“Look, I’m sorry, okay?”
Jasmine shook her head. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You’re the patient; I’m the doctor. The responsibility to avoid compromising situations is on my end.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
Finally, Laura said, “It was fun though, right?”
“Most fun I’ve had in weeks, but that doesn’t change a thing.”
“Let’s stick to business, then. Let’s talk about the article.”
She frowned. “What have I gotten myself into?”
“Hey, you already agreed to do it, and I already sold it to my boss. If it’s my mental well-being you’re interested in protecting—”
“I better make sure you keep your job,” Jasmine said. “Got it. And I’m as good as my word, but this is the last time I get mixed up with one of my patients outside this room.”
Patient. Laura had to admit the word stung. She didn’t have any real friends in Hillsborough, and she’d come to think of Jasmine as more than just her therapist.
Jasmine caught the look on her face. “What?”
“Just thinking about the Kid. Any early conclusions?”
“I read through everything you gave me, drew up some notes. It’s nothing revelatory, just the same old song and dance about psychopathy. Deputy Rodgers drew some startling conclusions about the voyeuristic nature of the crimes.”
“Sheriff Rodgers,” Laura corrected her.
“Deputy Rodgers at the time. He went on to be sheriff? Doesn’t surprise me; he had a sharp mind. His conclusion was that the crime itself, the murder of these girls, was secondary. It was just a foundation, a building block in a larger plan.”
“Seeing the reactions was more important than the act itself. Do you put any stock in the idea that he’s a local? Someone living right here?”
Jasmine nodded. “Very much so. Rodgers didn’t have the experience in clinical work to make some of the connections—plus the literature on serial killers was much smaller back then—but his ideas dovetail with what we know now.”
She stood, walked to the drapes, and pushed one aside to let in more light.
“Serial killers work in cycles, and those cycles are predictable even if they’re changing. These kinds of people have been thinking about their fantasy, whatever it is, for most of their life. It builds up like pressure in a steam pipe. One day, the pipe bursts. They kill someone. Then what happens?”
Laura shook her head. She didn’t know.
“They stop for a while, physically at least. The fantasy sustains them again. It’s much stronger now, fueled by details of the actual act. Terrible, of course, but this also prevents them from killing for a while.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
“But,” Jasmine said, “over time this refractory period seems to last fewer and fewer months. Before long it’s down to weeks, then only days.”
“How does that relate to the Kid?”
“Well, if Rodgers was right, this man would be nearly unique in his pathology. He’d get his kicks from the interactions with living people, and those interactions would far outnumber his murders. Every news article, every discussion with people on the street, every expression of horror—they’d be like manna from heaven. His murders are spectacle, and he gets to move among the audience, invisible.”
She took a breath.
“It must be a feeling of great power. Godlike, even.”
“Is that how he sees himself? A god?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“Just a feeling. He is highly organized and very careful, but if your end goal is never to be caught, these kinds of crimes are not how you do it.”
“He wants to get caught?”
“Not at all. But I suspect he accepts it as an inevitability, the same way you or I accept our mortality. We’re just human beings, after all. So is he; he knows that.”
The knot in Laura’s stomach returned with a vengeance, the pain so sharp it felt like she’d been stabbed. “Can you sit down?”
Jasmine turned to face her. “Are you all right? Your face is quite pale.”
“Just sit,” she said, and when the doctor was across from her, she took a minute before speaking.
“He called me.”
“Who?”
Laura fixed her with a look.
“I don’t believe it,” Jasmine said.
“Yes, it was him.”
“Oh, he showed you some ID?”
“He said enough.”
Laura related the details of the phone call, especially the part about the rocky outcropping on the ridge. When she was finished, she said, “How could he have known about that unless he’s exactly who he claims to be?”
Jasmine thought a minute, then said, “You told only Agent Timinski about the cigarette butts?”
Laura nodded.
“And who did he tell?”
“No one.”
“You’re sure?”
“He said he wouldn’t.”
“You’re a newspaper reporter, not his partner. Do I really need to tell you that police officers, even FBI agents, lie routinely during the course of their duties?”
“How would you know?”
Jasmine waved a hand in disgust. “Please. I testified in more than my fair share of trials back in Chicago, usually for the defense. The Chicago Police Department wanted to put every single mentally ill person in jail, and proof of incapacity rarely dissuaded them. Interrogations are state-sanctioned lies designed to elicit a confession. You know this.”
Laura nodded. Jasmine wasn’t wrong—the police did often lie as part of an investigation. “So what are you suggesting?”
“That you’re not exactly popular with local law enforcement right now. Say Timinski told even one other person. The story could spread, could find its way to someone who would use it against you.”
“You really think that’s what happened?” Laura asked.
“No, I’m not making a judgment call. You told me you had proof, that you’re one hundred percent certain this call was from the Kid. I’m just pointing out that the proof is a little shaky.”
“Okay,” Laura said slowly. “But based on the details, was it him? What’s your gut tell you?”
Jasmine looked at the ceiling for a few seconds, then back down. “Maybe.”
“Come on. That’s it?”
“I’m sorry, Laura, but a secondhand conversation isn’t an ideal tool for analysis. I might as well be playing telephone with the guy. The situation doesn’t exactly lend itself to strong conclusions.”
Laura dug into her bag, pulled out a notebook and pencil, and balanced them on her knee. “Next question,” she said.
Jasmine shook her head. “No, this is your session. We need to talk about you. We can start in on the details at the end of the hour, but the rest of this time has to be for you.”
“This is for me. This is all I’m thinking about.”
“Come on, I know that’s not true. I got your message.”
Laura cringed. She’d made another call to Jasmine’s office Sunday morning after her encounter with Smythe. She’d called filled with fear and rage and a cocktail of other emotions. More than anything, though, she’d wanted to share her resolve. It was Jasmine, after all, who had inspired her.
“I figured you forgot about it.”
“Of course not,” Jasmine said.
“But you didn’t bring it up.”
“Not until now, no. Adequate time and privacy are important.”
She tapped the side of her head. “I can’t do it right now. It’s one extra thing to turn over in here, and my mind is full up. There’s no more space.”
“Laura, it’s taking up space whether you want it to or not. Talking about it is the only way to get it out.”
“There’s nothing to say. He’s a prick.”
“A dangerous prick. Have you considered going to the police?”
<
br /> “Yes, I considered it.”
Jasmine waited for her to continue and, when she didn’t, said, “And decided not to, I take it.”
Laura leaned closer and started talking with her hands. “It doesn’t work, see? I say he did, he says he didn’t, his little girlfriend backs him up, and no one believes me. It’s a credibility issue, understand? I have a lot of experience with those.”
“That’s a risk, to be sure. So is doing nothing.”
“I need to do my job.”
“You know, I didn’t have the best relationship with my mother either, and—”
Laura threw back her head and laughed. “I never figured you for such a Freudian. I mean, I know I talked about my mother when I first came in, but she’s not tied into everything.”
“No, let me finish. I didn’t have the best relationship with my mother, and she didn’t have the best relationship with men. To her, men were all the same: simple, boorish creatures, fated for violence. God’s ultimate joke was to sculpt that evil into their very natures and then make them stronger than us, faster than us. To my mother, the result was inevitable—we were destined to be under a man’s thumb, born to be slaves. She saw my whole life as an opportunity to spit in the face of that plan. I was adopted, and she saw me as her most important project. She colored my views to match hers. For a long time, I thought men were my enemy.”
“You don’t think so anymore?” Laura asked. “Even after reading those files?”
Jasmine’s eyes snapped into focus. “Don’t be reductive,” she scoffed. “Of course I don’t. Men, women, it doesn’t matter—human nature is the enemy. The worst humanity has to offer is very bad indeed, but it doesn’t seem to discriminate along gender lines.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with a prick named Colin Smythe.”
“You’re right, of course. I’m rambling. My point is that for a long time after I got out of my house, I felt like right and wrong were concepts without any inherent value. They had meaning, but there was just no way to put them into action. Basically, I didn’t believe people would do anything if I pointed out an injustice. My mother had me convinced of her philosophy, that the world is a scary place and a cry for help serves only to summon the monsters.”
Laura said, “But now you’re saying a cry for help is the right move.”
“It can be. I don’t know if they’ll put the mayor’s son in jail over one report, but until you try, how do you know yours will be the first?”
Laura chewed that over, and Jasmine seemed perfectly content to stare off into space.
After a while, Laura asked, “What happened to your mother?”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Really, I’m interested.”
“It’s not a good story. No happy ending. When I was eighteen I left, and later on she died. We never reconciled. I went to the funeral, certain I would find something there. Answers, I guess. But life doesn’t work like that.”
“What made you start questioning her?”
“You mean her views on the less-fair sex?” Jasmine smiled. “I fell in love.”
“That can’t have been easy.”
“In that house? It was a nightmare. We used to send each other letters in code; the school’s copy of Romeo and Juliet was the key. A little on the nose to be sure, but as a seventeen-year-old it was the most romantic thing I could imagine.”
“Coded messages,” Laura repeated.
“Yes. What’s wrong? You look even paler than before.”
Laura rose out of her seat and started for the door. The good doctor shouted something after her, but she couldn’t make it out and didn’t bother to try. Three or four separate puzzle pieces had just clicked together in her head.
She had an answer.
POLICE RESCUE SIX CHILDREN IN TRAFFICKING RING BUST
By Laura Chambers
January 27, 2015
BOSTON — Police rescued six children and a 29-year-old woman after busting a child trafficking ring based in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, according to a statement put out yesterday evening by the Massachusetts State Police.
The children, many suffering from malnutrition, remained unidentified Monday. The lone adult discovered with the children, identified as Cheskka Dimaguiba, is a Filipino national. There is no record of her entering the United States.
The possibility of a crime in progress was uncovered by Globe staffers conducting an investigative report, and the paper subsequently made a full report to police. Acting on the tip, police raided a warehouse in Dorchester two nights ago. Further investigation revealed a cache of food and clothing and ultimately led police to a room described as a “hidden dungeon.”
“Witness statements and other evidence indicate this warehouse was the scene of more than one crime,” Justin Spear, communications director for the Boston Police Department, told the Globe. “These crimes were not committed by a single individual.”
Asked for the identities of the perpetrators, Spear said, “The property owner was identified and apprehended without incident. He in turn gave us the names of three other individuals. Two have been arrested, and we are currently seeking a third. We will not release their names at this time.”
The Globe has uncovered evidence of an association with the Archdiocese of Boston. While the Archdiocese is not the de facto owner of the warehouse, documents indicate financing was arranged two years ago by Cardinal Hamilton Odell as part of the church’s Youth Refuge program. Furthermore, Cardinal Odell is named personally as a lienholder on the property, indicating a financial relationship.
The Archdiocese describes their financial involvement as little more than a legal technicality. “We have numerous programs focused on community revitalization,” said a spokesperson. “Those programs can involve loans made to low-income individuals. The Archdiocese was not aware of any illegal activity.”
Cardinal Odell’s personal attorney, when reached for comment, said, “We’re talking about a man who’s spent eight years in Boston working to help its residents, and that includes helping to finance projects in neglected neighborhoods. To me, this is a case of no good deed goes unpunished. I suspect we’ll find this is nothing more than another witch hunt by the city of Boston.”
The property owner and other suspects are being held without bond. They are due to be arraigned Tuesday.
CHAPTER
17
IN THE END, it was a mistake that broke the code wide open. Like the discovery of the heating properties of microwaves, or of the cosmic microwave background radiation, Laura stumbled onto the answer blindly.
It happened while she was sitting at a scarred table in the basement of the Orange County Library. The library’s basement stacks stretched the length of the building, floor-to-ceiling metal shelves supporting the concentrated knowledge of history’s scientists, artists, and philosophers. No one in Hillsborough seemed particularly interested, though. She hadn’t seen another human being for at least two hours.
No one heard her groan and crumple up her papers after the first hour. No one heard her slam a fist into the tabletop after the second.
Windows admitted long bands of sunlight that contracted as the time moved toward noon, until the fluorescent lights were her only company, buzzing away as she rubbed the sore spot on her palm and cursed herself. Could she really have been so wrong? Maybe the best thing to do would be to revisit the entire project, reexamine her assumptions. Somewhere in there was the answer.
She could feel it.
A five-minute break was in order. She walked up and down the aisles, working out the stiffness from hunching over too long. Then she walked back to her table with fresh eyes. Papers covered the top, but two in particular stood at the center. First was the photograph of Teresa Mitchem’s skin, stretched back to its normal size. The tattoo was clearly visible. The numbers, even tiny, were perfectly legible:
8
27
4
4
&
nbsp; 3
5
4
9
4
4
8
2
3
6
3
7
11
17
3
6
3
3
8
27
3
6
3
7
8
27
8
27
11
51
11
37
Thirty-six numbers in total, etched into the skin in a grid. Six rows of six numbers, six columns of six numbers. A perfect square. When it was a two-digit number, the Kid had taken care to mold it into its space in the grid. His work was nothing if not symmetrical.
In retrospect, something about her phone call from the man claiming to be the Kid stood out. He’d said he was following her. He’d meant it first as a journalist, that he was reading her stories. Then he’d made it personal. Once she’d known he was out there—watching, waiting—all references to news articles had blown out of her head as if hit by a hurricane.
This morning, during therapy, Jasmine’s comment had forced a jagged shard into place. In the moment before fear had taken her over, Laura had assumed he was talking about her articles in the Gazette, the coverage of his own crimes.
But he had mentioned another article, a Globe article, and it seemed a strange one to bring up considering the conversation.
She picked up a printout of her story from three years ago, now marked up with her notes, and read it one more time. Why this specific article? The Kid had said it was because of her empathetic treatment of a monstrous man. Indeed, Hamilton Odell was a monster, and she’d remembered the article the moment the Kid mentioned it, but there wasn’t anything particularly empathetic about the story, just straight-ahead reporting. It didn’t make sense.
Then Jasmine’s story about her childhood love shook something loose. Forced to communicate in secret, they had relied on the same copy of Romeo and Juliet to hide their messages. It was one of the most basic ways to conceal information.
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