by Harker Moore
“It’s your right to have an attorney.” Sakura was matter-of-fact. “But it’s only a few questions. No need to drag this out.”
“What kind of questions? I already talked to the cops.”
Sakura did not answer immediately. He gave Adelia the signal to start the recording and stated for the record those present in the room. “The detectives you talked to are part of my unit,” he said, turning to Lancaster. “You lied to them.”
“How’s that?” The grin got bigger.
“You told my officers that you didn’t know Sarah Laraby.”
“Who says that I did?”
“A friend of Sarah’s.”
A shift in posture. A charge of anger. “Lisa Hennessy, right?”
Sakura waited, silent.
“Lisa doesn’t know shit.” Lancaster was forward in the chair again. “But all right,” he said, his black gaze direct, “I admit I did know Sarah.”
“So it was a lie.”
Lancaster laughed, giving Sakura a glimpse of the metal ball in his tongue. There was no doubt the man liked jewelry. The multiple rings. The silver neck chain hung with a pendant of the Hopi trickster Kokopelli. “I was in the middle of a gig. I just wanted to get rid of your guys. It’s not a crime.”
“Lying to the police can be a crime if you intentionally obstruct an investigation.”
“I don’t know anything to obstruct.”
“But you don’t deny now that you slept with Sarah Laraby?”
“I sleep with a lot of girls.” The perpetual grin was now a leer.
Sakura remained expressionless, the surest goad, it seemed, for someone as theatrical as the Shaman. “Ms. Hennessy believes that your relationship with Sarah Laraby went beyond nontraditional sex.”
Lancaster’s head rolled back, a breath escaping. His expression, when he straightened, made clear what he thought of such a delicate choice of words. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“That you manipulated Sarah Laraby into doing things that were in Ms. Hennessy’s words ‘sexually weird.’ She said you do that with a lot of girls.”
“Look, I rule up there. What I control is the Vibe.” The white teeth gleamed. A challenge to the uninitiated. “Anything else is crazy.”
“Was Sarah having sex with anyone else?”
“Like I know? We weren’t buddies.”
“Did you know any of the other girls who were murdered?”
“No.”
“You answered that very quickly, Mr. Lancaster.”
“I’ve heard about them. Who hasn’t? Your guys showed me pictures.”
“And you’re sure you didn’t know any of them?”
“Is this a trick question?” Lancaster was not hiding his belligerence. “I can’t swear that I’ve never run into them at the clubs. But I didn’t know any of them.”
Sakura had taken a sheet of paper from the file he’d brought in. “Can you account for where you were on these particular dates?” He pushed the list forward.
“What are these dates?”
“The nights when victims disappeared from clubs.”
“I can’t remember where I was yesterday.” The dark eyes were mocking. “But my manager keeps a schedule.”
“I’d like to see it.”
“Here.” Lancaster had produced a pen, kept handy no doubt for autographs. He wrote a number at the bottom of the page. “My manager’s name is Kyle,” he said. “He’ll give you what you need.” He stood up.
“One more thing, Mr. Lancaster.”
“And what’s that?”
“Do you have access to a van?”
“A van?” He seemed momentarily thrown by the question. “Yeah,” he said, “a buddy of mine lets me borrow his. To move sound equipment.”
“Does this buddy of yours have a name?”
“Dustin Franks.”
“Perhaps Mr. Franks would allow us to examine his van?”
Lancaster was decidedly wary. “You’d have to ask him.”
“His address and phone number, Mr. Lancaster.”
“I don’t know the number offhand. It’s a cell. And he’s changed cribs since I last saw him. Don’t have the new address.”
“It would be in your interest to put us in touch with Mr. Franks.”
“What do you want with Dustin’s van?”
“Sometimes police work must proceed by a process of elimination.” Sakura didn’t elaborate.
“And that’s supposed to make me feel good, Lieutenant? That you’re working to eliminate me as a suspect in the murder of those girls?”
“I have not used the word suspect, Mr. Lancaster.”
“Yeah, right.” The deejay had started walking.
“Get us Mr. Franks’s number,” Sakura said, “and maybe we won’t have to talk with you again.”
Lancaster stopped. No longer so at ease, he still seemed cocksure. “But I might not want to talk to you, man,” he said. “Like I told those other cops, I know my rights.”
“He looks near the same height. Maybe a mite shorter. Quite the same build. Slight. Though I would have liked to have seen the gentleman in the same sort of jogging clothes.” Marshall Grantley looked back over his shoulder, through the one-way glass, into the now empty interrogation room where Randy Lancaster had just been interviewed.
“What about the facial features?” Sakura was hoping against hope, but knew that the chance of a positive identification was virtually zero.
“That is difficult. The man in the park had on that cap and those glasses. Yellow lenses, as I mentioned before. And to be completely honest, I was looking more at the woman. Poor dear.”
“And the voice?”
Grantley smiled. “Now of that I am quite sure. Not the same. Not the same at all. The man in the park spoke with a different voice quality entirely.”
“Is it possible he could have altered his voice?”
“Entirely possible. Though he was in such a compromised position, holding up the woman and all, I am not sure he would have had the presence of mind to do anything of the sort. And . . .”
“What else, Mr. Grantley?”
“I would have to say the man in the park spoke in a much more cultivated manner. No slang or any such. I take it a crib is a flat of some kind.”
Sakura smiled. “That’s correct, Mr. Grantley.”
“I’m totally . . . out of the loop.” He laughed at his own joke.
“Is there anything—”
“Sorry, Lieutenant. Most inappropriate of me. To jest when we’re about such serious business. No, there isn’t anything else. Except perhaps the hair. I think the man in the park had lighter hair. Brown. But difficult to tell with that cap. And I don’t think it was curly or long. Of course, it could have been pulled back just like the fellows today. But my impression was that he had short hair under that cap.”
“Thank you, Mr. Grantley. If you remember anything else, please contact me. You have my card.”
“Indeed I do, Lieutenant. I am just sorry I wasn’t more observant. Maybe I could have narrowed down the model of that van. And more important, I might have noticed that that young woman was being taken against her will.”
Round paper lanterns hung in the lowest branches. A chilled wind tossed them like unattached heads. Darkness waited in a flat gray sky leaching remnants of the afternoon’s yellow light. Tines of the cast-iron fence threw pale shadows like long bones. Beneath the squeals and laughter of children, the crackling whisper of autumn leaves could be heard, communicating in the language of the dead.
The twins ran, their costumes barely containing the raw energy that threatened to burst through the seams and leave them naked, running like small foxes in a primeval wood. He rather liked to think of them as kits. With their heads of dense bright red hair, the alert-jerk motion of their fit little-boy bodies. Mother Fox, a vixen with a mane of blood-red hair of her own, made a faint attempt to slow her offspring, who were leading a trail of tagalong classmates round the st
atue of Edwin Booth in a fast getaway.
He smiled, patting where his hungry heart fed. He moved to one of the park’s far corners, sheltered by a dense stand of trees where he could watch the party proceedings unobserved. A Halloween party for sweet young flesh. Ice-cream-and-cookie-fed flesh. Plump pretty meat. His ears perked as Mother Fox called. Time for a game. The band of masquerading three- and four-year-olds sprinted toward a dangling piñata, an El Día de los Muertos skeleton swinging low from a tree branch.
“Jason. Damon. Let your guests take their turns first,” Mother Fox admonished.
“Mama . . .” whined the boys in unison, but waited, squirming for a chance to swing.
A chunky Ninja Turtle struck gold first, a hard swift swat to the rib cage, and down tumbled a rain of trinkets and candies. The flesh scrambled, stubby pink fingers scrabbling in the grass for booty.
A round of snapping for apples on strings followed, masks removed from faces as wet hungry little mouths fought for a taste of the slippery fruit. He sniffed the air, taking in the sour-milk smell of saliva, studying arching backbone and the white tissue of arcing throats, feet flat-planted in a frenzied dance to gain a threshold. The kits were best at the challenge. Each taking thick chunks out of the sides of the large red apples, exposing the white pulp like fresh wounds.
He looked over his shoulder. A wolf’s moon rose, and he could sense a winding down as the children split off into smaller groups, some sitting on the grass counting treats, others in numbers of two and three playing made-up games.
He stepped from behind the tree, revealing himself. The twins were close enough for him to hear Damon draw mucus down into his throat from a runny nose. Jason saw him first, his mask off his face, perched atop his head.
“Pun’kin Man!”
Quickly he brought his index finger to his lips to make the hush sign.
“Pun’kin Man,” Jason repeated, his voice child-husky.
“You came to our party.” Damon reached for him, but he pulled away, retreating to the shelter of the trees.
After a moment he peeked around a trunk, smiling in the pale purple dusk. “I came just to see you. It’s a secret.”
“A secret?” Damon whispered, venturing closer on his frisky fox feet.
He nodded.
“We like secrets,” Jason agreed. “Like our costumes? I’m Spider-Man. Damon is a vampire.”
Damon smiled, placing plastic fangs over his teeth. Then, pulling them out, asked, “Know what vampires do?”
He nodded again.
“And you’re Pun’kin Man,” said Jason, a reconfirmation that suddenly seemed funny. And because he laughed, so did Damon.
“Shhh . . . You’ll give away our secret.”
The boys stopped, matching sets of deep blue eyes searching his face, waiting, it seemed, for some kind of mission he might send them on, or for some feat of magic he might perform.
“I have a treat for you.” He reached inside his jacket pocket. “Close your eyes. Give me your hands.” Mother Fox’s choice of the piñata was delicious serendipity. “. . . Happy Halloween.” The boys opened their eyes and stared down at the small sugar skulls.
“Calacas,” he whispered, chuckling as he supposed any respectable Pumpkin Man would.
“You’re very late today, Victor. We only have a short time before my next appointment.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. French.” His laugh, half-giddy, that she remembered from their first two sessions.
“We can’t work on the things that are troubling you if you don’t come.”
This time he simply nodded.
“Perhaps we should explore your goals in seeking therapy.”
“My goals?”
“Yes, what you want to accomplish here.”
“I guess I just want to feel better.”
“What do you think ‘feeling better’ would be like for you?”
“I would feel less . . . crazy?”
“You made that sound like a question,” she said. “Are you still having episodes when you experience your body as mechanical?”
“Yes.”
“Has the medication I gave you helped at all?”
He looked away. “The pills make me sleepy. And I’m not really all that anxious when it happens.”
“How do you feel during those periods?”
“Excited, in a way.”
“In what way, Victor?”
“It’s kind of neat being a machine. Not . . . messy.”
“And being human is messy?”
“My mother thought so.”
“I think we have a good topic to explore”—she scribbled into her notebook—“which is why I’m sorry we have so little time today. We have a lot of work to do if we’re going to make progress.”
“Could I ask you a question, Dr. French?”
He had been staring at the watch on his arm, an old timepiece that showed its inner workings through a window in its face. Now as he looked up, she saw again how clear his eyes were, a transparent blue with very dark irises. They made her think of targets. But any arrows would be coming out. It was a weird thought, and she shook it away.
“What do you want to ask?”
“The man who’s killing those women,” he said, “do you think they’re going to get him?”
She was not particularly surprised by the question. The Ripper Murders, as they were being called now, were a hot topic, and it was hardly a secret that she was helping with the investigation.
“I believe the police will catch him,” she said.
“How?” He didn’t drop it. “I mean, he’s smart, don’t you think? They say he cuts them up to see inside.”
“Is that what they say?” She couldn’t remember that particular formulation in the press. She didn’t remember having said it herself.
“Yes,” he answered. “Why else would he open them?”
The transparent eyes were impossible to read, and for a split second she felt an irrational fear.
“Are you okay?” he said to her. “You look kinda funny?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” She forced a smile.
“I saw you with Zoe Kahn,” he said now. “I like her show.”
His flattened affect had morphed into sudden enthusiasm. She had an intuition that his decision to choose her as his therapist was the result of his seeing her on TV. “Please don’t be late for your appointment next week,” she said to him.
She had to admit that she was glad when he was gone. Her experience of last year was making her paranoid, and there was a definite note of falseness in the naivete that Victor Abbot projected. Everyone wore a mask, even the craziest ones. It was her job to see behind them, and despite that they were paying her for it, patients always resisted. Some more than most. Coming late for a session was an obvious strategy. A more subtle approach was to mess with the good doctor’s head.
The end of another week. Margot stared through the glass window at the closed blue umbrella in front of the corner bistro. Drawn in above an abandoned table, the folds of its canvas wings were whipped by the night’s sun-drained wind. Another season, another place, the umbrella would have been unfurled, a cutout against a lighter blue sky, a prop against the hot Aegean sun, inflated with tipsy laughter, rising like the bubbles in the glass barely held between her fingers, her leg rubbing the white of his summer pants.
But this wasn’t that time. Or that place. And the man and woman weren’t the same. Over the years something essential had been altered, and lost was the false innocence of the early days, the belief that love and the passion would last forever.
So why had she called Michael? Because she was still “hungover” from the dream. Maybe it was as simple as that. Just a little reality test. Or maybe it was what she sometimes acknowledged in her weaker, more honest moments—that something unsettled lay between them. The unfinished business of lives once spent together, then torn apart.
And what was she going to say when he showed up? I had to see you because o
f this dream I had. Of fucking you. And I wanted to make sure it was just bullshit. Or would she finally do the right thing and just tell him.
Typical of him not to ask why she needed to see him. Michael didn’t believe in waste. He’d find out soon enough. And why bother to ask? With his instincts he could probably read her mind. Yet it was knowledge without understanding. Intimacy without connection. Which meant that no one could make her feel as wanting, or as complete, as Michael Darius. And maybe that was what had ultimately driven her away, made her run as far as she could, as fast as she could. Even with his babies in her belly.
Yet what she hated she loved. He’d forced her open, like a bulb in hard winter soil, rupturing the layers of her self-control, stripping away the last of her shell. How, when they made love, she would scream and moan in pleasure. And how he’d smiled in the giving of it, with his words of “Yes, Margot, yes . . .” as he looked down at her with the gaze of God in his eyes.
She ran her finger around the rim of her glass, watching the wind play tag with the folded wings of the umbrella. She glanced at her watch. He wouldn’t be late. And just as she had the thought, he was standing there.
“You can sit down, you know.”
He gave her something that passed for a smile, pulling out a chair. And suddenly it seemed easier to drink than talk. Lifting her glass, she watched him get the waiter’s attention.
“You’re looking well, Margot.”
She laughed. At last able to speak and breathe. “Small talk doesn’t quite suit you, Michael . . . but thanks anyway.”
He had gotten his scotch, and was taking a sip.
“The last time . . .” she started.
“The last time . . . I can remember the last time.” He was smiling for real now.
And she was blushing like a schoolgirl. This wasn’t going according to plan. “The last time when we talked,” she tried again, “I might have given you the wrong impression.”
“I think I got everything right, Margot. Reese is the boys’ real father. I confuse them. And a move to Connecticut would be best for everyone concerned. Except me, of course.”
She shook her head. “Just what I thought. You heard the words, but didn’t understand a damn thing.”