The Last Place

by Laura Lippman

  “I’m sure there was. But I’m asking, Weren’t there people who didn’t throw the quarter in the basket?”

  “You know, one person who ran that toll ended up killing a cop. A stupid kid driving a stolen bakery truck, all the way from New York City. It wasn’t a joke, what I did. It mattered.”

  “I know, I know. But there’s a point to where I’m trying to go here. Weren’t there people—fine upstanding people in nice cars—who blew through the toll?”

  “Yeah, sure. On occasion.”

  “And didn’t they always, always, have a reason for why they did something wrong? Hadn’t they decided the rules didn’t apply to them?”

  Carl got the point, smiled.

  “Rationalization,” Tess said. “That’s what really separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. It’s the opposite of Darwinism. Animals do what they have to do to survive, but it’s all instinct. Humans do what they want to do, then work backward, trying to make a case for why it was essential to their survival.”

  “So does Eric-Alan have a reason for what he does?”

  “I bet he believes he’s justified on some level.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he’s a monster.” The sun had dropped below the horizon with astonishing speed, and Carl’s features were not as visible in the murky light. “Some people are just born evil.”

  “You don’t believe in ghosts, but you do believe in monsters?”

  “I believe in evil, yes.”

  “I’m not so sure. It’s not like there’s evil in one’s DNA. Something has to form your character.”

  “But now you’re doing what you just accused other people of doing— rationalizing. My mommy did this, my daddy did that, and I’m all mixed up. I’ve got no patience with people like that. I don’t have much use for psychiatry in general.”

  “Well, me either, but—shit.”

  “Am I coming in too fast?”

  “No. I just remembered I had an appointment today with my own shrink. It totally slipped my mind. And what do you want to bet that the fact I forgot is only going to be used as proof of my hostility toward the whole process?”

  Did she really think he wouldn’t know she had been there? His mother kept in touch with her old friends. It was only a matter of hours before one of them happened to ring up and say—casually, almost as an after-thought—that some strangers had come around, asking about Becca Harrison. Which set her off, and now she was on his phone, almost in a panic.

  “Don’t worry, Ma. It wouldn’t matter why they came or what they asked. You know no one there would confide in strangers about anything.”

  “But they spoke of her by name—”

  “And they think she’s someone they can find.”

  This gave his mother pause. Even on the buzzy, unreliable line of his cell phone, he could tell she was turning this thought over, sifting through it the way a gardener might spade a patch of earth. She had such a good mind. He liked to think he had inherited this quality from her, this ability to analyze a problem. Then again, he often wondered if her tendency to examine things so thoroughly had come from years of picking crabs, separating out the meat from the waste in those small bodies. In which case, the trait could not be inherited. But it could be learned, through careful study.

  Natural selection—the words came back to him from seventh grade social studies, swimming through the years, as fresh and sacrilegious as they had been the day he first learned them. He had come home from school, eager to tell his mother about how evolution really worked, how the giraffe had not grown a long neck, but that the long neck had come to be favored and the short-necked giraffes died out.

  “Don’t talk that trash in front of your father,” she had warned.

  But his father, when he came home that evening, had said it made sense. “If these crabs get any smarter,” he said, “they’ll be on the skiffs and I’ll be burrowing in the mud, trying to keep them from catchin‘ me. What’s the point in being married to the best picker on the island if I can’t bring her enough crabs to pick?”

  She wasn’t the best. That was a devoted husband’s hyperbole. But she was good. A woman like his mother, who had picked for a living, could do things to a crab that no casual tourist feaster could ever do. Her personal best was fifteen pounds in an hour. But it wasn’t her speed that made her exceptional, it was her thoroughness. There was nothing left on a crab when his mother got through with it.

  Technically, what his mother and all the island women did was illegal. The crab meat they picked was not inspected by the state’s health inspectors. They all knew what it was like to have a carton seized, to see a day’s work taken away. How they hated those unhealthy-looking workers from the health department, those prissy, pinch-faced spoilers.

  For the men, the enemy was the Natural Resources police, who enforced the always-changing rules on crabbing and fishing. Growing up on the island was not unlike living in a colony or some close-held territory. They had a hard-earned skepticism of all authority except God. So even if anyone there had ever questioned the not-quite-told story of Becca’s flight, all those years ago, they would never speak of it to outsiders.

  But they hadn’t questioned it. And they did not speak of it, even among themselves, because they would not want to hurt his mother, presumed to be in denial ever since the day his boat was found, drifting on its own, near Shank Island. Suicide was such a shameful thing. Of course, almost as shameful was the possibility that an island boy like himself had drowned by accident, had made a miscalculation when the storm came up. Confronted with those two possibilities, people chose simply not to speak of what had happened to Audrey’s boy. After all, she had just lost her husband to bad blood and now she had no boy. She had carried this falsehood fifteen years now, constant and unswerving. It was only lately that she seemed to worry so much.

  She began again. “June Petty said—”

  “June Petty. Never has a woman been so aptly named.”

  “June said there was two of them. She thought they might be DNR, but they never showed no badge or said exactly why they wanted to find Becca.”

  He knew, but he could not tell his mother. There were only so many secrets she could be expected to keep. She did not know how Eric Shivers had come magically back to life, much less why. She knew he used an array of fake names but assumed those were for his business. His mother had no problem with what he did for a living. A person whose ancestral home was almost swallowed by the bay tends to have more respect for nature, but also less. Everything the earth produces must be allocated and reallocated. Survival of the fittest.

  “Did June say what they looked like?” he asked, as if he did not know. His mother would not expect him to know.

  “The man was orangey, like a Cheshire cat, and speckled as an egg. The woman was tall, with a braid. June said she just missed being pretty.”

  “June Petty,” he said, with more heat than he intended, “thinks everyone just misses being pretty, except herself and her daughters. I wonder if she’s looked in the mirror lately. She was a hag when God was a boy.”

  “She was the best-looking woman on the island in her prime.”

  “Which is quite an achievement when you consider that the island had maybe—oh, three hundred and fifty people in June’s heyday.”

  “What’s got into you, son? It’s not like you to be so sharp.”

  “Nothing.” He backs away from the anger. “I’m sorry, Ma. It just bothers me that June ran to the phone, eager to tell you all this. She likes… pitying you, always has. First when Dad got sick, and then after I—” He doesn’t need to finish the thought. “Are you sure you weren’t the prettiest girl on the island and June Petty’s just trying to get you back after all these years?”

  His mother laughs, the sweetest sound he has heard all week. Just then, the telltale buzz of a bad cell begins. He is losing her. He says good-bye hurriedly, hating the feel of being cut off. Whatever happens, he never forgets to tell his mother “Good-bye�
� and “I love you.”

  He slips the phone into the well beneath the radio and drives on. It’s raining today, and the temperature is barely in the fifties. The past few days had been sunny and almost hot, close to eighty. A typical spring in these parts. He knows a moment of envy and resentment: She has been to the island, a place denied to him now for fifteen years. He doesn’t even dare to go to Crisfield or Princess Anne. Those who would seek to punish him will never be able to equal the pain of this exile from the place he loves above all others.

  The end of April in Harkness. The hackberry trees would be coming into their own just now, and the marsh grass would be that soft shade of green he has never found on the mainland. It is too early for the snowball bushes to bloom, but they would be well on their way. Most of all, there would be the excitement that slowly builds when the rush is imminent as the blue crab mating season gets under way and the jimmy starts to court the sook, holding her to him for hours and hours. Beautiful swimmers indeed.

  He wonders if her city-bred eyes and nose could begin to absorb the teeming bounty that was around her in those few hours. He could teach her. He could show her.

  He has so much to teach her.

  CHAPTER 21

  “I charge for missed appointments. I thought I made that clear at our first meeting. You must cancel twenty-four hours in advance, or you will be billed in full.”

  “But in the case of an emergency—” Tess protested.

  “I do not consider driving to the Eastern Shore at the last minute to be an emergency.”

  “Sorry,” she said, sullen as a child, reduced once again to pulling on the strings of the old wing chair. “I’m just trying to track down a serial killer, so I came in on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. God forbid that should make me a day late for this court-ordered charade.”

  She had been more authentically contrite when their session started. But Dr. Armistead had been maddeningly indifferent to her explanation, which struck her as much more interesting than most of the mundane utterances made in therapy. Carl had a point: It was all my-mother-this, my-father-that. Yet Dr. Armistead had been downright incurious about her work. All he wanted to know was why she had not thought to call, how she could have forgotten her appointment.

  At times he had seemed more like an aggrieved suitor than a doctor.

  “We all think our work is important, Tess,” he began now.

  “Yes, only I’m right. My work is important, okay? This man has killed at least two women and stolen two identities. He could have three–four victims by now. He could be in another relationship, weeks, even days away from killing a new woman.”

  Armistead had a habit of clasping his hands and holding two index fingers to his lips, where he tapped them softly. A tell, Tess thought, but what was he telling?

  “Let’s talk about you and impulse control, Tess.”

  “Impulse control? I don’t think I have a problem with that.”

  “I didn’t say you did. I’m not here to say you have this or that problem. But can you identify any patterns in your behavior when it comes to impulsive action? Do you think you are more prone, or less prone, to following every novel idea that pops into your head?”

  “No. No, I don’t.” But her own body language made her realize what a brat she was being. She had slumped in the chair until her chin was on her chest and her legs were stretched out in an adolescent’s defiant posture. Sheepishly, she straightened up and made eye contact with the doctor. Although eye contact was a bit of misnomer, for she was always distracted by those bristling eyebrows, so much more compelling than the small deep-set eyes beneath them.

  “I think I have a lot of self-control,” she said, but her voice was more tentative.

  “How about the night you attacked Mickey Pechter?”

  “I didn’t attack him.”

  “Excuse my use of the term, then. But can you see any way in which your actions were impulsive, that things escalated from what I’ll call emotional momentum. Is it fair to say you got carried away?”

  “Carried away by what?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me. I might describe it as… a sense of righteousness, perhaps. A certitude that your actions were justified.”

  “But they were.”

  “Perhaps. The question of whether you did the right thing doesn’t interest me as much as whether you have a tendency to think you’re always doing the right thing.”

  He was accusing her of being like the people she had described to Carl, the ones who thought they could always justify their own actions. But she wasn’t one of them. Was she?

  “I’m trying to catch a killer.”

  Dr. Armistead’s index fingers tapped faster on his lips. “I thought the state police were in charge of the investigation and you were merely assisting them.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Tess.” She did not like to hear her name on his lips, although she couldn’t say why. It sounded presumptive, as if he thought he knew her, and this was only the third time they had spoken. He did not know her, could not know her, not after three sessions, not after thirty.

  “Tess, I’m trying to get you to think about your own actions. I’m not saying you are right or wrong. But you need to look at your behavior as part of a larger whole, that’s all. It could be helpful to you.”

  She did not agree but it seemed easier to placate, to pretend. “I know.”

  “Now, how do you feel when you think about this serial killer?”

  “I feel that there are two people who ask people how they feel—psychiatrists and television reporters.”

  “What are you inferring?”

  “Nothing.” It amused Tess that even an educated person would confuse infer with imply. Then again, she had heard smart people, people she actually liked, misuse hopefully and comprise. It drove her mad. Now there was a thought: A serial killer motivated by poor grammar. She imagined Eric Shivers/Alan Palmer whiling away his days in domestic bliss, only to have Tiffani or Lucy come in and say between you and I.

  She smiled at her own folly, then remembered these were real women, real victims, and regretted her black humor. A coping device, one used by reporters and cops alike. She often thought Jonathan would have a lot of funny things to say about his own death.

  “Do you have any idea,” Dr. Armistead asked, “how much happens in your face in the span of a few seconds?”

  “No.” She always imagined she had a poker face, but perhaps that was only when she was playing poker.

  “If your feelings—sorry I keep returning to that topic, but it is what I do—if your feelings were any clearer, you’d be a danger to yourself.”

  “I guess I’ll have to work on it.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.” He smiled, as if he had won a point, although Tess wasn’t sure of the game they were playing. Continual one-upmanship? “I’ll waive the fee for the missed appointment this one time, given that you rescheduled so promptly. But don’t let it happen again. If it’s a true emergency—and we’ll have to reach a mutual understanding about what constitutes an emergency—we’ll work it out.”

  “What about the terms of my probation? Do I get reported to Judge Halsey if I miss a session?”

  “Not this time. But if it were to become a pattern—” Dr. Armistead did not need to finish this congenial threat. He wrote the time and date of their next appointment on a small card and handed it to her. “I’ll also have my secretary leave a message on your voice mail the day before, just to nudge your memory.”

  “Why not? The dentist does.”

  “And, as I keep trying to convince you, I’m a doctor like any other.”

  His voice was soft, persuasive. If she didn’t have to look at him, Tess thought, she might like him better. It was such a nice voice, deep and rumbly. A doctor like any other. Yeah, sure. Frankly, she’d rather have leeches applied to her body.

  “Can you tell what I’m thinking?” she demanded of Carl, when she arrived at the state police barracks t
wenty minutes later.

  The question seemed to make him irritable. “I barely know you. If I’m doing something that bugs you, just say it right out. I can’t stand the way women hint about stuff.”

  “No, I mean in general. Does the expression on my face betray what’s going on in my head?”

  “That’s a lot to put on any face. I’m not sure that a mouth and one set of eyes could convey everything that goes on in there.” He tapped his own ginger thatch of hair. “For example—I never saw that question coming, and I have no idea why you asked it.”

  “Good. Now, what happened while I was gone? Any calls come in?”

  “None that mattered.” Carl looked around, as if he expected someone was eavesdropping. “Close the door.”

  The state police had given Tess and Carl a makeshift office in a corridor that was en route to, but rather distant from, where the real investigation was under way. Tess thought it might be a mark of respect. Carl was convinced it was a way of keeping tabs on them.

  One theory, Tess decided, didn’t rule out the other. She glanced into the corridor and, seeing no one, shut the door.

  “Officially,” Carl said, “I’ve been manning the tip line. Major Shields seems a little suspicious about our whereabouts yesterday. And when I told him you had a doctor’s appointment this morning, he thought I was kidding.”

  “Why? Did you say what kind of doctor’s appointment?”

  “You ashamed of being in anger management?” Carl looked genuinely curious.

  “No, but—it’s private.”

  “Well, I told him you were at the podiatrist. Sounds like psychiatrist, you know. Head doctor, foot doctor—how would a dumb country boy know the difference?”

  Tess gave him a crooked grateful grin. “So did the tip line yield anything?”

  “Mainly crackpots. But what do you expect when you put up fake MISSING PERSON signs in convenience stores?”

  “You expect—hope, pray—that someone’s going to see Alan Palmer’s photo and say, ”Hey, I know that guy and he’s definitely not missing.“ ”

  The state police had thought the plan through, in Tess’s opinion. Palmer’s family, which had been questioned at length about their son’s associates, had been told not to worry when the signs went up. The idea was to tease out a local woman who may have had a near-miss with the man. And if the man himself saw it? The poster was designed to appear as if it had been made and distributed by one of Lucy Fancher’s nonexistent relatives, for it intimated that they had information about her estate that would be relevant to Alan Palmer. The call even had a fake Cecil County prefix, which was set up to ring in this office.