He refused to look at them, focusing instead on his hands.
Cat had seen this before, this guilt and self-blame that followed a parent around for the rest of their life. Knowing if only a different decision had been made, their child would be with them today. It was clear that Dr. Marsh would carry the scars the rest of his life.
“Doctor, I know we’ve asked you this before. But it’s really important now. We have reason to believe that the killer has medical training.” McGregor paused, ready to write down whatever came out of the man’s mouth. “Is there any one of your colleagues, associates, who might have wanted Nancy…” McGregor let his words trail off, the obvious implication hanging in the sunlit room.
“No. Not that I remember. Nancy was a charming girl. Most of the men I work with had watched her grow up. We’re a tight-knit, close family. The people at Hoag are an extension of that. For all the money that’s been pumped into that place, the doctors and nurses there are still real people. We all work together to preserve, not destroy—” he stopped, tears welling in his eyes—“life.”
“I know that. But maybe there was someone who took a special liking to Nancy. Someone who showed her special attention.”
“Everyone showed Nancy special attention. She was that kind of person. She could charm a flower into opening early, could sing the birds down from the trees.” He looked out across the white carpeting, through the glass doors and concrete pavers to the hills. “You could look straight through that girl, just like you can this house. She didn’t have a bad bone in her, not one. And I remember…her laugh.”
His gaze returned to his hands.
“You see that garden out there.” He looked up toward a backyard filled with perennials, annuals, all in bloom. “That was her favorite spot. We designed it together, to blend in with the wildlife.”
Cat looked up. Indeed the carefully manicured lawn and flowerbeds did give way to towering trees, a babbling creek, probably filled with tadpoles and crayfish.
“On a Sunday morning, we would sit out there. Just the two of us, with our coffee, talking. Sometimes fighting over who got the sports page first. Usually she’d win, be up first. She’d be sitting out there, her feet propped up in her white bathrobe, hair slicked back wet. We’d start our Sundays that way.”
Cat saw tears in his eyes.
“Of my three kids, she was the one I loved the most. And I couldn’t protect her. From him.”
“We don’t know who he is. Is there anyone you can think of at all who might have had it in for you? Someone you pissed off?”
Sunlight poured in through the south-facing window, cutting a path across the man’s face. As he looked up, wet trails stood testament on his cheeks. “There’s no one, no one at all.”
TWENTY-ONE
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
—Seneca, On Tranquility of the Mind
There was no hurry.
Sunrise in Laguna, the surf was still and the yellow sun gleaming.
He sat in his favorite red chair, his face orange in the sunrise. He picked up the paper. A quick glance through and he found her name, her face, lingered over it for a time.
Excitement rose and fell in him when he saw her.
He would not allow himself to look at the photo again today.
By ten he had worked out with weights to near exhaustion. He satisfied himself with his vigor, watching his pecs jump up and down. Sitting in the red chair, his torso pumped from the workout, he watched the surf roll in and out.
There was no hurry.
His flight to Virginia did not leave till noon.
His sense of power engulfed him all the time now.
From the newspaper, the Irvine Police Department and the Burning Man Task Force said what they wanted. But the bottom line was the same: no progress.
Turning on the television, he thought by now there might be some breaking news. They had found Carrie Ann Bennett.
Stretched out in the red chair, he smiled. Catherine was in a group of microphones. Flanked by cops, perhaps a bodyguard, she said, “This man’s savage butchery will only make us work harder.”
He snorted. Go ahead.
But it wouldn’t help the next one.
She was already dead.
The newspapers were calling him the Burning Man. He liked the name. Thought it appropriate. After all, what death did men fear most? Death by fire.
Intensity and heat. The words suited him.
Passion too, just like his Catherine.
He watched Catherine’s face, studied it. He had DVD’d her. Now he could freeze-frame her at any time. Enjoy the delicate eyes, the way she squared her jaw when she was angry.
Today he would bring her closer to him.
He wanted to tell her what would happen. Wished she had one inkling of what he wanted most. He tried to send her messages. But she had no sense of his presence. When this day was over, she would. He would share himself with her. But she could not have it and live. Still, he wanted her. She was the only one who could understand him.
TWENTY-TWO
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
—Hosea 8:7 (KJV)
I know, it’s all political. You and I both know that, McGregor. But isn’t that pretty much what we’re doing anyway. These news briefings aren’t getting us any closer. They’re just making the politicos look good.”
Cat and McGregor walked out of the Irvine Police Department building in late afternoon.
McGregor nodded. “Just keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll do the rest.”
Cat was asked by the chief to stay. The request had been predicated on Cat’s building a more detailed profile, so the city could put more black-and-whites on the street in affluent neighborhoods. She didn’t buy it.
“And, besides, we don’t have anything new to build a profile with. The black nylon rope that was tied around her, it could be bought at any local Ace Hardware Store. Then there’s the electrical tape he used. Same thing, buy it at any local home and garden store. Don’t you see, he’s toying with us. Leaving us with jack—”
“They want you to stay, Cat,” McGregor said, squinting into the sun. Donning his sunglasses, he added, “It might not be a bad idea.”
“Covering their asses is what they’re doing. They’re stepping up foot patrols, cars in all the rich areas, thinking that’s where this sonofabitch will strike next. But everyone forgets about Kim Collins. She doesn’t fit that victim profile. Neither does Consuelo Vargas for that matter.”
McGregor knew she had a point. “What if we get another floater?”
“The assistant medical examiners here can handle it. Just make sure they do a thorough job.”
“You think there’ll be more don’t you?” McGregor said.
“Yes. But I don’t know if they will be floaters. He seems to work in twos. We’ve had two upper- to middle-income victims, two floaters. Then there’s Kim Collins. God help the politicians if he chooses a poor one this time. With all the manpower concentrated in Irvine, Orange, Newport Beach, he could hit the back streets in Santa Ana. If that happens, you can be sure they’ll blame it on my profile. No way.”
“You think it’s just as likely he’ll strike in the lower-classed areas?” McGregor asked.
“It’s just as likely. He’ll strike wherever he thinks he can get away with it. But there’s no reason for me to sit around and wait for it.”
“You think it’s a good idea to head to Chicago right now?”
“It’s the only lead we’ve got. Someone’s got to follow up. Something tells me it will give us something. And anything is better than what we have now. I don’t give a damn what the Justice Department is saying, or my superiors. Someone’s got to follow up on this. And with my background, I’m the best one.”
“I guess you’re right on that one.”
“Stick with me on this, McGregor. Something’s gotta break open soon enough.”
T
WENTY-THREE
When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
—Mark Twain, Notebook
Would you like more coffee, sir?” a flight attendant with pouty lips asked. He had sat in silence for ten minutes, watching the descent into Virginia, its rolling hills stretched out before him on this Tuesday afternoon.
“That would be fine,” he said, lifting his empty cup. She moved forward slowly. He felt the gentle curve of her hand brush his as she poured. A strange and heavy fragrance. It was her perfume—lavender. It reminded him of his grandmother.
“Would you require anything else, a blanket perhaps?”
“Yes, that would be lovely.”
He stopped his breath as he watched her back arch upwards, breasts straining against her white cotton blouse. A radiant heat to her. It was here now. He could smell it.
He closed his eyes, taking in her lavender smell.
“Here you are.”
He opened his eyes and she was there, her face so close he could feel her breath on his cheek. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You surprise me in many ways, my dear,” he said, his eyes dancing over her.
She blushed and was gone on a waft of perfume.
He turned his attention back to Virginia below, to thoughts of the boy. Visions of the child reflected like tiny points on a movie screen in his mind. He slept.
Cat heard the bolt slide open. The plane’s steel door swung left in front of her. Chicago’s O’Hare presented itself. Unwelcoming and still hot.
She looked out. At that angle, she could not see the Sears Tower and the Hancock Building, but she knew they were there, towering over this city.
Cat wanted time to brace herself for the heat, but there was none. It felt like being dipped in the Amazon jungle. At times like this, she wondered why people lived here. The city seemed a city of extremes.
With her overnight bag on one shoulder, she grabbed her suit bag and headed for a cab. Within an hour she had unpacked at the Drake on Michigan Avenue. One of Chicago’s finest hotels, she could see nothing had changed. The lobby, still outfitted in marble and velvet, felt so old world. The service discreet, impeccable. Like the first time she had been here.
After she and Mark divorced, she’d had a brief affair with a doctor. As head of the American Medical Association, Dr. Gregory Taft wielded power with reckless abandon. When they had first met, she pursued the singular opportunity to study with him. It was so rare to meet such a supremely confident man. Perceptive, with a brilliant mind, and even more brilliant hands. She recalled how he touched her when they made love. It was as if each touch contained his every thought, his very soul. She longed for a touch like that again.
It had been a long time. As much as anything else, she realized only now that renewing that affair was her reason for coming here.
But first there was business to attend to.
After an hour-long cab ride into the city, she settled into the room that would be her home for the next few days. Sometimes the travel got the best of her, making her feel like she was always packing and unpacking, longing for her small bungalow in Quantico. She sat on the bed and called down to the front desk. Her rental car had arrived.
She had prearranged a meeting with Dr. Phillip Stall, the chief of staff of the Illinois State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Her preliminary research into this case had shown that he had treated a boy years ago, a boy they called simply Eric.
From the little Cat knew, Eric had been convicted of murdering his grandmother and a cousin with acid, sulfuric acid, when he was only seventeen. That was twenty-one years ago. Eric had been institutionalized, judged insane, incapable of assisting in his own defense. After years of therapy, drugs, and eventually a trial, the jury had found him innocent and he was released. He had disappeared. That is what Cat feared the most.
She thought carefully of what to wear to this meeting. Should she change her normal blouse and skirt and heels to something more mannish? Or would that communicate to Carl Stearbourne that he had already gotten in her head? Should she wear perfume or not to her first meeting with him? Hair up or down? She decided that anything contrived would be immediately apparent to him as soon as he met her. It would show in her demeanor, and he would pick up on it right away. And why not simply dress as she always did? So he would admire her legs in black high heels. Carl Stearbourne wouldn’t be the first man to do so and he wouldn’t be the last. And by not changing her appearance for him, she would signal that she was not intimidated by him or his insanity. It might actually prove to be a way to communicate that she considered him a person, as opposed to an animal.
The more Cat thought of it, she was sure she had made the right choice.
As she drove the rental, she prayed that somehow, some way, the killings would stop. But like all the serial cases she had worked in the past, she knew that was a fantasy. Barring something unexplained, the murders would not stop. In her opinion, the killer had not been born a serial killer. He had been manufactured, his murderous fantasies a result of a traumatic home life beyond his control. From what she knew of Eric, his home life fit that profile. All through childhood, the boy’s life was orchestrated by a grandmother whose hatred for him fueled Eric’s all-consuming rage. As a child, Cat thought, the killer had directed that rage against the domineering female figure in his life, his grandmother. He was directing the same rage again.
Only this time it was indiscriminate.
From what she knew, Eric fit, maybe a little too well. Arriving at the institution, it looked more like an Eastern Seaboard college than an institution for the criminally insane. Other than high iron gates and fencing, it gave no indication that it housed Illinois’s most insane.
Dr. Stall met her at her car with a firm handshake. “We are so pleased to have you, Catherine, or should I call you Dr. Powers?”
“Actually, Cat is just fine.”
“I was so pleased to hear you’d be coming. I’ve been following your case with great interest.” Stall wore coke-bottle-thick glasses that obscured his pupils. Cat did not like being unable to meet the man’s gaze.
He ushered her inside the austere brick building, into his office.
“Please, have a seat.” He directed her to a leather chair and then took a seat behind his desk. The room smelled like lemon polish. It was small, cramped, thin ribbons of dust visible through a single sunlight shaft from a window above Cat’s head. Books and copies of The American Journal of Psychiatry lay open on his desk. Efficiently, he closed the case file he had been working on, stacked it to his left, and folded his hands in front of him.
“The FBI really appreciates any help you could provide.”
“We are glad to provide it. Now about the meeting with Carl.”
Carl Stearbourne had been Eric’s roommate of sorts, sharing the cell next to the boy. He was the only man Eric would speak with, himself a murderer of women. On one level, the relationship between the men seemed superficial; but on another level, both understood each other’s overriding fantasy to rid himself of a domineering mother figure in their lives. While the doctors and psychiatrists merely analyzed, Carl understood.
Catherine would be Carl Stearbourne’s first outside contact in over a year.
“Please don’t misunderstand me, doctor. We are more than happy to cooperate with you, but there are a few ground rules we follow with Carl. Everyone follows them. Do I make myself clear?” The small-boned man rocked back and forth in his chair, as if the mere mention of Carl Stearbourne made him nervous. From the looks of it, any mention of Eric’s name made him even more so. He still wouldn’t meet Cat’s gaze.
“Carl has been here for thirty-one years. In that time, he has mellowed. However, the risk still exists that he may—” The man hesitated and rocked harder. “Engage you. It is very important that you not provide him anything sharp.”
“For obvious reasons.”
On the flight, Ca
t had read about Carl. Anyone who studied psychiatry had. He was the consummate prisoner, until you gave him an advantage. Then he turned predator in the most cunning and malicious way. Convicted of stabbing his mother to death with her garden shears, he had splayed the corpse out on her bed, had sex with it, dissected her in the family bathtub, then calmly bagged her remains and sat there, waiting for someone to find the horror. He and Eric had much in common. Cat had read that a year ago, one of the guards had made the mistake of thinking Carl was ill. After being escorted to the infirmary, Carl had calmly turned to a nurse. Requested a kiss. When she refused, he yanked his IV out and jabbed it into her fifty-four times. By the time the guards got hold of him, he had snapped her neck. Not just broken it, but slit it ear to ear.
“Yes, I recall reading about the incident,” Cat said smoothly though her pulse was racing. “And he has been diagnosed with a personality trait disorder, passive-aggressive type.”
“Yes.” The rocking receded.
“Any signs of schizophrenia?”
“None. He knows exactly what he is doing when he does it. He is not delusional.”
“Is he currently medicated?” Cat was thinking ahead. If he was overly medicated, an interview would mean nothing.
For the first time, she could see Stall look her up and down. “He is not. That is even more reason to be careful. You should not get too close to him. As handsome a specimen as you are.”
“I have studied and dealt with men of his kind before, doctor.”
“You may have dealt with his kind, but I can assure you there are few like Carl.” Stall pushed back from his heavy, scarred desk and stood. “And I promise you, you will not understand him. I myself am no closer to understanding him. I have studied him for fifteen years.”
“Why do you believe that, doctor?” There was an honest curiosity in her voice. Stall could tell she was thinking the same thing of her own killer.
“It is just that his kind is so rare. The rest of us, we look for reasons for behavior. For him, there are no reasons, no explanations. One minute he can be cooperating with you in a session, the next he is on you.” He pursed his lips for a moment. “I once asked him why he killed them, when I had first arrived here, thinking I would get a rational response.”
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