by Sydney Bauer
‘Then consider me your new Shakespeare, Katherine,’ he said, his lips now mere inches from her own. ‘And from here on in, you can stick to my script, the one I am writing especially for you.’
‘Jesus,’ said David, pulling one of the headphones from his ears. ‘That Katherine is something.’
‘She is one tough cookie,’ agreed Joe as they listened to the disconcerting sounds of Logan and Katherine kissing. ‘And we owe her big time,’ he added.
David nodded, his stomach turning with a mixture of revulsion and guilt for forcing Katherine into this corner in the first place. ‘Do you think it was enough?’
‘If it wasn’t, this psycho is more in control than we figured. If Barbara is right, the guy should be fighting some very powerful urges right now.’
‘He’ll hold on to them until after tomorrow. Considering what Katherine just told him, he’ll be bursting to have his say in court.’
‘And then . . . ?’ asked Joe, perhaps needing to hear it one more time.
‘Then he’ll go for his guns, and we’ll be playing shadow every step of the way.’
‘Unless that unknown factor rears its ugly head.’
‘What unknown factor?’ asked David.
‘Human nature,’ said Joe. ‘The abandonment of logic, the need to hunt, the need to protect, the need to win.’
In that moment, just two miles across the Charles, the ‘unknown factor’ was packing herself a bag. Nora Kelly, had just received another call from Tracey Scabo, who had told her that Miss McCall had telephoned once again to assure her she was fine, but also once again refused to divulge her whereabouts. But the savvy Ms Scabo had then ‘Star 69-ed’ the last call received, and come up with another 508 number, also based in Chatham.
‘The number belonged to a restaurant known as the Captain’s Table,’ Scabo had told Nora. ‘They confirmed an elderly woman of Deirdre’s description had made a call after a light dinner – before taking off on foot.’
‘Chatham is a small community, dear, she has to be staying nearby.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Scabo. ‘I think so too, because the woman at the restaurant said that this was her third meal there, which means she could well . . .’
‘Head for the same restaurant again,’ Nora had finished.
And so, knowing there was little she could do in the office, given Arthur and Sara had completed their motion requesting the exhumation of Malcolm Tyler’s remains, and David was busy in court, Nora decided to head for Chatham first thing in the morning – in the hope of tracking down Deirdre McCall by nightfall. If she could just talk with the woman she was sure she could convince her that they had the situation in hand. With a little luck she figured she could have McCall safely back here in Boston by this time tomorrow. And she was Irish – and they were always in luck.
80
‘The Commonwealth calls Doctor Victor Siebel,’ said Amanda Carmichael, calling her first witness of the day. Siebel was the child psychologist she had hired to examine J.T. and Chelsea Logan, and David knew they were in for a beating.
Carmichael looked particularly fresh and confident this morning – in a pale pink suit and flat ballerina shoes. Her hair was down for the first time all week, and this softer look told David the woman was trying to humanise herself for today’s ‘emotional’ examination of Doctor Jeffrey Logan. He knew the ADA would want to be seen as a sympathetic bystander when it came to Logan’s testimony, simply guiding the skilled orator through the events of the night of eleventh May, allowing his words to wash over the jury who, there was no doubt, were already true believers – devoted Doctor Jeff sympathisers who wanted nothing more than to help this helper of others to finally regain his life.
‘Where is he?’ asked Arthur, bending across J.T. to whisper in David’s ear.
‘Don’t worry, he’ll be here,’ said David, who had woken his boss early to bring him up to speed on the events of the past night. Jeffrey Logan was yet to make an appearance at court this morning, but David was not concerned. Joe already had two uniforms tailing the famous TV doctor and as of five minutes ago, his car, along with the driver he had hired to chauffeur him around all week, was still sitting safely just inside the back garage of his Beacon Hill home.
‘Joe’s got him covered,’ whispered David. ‘Logan’s probably going over his lies for this afternoon’s one man show.’
Arthur nodded as they both refocused on the events at hand.
Child psychologist Victor Siebel was a cold and opinionated man who seemed to have an answer for everything. Unlike many in his chosen profession he did not appear conducive to the nuances of variation in human behaviour. Rather, Doctor Siebel was one of those annoying individuals who viewed every diagnosis in black and white – and had no problem with labelling David’s two clients as amoral assassins from the outset.
‘They are sociopaths,’ he said, plain and simple. ‘And no, it is not uncommon for one family to produce two such psychological misfits. Psychiatrists have long believed there is a gene for sociopathy so it only makes sense that every now and again, one family spawns two or more offspring of similar . . .’
‘Objection,’ said David. ‘Your Honour, I understand the witness, at the prosecution’s request, is giving his own clinical analysis of my clients’ psychology.’ David wanted to make the point that this man had been hired specifically by the ADA. ‘But I would ask he refrains from talking about the two teenagers next to me as misfits or spawn or . . .’
‘He’s right, Doctor Siebel,’ said Kessler. ‘Perhaps you would like to rephrase without the dehumanising vernacular.’
‘Your Honour.’ It was Carmichael’s turn. ‘Doctor Siebel is highly experienced in his field of child psychoanalysis, and as such his terminology . . .’
‘Must be such that it is accessible for the jury and does not unduly prejudice their view of the defendants,’ finished an obviously frustrated Kessler. For some reason David got the sense Miss Pretty-In-Pink was pissing the judge off this morning. ‘The objection is sustained. Move on, Miss Carmichael.’ Which the ADA did.
Moments later Siebel was giving his extremely harsh analysis of both Logan children – two kids he had visited for barely an hour apiece in the past two months. And while David continued to object as much as was reasonably possible, he knew the jury were absorbing every word of Siebel’s testimony – their eyes flicking from Siebel, to J.T., to Chelsea, their brows folding into knots as Siebel’s disturbing diagnosis unfolded.
‘Sociopaths such as the Logan children do not possess the normal characteristic of basic humanness known as empathy. Without empathy an individual cannot possibly interpret or process the feelings of another. And without the instinctive internal barrier which signals when a moral line is crossed, there is nothing preventing them from carrying out wanton desires on innocents.’
‘Jesus,’ said David under his breath.
‘And as for the issue of rehabilitation?’ asked Carmichael.
‘As much as we as a society would like to believe that criminals can and should be rehabilitated, Miss Carmichael, especially criminals as young as this, the point is moot when it comes to certain individuals, those who show a pattern of sadistic impulses and who clearly lack compassion for anyone but themselves. A sociopath does not commit a one-time impulse of crime to never return to their perverse behaviour; they live a pattern of crimes. And while some sociopaths can be deterred, none can be rehabilitated.’
‘Objection, Your Honour.’ David could take it no longer.
‘I understand your frustration, Mr Cavanaugh, but you will have your opportunity to examine this witness on cross.’
But David was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder, as a court clerk handed him a message written on white Superior Court notepaper.
‘We have a problem,’ it said – and David knew it was from Joe.
‘What’s up?’ asked David as soon as Joe answered his cell. He was striding down the deserted corridors of the Superior Court’s level nine.
Most of the other courts were still in session, but Kessler had granted his request for an early lunchtime adjournment.
‘It’s Logan. He’s gone.’
‘What?’ And David felt the chill rush up inside him. ‘How? When?’
‘We don’t know. His driver was sitting in the garage in Logan’s car but it was too far up the drive for us to see. When he finally pulled out, my uniforms followed him, assuming he was taking Logan to court. But he headed south-west, took the car to a Mercedes service centre in Westwood. Our guys tracked him all the way before realising that he was travelling solo.’
‘And did they ask him . . . ?’
‘They radioed in and I told them to approach the driver. And the driver told them Logan called him late last night and asked him to come by early and take the Merc in for a service.’
‘But then why was he waiting in the garage?’
‘Logan told him to turn the engine over a few times to warm it up – said he had to run it for a good half-hour so the battery wouldn’t go flat.’
‘Shit,’ said David.
‘I know,’ said Joe, who hesitated before going on. ‘And David . . . ?’
‘What is it?’ he asked, hearing the apprehension in Joe’s voice.
‘Frank and I,’ Joe began, ‘we’ve been calling Katherine de Castro all morning – you know, to check on how she is doing.’
David and Joe had not entered Katherine’s house after Logan had left the night before. They wanted to keep their distance in case he returned, but they did call and thank her profusely for her amazing ‘performance’, telling her she could well be the key to their finally bringing Logan down.
‘But she’s not picking up,’ Joe went on. ‘It’s now after midday and she still isn’t picking up.’
‘Maybe she’s gone out?’ David suggested in desperation, instinctively moving towards the elevators.
‘Maybe. But just in case, we’re heading over there,’ said Joe, just as David entered the elevator. He used his pointer finger to pound the ‘G’ button with determination.
‘How far away are you?’
‘Ten minutes or so,’ he replied.
‘I’ll see you there.’
Eleven minutes and thirty-two seconds later, just as Sara was arriving at Suffolk County Superior Court to file their motion to exhume to Judge Kessler personally, and Arthur was receiving a text from his AWOL co-counsel that read ‘something’s come up – no time to elaborate, need you to X Siebel’, and Nora Kelly was travelling south on Route 3 to Cape Cod, and Joe Mannix and Frank McKay were rounding the corner of Katherine de Castro’s Back Bay street, David was slamming the door of a Checker cab in front of Katherine’s brownstone and running towards her milky sandstone steps.
‘Katherine,’ he called. ‘Katherine, it’s David, are you there?’
‘Her car’s gone,’ said Joe, catching his breath as he ran up the steps with Frank close behind him. ‘We did a circle around the back; her garage door is open but her SUV is nowhere in sight.’
‘How do you know she drives an SUV?’ asked David, in the very least reassured that de Castro could simply be running an errand.
‘It’s a Lexus. I checked with the DMV.’
David nodded, his eyes meeting Joe’s and then Frank’s.
‘Katherine.’ He banged again.
‘Katherine,’ joined in Joe.
And David knew that, despite the absence of de Castro’s car, the two men beside him were also fearing the worst.
Frank asked them both to move back, and neither of them gave him an argument. And then a surprisingly strong McKay ran at Katherine’s bright red door with his right shoulder, breaking the lock on his very first try. Within seconds they were inside, Joe and Frank drawing their guns, David leading the way as he broke into a sprint down the corridor. His legs were heavy and his heart was fast and his lungs held tight to the balloon of air now trapped like prisoner inside of him. And then he lost his footing, his right leg beginning to slide as the carpeted hallway gave way to the expensive limestone tiles. He caught himself on the living room doorframe, his eyes tracking down to the dark red slick beneath him, before lifting up, in horror, at the vision of carnage beyond.
Katherine de Castro was sitting upright on her bright white designer sofa, her perfect posture frozen with rigor mortis. Her eyes were open. The single bullet hole centred between her perfectly manicured brows. The blood tracked down her face in two separate tributaries which made it appear as if she was crying, before spilling over the sofa, onto the crisp white rug and finally into the pool that David had slipped on the moment he came through the door. And on her lap she held what appeared to be a ball of sequins, or some other colourful ornament that caught the light from the far window and sent miniature bursts of rainbows dancing across the room. And David saw that it was the gun purse that Sara had told him about, and realised that Logan had personalised his kill.
‘This is my fault,’ he gasped as Joe Mannix moved around him, Joe’s own lungs letting out an audible sigh as his brown eyes fixed on the corpse of the brave, selfless ‘heroine’ before them.
‘I’m the one that set up the meet and greet,’ said Joe.
‘And I’m the one who helped wire her up,’ said Frank.
There was silence then, the only sound coming from the single fly that had made its way through the window to settle on Katherine’s right cheek.
‘Logan is a dead man,’ said David after a time.
And for once, Joe Mannix could not bring himself to disagree.
81
David jumped, his cell phone exploding in a series of vibrations in his top shirt pocket. He had turned off the sound in preparation for his day in court and now its tremors were jolting him back to reality, reminding him that it was time for action – that he needed to MOVE!
‘Sara,’ he said, her name coming up on the front of his blue-screened cell. David felt his heart sink – how could he tell her? She was the one who convinced de Castro to wire up in the first place. It was her idea, for Christ’s sake – her brilliant, disastrous idea.
‘David, where are you?’
‘Ah . . . I’m not far . . . I’m with Joe and Frank and . . .’ he could not bring himself to say it. ‘You’re ringing about the exhumation motion.’
‘No, I mean, yes, Kessler granted our motion but . . . that’s not why . . . I’m . . . David, I’m worried, I got a message on my phone and . . .’
‘What is it?’ he asked, waiting for the next bomb to drop.
‘It’s Nora, she’s gone to Chatham. She said she knew we were all busy this morning so she went into the office and put our phones on voice mail and left messages on our cells . . . She got a call from that Tracey Scabo, something about a restaurant that McCall is frequenting in Chatham – and she’s going there, David, to try to pull her in.’
David had to steady himself on the doorjamb once again, as the fear rose in his belly.
‘David,’ she said, after he did not respond, ‘I know she feels responsible for everything that has happened to McCall, and I know it isn’t her fault but . . .’
David swallowed hard, knowing that on top of everything else, Sara was also about to fall headfirst into that soul-wrenching quagmire known as guilt.
‘She is desperate to make things right, David,’ Sara continued. ‘To rescue McCall before she puts herself in any further danger. But if Logan is going to head up there after his testimony, we don’t have much time to find her, and bring her back and . . .’
‘Logan’s already left,’ he said then, knowing there was no way to avoid it.
‘What?’
‘We think he left late last night and most likely took Katherine de Castro’s car.’
‘What?’ she repeated, and he could hear her brain ticking over in panic. ‘But why would Katherine let him take her car? She didn’t call us to tell us. She would have . . .’
And then David closed his eyes, knowing full well that his clever fiancée had worked it out.
‘David, where are you?’ she asked for a second time, her voice now dropping into a low, hesitant croak.
‘We’re at Katherine’s.’
‘Oh God,’ she said.
‘I am so sorry, Sara.’
And then it was as if he could see her – clutching her swollen middle as she collapsed against a wall or a chair or . . .
‘This wasn’t your fault.’
But all she could manage was, ‘Oh God . . . Nora.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I am on my way.’
Tick, tock, tick, tock. It was almost as if David could see it – one of those red digital clocks from those cliffhanger TV shows counting down to when the bomb would inevitably go off, unless he could cut the right wire, unless he could intervene with fate.
‘I need your car,’ he said to Joe.
‘No,’ said Joe, anticipating his question. ‘At least not yet. I’m coming with you.’
‘No,’ argued David as the three of them moved further into the kitchen, away from the sight that was a lifeless Katherine de Castro – sensing that the regrets would have to come later, and that this was a time to MOVE! ‘You need to secure the crime scene. You need to trace this one back to Logan.’
‘Martinelli and his CSR team are on their way. As soon as they get here I can brief them.’
‘You are head of homicide, Joe.’
‘You’re right!’ Joe was yelling now, placing his handgun onto the kitchen counter before he took a step towards David. ‘And given I have just played a part in the perpetration of a crime I have dedicated my entire fucking career towards preventing, my priority is stopping this carnage now.’ Joe took a breath. ‘Logan is out in the open now, David. Our little plan worked. He gave the fuck in to his urges and you might as well be wandering around with a huge fucking X on your forehead.’
‘Nora’s gone to Chatham.’
‘What?’
‘She got a new lead on McCall, she’s going to try to bring her back in.’
‘Fuck!’ Joe shook his head and ran his white knuckled hand over his thick black hair. ‘Jesus.’