Hello Again

by Brenda Novak

  “If I had to guess, I’d say yes. He acted very confident. He said, Wait until you see what I have in store for you.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “Nothing. I’d loosened the ropes he’d used to tie me, so I yanked open the door and flung myself out.”

  “He didn’t stop? Come back for you?”

  “There was another car coming. Fortunately, the driver pulled over when she saw me fall. I’m guessing he spotted her headlights and panicked, because he sped away.”

  Sims had told Amarok that the driver of the car who’d helped Vanessa had gotten the license plate number of the van as well as the make and model. She’d said it was a Mazda van. But when they traced the information, they learned the plates had been stolen from another vehicle in a nearby apartment complex.

  “I bet if he’d known it was an elderly lady, he would’ve stopped,” she said. “At eighty-one years old and barely five feet tall, Mrs. Paxton wouldn’t have been hard for someone like him to overpower. I’m fortunate he didn’t know.”

  “You’re lucky she was in the area,” Amarok said.

  “She was coming home from the birth of her great-grandson, or she wouldn’t have been. Maybe no one would’ve been there, and I wouldn’t be sitting here with you today.”

  Amarok pulled out the pictures he’d brought with him. “Can you tell me if you’ve ever seen anyone who looks like this man? This was him twenty-one years ago, and this is what he might look like today.” He tapped the age-enhanced photo to get her to focus on it.

  She bit her lip as she studied both pictures. “Hard to say. He looks sort of like a guy who stops in at the 7-Eleven where I get gas. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him there a time or two.”

  “Which 7-Eleven is that?”

  “It’s in the same strip mall as the tattoo parlor.”

  “That helps. Thank you for being willing to meet with me.”

  She returned the photographs of Jasper. “If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.”

  “Please do.”

  Sims thanked her, too, and they started for the door. But she called to them before they could reach the hall. “After I heal, will it be safe for me to go back to work? I mean … you don’t think he’ll come after me again, do you?”

  Amarok exchanged a glance with Sims, who dipped his head to indicate he’d let Amarok field this one. “He could.” If it was Jasper, Amarok wouldn’t put it past him. The fact that Vanessa had escaped, thereby denying him his fun and putting him at risk, could make him angry at her personally—meaning he could turn her escape into his justification for a vendetta similar to what he had going with Evelyn. “If you return, I wouldn’t close up alone anymore.”

  “I won’t.” She lifted his card to take a closer look. “Wait a second. You’re from Alaska? Why did you come all the way from Alaska to ask me about an abduction attempt in Arizona?”

  He didn’t want to tell her he thought she might’ve been abducted by the same man who nearly murdered Evelyn Talbot, the famous psychiatrist. If Jasper was in this area and he read that in the paper, he might move somewhere else. “We believe this guy has been preying on women for a while, in many different states.”

  “Even Alaska?”

  Fortunately, Detective Sims jumped in. “Sergeant Murphy is especially good at these kinds of cases. He’s just helping out.”

  “So you think the guy who attacked me is the one who killed those women in Peoria?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but it’s a possibility,” Sims said. “I plan to stay in close touch with Casa Grande PD, just in case.”

  “I see. Well, I hope you catch him,” she said.

  Amarok gave her a parting smile. “So do we.”

  13

  “I bet you’re sorry now.”

  The petulance in Lyman Bishop’s voice made him sound childish, definitely at odds with his IQ. But sometimes the men Evelyn dealt with acted no more than ten or twelve. In most cases, their emotional development had been arrested by some childhood trauma, which trauma, of course, contributed to their criminality. Considering what Bishop had suffered, Evelyn could easily understand if he’d been psychosexually stunted. She felt bad about the pain he’d suffered and any damage that resulted, felt bad for anyone who’d been hurt as a child. But she didn’t like him. She didn’t trust him, either. Although many psychopaths could be charming, a craft they honed in order to draw in people they could then manipulate, he wasn’t capable of that approach. He reminded her more of a recluse spider—the type of hunter that built an innocent-looking web, then sat back out of sight, waiting for prey to get caught in it. “For?”

  He regarded her from his stool on the other side of the interview room. “For saying all those things you did. For assuming I’m guilty in spite of my many protestations. Surely by now you’ve heard that the panty evidence used to convict me was planted in my attic. I didn’t put those panties there. Even if I was guilty, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that,” he added under his breath.

  “Where would you put them?” she asked.

  “Nowhere that could be tied to me,” he replied. “But, like I said, I’m innocent.”

  She adjusted the scarf she’d draped around her shoulders to help keep her warm in the drafty prison. “Detective Gustavson was wrong to resort to the measures he took. We can agree there.”

  He studied her carefully. “That hardly sounds as condemning of Gustavson as I would expect.”

  “I feel sorry for him,” she explained.

  “For him?”

  “I spoke to him. This has ruined his career.”

  “As well it should!”

  “Not if you’re guilty and he was being honest when he said he only did it to get you off the street. If that’s true, I almost see it as … noble.”

  “You can’t listen to him, can’t admire him. Of course he’d say that. He’s got to cover for what he did somehow. But I’m innocent, like I’ve told you from the beginning, and before I go I’d like to hear you acknowledge that.”

  She didn’t have to acknowledge anything. He acted as if she’d slighted him personally, but she’d had nothing to do with stashing the panty evidence or locking him up.

  She was, however, loath to let him go. Maybe he wasn’t a psychopath, but she thought he was, and one of his caliber rarely fell into the net of the criminal justice system. “Just because Gustavson acted wrongfully in order to get a conviction doesn’t mean you’re innocent, Dr. Bishop.”

  His mouth formed an affronted O. “You still don’t believe me?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe. As you say, they’re going to vacate your conviction. You’re going home—for now.” From there, the district attorney would have to decide whether to retry him, this time without the panty evidence, but Evelyn highly doubted that would happen. That evidence was too integral to the case. They’d have to wait and hope they could find other forensic proof of his culpability.

  “For now?” he repeated.

  “Unless a witness steps forward. Or something else comes to light.”

  “You’d like it if something else came to light.”

  “I assure you, it isn’t personal. I merely want to keep the community safe.” She stood as if that were all there was to it, and he came to his feet at the same time.

  “So you’re fighting my release?”

  “There’s not much I can do to ‘fight’ it. I am telling anyone who will listen that I think you’ll kill again.”

  “How dare you!”

  “It’s my job. And I try to be as honest as possible.”

  “Honest? You can’t see past your own prejudice. What kind of a scientist are you? You don’t deal with the facts. You let emotion, and the past, control you.”

  “If you’ve let your past turn you into a serial killer, then you do, too.” She couldn’t help pressing, hoping his temper would erupt and he’d reveal his true self again, like he had when meeting with Jennifer.

  “I�
�m not a serial killer! You can’t lump me in with all the other psychopaths in here, can’t discount me as if … as if I’m no better than the dirt beneath your feet!”

  “It hasn’t been my intention to mistreat you. But I’ve seen nothing to convince me that you’re innocent, and I won’t say you’re innocent until I’m sure.”

  He approached the plexiglass, put his palms on it. “I would’ve told you where to find Jan Hall’s body, if I could,” he said, now almost boy-like.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” she insisted.

  Without warning, the “sweet supplicant” smacked the glass, causing an odd wah-wah-wah to reverberate around her. “Oh my God!” he railed. “What will it take to convince you? Give me the damn PCL-R! You’ll see!”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? It only takes three to four hours, and that’s if you’re being especially diligent—but I would expect nothing less of you.”

  “You’re obviously familiar with it.”

  “So?”

  “You know what traits I’d be looking for and how to avoid exhibiting those traits so that you score well below ‘severely psychopathic.’ That means an interview will do me no good. And I can’t base my evaluations on your institutional records, since this is the first time you’ve ever been arrested.”

  He dropped his hands. “You could use other collateral information, but you know that, too, will indicate I’m as normal as anyone else.”

  “Not necessarily. Only failed psychopaths wind up in prison.”

  “Not only do you think I’m a psychopath, you think I’m a failed psychopath. What can I do to prove otherwise?”

  She tossed her pen onto the table. “Take a polygraph if you’d really like to convince me you had nothing to do with those murders.”

  He waved her words away. “I’m not stupid enough to do that.”

  “Why not? Do you have something to hide?”

  “My lawyer would never agree.”

  “It’s not up to your lawyer, Dr. Bishop. It’s up to you. And if you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear.”

  He began to pace in short, agitated strides. “Who would administer it?”

  “We have two professional polygraph examiners who drive over from Anchorage each day. You can take your pick between them.”

  “I don’t know that one is any better than the other. Why would I pick?”

  “I’m offering you that as a courtesy, I guess—to show I’m not trying to railroad you.”

  “A meaningless gesture, maybe even a ruse, given they both would probably do anything they could for you. If I decide to take the test, you can pick yourself.”

  “Fine.”

  He smoothed the few hairs he’d combed over his bald pate again and again as he thought it over. Then he said, “They’re helping with the study you told me about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even if the results prove me truthful, you’ll say I ‘beat’ it. Isn’t that what one of your studies is about?”

  “All data so far indicate that psychopaths can’t beat a polygraph any easier than anyone else, so there will be no reason for me to disbelieve the results.”

  He said nothing, just continued to run his fingers over those meager strands of hair.

  “What do you have to lose?” she added. “This is only between you and me. Even if you fail, polygraphs aren’t admissible in court.”

  A stubborn, almost arrogant expression settled on his face as he stopped messing with his hair, quit pacing and lifted his chin. “I’m not going to fail.”

  Evelyn tried not to show her surprise. Russ had been right. Bishop had something to prove. “Is that a yes?” Do it. Take the bait.…

  “Why not? I don’t have anything to fear from you.”

  He’d accepted her challenge. He couldn’t resist it. He had to win, had to show her. But that propensity only added to the conviction she felt that he was, indeed, a killer. She’d seen that “no one gets the better of me” trait in many of the psychopaths she’d studied.

  Jasper possessed it, too. That was what made her so sure he was still out there, hoping for another chance.

  * * *

  “What are you doing?”

  Evelyn turned to see Dr. Ricardo standing in the doorway of Lab #4, where she was working with Lido Thomas, the polygraph examiner she’d chosen.

  “We’re preparing to give Lyman Bishop a lie detector test,” Evelyn told him. “Since this is probably a one-shot deal, we have to be ready before he gets in here, have to decide what to ask and how to ask it.” She tapped the file she’d been using to brief Lido. “Even the order of the questions is important—all part of matching wits with him.”

  “So we won’t be continuing to evaluate the brain scans this afternoon?”

  She could tell he was put out. “Not today. Didn’t you get my message?”

  “I got it. I was just surprised. I asked to include Bishop in the polygraph study when he first arrived, and you put me off.”

  “Things have changed.”

  “Yes, they have. And not for the better. You put me off, and now I’ve been looking forward to making some progress on the empathy study. I consider it some of the most promising research we have going, but almost every day something comes up.”

  “I hate to let these other things interrupt. I agree that we’re garnering some great information with the scans. But the polygraph study is still as important as it ever was.”

  “Not when it comes to Bishop. We’re no longer sure he is a psychopath, which would throw him out of it right there. From what I hear, he’s about to be released, anyway.” He gestured at the blood pressure cuff that would soon be centered over Bishop’s brachial artery, the rubber tubes, called pneumographs, that would be fastened around his chest and abdomen and the electrodes, or galvanometers, that would be attached to two of his fingers. “Whatever results you get with this won’t stop that.”

  When Lido hesitated in making sure the equipment was properly attached to her computer, which would register Bishop’s blood pressure, breathing rate, pulse and perspiration so that the information could be evaluated using a mathematical algorithm-based program called PolyScore, Evelyn nodded to indicate she should proceed. “That may be true. But it can help me determine where I stand on the issue.”

  “Judging from the article Tim Fitzpatrick sent me this morning, you’ve already taken a stand. Which, I admit, seems a bit reckless. What you do and say reflects on Hanover House, Evelyn. You get this wrong and it could make you, and me and the rest of the team by association, seem like a bunch of quacks.”

  “You shouldn’t be communicating with Fitzpatrick,” she said. “You’re beginning to sound like him.”

  “He has a point! We could lose the public support we currently have and our funding would likely go with it. Then Hanover House would become a regular prison, and we’d be sent home. Is that what you want?”

  Evelyn touched the examiner’s sleeve. “Lido, would you mind giving us a few minutes?”

  “Not at all.” She scurried from the room, obviously eager to avoid the awkwardness of this confrontation.

  “Jim, I hope I don’t have to remind you that Fitzpatrick would’ve been fired had he not resigned.”

  He sniffed as he crossed his arms in a show of stubborn determination. “I’m aware of that, yes.”

  “Are you also aware of the reasons?”

  “He admits he made some mistakes,” he said, gesturing with one hand, “but he cares a great deal about our success and—”

  “Did he tell you he kept a file on me that included the floor plans of my house?” she interrupted. “That he collected so much information on me that he had contact info for my parents and sister—even a copy of my college transcripts?”

  “No.…”

  “He used to follow me home at night and take pictures of me changing from outside my bedroom window, Jim.”

  He looked suitably shocked.

  “And, worst of all, he u
sed Photoshop to put my face on naked female bodies engaged in various sexual activities—pornographic pictures—which he then showed to the inmates.”

  His jaw dropped. “That’s the most unprofessional thing I’ve ever heard!”

  “Well, you might consider his lack of professionalism the next time you receive a call or an e-mail from him. He talks a good talk—can be quite convincing. But his side is never a side you want to be on.”

  “You’re right,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry I ever listened to him. But this has nothing to do with Fitzpatrick, Evelyn. What he did a year ago doesn’t change what you’re doing now. Did you have to take a stand on Bishop? Couldn’t you have said that he hasn’t been here long enough to make a determination and leave it at that?”

  “You wish I would’ve remained neutral.”

  “Seems to me that would have been the most prudent course, yes—considering what’s at stake if you get it wrong.”

  “I gave my honest opinion, Jim.” She hoped. Those second thoughts hadn’t gone away. “I can’t always be so interested in saving my ass that I forget the reason I’m in this business to begin with.” She pointed at the computer and polygraph equipment. “Maybe this will give us some indication of whether I’m right or wrong.”

  He didn’t seem convinced. “Polygraphs can be beaten.”

  “Yes. I’m not unrealistic enough to think this is some kind of magic bullet. Polygraphs are subjective. They depend a great deal on the examiner’s experience and ability to detect what a ‘normal’ response looks like for each individual subject.”

  “Not to mention there is no standard of behavior for when someone is telling a lie!”

  “Lido is good, though. I trust her. And I won’t waste the opportunity to get inside Bishop’s head. If this could tell me something I didn’t know before, something that might help someone later on, I’m going to do it.”

  “You mean when he kills again.”

  “Possibly. Or new evidence comes to light. Police rely on polygraphs all the time, so they have some value, even if they can’t be used in court.”