Mirror Image

by Dennis Palumbo

  “Stay back! Stay back!” His right hand shot up again, waving the gun.

  “For Christ’s sake, put down the gun.” I kept my tone firm, unequivocal. “You’re not gonna hurt me.”

  “You just stay back, okay? Okay?” His words were strangled. I could hear a gurgling sound.

  “I got it all under control now, Doc,” he went on, wheezing. “Control, control. Been the damn problem all along. Crowd control. Mind control. Pest control.”

  Slowly, I raised the flashlight.

  “I’ll stay put, Richie,” I said, “but I want to take a look at you. Okay?”

  “That’s what it’s about, see?” A choked spasm. “What it’s always been about. Pest control. They’re eating me up inside, and I never knew. Nobody did. Not even you.”

  “I’m just taking a look, okay, Richie?”

  I moved the flashlight beam tentatively across the floor, till it touched his shoes. Then, I inched it up his legs to his chest.

  “Just a quick look, and then—”

  “Not even you, Doc…”

  Suddenly, the light hit his face, and I saw into the maw of hell. His features were haunted, blasted. His eyes were unnaturally wide, deathly white, rivulets of blood seeping from each eyeball. His mouth hung slack, foaming with a bloody froth.

  He screamed at the beam, bringing his left hand up against his eyes. He had something in that hand.

  A box, about the size of a brick. Opened.

  “Richie, no!”

  I lunged for him, but he backed away, swinging his gun hand wildly. Screaming in pain and outrage, he squeezed the trigger. Shots echoed.

  I hit the floor and rolled, feeling and hearing the bullets whizzing past my ear. I scrambled across the floor and behind the crate again, gasping.

  Forget my five minutes. If the cops heard those shots, they’d come swarming in. Now. And they’d cut him down.

  “I get it now,” Richie was saying. “Just pest control. Like Terminix. All those shrinks and doctors and hospitals. Nothin’ but pest control…”

  “Give me the gun, Richie. The cops—”

  He fired another shot in my direction, then leaned back and poured some more of the poison crystals into his mouth. He staggered like a drunk swigging from a bottle, but stayed upright. Then he turned, transfixed, as he chewed and swallowed, blood-streaked drool streaming from the corners of his mouth.

  Fuck it. I jumped up and bolted across the floor, even as he raised an unsteady hand to fire the gun.

  I didn’t make it. Turning too late, diving, the slug slammed into my Kevlar vest.

  Richie doubled over in pain. He lurched against the wall, retching violently. The box of rat poison hit the floor. But he still held the gun.

  Gasping, spackled with blood and vomit, Richie collided with the wall and scratched his way, crab-like, along its rough, pock-marked surface.

  Staggering to my feet, I went after him. I had to. I knew where he was going.

  Richie got to the window a scant few seconds before I could reach him. Clutching the scorched frame, Richie waved the gun shakily in my direction.

  “Tell him, Doc. Tell my father…”

  “Tell him what?”

  I took a half-step. He was beyond an arm’s length away. I blinked into the gun barrel, held now with both his hands, trembling spasmodically. His body was half-way out of the window.

  “Tell him what, Richie?”

  The police assault had begun. I heard shouts from below, the crack of axes and battering rams against mortar, the pounding of heavy footsteps on the stairwell.

  Outside, the roar of the police helicopter. A powerful arc light streamed through the broken walls, painted an incandescent halo around Richie’s body in the window.

  “It’s the police, Richie. You gotta—”

  Richie’s face screwed up into a grotesque grin. Except, impossibly, his eyes. Weeping tears of blood, they held a final, terrifying lucidity.

  “Tell my father I didn’t scream. All the way down…I didn’t scream…”

  “Richie, no!!”

  He let himself go and fell backwards. I reached out, hands clutching empty air…

  I watched, numb, as he spiraled down, in a deliberate silence, lit by police searchlights. A nightmare in slow motion, tumbling limbs flying, to sprawl hard against the scattered debris below.

  Sharp, officious voices filled the air. More lights. Cops converging on Richie from every direction.

  I collapsed against the window frame, closed my eyes, gulped acrid air. Blood pounded my earsdrums. Approaching footfalls, anxious voices calling my name.

  I didn’t answer. They’d find me soon enough.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  “Here, this always works for me.” Elaine Garman offered me a drink. “Though your mileage may vary.”

  Her smile looked forced in the faint light from the table lamp. But the rest of her—designer clothes, upswept hair, studied haughtiness as she reclined against the sofa back—seemed undiminished by the night’s events.

  Which was more than I could say for everybody else. Bert Garman was pacing the floor of his living room, more agitated than I’d ever seen him. Meanwhile, curled in a chair behind him, Nancy Mendors followed Garman’s movements with heavy, sallow eyes, as if hoping his repetitive rhythm might eventually lull her to sleep.

  I’d been trying unsuccessfully to banish the after-image of Richie’s falling body from my mind. It had lingered, indelibly, for the past five hours, most of which had been spent giving my statement at the mid-town precinct.

  Though that makes me sound a lot more coherent than I was when the cops found me. Apparently I’d blacked out from pain and the shock of Richie’ suicide, and the EMT guys had a tough time getting any straight answers out of me about how I was doing.

  Finally, satisfied that I wasn’t going to lose my value as a witness by inconveniently dying, I was brought up to Lt. Lucci’s office.

  “Richie never meant to hurt me,” I explained to him, as his bloodshot eyes narrowed skeptically. “He just used the gun to keep me back. All he wanted was to die.”

  “Scarfin’ down a box of rat poison, yeah, you could say that.” Lucci’s scowl held no sympathy. “Meanwhile, his old man’s across town right now, raising holy hell about how we handled the whole thing. Like it’s our fault his kid was a fuckin’ whack job.”

  I waved him off. “I want to see the toxicology report. This wasn’t just a psychotic episode. There was something else. I mean, he was like guys I’ve seen on angel dust.”

  Just as they were about to release me, reports started coming in from CSU and the ME. Apparently, my guess about the security guard’s death had been correct. Heart attack. Probably the shock of encountering a raving intruder.

  “Funny about your Richie,” Lucci had said as he ushered me out of his office. “I’ve seen a lot of jumpers. They almost always scream on the way down. But your guy? Not a peep.” He scratched his beard stubble. “Funny.”

  “Yeah.” I walked away.

  When I stepped out of the elevator in the main lobby, I was met by a crowd of reporters, pressing against a rope barrier manned by some uniforms. A volley of voices rose up at once, peppering me with questions about Richie’s death, and my connection to the Wingfield case.

  Then, from out of nowhere, another uniformed cop appeared at my side, taking my elbow. “Come on.”

  He led me down a side corridor to a private door, and then to an unmarked unit idling on the other side. “Brass said to make sure you don’t step in shit.”

  “Little late for that.”

  He shrugged, uninterested, and got behind the wheel. Ten minutes later, he dropped me where I’d parked my car, a couple blocks from the building site. As I stood at the curb, watching him drive off, I heard a car horn bleat.

  A pair of headlights flared, and I squinted as Bert Garman rolled up in his late-model BMW. Nancy Mendors was still with him.

  “Get in,” she said. “We’ve waited
half the night.”

  “Thanks, but my car’s right here.”

  “You’re coming home with me.” Garman’s voice was laced with fatigue. “You need a drink, and we need to talk.”

  “You’re half right.” But I got in.

  After which, we drove in a tense, awkward silence out of the city and across the bridge to Garman’s tudor-style house in a well-maintained area of Greentree.

  Now, under Elaine Garman’s watchful eye, I downed my drink and waited for its miraculous effect. My chest ached from where the bullet had hit the vest, and my ankle throbbed as though wrapped in barbed wire. Everything else just hurt like hell.

  I handed Elaine my glass. “I think I need a refill.”

  As she got up almost gaily, and went to the polished wet-bar, I leaned back and took some deep breaths. When I focused again, I found Bert Garman glaring down at me.

  “You know how many messages I got tonight from UniHealth’s lawyers?”

  “A lot?”

  He frowned. “First Riley’s murder, and now a patient commits suicide. UniHealth feels screwed having bought Ten Oaks. They’re considering pulling out of the deal, for cause. Which means I’ll have the other board members out for my blood. I could lose my job. Hell, they could sue me.”

  I shrugged. “Well, if they do, I know a good lawyer.”

  Nancy grimaced. “This isn’t funny, Dan.”

  “I agree. Richie’s death isn’t one bit funny. And that’s what we should be worrying about. Finding out what the hell happened. Not this other shit.”

  Garman threw up his hands and sank into an armchair. Unlike his wife, with every passing hour he was looking worse. Clothes disheveled, creased, limp with sweat. Face pinched, drained of life.

  “I wanted you and Nancy here together,” he went on wearily, “because I want us all on the same page. For the cops. The insurance company. The press.”

  “And Richie’s father, the senator,” I said.

  He groaned. “Don’t remind me. It’s gonna be a goddam feeding frenzy. But I’ll handle it. I’ll take point. All I need from you two is cooperation.”

  “Meaning what?” asked Nancy.

  “Meaning, we have one, consistent story. One version of events.”

  “And what would that be?” Elaine mixed drinks.

  Ignoring her, Bert Garman folded his arms. “Just what actually happened. A suicidal patient escaped from the clinic van. By the time competent mental health personnel and police arrived on the scene, he’d jumped from the top floor of a building, taking his own life.”

  Nancy laughed bitterly. “You don’t think his family’s going to sue the clinic? Maybe even me personally?”

  “Why you?”

  “I was his case manager. I prescribed his medication.”

  “Did you do anything different? Alter his treatment in some way that can hurt us?”

  She took a minute to think. “Six weeks ago, I put him on Adnorfex. Then, after Brooks’ murder, I prescribed an Ellavil kicker. He was becoming unglued. We discussed this, Bert. Remember? Changing the protocols for some of the patients having difficulty with Brooks’ death.”

  Garman nodded. “Yes. Yes.”

  I turned to her. “You have all your case notes, the altered treatment schedule?”

  “Of course.” Her lips tightened.

  “Who administered the meds?”

  “An orderly, or intern, I suppose. I’d have to check the shift record.”

  Garman clapped his hands together, like some kind of coach. “Good. Let’s get the paperwork assembled. I have a call in to the clinic attorneys. And the board’s meeting first thing in the morning.”

  Nancy glanced at her watch. “Which won’t be long now.”

  Elaine Garman returned with a drink in either hand, gave one to me. Then she sidled back over to the other end of the sofa. Watching us over the rim of her glass.

  The three of us kept on talking for another hour, trying to build a clinical picture to the best of our understanding, reviewing Richie’s last seventy-two hours. As we struggled, my glance would occasionally find Elaine Garman still sitting on the sofa arm, smiling at our consternation, casually swinging her slim, gleaming leg.

  ***

  “Everything’s turning to shit,” Nancy said, leaning back against the headrest. “It’s been going that way for a long time, really. But I always had work. The clinic. My port in the storm.”

  “Even if UniHealth pulls out,” I said, “Ten Oaks will survive. It has one of the best reputations in the state.”

  “It did. But now, after all this…”

  We were sharing a cab, taking her home. Despite Bert Garman’s offer to drive each of us where we needed to go, I’d insisted he try to get at least a couple hours’ sleep. He had a brutal day ahead of him.

  Now, in the pre-dawn darkness, our cab moved through empty streets toward Shadyside, and the modest row of apartments just off the business district. Nancy’s building hadn’t changed much over the years, a gabled structure made newly-fashionable during the area’s gentrification.

  At the curb, I helped her out of the cab and put my arm around her. She felt alarmingly thin, frail.

  “Give me a minute,” I said to the cabbie.

  As we walked to the front door, Nancy’s head lay against my shoulder. I could feel her sort of slump against me, as though finally allowing herself to deflate.

  “I’m gonna miss Richie,” she said. “I mean, I really liked him. Cared about him…”

  “I know. Me, too.”

  She paused. “It’s funny, but nowadays the only people I see regularly are patients. We’re as intimate as friends, and yet not friends. Now just the idea that I won’t see him every day…I guess I still can’t believe it.”

  She smiled up at me. “Classic shrink’s trap, and I fell right into it: My patients are my social life. I mean, how lame is that?”

  “It’s not lame. Just common. Don’t beat yourself up about it.” I squeezed her shoulder.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve got plenty of other things to beat myself up about. Like, maybe I screwed up his medication. Or missed some obvious signs that he was deteriorating. Let’s face it, Danny, he died on my watch.”

  We reached the building entrance, and Nancy slipped out of my arm to search her purse for keys. I watched her pale, earnest brow in the faint porch light. I knew she’d never forgive herself for what happened to Richie.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “It wasn’t anything you did, or didn’t do. I’m sure of it.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he was just tired of his life. Tired of being lonely. I can understand that.”

  I looked at her. “You gonna be okay?”

  She nodded, then leaned up and kissed my cheek. Then she turned without another word, unlocked the outer lobby door, and went inside.

  ***

  The cab pulled around the far corner of the abandoned lot, still choked with lab vans, CSU techs, and uniforms. The building itself seemed even more desolate in the unforgiving dawn light. Some early-rising onlookers milled at the scene, restless behind the crime scene tape, waiting for something new and interesting to happen.

  My Mustang was parked where I’d left it, on a deserted side street shadowed by industrial squalor. I paid the cabbie and got out. Here, cloistered by weary, silent buildings that blocked the morning sun, the world seemed suddenly empty, hushed.

  I headed for my car. Lost in thought, it wasn’t until I’d reached the driver’s side door that I noticed that someone was sitting behind the wheel.

  I froze, my hand inches from the door latch.

  Scratch marks. Paint chipped away. The lock had been forced.

  Shadows stretched across the man in the driver’s seat. A bearded man. Unmoving. Staring straight ahead.

  I forced air into my lungs.

  “Hey,” I said. I pulled the door open.

  It wasn’t a man. Or alive. Pink, plastic hands rested at its sides. Belt
ed into place, the manikin sat as stiffly upright as a soldier in church.

  It was also smoothly naked, except for the costume beard and wire-rimmed glasses that clumsily framed the serene, staring face.

  And the torso streaked with thick, dripping globs of red paint, just below the knife embedded there. Where the heart would be.

  Though I knew it wasn’t a knife. It was a skewer. Thin, long-bladed. Buried to the hilt in the manikin’s chest.

  Reeling, I grasped the open door frame to steady myself. Stared hard at the crusting, scarlet blotch. Crude, finger-painted letters spelled out a single word.

  “Soon…”

  Chapter Forty

  “At least we know where the second skewer is,” I said to Casey. “Forensics has the pair now. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll find something.”

  She eyed me doubtfully. “You mean ’cause we’ve been so lucky up till now?”

  We were in my room at the Hyatt, naked under the bedsheets. According to the table clock, it was two in the afternoon. Casey was taking a long lunch.

  “Biegler has a team checking all the up-scale retail outlets,” she said, “trying to get a lead on where the killer got the skewers. He might go back for another set. Unless he decides to be creative and switch to butcher knives.”

  “He won’t,” I said. “It’s part of his communication with me. You don’t have to be an FBI profiler to figure that one out. Plus, I think he’s proud of the uniqueness of the murder weapon. That’s part of the message, too.”

  Casey shivered involuntarily. “Jesus, it’s like you’re starting to know the guy.”

  “Something tells me I already do.”

  After finding the manikin in my car, I’d called Harry Polk and waited for him and the forensics team to show up. By this time, I knew the drill only too well. CSU towed my car back to impound to start the work-up, while I went with Polk back to the station.

  “We got a pool goin’ at the office,” Polk said as we drove into the police lot. “Smart money says you’re gonna be dead by the weekend.”

  “My tax dollars at work.”