The Broken

by Shelley Coriell

  Next to him Kate gasped. He pictured her eyes without the brown contacts: green, the same color as the little girl in the photo.

  Other than the picture, which needed much further thought, he found nothing significant. No calendars, address books, notebooks, and no souvenirs from six dead broadcasters.

  The director escorted them to the main house and down the hall. As they passed the door marked INFIRMARY, Watson stopped.

  “You know, there’s one more thing,” Watson said. “Earlier this year Jason started taking some kind of prescription medication. Because we’re very strict around here about any drugs, he kept the meds in the infirmary.”

  “What was he taking?”

  Watson shook his head and took out a set of keys that jingled on a large silver loop. “Our staff physician, Dr. Trowbridge, keeps track of that type of stuff, but he’s out of town at a conference.” He opened a small locked cabinet. “Here we go.”

  The prescription bottle label read ANAFRANIL.

  Kate nudged closer. “What’s it for?”

  “Antidepressant,” Hayden said. “A drug historically used to treat obsessive-compulsive and panic disorders. When exactly did Jason start taking the Anafranil?”

  Watson tapped the bottle against his palm. “January. I’m sure it was January because we had some changes in our employee health insurance plan, and I remember Jason checking to make sure prescription drugs were still covered.”

  “January,” Kate repeated. “The same month the first broadcaster was murdered.”

  Chapter Ten

  Saturday, June 13, 8:15 a.m.

  Dorado Bay, Nevada

  A little girl in a sherbet-orange sundress with green slime running from her nose screamed into Kate’s ear. Kate dropped the Field & Stream magazine she’d been pretending to read and grabbed the side of her head.

  “Oh, Pammy, come here, doll baby.” The little girl’s mother picked up the screaming child and held her to her chest and started to rock. “I’m so sorry,” the mother said to Kate. “She has an ear infection, and she’s miserable.”

  Kate mouthed “Oh” and settled the magazine in front of her face.

  She and Hayden sat in the Dorado Bay Medical Center, a small operation with a part-time doctor and one nurse, as they waited to meet with the physician who prescribed the antidepressant to Jason six months ago. On the waiting room chair next to her, Hayden pecked away at his laptop, jotting page after page of notes from their meeting at the academy. She continued to be amazed at Hayden’s total focus. If she hadn’t seen that flare of heat in his eyes at breakfast, the one that still warmed her cheeks when she thought about it, she’d swear he was some kind of super secret robo-agent.

  “Do you two have any kids yet?” the woman asked when the little girl stopped screaming and climbed off her lap.

  “Kids? Him, me, us?” Kate asked with a start. “No!” The idea of her and Hayden being a couple was insane. She didn’t do “couples.” In college, she’d dated but never more than two or three dates with the same man, and she’d never slept with any of them, mostly because she never found a man she connected with. It was ironic. In college her classmates called her “everybody’s girl” because she dated so much, but they’d been wrong. She’d belonged to no one. And never would. As for kids? Not in this lifetime. The Butcher’s knife had done too much physical damage.

  “Just wait,” the mother in the doctor’s office said. “Kids will change your life. Mostly for the better.” She smiled at the child who toddled over to a fish tank, where she took a long green string of mucus from her nose and wiped it on the front of the glass.

  “Oh, Pammy, don’t do that!” The mother whipped a tissue from her purse and swiped at the child’s nose, which sent Pammy into another nuclear meltdown.

  Still Hayden typed on his computer without missing a stroke. Was he human?

  A nurse in a smock with blue monkeys poked her head into the reception area. “Dr. Gray will see you, Pammy.”

  “No!” The little girl kicked as her mother picked her up and carried her toward the exam rooms. As the door shut, Kate watched Pammy run to a man in a white coat and kick him in the shin.

  “Dr. Gray will see you after this patient,” the nurse said before she shut the door.

  Twenty minutes later, the nurse led them to one of the exam rooms, where Dr. Gray was rubbing his shin. He sported two Pammy-size sandal prints on his pants.

  “Agent Reed. Ms. Johnson.” The doctor nodded as he began washing his hands.

  “Why did you prescribe an antidepressant to Jason Erickson?” Hayden asked. No foaming the runway, no greasing the skids. Hayden could read people well, and it was obvious that he knew they didn’t have much time with Jason’s doctor.

  “Panic attacks,” Dr. Gray said.

  “When did they start? How did they present?”

  “I prescribed the antidepressant after the first of the year. Classic case. Palpitations, sweats, chest pain, nausea, feelings that he didn’t exist.”

  “Was this Erickson’s first time on antidepressants?”

  “That I know of.” The doctor rinsed his hands and dried them with a paper towel from the dispenser. “I’ve only been seeing Jason for the past five years.”

  “Why a tricyclic? It’s an older class of antidepressant and not widely prescribed now, given that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors do the same job with fewer side effects.”

  The doctor dropped the towel in the trash can. “Are you a physician, Agent Reed?”

  “Forensic psychologist.”

  The doctor put his hands in the pockets of his white coat and tilted his head in thoughtful contemplation. “A man who spends a good deal of time in the criminal mind. Tough calling.”

  Hayden pointed to the shoe marks on the doctor’s pants. “So is dealing with patients like Pammy.”

  For the first time, the doctor smiled, and Kate realized again how good Hayden was at figuring out how to get into people’s heads to get what he needed.

  “It’s challenging.” The doctor walked gingerly down the hall toward another exam room.

  “So why put Jason on a drug with undesirable side effects?” Hayden asked.

  “Because Jason insisted on the tricyclic, even after I warned him of the accompanying dizziness and vision problems.”

  “Why?”

  “Apparently his mother took the same drug when she was younger and suffering from anxiety attacks. Jason said the drug worked for her and insisted on taking what she used.”

  Kate remembered Kendra’s panic attacks. Screechy affairs with flying dishes, destroyed books, and overturned furniture that ended with the panicked woman cowering in a corner. Even now, the skin on Kate’s forearms pebbled at the memory of her out-of-control mother.

  “I’ve been monitoring Jason for the past six months, and he is doing very well. No complaints, and he said his panic attacks all but disappeared.”

  They reached exam room two. Kate saw the tick in Hayden’s jaw. Time was running out.

  Hayden asked, “In your professional opinion, Dr. Gray, do you think Jason was of a mindset to murder those six broadcasters?”

  The doctor picked up the chart on the plastic inbox of the exam room. “Absolutely not. I can’t see Jason stabbing those women. He may have had a few panic attacks, but in my opinion, he’s no killer.”

  * * *

  Saturday, June 13, 8:30 a.m.

  Carson City, Nevada

  “Get me a goddamn drink.”

  The tone, more than the words, made Robyn Banks cringe. Mike hadn’t always talked to her that way. Three years ago he’d treated her like a queen. No, like a goddess. She’d been the center of his celestial universe.

  Until Katrina Erickson ruined everything.

  Mike stumbled over the hole in the carpet of their living room, where she sat at the card table that served as her computer desk, trying to decide if she should really hire a private investigator with the company name Cheap Dicks. But s
he needed cheap right now. She had to track down Katrina Erickson. Her job at KTTL-TV depended on it.

  “I said get me a goddamn drink. Jack and water.”

  Robyn turned from her computer but refused to see the wreck of a man before her. Instead she concentrated on her wreck of a home, specifically at the wall that once held two Cassatts but now featured only two holes, the exact size and shape of Mike’s fist. “It’s too early for whiskey,” she said.

  “Then make it a fucking Bloody Mary.”

  She forced a smile. “How about pancakes?”

  “You cook like shit.”

  She ran her hands through her hair and massaged her scalp. She was trying. Didn’t anyone see that? The news director at work? Mike here at home? She pressed the sides of her head. Didn’t they see she was trying to hold it together? “I’ll get us cereal, make some juice.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Robyn, stop pretending.”

  “Pretending?”

  Mike threw his arms wide. “That we’re fucking normal.”

  She straightened her spine. No, they weren’t normal. They never had been. Not now. Not in the past. They’d been special at one time. Not so long ago they were destined to be northern Nevada’s Golden Couple. She held the nightly anchor spot, the shiniest of all stars, at KTTL-TV for eight years, and Mike Muldoon was the star of his own shining universe. He had been king of all pension administrators and had amassed a horde of golden treasure that suited her lifestyle.

  “We could be more normal.” This morning she didn’t hold back the bitterness. “You could try to get a job.”

  “Newsflash, baby. People don’t want to hire an ex-con to handle their precious retirement dollars, especially one charged and found guilty of embezzling six million bucks.”

  No, it was $6.8 million, and the charges included not only embezzlement of health and welfare plans, but also the defrauding of pension funds. When Mike screwed up, he did it in a grand way. Justice had been swift for Mike. He had spent two years in prison. When he came out, he was a changed man. But Robyn had stayed at his side through it all. Even as the U.S. government had stripped away everything she and Mike owned: the Cassatts, vacation homes, her Jag. But they hadn’t taken their home, a Victorian fixer-upper they had no money to fix.

  She blinked back memories of what they no longer had and held out her hand. “Come on, Mikey, let’s go get some breakfast.”

  Mike smacked her hand and limped by her. “I’ll get myself the damned drink.”

  * * *

  Saturday, June 13, 9:30 a.m.

  Dorado Bay, Nevada

  Jason’s home squatted in a row of small, cheap tract houses in downtown Dorado Bay. Kate hadn’t been to that house in fifteen years, not since the night of her junior prom, the night she turned her back on her home and the people DNA deemed her family. She fingered her left ear and the scar there. It wasn’t as big as the ones Jason had given her, but now, as she walked up the driveway of her childhood home with Hayden, it burned, reminding her that this place had been her own brand of fiery hell.

  Hayden had called ahead, and Dorado Bay police chief Mitt Greenfield waited for them on the porch. He wore gray-skinned cowboy boots and a frown that reached his eyes.

  “We’re glad you’re here, Agent Reed. You, too, Ms. Johnson. We’ve been through this place top to bottom and found some odd things.”

  Hayden opened his mouth, but a loud screech sounded behind him.

  “Holy crap!” Kate spun toward the noise. “What was that?”

  “Jason’s cat,” Chief Greenfield said.

  “Jason owns a cat?” Hayden asked before she could.

  “That’s what the neighbor across the street said,” the chief added. “Said the cat’s been caterwauling for two weeks. And she won’t leave the place, either. It’s like she’s waiting for Erickson to come home.”

  Kate watched as Hayden jammed a hand in his pocket. “What’s wrong?” she asked him.

  “The cat—it’s not in the profile. The Butcher does not have close attachments. He’s isolated and cares exclusively for his own pleasures. If the Butcher had a pet, it would be dominated, most likely caged. Such an animal would instinctively fight to escape.”

  Escape. The single word blasted away thoughts of Jason’s cat. Kate’s earliest memories of this house were of escape. She felt the tug now.

  Hayden’s hand rested at the base of her spine. Her shoulders jiggled with a silent laugh. Of course he knew she was panicky, and of course he had her back. She headed up the steps.

  Nothing about her childhood home had changed. The entire house smelled of bleach and stale air caused by permanently sealed windows. Plastic sheeting covered the furniture. Alphabetically arranged books sat in razor-sharp rows on the bookcase. In the kitchen all food had been taken from original containers and placed in plastic storage canisters and labeled. As a child, she’d been consumed with running from this place. Jason had sought to bring order to it.

  “What was he like when you were growing up?” Hayden asked.

  She’d been expecting this question and was surprised it took Hayden so long to ask. But Hayden was a patient man, and it was time to walk through this house and look back on her childhood. A distasteful and daunting task, but head-guy Hayden would point out that only then could she move on. Yes, this man had gotten into her head, and right now she welcomed his presence.

  “When Jason was born, Kendra rarely let me touch him,” she started. “He was her special child. He was shy and never brought friends home. He was a neat freak and insisted on everything being organized.”

  “Did he ever show interest in animals?”

  “He was always bringing home strays, which Kendra would toss out of the house.”

  “Do you ever remember him mistreating any animals, pulling feathers off birds, torturing dogs or cats?”

  “No, why?”

  “As children many future serial killers exhibit sadistic tendencies toward animals. Many are also fascinated with fire and wet their beds, even into their early teens.”

  Kate shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like the kid I grew up with.” Although after what Jason did to her, she couldn’t bear to think of what he might have done to the cat still screeching outside.

  Hayden thrust a hand over the right side of his head, ruffling the neat wave of hair.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Sometimes I think I’m chasing two people. There’s so much about Jason that fits the profile of the Butcher. He’s a male between the ages of twenty and forty. Small build. Lives with his mom when not at work. No college education. Loves order. Then there are times where it doesn’t fit. The cat. He’s well liked by everyone. He had a girlfriend and picked her flowers.” His hand dropped to his side, and she had an insane desire to smooth his wayward hair.

  Instead she clasped her hands behind her back. “You said a witness saw a woman in a pink dress on Shayna Thomas’s front porch. Maybe he has a partner.”

  Hayden fisted his hand and slipped it in his pocket. “Maybe.”

  Jason’s bedroom was as neat as the rest of the house, with a closet full of clothes arranged by color and a collection of video games organized alphabetically.

  “Check out the nightstand,” the chief said. “That’s when things get really weird.”

  Hayden opened the drawer, and inside was a stack of underwear. Young-girl underwear. A half dozen pairs, white with little blue flowers and worn.

  Kate opened her mouth, but only a choky gasp spilled out.

  “Yours?” Hayden asked.

  She nodded, her skin crawling. “Why would he keep piles of my old underwear next to his bed?”

  Hayden’s eyes squinted, like he was reading fine print in a dense book. But isn’t that what profilers did? They read the fine print on evidence and people. “He had deep feelings for you,” Hayden said. “The location is significant, too. Your things aren’t in a box in the attic or under his bed. They’re next to him as he sleeps,
within arm’s reach and literally at the level of his heart.”

  Kate waved a shaking arm at the nightstand. “But it’s not right. He didn’t even like me. He stabbed me twenty-four times that first time, threatened me while I was in the hospital, and stabbed me again the night I got out of rehab. He tried to kill me.”

  Hayden moved to stand in front of her, a granite wall between her and the sickening contents of her brother’s nightstand. She matched her breathing with his, and her heart slowed.

  “What do you know about Jason’s sex life?” Hayden continued. “Do you remember any pornographic magazines, or do you remember him masturbating or sometimes staring at you?”

  She shook her head. “Like I said, he was very quiet, and I left when he was eleven. But I don’t remember him being overtly sexual. Although”—her stomach churned—“he never slept in his own bed. He always slept in the master bedroom. With her.”

  Before they reached the master bedroom, Kate smelled the flowers: stale roses. Worse than the smell was the sight. Pink was everywhere: a frilly pink comforter, pink striped wallpaper, pink paint on the ceiling, and pink throw rugs in the shape of roses. Her stomach heaved, and she grabbed onto the highboy dresser with the pink crocheted doilies.

  “You okay?” Hayden asked.

  She was fine. She could deal with this search of her childhood home if it meant getting closer to a killer, but as it turned out, Hayden found nothing significant in Kendra’s sea of nauseating pink.

  In the kitchen, Hayden poked around cupboards and the walk-in pantry.

  “Check out the freezer,” Chief Greenfield said, his voice wobbling for the first time.

  It was empty, except for a frozen bloodstain.

  “Oh, God,” Kate said with a hitch of breath. The stain, the width of the freezer and half the length, was hardly blood seepage from a package of hamburger.