Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 03 - Over the Edge

by Over the Edge

  'Toward the end it got worse,' he said. 'He kept demanding I buy more and more.'

  'Who knew about it besides Souza?'

  'No one.'

  'Nobody in the corporation?'

  'No. It was a personal account.'

  'How about your wife?'

  'No.'

  'Big thing like that and you didn't discuss it with her?'

  'I handle the finances in the family. We never talk about business.'

  'When did you decide to get rid of Chancellor?'

  Dwight shot out of his chair. 'I don't know a damned thing about that!'

  He backed away from the table, knocking his tumbler over in the process. Standing pressed against the panelled wall, he turned his head from side to side, as if searching for an escape route. Cash looked meaningfully at Milo, who gave his head a brief shake. The Beverly Hills detective stayed in his place, but his eyes were vigilant.

  'Why don't you sit down?' suggested Milo.

  'All I did was give in to blackmail,' said Dwight. 'I was exploited. I had nothing to do with anything else.'

  'Two people threaten to ruin your life. All of a sudden one's dead and the other's locked away in the booby hatch. Pretty convenient.'

  Dwight was silent for a moment. Then he gave an odd smile and said:

  'I figured I was entitled to a stroke of good luck.'

  Milo looked at him, then shrugged.

  'Hell,' he said, 'if you can live with it, I can.' Pulling a tape recorder out of the briefcase, he set it on the table. The flick of a switch evoked a hiss of white noise and over it the sound of a phone ringing. On the third ring the phone was answered.

  'Hello,' said a familiar voice.

  'It's Tully, Mr. Souza.'

  'Hello, Tully.'

  'Just called to tell you everything went perfect.'

  'I'm glad to hear that.'

  'Yeah, two birds with one stone. The broad - Vann -was shacking up with Mainwaring. We took care of both of them - '

  'No need to go into detail, Tully.'

  'Okay, Mr. Souza. Just wanted you to know it was clean - bare hands, no weapo- '

  'That's enough,' snapped Souza.

  Silence.

  'Thank you for calling, Tully. You did well.'

  'Anything else you want me to do, Mr. Souza?'

  'Not at the moment. Why don't you take a couple of days off? Relax, rest up.'

  'I could use some rest, Mr. Souza. My knuckles are real sore.' Phlegmy laughter.

  'I'm sure they are, my boy. I'm sure they are.'

  'Bye, Mr. Souza.'

  'Good-bye.'

  Milo turned off the recorder.

  'You goddamned bastard,' said Dwight, and he began moving toward Souza. Cash sprang up, took him by the arms, and held him back.

  'Settle down,' he said, and steered Dwight to the far side of the table, near the video screen. With a firm hand on a heaving shoulder, he pressed him into a chair. Staying on his feet, he took a watchful position behind the enraged man.

  Dwight brandished a fist at Souza and said, 'Bastard.'

  Souza gazed at him, bemused.

  'Any comments now?' Milo asked the attorney.

  Souza shook his head.

  'Would you like a lawyer before we go any further?'

  'Not at all. However, I could use a martini. May I fix one?'

  'Suit yourself,' said Milo.

  'Would anyone else care for a drink?' asked Souza.

  No one answered, so he smiled and leaned toward die portable bar, mixing gin and vermouth, slowly. Picking an olive out of a silver dish, he dropped it into the drink, watched it bobble, and sat back down. Taking a small sip, he ran his tongue over his lips, the picture of contentment.

  'Damn you, Horace,' croaked Dwight. 'Why the hell - '

  'Oh, shut up,' said Souza. 'You're being tiresome.'

  'The why is fairly mundane,' said Milo. 'Money, power, the usual stuff. 'It's the how that tripped us up. Until we found out about Mrs. Cadmus's special talents with drugs.'

  A fresh wave of horror swept over Dwight's face. He

  stared across the table at his wife, begging for denial. Instead, she lowered the veil and shot him a defiant look of cold disdain.

  'When did you first get the idea?' Milo asked her. She ignored him, and he continued:

  'The way I see it is you've hated Jamey for a long time. Been fantasising about getting rid of him. When Souza told you about Chancellor's little squeeze, the two of you decided the time had come to go ahead with it.'

  Heather's mouth began to tremble, and she seemed about to say something. Then Souza cleared his throat, and she turned toward him. The look that passed between them renewed her resistance, and her eyes narrowed and hardened, darkening to the colour of storm clouds. Sitting taller, she met Milo's gaze unflinchingly, looking through him as if he didn't exist. The entire exchange had taken a second, but Dwight hadn't missed it. He made a low, choking sound and sagged in his chair.

  'Talk about your two birds,' said Milo. 'You probably considered killing both of them outright but decided it might look too cute, maybe cause us to snoop around the family fortune. Not to mention probate court and inheritance tax. But murdering Chancellor and setting up Jamey as a psycho killer would have given Hubby access to the money without any of those hassles. A year later Jamey could die in jail or on the back ward of some hospital; at that point it wouldn't really make a difference. Couple of years later Hubby could meet with an unfortunate accident - maybe even go crazy and kill himself, 'cause that kind of thing runs in the family, doesn't it? Leaving you with all of it.'

  Heather laughed scornfully. Souza said, 'Ridiculous.'

  Milo nodded at me.

  'If anyone knew how to drive someone crazy, you did,' I told her, and gave a summary of her thesis research. She seemed unaffected by the recitation. But from the numb, sick look on Dwight's face, it was clear that he'd never taken the time to learn about his wife's scholarly efforts, had never seen her as other than the dutiful helpmate.

  'You did it subtly,' I said. 'Poisoned him slowly over a one-year period with belladonna clones, slipping the drugs into his food, his milk, his mouthwash, his toothpaste. Gradually elevating the dosages. Your knowledge of organic anticholinergics enabled you to pick drugs and mix them to evoke exactly the type of symptom you wanted -agitation one day, depression the next. Paranoia, auditory hallucinations, visual scrambling, stupor - you'd learned how to create all of them from the Indians in the jungle. And if you wanted something different, there was always the occasional chaser of a synthetic agent - LSD, PCP, amphetamine. Volunteering at the drug rehab centre gave you access to street drugs. The police have found two kids -so far - who've admitted selling to you.'

  She blinked rapidly. Said nothing.

  'Oh, God,' said Dwight. Cash watched him carefully.

  'Jamey's psychological history made things easy for you,' I continued. 'He'd never been well adjusted, so no one would be surprised when he went off the deep end. You took him to the point of severe psychosis and had him committed. Canyon Oaks was chosen because Souza knew Mainwaring could be manipulated with money. And you lost no time taking advantage of that. Marthe Surtees was brought in as a private-duty nurse, and she took over the poisoning - at your discretion. Meanwhile, Mainwaring was treating what he thought was schizophrenia with phenothiazines, which, when combined with the anticholinergics, toxified Jamey's nervous system further. Surtees says she gave you a daily report on his status. When things got too severe, you had her back off. When he started looking better, he got another jolt. Even his arrest and incarceration in the High Power block didn't put an end to it. Surtees had to bow out, but someone else took over. Someone who had a valid reason to visit him frequently. Someone who could sit with him for extended periods of time without attracting undue attention. Put a fatherly arm around his shoulder, give-him sips of juice. Someone who was supposed to be his advocate.'

  I glared at Souza.

  'Absurd,' he s
aid. 'Wild speculation.' Heather nodded in agreement but distractedly, as if performing by rote.

  'The two of you are quite a pair,' I said, focusing on Souza. 'While she worked on Jamey, you had Antrim commit the Lavender Slashings. Those seven boys were human sacrifices, picked at random, dumped like garbage. They died so that you could set up Chancellor and Jamey as sex killers, make Chancellor's death look like a party gone bad. Every detail was planned and premeditated. The bodies were dumped in a westerly pattern that reversed itself when Chancellor was killed - to make it appear as if the chain had been broken. The slashings took place on Thursday because Chancellor had to be murdered on Thursday - the night his bodyguard was off. You even provided a garrote which would incriminate Jamey: strips cut from Heather's lavender gown, which she took pains to tell me he'd stolen. Everything was going as planned until Jamey managed to knock out Surtees and call me.

  'Dr. Delaware' - Souza sneered - 'you flatter yourself with too much self-importance.'

  'Not really,' I said. 'I know I was nothing but another pawn. You knew I'd been Jamey's therapist, had been told he spoke highly of me, and you weren't sure if he'd blurted out anything important that night. So you decided to co-opt me. You even used those very words - "I want to co-opt you, Doctor" - playing with me. Because that's your view of life, a game. One big tournament with expandable players. Once I'd agreed to join your team, you made a point of emphasising that anything I learned would be confidential, ostensibly to protect Jamey but really to protect yourself.'

  'I simply reminded you of well-established ethical principles,' said Souza. 'Principles that you've violated egregiously.'

  'You strung me along,' I continued, 'until you were sure I knew nothing incriminating. Then you fired me. Funny thing is, by hiring me, you bought yourself some new trouble - Erno Radovic.'

  Mention of the bodyguard's name caused Dwight's eyes to widen. Cash peered down at him watchfully.

  'We'll never know why Radovic decided to poke around,' I said. 'Maybe it was loyalty to his boss. More likely he'd overheard Jamey and Chancellor talking about Bitter Canyon, suspected it might have something to do with Chancellor's murder, and decided to learn enough to put on a squeeze of his own. He might even have known about the diary, looked for it, but couldn't find it. When you hired me, he did a background check, found out I'd been Jamey's psychotherapist, and suspected the same thing you had: that I'd been privy to secret information. So he started following me, and I led him - unwittingly - to the diary. When he read it, he realised he was on to something big and called Dwight, demanding cash and letting him know he meant business by having the payoff take place on the road to Bitter Canyon. Dwight called you, and you dispatched Antrim and Surtees to take care of business.'

  'That's conspiracy to commit murder,' Milo told Dwight, who avoided scrutiny by covering his face with his hands. 'What'd you think when you found out Radovic had been gutted, Dwight? Another bit of good luck?'

  No answer.

  The silence stretched like taffy. Souza snapped it.

  'Sergeant,' he said, putting down his martini, 'it's been intriguing. Are we free to go now?'

  'Go?'

  'Exit. Leave. Fulfill our social obligations.'

  Milo concealed his incredulity behind an angry laugh.

  'That's all you have to say?'

  'Surely,' said the attorney, 'you don't expect me to take any of this seriously?'

  'Not impressed, huh?'

  'Hardly. You march in here with your paraphernalia and your battalion and present a loosely connected pastiche of ramblings, hypotheses, and wild speculation, the kind of case for which I could obtain a dismissal during prelims.'

  'I see,' said Milo, and he read him his rights.

  Souza listened, nodding approvingly, like a schoolmaster

  conducting an oral exam, remaining unruffled even after Milo had drawn his arms behind him and cuffed him. It was then that the full extent of his disturbance hit me.

  I shouldn't have been surprised, because it had been simmering inside him for forty years; the pain and humiliation of living under the shadow of another man. Of losing a woman to him only to see her atrophy and die, of running like a mutt to her sister, only to be rejected again. Of yearning for full partnership and having to settle for token rewards. The constant relegation to second fiddle.

  Black Jack Cadmus had understood what that kind of thing could do, and it had worried him.

  'So I figure down deep he's got to hate my guts,' he'd written, 'and I'm wondering how to diffuse it.' His solution had been cynical and self-serving: 'A little charity camouflaged as gratitude could go a long way. Got to keep H. in his place but also make him feel important.'

  But in the end it had been Souza who'd diffused it himself, defending against his feelings by prostituting himself emotionally, deifying the man he unconsciously despised and worshipping him dutifully, maintaining the adoration even after death: Faithful Retainer Horace, with no family of his own, always available for the crises that seemed to afflict the Cadmuses like some morbid allergy to life. On twenty-four-hour call, ever ready to serve.

  Reaction formation Freud had termed it: the embrace of noble deeds in order to mask festering impulses. It was a tough defence to maintain, like walking a tightrope backward. And it had become the modus operandi of Souza's adult life.

  But his anger when I'd asked him about his involvement with the Cadmus family was evidence that the grout around the edges of his defences had begun to come loose. Softened by the heat of pent-up rage. Eroded by time, opportunity, and the availability of another Cadmus woman. The release of his passions had turned him into a murderer, a life taker of monstrous proportions, but like all grotesques, he'd shunned his reflection.

  Now the mirror was being held before his eyes, and he'd

  withdrawn behind a wall of denial. A belle indifference that Marie Antoinette would have been proud of.

  Milo finished reading and looked from Heather to Dwight.

  'Eeny meeny miny,' said Cash, reading his mind.

  Before he made his choice, the door opened, and Cal Whitehead walked in, dressed in a bottle green suit with white-piped lapels and carrying a gleaming lizardskin case, its handle wrapped in clear plastic and tagged. Managing to chew gum and grin at the same time. Swinging the case onto the table, he said: 'How come all the long faces?'

  'Just wrapping up,' said Milo. 'Mr. Souza's not impressed with our case.'

  'Tsk-tsk,' said Whitehead. 'Maybe this'll help.'

  He donned plastic surgical gloves, pulled a tagged key out of his pocket, and inserted it into the lock of the case. 'You're a very confident lady,' he said to Heather, 'leaving this right in your bureau drawer, tucked underneath all those nice silk undies. Right next to your diaphragm.'

  A turn of his wrist opened the case. The interior was thick lavender velvet. Twenty hexagonal depressions had been formed in the velvet. Occupying each one was a small crystal jar held in place by a velvet strap, containing greyish and brownish powders and coarser substances that appeared to be dried leaves and twigs. Strapped to the lid of the case were a small porcelain mortar and pestle, a porcelain dish, three metal hypodermic syringes, and a platinum cigarette lighter.

  'Best-looking works I've ever seen,' said Whitehead. 'Very ladylike.'

  Heather pulled up her veil again. Stared at the evening purse. Souza looked up at the ceiling, seemingly oblivious. A log crackled in the fireplace.

  'Still not impressed?' asked Whitehead with feigned hurt that turned suddenly to genuine annoyance. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a stack of photographs.

  'Detective Whitehead,' said Milo, but before he could complete his sentence, the sheriffs investigator had fanned the photos like a deck of cards and begun dealing. First to Souza, who ignored them, then to Heather, who took one

  look and let out an agonised moan, a gargling, raw noise from deep in her belly, so primal and pain-racked it verged on the unbearable.

  Tearing a
t the pictures with palsied hands, she succeeded only in bending them. Moaning again, she lowered her head so that her brow was level with the table leg and began to dry-retch.

  'What are those?' said Dwight sharply.

  'You wanna see them, too?' said Whitehead.

  'Cal,' said Milo meaningfully.

  Whitehead dismissed him with the wave of a hand. 'Sure, why not?' And he tossed a handful in front of Dwight, who scooped them up, inspected them, and began to tremble violently.

  I understood the reactions because I'd seen the pictures: grainy black-and-white photographs, taken surreptitiously through door cracks and behind lace-curtained windows but clear enough to do damage - Heather and Souza making love. In his office, she lying belly down on his carved desk, skirt hiked over her narrow hips, placid and bored, as he pumped, squinting, grinning, from behind. In his bedroom, on a four-poster bed, she taking him in her mouth, wide-eyed, one spidery hand compressing a meaty buttock. In the back seat of the Rolls, a two-backed beast contorting amid a disarray of hastily unfastened clothing. And so on. A graphic chronicle of adultery, repugnant yet possessing the smarmy allure of crude pornography.