by Julie Cave
There was silence while she read the associated report. Cage sat still, his hands still clenched in his lap. Dinah tapped her leg, bit her fingernails, crossed and re-crossed her legs, readjusted her ponytail, and was beginning to think of pacing the room, when Baylor said, "Oh, I remember Leonard. He had some very derogatory views on the people we were trying to help. We don't discriminate against anyone who asks for our help, but apparently Leonard began refusing to give assistance to certain people."
Cage and Dinah exchanged a glance. "What sort of certain people?"
"There didn't seem to be a pattern, if that's what you mean," replied Celia. "The crews reported him saying some abusive things at one time, and then refusing to give blankets or sandwiches at another time. He also apparently made snide remarks that were clearly inappropriate to the other crew members. So we asked him not to come back. We haven't seen him since."
"Do you have any contact details for Leonard?" Cage asked.
"I can give you what we have, but they must be at least a year old by now," said Celia, as the printer hummed to life. "I know how these things work; you can't give me the particulars of the crime, but can you tell me if our organization is being brought into disrepute?"
"It was only a one-off thing as far as we can tell," said Cage. "So there won't be any damage to your organization." He took Leonard Marks' contact details from her. "Thank you for your time."
Outside, Cage looked visibly relieved to leave behind the chaos of Celia Baylor's office. Of the details he now held in his hand, he said, "Does it sound like this Leonard fellow could be a suspect?"
"It does seems strange to join an organization involved in helping the homeless and drug addicted, only to refuse assistance to them, verbally abuse them, and make catty comments to them. He definitely merits a visit," said Dinah.
"Then let's roll." Cage jingled his keys.
"By the way," Dinah said, as she climbed into the unmarked police vehicle. "How did you like Celia Baylor's office? Did you feel right at home?"
Cage glanced at her. "Very funny, Dinah. I suppose you've realized I like organization and order."
Dinah laughed. "Understatement of the century, Detective."
He joined her laughter as they drove away.
She took his good-humor as an opportunity to press him. "How did your last partner deal with your obsessive behavior?"
The smile slid from his face and he stared rigidly ahead. "Just fine."
"Come on, Detective," teased Dinah. "You're trying to tell me that your partner didn't give you a hard time…."
"Drop it, Harris," snapped Cage.
The mood suddenly shifted. Dinah did exactly what the man suggested and shut her mouth.
Chapter 11
I must admit, I'm curious as to your interest in our little place," said Paige Wheeler, manager of the Forest Glen Palliative Care Home. She was attractive, with honey-blonde hair and a lean, athletic figure. The killer enjoyed being taken on this tour by her.
"I really just want to volunteer in something that I'm passionate about," he told her. "My sister died of breast cancer at a young age, and I watched her die. I want to help other patients in any way I can, because I understand what they're going through." A big lie, but Paige Wheeler bought it. Most people did; he was an accomplished liar.
It was a beautiful place for people suffering the end stages of terminal illness. There were also patients who suffered from AIDS, Lou Gehrig's disease, and Parkinson's disease in addition to cancer. The patient's ages ranged from mid-twenties to mid-sixties, and all lived there because their physical needs were too great for their own family members to address.
The home offered round-the-clock nursing care, administration of drug therapies, and provision of comforts and distractions to ease the suffering of the residents. The patients' families paid a handsome sum of money for these services.
So far, the killer had seen a large garden in which patients were encouraged to spend time, if they were able; a pool in which water aerobics and physiotherapy were regularly conducted; an art room fully stocked with paints, brushes, and canvasses; a library; a small movie theater; and a common room designed to look like a cozy family living room, with games, a fireplace, and magazines.
Each resident had his or her own small room, roughly the size of a postage stamp but which still provided a sense of privacy despite the hospital feel. Visiting hours were generous, and the killer had seen numerous families visiting with their loved ones either in the common room or in their bedrooms.
His goal was to find someone who didn't have family visit regularly, and he had positioned himself so that it wouldn't be odd to ask Paige Wheeler exactly that.
"What is it you'd like to do here?" she asked, giving him a perfect opening.
"I guess I'd like to visit with patients who are feeling lonely," he said earnestly. "People who don't have family visit regularly and would like some company."
"What a lovely gesture," Paige Wheeler said enthusiastically. "We do have some patients who meet those criteria, unfortunately. I get the feeling their families send them here to be someone else's problem."
"That's very sad," commented the killer, as though he really cared. "They're very much the ones I'd like to help. When my sister was sick, I found she enjoyed being read to, playing games, and talking. It made her feel better, even if just for a short time."
"I totally agree with you," enthused Wheeler. "Being lonely doesn't help one's prognosis, I'm afraid." She suddenly turned serious. "Now, before we can officially accept you as a volunteer, we must do a police check. I'm sure you would appreciate our desire to protect our residents and staff alike."
"Of course," the killer said cheerfully. He had no police record — yet. "I understand."
"Great. Well, would you like to meet some of our residents whom you might consider spending time with?"
"That'd be awesome!" The killer ground his teeth. How did people manage to be perky and cheerful all day? He was thoroughly sick of it after just an hour.
He met four potential candidates: two cancer patients, one AIDS patient, and one with Huntington's disease. He chose the young man with Huntington's disease, mostly because the other three were females and his last victim had been female.
The young man's name was Billy Atwood, and he was 39 years old. He had been diagnosed three years earlier, and he was now in a motorized wheelchair. He was still able to communicate, although his speech was slow and slightly garbled. His favorite activities were watching movies and listening to audio books.
The killer took him to the library and there he asked about Billy Atwood's life. The conversation was slow, but understandable. Billy told him he worked with a speech pathologist every day while he could still do so.
Billy had been a pretty good baseball player in his youth, and had made it into the minor leagues before sustaining a severe shoulder injury that ended his dreams of a professional career. Then he had become a police officer, doing some time in the canine unit. He'd been accepted into the prestigious SWAT team training program when he'd been diagnosed.
He'd never married nor had children. His elderly parents didn't have the strength or energy themselves to take care of him, but they did have money, so this is how he'd ended up at Forest Glen. He'd lived alone with a regular caregiver coming by until he could no longer be independent.
"Sorry if this sounds insensitive," the killer said, "but it must be incredibly frustrating to go from leading a full and normal life to being physically confined."
"You have no idea," said Billy. "I was very angry in the early days. I couldn't believe that it was happening to me. I looked for all sorts of weird alternative cures. But now, I've learned to accept it."
They sat in companionable silence for a few moments, and then Billy said, "You know what the worst thing is? I hate it when people assume because my body is broken that my mind is broken, too. So they speak to me like I'm an idiot or they yell at me because they think I can't hear them."
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The killer made sympathetic noises. After their discussion, he promised to be back within the next couple of days.
As he walked back through the home, he couldn't believe his luck. The security was low, Billy's family was unlikely to visit, and he virtually had easy access to him any time he wanted.
The killer struck up a whistle as he left the home. If there was any guilt or care for what he was going to do, he didn't feel it.
****
Leonard Marks lived in a large apartment block in Langdon, northeast of the city. The block seemed to be filled with singles or couples with an occasional small child, and the look definitely leaned toward shabby chic.
Leonard was tall, with longish, dark-brown hair, green eyes, and pale skin. He invited them into the apartment, which was sparsely and cheaply furnished. The entire living space was dominated by overflowing bookcases and excess books were stacked in piles all over the floor.
"Like to read?" Dinah asked, picking her way through the room until she found a place to sit on a low-slung couch.
"Obviously," he replied sharply. "I'm doing my PhD. I need research materials."
"What are you doing your PhD on?" Cage asked, using his most neutral tone.
"Transgenerational epigenetics," said Leonard loftily. He didn't bother to explain as Dinah and Cage stared at him uncomprehendingly.
"What does that mean?" Dinah finally asked.
"Epigenetics is the study of how environmental factors can influence the function of genes," said Leonard. "Early studies seem to show that epigenetic changes are not permanent and can be manipulated by circumstances from generation to generation. I want to know if we can reprogram certain types of genes to eliminate undesirable characteristics in future generations."
His words had a familiar ring. "I see. What would these undesirable characteristics be?" Cage asked.
"Hereditary disease, for one thing," replied Leonard. "But I would include susceptibility to drug addiction, poverty, substandard intelligence, and criminality."
"I have no doubt you'll correct me if I'm wrong," said Dinah dryly, "but I thought things such as poverty and criminality were shown to be caused by a lack of education and opportunity."
Leonard gave her a superior smile. "That's what the government would have you believe. I don't believe it for a second. I think such things are passed down from generation to generation, whether environmentally or genetically. That's the purpose of my PhD."
Dinah had developed a headache in the short time they'd been in his apartment; possibly something to do with the fumes of egotism and arrogance wafting through the room.
"So, anyway, I gather you're not here to discuss my thesis," Leonard said. "What can I help you with?"
Cage was looking at him with an expression Dinah knew to be contempt. Mere mortals would usually falter under his steady gaze, but Leonard Marks did not. He stared back, seemingly issuing forth a challenge to the big detective.
"We're interested in your involvement with the Drug Response Team," Cage said, at length. "We understand you completed training there and volunteered for a short while."
Leonard gave a derisive laugh. "Yeah, what a mistake that turned out to be," he said. "It was thoroughly depressing."
"Seeing the suffering of the poor?" asked Dinah.
"No, seeing the teeming unwashed masses acting as though we owe them something." Leonard snorted. "They waited for us every night, expecting their free handouts. I tried to talk to some of them, to encourage them to find a better life for themselves. Typically, they weren't interested."
Dinah could just imagine the type of encouragement Leonard Marks had offered.
"So why did you volunteer, if not for altruistic reasons?" Cage asked. A muscle jumping in his jaw was the only indication he was edgy.
"I put it straight in my thesis," said Leonard. "They are living examples of why indiscriminate reproduction is ruining mankind's progression."
A short time ago, this sentence would have made no sense to Dinah. Now, unfortunately, she understood completely.
"So instead of suggesting ways in which we might help these unfortunate people, you advocate what — extermination?" Dinah demanded, feeling a flush rise in her cheeks.
Leonard glared at her. "Lady, I'm not concerned with their individual plight. I'm a bigger picture kind of guy. I care about the progress of human evolution overall, which is far more important. Unless you're an intellectual, I wouldn't expect you to understand."
Nobody had ever dared call Dinah "lady" to her face, let alone accused her of being uneducated, and anger immediately flowed red hot in her veins like molten lava.
"First of all, don't ever call me 'lady' again," she snapped, leveling her most ferocious look at Marks. "Furthermore, I am educated and I would never support your brutish, inhumane code of ethics. Do you know how many undesirable characteristics I think you're displaying right now? You're nothing but a bully, and I can't think of any other characteristic I'd like to see bred out of the human race more."
"Dinah . . ." Cage tried to rein her in. Others had tried before; none had succeeded.
"And what about your poverty?" she continued. "I've seen better couches dumped on the side of the road! According to you, this means you're substandard and you ought to be exterminated. Well, I can't think of any reason why anyone would object to that!"
"Dinah, this really isn't helping," Cage said sharply.
Dinah glanced at him and sat back, taking a deep breath.
Leonard watched her coolly. "Maybe I'll add the inability to control emotion to my thesis," he said spitefully. "I thought you came here seeking my help?"
"Where were you last night, between eleven p.m. and four a.m.?" Cage asked, biting off his words.
"I was here, working on my thesis. Alone." Leonard hadn't taken his eyes off Dinah. "Ought I engage a lawyer?"
Cage sighed. "Thanks for your time, Mr. Marks. We'll see ourselves out."
They left Leonard Marks staring after them, his eyes not moving once as he watched them retreat.
Outside, Cage said in a voice Dinah had never before heard, "You need to learn to control yourself."
Dinah swallowed hard. "I'm sorry. To me, it's personal. You know what I mean."
"He got under my skin, too," said Cage. "Just chill out."
They didn't speak again for the entire journey home.
****
Ella Barnett woke with a start, all senses firing and hyper-alert. The sound of her heart racing echoed in her ears as she strained to hear what had awoken her. She stared into the darkness of her room, but could see no reason for the alarm response that had dumped adrenalin into her body. Finally, she heard a series of muffled thumps from the direction of her father's room. With anxiety mounting, Ella threw back the covers and padded softly out of her room to investigate.
John Barnett had pulled a suitcase down from the top shelf in his walk-in closet. He was frantically stuffing clothes into it without even looking at what he was packing. As she watched him, she was astonished to see tears rolling down his cheeks.
It might have been the illness, because Ella had never seen her father cry before. During hard times — such as when his own mother had died, and when his wife, Ella's mother, had died — his reaction had been to retreat into himself. His quiet and private grief was endured, and gradually his normal, cheerful personality re-established itself. To see actual tears was as disconcerting as his efforts at packing at one o'clock in the morning.
"Dad? Are you okay? What's going on?" Ella finally asked.
He glanced up at her. "I'm leaving."
Ella pursed her lips. "Where are you going?"
He wiped tears away with the back of his hand. "I don't want to be a burden to you any longer."
Ella wasn't sure what to say. He seemed to have some recognition of her, rather than staring at her with hostility, the way anyone would at a stranger in his or her home.
"You're not a burden," she said gently. Had he someho
w guessed at the turmoil within her? "I really want you to stay."
He slowly stood up and said, "Charlotte, you don't understand. You don't really know me."
Ella nodded to herself. He thought she was his young wife, and his mind was stuck decades past.
"Of course I do. I know you well and I love you." Ella moved closer to him, almost gliding so that she didn't scare him.
The old man snorted. "You don't really know me! You don't know some of the things I've done. You wouldn't love me if you knew."
"If I knew what?" Ella wondered whether his ruined mind was imagining an event that had never happened, or whether he was remembering some real youthful folly.
"If I told you, you wouldn't love me anymore," he said, staring at his suitcase. "I am not sure we should get married. I don't deserve you."
"It doesn't matter now," Ella said, seeing that questioning him would only upset him further. "What's done is done. It doesn't change anything."
"How can you say that?" her father cried, and the anguish in his voice was so real that Ella began to doubt that it was imagined. "I don't know if I can live with myself!"
Ella tried to think of how her mother would have handled him. In a gentle, firm tone, she said, "That's enough. You know I love you and that's all that matters. There isn't anything we can't get through together. And I won't have you leave."
Again the old man knuckled away tears and slumped on the bed. "You're a good woman," he whispered. "I don't know that I deserve you. But since you're determined to stay with me, then that's all I need."
"So you'll stay?" Ella said, almost holding her breath. She just couldn't envisage herself barring her father's way if he was still determined to leave. He was still physically much stronger than her.
"Okay, if you'll have me," he said, and smiled at her.
She helped settle him back into bed, and then busied herself tidying up the clothes and suitcase he'd pulled out of the closet. By the time she'd finished, he was snoring softly.