PAID, and BILLS, UNPAID, and so on.

  Meanwhile, Officer Anderson roamed the room restlessly, not touching anything, looking out of place and apprehensive.

  “Any luck?” Butts grunted as he rifled through desk drawers, which Lee thought he was doing with unnecessarily vigor.

  “Not yet,” he said, closing the top drawer and moving on to the middle one. There he hit pay dirt: the first tab proclaimed, PATIENT FILES, in neat capital letters. “Got it,” he said, pulling a stack of manila folders from the cabinet.

  “Good,” Butts said, slamming closed the desk drawer.

  Lee handed Butts half the folders and kept the rest. He estimated there were about forty or so, one for each patient; Perkins appeared to have quite a thriving practice. Of course, some of the folders were possibly of past patients, though he imagined someone like Perkins would create separate file drawers for past and present patients. There was no sign of a computer—another indication of Perkins’s avoidance of modern technology.

  Ana Watkins’s file was in the stack of folders Lee kept. He started by looking at it—perhaps there was a clue hidden in it. Perkins kept impeccable notes, all handwritten. The file was organized in chronological order, with notes for each session on a separate page, all in blue ink, the handwriting obsessively neat and precise, but oddly ornate. Lee started with the most recent sessions first.

  “Got anything so far?” Butts asked. “Not really. How about you?”

  “Naw—just a bunch of neurotics so far; no one that looks threatening. A lotta people whining about their mothers. What are you reading?”

  “I’m reading Ana’s file, hoping to see some clues to who might have killed her. So far I haven’t seen anything I didn’t already know about her.”

  “Well, keep lookin',” Butts said. “I still think it’s possible the UNSUB is one of his patients.”

  “I do, too,” Lee agreed, especially now that Perkins seemed to be eliminated as the killer—or was he? “Hey,” he said suddenly, “how likely it is that Perkins could still be the UNSUB?”

  Butts frowned. “Doesn’t that seem like too much of a coincidence? He’s the killer, but then he’s found murdered?”

  “Yeah. I was just wondering what you thought.”

  “What I think is that the same guy who did Perkins did everyone else, and has got Charlotte—and if we’re lucky, Krieger, too. If we’re really lucky, his name is somewhere among these papers.”

  “Right,” Lee said, and went back to perusing the patient files.

  Then one file in particular caught Lee’s eye. The patient’s name was Eric McNamara. He was in his late twenties, worked as a chauffeur, and owned his own limousine, which he garaged somewhere in the Bronx. He also took care of an infirm and elderly father. But what really caught Lee’s attention was the mention of an unnamed tragedy in his past, one that Dr. Perkins could not seem to get to the bottom of, but which, it was hinted, was something involving water. There was only one reference to gender issues. After a session two weeks ago, Perkins had written

  There were plenty of other patients who had cross-dressing fantasies, but Eric was the right age and matched other aspects of the profile. Throughout Eric’s file, as with most of the patients, there were mentions of a past-life identity. Here, though, Perkins was more specific, referring to a person by the name of Caleb, whose soul he believed Eric had inhabited in a previous life. The man named Caleb was a troubled spirit, and had died tragically by water—though the file wasn’t specific on exactly how.

  “Hey, look at this,” Lee said to Butts, handing him the folder. Officer Anderson, who had been wandering aimlessly around the room, looked on with interest, like a dog waiting for a scrap of food or affection.

  Butts glanced at it and handed it back at Lee. “Caleb … wasn’t that one of the names on Ana’s pottery receipts?”

  “You’re right!” Lee said. “You commented what an old-fashioned name it was.”

  “You think this could be the guy?”

  “Look at the similarities to the profile. The age is right, there’s the cross-dressing thing—and look at this.” He pointed out the section where Perkins
had written:

  Butts looked at Lee. “Curiouser and curiouser,” he said softly. “Too bad the good doctor had to die for us to find this.”

  Finally Officer Anderson could stand it no longer. “Find what?” he cried impatiently, twitching all over with excitement. “Did you find the killer?”

  “Maybe,” Lee said.

  Anderson lunged eagerly across the room to have a look. In his haste, his foot caught the edge of the Persian carpet, and he tripped, falling forward.

  “Hey—watch it! Don’t contaminate evi—” Butts yelled, but stopped in midsentence, staring at the edge of carpet where Anderson’s foot had caught. The corner of the rug had been pulled from the floor, exposing it. “Wait just a minute,” Butts said as the trooper got to his feet, leaning over to straighten the carpet.

  “What is it?” asked Lee.

  “I dunno, but there’s something funny about that floor,” Butts replied.

  Lee looked at the section of the floor Anderson had just exposed. The smooth pattern of floorboard was interrupted by something at that spot. He walked over to inspect it more closely. There appeared to be a small round handle, the kind you could hook your thumb through to open—a hidden compartment. He looked at Butts, who smiled.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Lee said.

  “What is it?” Anderson almost yelped. “Is something hidden down there?”

  “The good doctor had somethin’ he didn’t want anyone else to see,” the detective said. He kneeled, his knees cracking like walnuts, and inserted a stubby thumb through the handle. There was a click, and the door slid smoothly open.

  They all gazed down at the opening. It was a small recessed compartment underneath the floorboards, about a yard square on all sides, and a couple of feet deep. It contained a video camera, a stack of tapes, and a VCR.

  “Bingo,” Butts said softly.

  Lee had a cold, hollow feeling in his stomach. What other secrets did the eccentric Martin Perkins keep hidden from the world—including his sister?