Wallflower j-3

by William Bayer

  She was such a nice woman, so clearly attuned to listening, that even though Janek was not in the mood to unburden himself, he soon found himself speaking of his sense of loss. He spoke, too, of his discomfort with thoughts of Jess's sex life, his overreaction when Glickman called her names, and the tight control he had had to exert upon himself with Greg Gale the night before. "It's as if suddenly I have to deal with a side of Jess I never thought about before." Janek realized he was speaking to this woman much as he had on the telephone to Monika.

  Dr. Archer nodded. Indeed, she understood. But then she wondered if it was really necessary for Janek to deal with that side of Jess at all.

  "I think it is," he said. "That's why I'm here. I need to know everything she did."

  "Do you really need to, Lieutenant?"

  "I think so. I'm surprised you'd even ask."

  Dr. Archer settled back. "You're saying that to pursue her killer, you must delve into every aspect of her character. I question whether that's true. My suggestion, and I make it with timidity and respect, is that you ask yourself why you're so disturbed by the intimate material you've so far uncovered. Is it Jessica you want to understand, or are you really seeking to understand yourself9"

  Janek stared at her. It was an interesting suggestion, but he'd come for information, not therapy or analysis.

  "What I'm saying," Dr. Archer continued, "and I emphasize I do so without making any kind of value judgment, is that you possibly were and perhaps still are overly involved with your goddaughter. Perhaps you had unconscious fantasies about her. Perhaps you longed for her in some way you don't fully understand. And now that she's been so tragically killed, you use that as an excuse to delve into the most intimate aspects of her life. I suppose what I'm really asking, Lieutenant, is whether you're the right person to be handling this investigation. I certainly don't presume to know the answer. I merely raise the question."

  A maddening, if fascinating, forty minutes, Janek thought as he emerged, somewhat shaken, on the street. Dr. Archer could not be faulted. She had acted professionally and shown herself protective of her patient.

  But instead of behaving in a cooperative manner, as is normally the case when a doctor is questioned by a detective, she had smoothly, even tenderly turned the interview around, with the result that it was not the victim but the investigator who had become its subject.

  He knew he would return, and he had no doubt he would eventually persuade her to cooperate. In the meantime, he was captivated by her insights. was what she'd said true? was Kit right? was he, Janek, too personally involved? Did he have to know everything? And how would the psychologist react when she discovered that his investigation was unauthorized?

  Arriving at Kit Kopta's office suite, on the nineteenth floor of the police building, Janek did not receive the usual warm reception. The crusty redheaded sergeant, who kept Kit's appointments and supervised her secretaries, treated him with a correct but cool distance. The chief, he was told, was busy in a meeting; he was to take a seat and wait. Janek sat and waited for nearly an hour, watching people come and go through the inner office doors. Finally the sergeant deigned to notice him again. "Okay, Lieutenant, the chief'll see you now," he said without bothering to meet Janek's eyes.

  Kit was seated behind her desk in a no-nonsense posture. She watched him closely as he walked in.

  Her scrutiny made him feel awkward. "Am I in trouble?" he asked.

  "What makes you think so?"

  "Making me wait an hour. I can read the undertones."

  "Screw the undertones, Frank. You've been working the Foy case after I ordered you to stay away from it, even after I begged you as a friend. You went up to Green kill and kicked a table at a convict?

  You've got to know how stupid that was! Then you intimidated some snotty college kid whose dad's got City Hall connections. A few minutes ago my sergeant got a complaint from Ray Boyce. What the hell are you doing seeing the girl's shrink without clearing it first?"

  She took a deep breath; clearly she was uncomfortable with her anger.

  "So to answer your question, yeah, Frank, you are in trouble. And not just with those other people. You're in trouble with me." "What am I supposed to say?" "Stop carrying on, Frank. Stay away from this case." "You're serious." Kit flushed. "Damn right I am."

  "Boyce is a mediocrity." "He's a competent detective." "He's too slow."

  "A lot of people think you're way too fast."

  Janek peered at her. "Are you telling me there isn't a chance you'll turn it over to me?"

  "Not a chance in hell, Frank. If there ever was, there sure isn't now."

  Janek nodded. He hadn't anticipated this, but he'd prepared for it nonetheless. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his badge, and slid it quietly across Kit's desk.

  She stared at it as if it were a piece of stale cake. "Is that supposed to mean you resign?" Janek nodded. She shook her head. "Cut the drama, Frank. What the hell's the matter?"

  "What's the matter? Laura and Stanton ask me to get the guy who killed their daughter. I tell them I'll do my best. Then it hits me I have to get him not just for them but for me. A girl I loved, a girl I helped bring up from the time she was a little kid, was savagely killed and mutilated. I'm an investigator. I know how to track down the kind of people who do such things. That's my trade. If you won't let me practice it as a police officer, I'm perfectly prepared to do it privately on my own."

  She studied him. "You were always convincing, Frank." She paused. "Know who you sound like?"

  "Who?" "Sam Spade." She grinned and, when he didn't return her smile, reclined back in her chair, her sharp Greek eyes fixing him. they stared at each other, two people who'd known each other for twenty years. Then Janek remembered that tough as Kit was, she was no rigid disciplinarian. "Something you're not telling me," he said quietly. She peered at him noncommittally. "You're much too adamant, Kit. Why ask the Dorances not to tell me about the glue? There's more here than you don't want me working on a case because it's, quote, personal. Better level with me now. Sooner or later I'll find out anyway."

  She stared across the room, as if weighing his suggestion. Then she focused on him again.

  "You're right about Boyce. He's slow and mediocre. Two things you're not, Frank. If I put you on Foy, there'll be a serious investigation. And at this point that's not what we want."

  Janek leaned forward. His heart was pounding. "Boyce's investigation isn't serious?"

  Kit shrugged. "Boyce doesn't know it, of course. But his investigation's bound to be a sham." Janek started to rise. "Blow up at the end if you want to, Frank. But first hear me out." He sat back down. "We're fairly certain we know who killed Jess. We don't know his name, but we know his work. He's done the same thing before. The FBI's been tracking him for a year."

  As she talked, Janek tried to concentrate. He didn't want to miss a word. But as hard as he tried, he couldn't shake off his fury. If he'd done as Kit had requested, played docile, stayed away from Glickman and Gale and Archer, he'd still be thinking about a random park killer.

  She was talking now about a crack FBI team led by a specialist in serial murder cases, an inspector named Harry Sullivan. Sullivan believed the Jess Foy homicide fitted the pattern of his Happy Families killer, so named because several of the victims were apparently happy families killed together in their homes.

  "they were all stabbed with ice picks. The stabbing's very specific. And the genitals of all the victims were glued," Kit said. "I mean all the victims, Frank. Men, women, and children. Obviously we're talking about a psycho. So far the FBI's kept it quiet. You know how these sex killers like publicity.

  Fortunately no reporter's put it together yet."

  Janek could barely control himself. "You weren't going to tell me?"

  "Of course I was. After you cooled down. I didn't want you working on it, Frank. You were way too angry. You should be angry.

  But we both know an angry cop is usually not a very effective one." />
  He was angry all right. For him the worst thing in the world was to be unknowledgeable. He never expected that Kit would deliberately keep him in the dark.

  But now she was speaking pensively, as if she were having second thoughts.

  "… okay, that's conventional wisdom. But sometimes anger can generate creativity. Maybe I was wrong." She looked at him. "I've known you a long time. You've never been one for the empty gesture. When you tell me you're willing to resign-well, I know you're serious. I can't put you over Boyce. Not now, not after what you've done. But I can probably assign you as liaison to Sullivan."

  Janek frowned. "I run investigations. I don't do liaison."

  "It's their investigation, Frank. You can only do what they'll allow." "You know that's shit!"

  "It doesn't have to be. And please don't give me the old line about how you hate the feds. Right now the case belongs to the FBI. If you want to work it, and I mean Happy Families, not just Jess, the only way is to work it with them." "On what basis?"

  "Why don't you go down to Quantico tomorrow, have a talk with Sullivan?

  If the two of you get along, I'm sure he'll find you a niche."

  "And if we don't get along?"

  Kit shrugged. "Boyce spins his wheels and Sullivan digs in. That's okay. We've had double investigations before. But a triple!

  Forget it, Frank. A triple's too arcane even for me."

  "So it's take it or leave it-that's what you're saying?"

  "Something like that." She paused. "I know you don't like it, but it's the best I can do."

  He thought it over. "All right," he said. "I'll see Sullivan.

  But I want Aaron with me."

  Kit gave that some thought, then agreed to it.

  "So," she asked, "have we got a deal?" they stood, shook hands; then she hugged him tight. "I'm sorry, Frank.

  It was a close call. I did what I thought was best."

  The morning he and Aaron flew down to D.C. the blue of the sky was so intense it made Janek's heart ache for Venice. they rented a sporty Pontiac out of National Airport, then drove south for an hour until they reached the military base at Quantico; then they crossed through the reservation and entered the grounds of the FBI Academy. Here an oversize, rigorously designed glass and stone building was neatly set on a campus of perfectly manicured grass. they were expected. The guard at the reception desk had their passes. While they waited for their escort, Aaron peered around the atrium.

  "Sure all this is for law enforcement, Frank? Looks more like IBM."

  Janek nodded. No crummy typewriters on rotten desks in roach- and rat-infested offices here. No drunks wandering in here off the street. This, he recognized, was law enforcement U.S. government style, practiced by men and women wearing dark suits and necklace badges working efficiently at computer stations. In this orderly temple of police science the windows were always washed and the floors were always shined and, when you needed something, you didn't have to beg; all you did was put through a requisition. Here, too, was the finest forensic crime lab in the world.

  The Behavioral Science Unit, where Sullivan was headquartered, was a rabbit warren of windowless offices. When Janek and Aaron arrived, they were told Sullivan was in a meeting, but one of his staff assistants, a Nordic muscleman named Hansen whose shirt collar bit into his neck, had been delegated to take them on a tour.

  Hansen led them down endless corridors, stopping from time to time to open a door and show them something dazzling: the director's paneled dining room; an Olympic-size swimming pool where agents were trained to swim while holding weapons; the world's largest, most efficient underground firing range. After an hour of this Janek grew impatient.

  "Look," he said to Hansen, "I don't mean to be rude, but I think we've seen enough."

  "There's a lot more, Lieutenant," Hansen said. "Inspector Sullivan especially wanted you to see Hogan's Alley." "What's that?"

  "It's where we train police officers from all over the country in criminal apprehension."

  "I think we can skip that," Janek said. "Please tell the inspector we've come a long way and now we're ready to work."

  Hansen's face fell. He stared at Janek with unconcealed hurt, then dodged into a nearby office to use the phone. Janek watched from the corridor as, once connected, Hansen cupped his hand over the receiver.

  "Probably telling Sullivan what uncouth louts we are," Aaron said.

  Janek shook his head. He didn't like the setup. The tour had been laid on to intimidate. Sullivan wanted to soften them up, make them feel outclassed.

  "All righty, Lieutenant," Hansen said, rejoining them in the corridor.

  "We're to go straight up to room two-oh-one."

  Another march along endless windowed corridors, then up a stairs, around a corner, past hundreds of doors leading into hundreds of little offices until, finally, they reached the briefing room.

  Sullivan was waiting for them. He was a stocky man about Janek's age, with an affable smile, beautifully coiffed iron gray hair, pink, well-shaven cheeks, and tiny, twinkling ice blue eyes. Though he spoke slowly with a slight drawl, this was no Ray Boyce. His gestures were sharp, his little eyes were quick, and he came off as shrewd and sawy.

  But there was a cockiness about him that inspired in Janek a nearly instant dislike. He hadn't wanted to detest Sullivan. He'd come with the expectation that they would treat each other with respect.

  But the way the man stood, his back just a little too straight, his head angled upward, his chin stuck out just a little more than necessary, reminded Janek of a ' prison warden trying unsuccessfully to conceal his swagger.

  He only hoped this first impression would be belied.

  The briefing room was state-of-the-art with the latest in audiovisual aids. There was a polished white marble conference table with glasses, water pitcher, yellow legal pads, and sharpened pencils arranged like place settings for a banquet. Two tabbed briefing books, with Janek's and Aaron's names embossed on the covers, were centered perfectly before two deep upholstered swivel chairs with electronic gear built into the armrests. When Janek sat in his, he felt like a millionaire ready to deep-sea fish off the back of a yacht.

  "Gentlemen," Sullivan announced, in a sonorous airline pilot's voice, "I thought the best approach would be to have members of my staff brief you on particular aspects of HF. Then, when you've got a handle on the cases, I'll rejoin you for the overview."

  "HF-can you believe they call it that?" Aaron whispered.

  Janek believed. The FBI was notorious for its abbreviations and acronyms. But he preferred HF to Happy Families, which smacked of a headline in one of the national tabloids: HAPPY FAMILIES

  KILLER STRIKES AGAIN.

  The briefing that commenced, part lecture, part slide show, consisted of a procession of crisp, well-rehearsed young forensic analysts, each with his own area of expertise, doing his stint with pointer and easel, then yielding to the next. they were shown detailed color slides of the five Happy Families crime scenes. People with stiffened limbs and ice picks protruding from their ears, eyes, and throats lay at odd angles in domestic settings.

  All were naked from the waist down, having been stripped in order to be glued. Janek found himself turning his head, then looking at the pictures obliquely with only one eye. He wasn't certain why he did this; it was a habit he'd acquired over the years. Perhaps, he thought, if only one eye were,exposed, the gruesome images would be less deeply engraved upon his memory.

  The agents used staccato tones to describe each set of victims along with details of the abuses each had suffered:

  Miss Bertha Parce, an elderly retired school teacher, found murdered in her bed in a single room-occupancy hotel in Miami Beach, Florida Cynthia Morse, a wealthy divorc6e, killed over Memorial Day weekend, with her two visiting grown daughters, in her luxury condominium in Seattle, Washington James and Stuart MacDonald, two aging playboy-type brothers, slain in their shared weekend house in Kent, Connecticut The Robert Wexler family
(husband, wife, three children) killed in their suburban ranch-style home in Fort Worth, Texas The Anthony Scotto family (husband, wife, and two teenage sons) slaughtered in their Cape Cod style home just outside Providence, Rhode Island There was also a homeless man who didn't seem to fit the pattern, though he, too, had been stabbed and glued, then left in an alley in the Alphabet City section of Manhattan.

  The presentation notably did not include anything about Jess. Janek wondered whether this was because the team was being considerate of his feelings or because it simply hadn't worked up that part of the briefing yet.

  At exactly twelve-thirty a break was called, and Janek and Aaron were invited to join the analysts for a working lunch in the staff cafeteria.

  But as it turned out, the conversation there had little to do with the case. Rather, the agents solicited war stories from New York, for which they exchanged no personal revelations, only other war stories they'd heard from other visiting investigators.

  Later, in the men's room, Aaron asked Janek what he thought was going on.

  "They're looking to see if we're team players. Teamwork's what the FBI's all about."

  Aaron laughed. "We're hotshots, ain't we, Frank?" Then, more seriously: "I feel out of place. Maybe it's the clothes. they all dress so nice. Even some of the ladies wear ties."

  The afternoon session concluded the presentation of cases, after which their tour guide, Hansen, reappeared with another muscle-bound assistant to demonstrate the stabbing method. The men acted it out several times at normal speed and then in slow motion: a violent thrust with an ice pick from under the chin through the roof of the mouth, the ear hole, or the eye socket and then into the brain. The fact that the pick was always left embedded was, according to Hansen, "classic commando technique."

  The star speaker of the afternoon was Dr. David Chun, brought in to explicate the killer profile. Janek had heard of him. The brilliant young Asian-American was not an FBI employee but a forensic psychiatrist on the faculty at Harvard Law School, who had testified at numerous high-profile criminal trials around the country. From the flattering way Sullivan introduced him, it was clear he considered Chun a major asset.