The Dead Man

by Joel Goldman

  I gripped the back of a chair to steady myself as a burst of shakes ripped through me, hinging me at the waist, dropping my chin to my chest. I managed my symptoms by staying in a comfort zone of modest and moderated activity. I'd been out of that zone for six days, taking a pounding that would grind me into the ground if I didn't back off soon. I took a long breath as the tremors passed, righting myself as Harper watched.

  "And look what's happening to you," Harper said. "I don't know how you do it."

  I wouldn't let Harper lump me together with murder victims. I wasn't dead and my movement disorder wouldn't kill me. And I wouldn't let his attempt at sympathy throw me off track.

  "What about Kate Scranton's business?" I asked, one arm wrapped around my middle, one hand still gripping the chair, the words stacking up in my throat before stuttering out. "Is that just another one of those things that doesn't make sense?"

  He went back to his chair, slumping then sitting up. "I'm a lot of things, Jack. Some I'm proud of and some I'm not. I'm smart, I'm lucky, and I'm a lousy loser. To be honest about it, I wanted Kate for more than her mind. She said no. I'm not used to rejection and I don't take it well. I admit it was a petty thing to do but I made a few phone calls, figured she might have second thoughts if she had fewer options. It was easy. I could fix it just as easily. You tell her that."

  I took another deep breath, straightening and steadying myself, letting go the chair. "I'll let you tell Jason Bolt. I think he just got a new client."

  He waved a hand, dismissing the prospect. "It's only money. Besides, by the time her case goes to trial, I'll be too far gone to know or care."

  "For a lucky guy like you, that may be the best piece of luck you ever have. One last thing."

  "What's that?"

  "I quit."

  He shook his head. "I doubt that. You're not the type even if you go off my payroll. You won't quit until it's over. That's why I hired you in the first place."

  Sherry Fritzshall was waiting outside Harper's office, leaning against the wall. Her eyes were puffy, her mascara reduced to black smudges. She walked away and motioned me to follow her, waiting until we'd rounded a corner before she stopped and handed me her business card.

  "Give this to Kate Scranton. Tell her to call me next week and we'll work something out and we won't need lawyers to do it. I only met her once but I liked her. Tell her I'm sorry about what happened."

  "You can make that happen?"

  "Milo agreed to give me power of attorney. By the end of the week, I'll be able to make anything happen."

  "What happened to doing whatever it takes?"

  She folded her arms across her chest, shuddering. "Sometimes it takes too much. After all this, after poor Anne and the others, after finding out what my brother did to Kate Scranton and how he kept his condition from me, sometimes it just takes too much."

  "You surprise me."

  She smiled, her face still sad. "I told you not to underestimate me. I hope I haven't underestimated you."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm not accepting your resignation."

  Chapter Fifty

  I was still employed, the building was empty, and I had a key card that opened every door in the place. The retired cops lunch started in a little over an hour. I could be late as long as I got there before Tom Goodell left.

  Everything that I had learned pointed to Anthony Corliss. Both Walter Enoch and Tom Delaney had let him in their homes, making it likely they would have let him in a second time when he killed them.

  Harper had threatened to cut off Corliss's funding if he didn't produce results, taking me back to my earlier speculation that Corliss might have killed Delaney, Blair, and Enoch in a twisted effort to use their deaths as proof that his lucid dreaming methods worked. Suggesting to Harper that he watch their videos fit with that scenario even if nothing else about it made sense, as if serial killers were models of rational thinking.

  Corliss may have expected to get away with those murders or he may have been playing a game with the police, upping the stakes with Anne Kendall's murder, as Lucy had theorized, Anne's murder the only one that fit the rape-torture-murder stereotype that had made serial killers so feared and so famous. That Corliss's pattern didn't fit the serial killer stereotype reminded me of Maggie Brennan's caution not to confuse the unfamiliar with the improbable.

  I took the elevator to Corliss's floor, making a quick and careful circuit. The ceiling florescents were off, the only illumination from faint wall fixtures that cast more shadows than light. Doors to private offices were closed, cubicles empty, no printers, faxes, or copiers humming in the background, no classic rock battling country music from desktop radios, no hallway chatter about last night or next weekend. I knocked on Corliss's door, listening for any sounds from the other side, waiting long enough for him to answer. It was locked. I waved my key card across the sensor, hearing the lock release and opened the door.

  Though I didn't need probable cause and a warrant to search Corliss's office, I didn't want to toss it like Kent and Dolan had done when they searched my house. If Corliss were the killer, he'd be alert to anything that was out of place or out of order and I wanted him to keep thinking he was smarter than everyone else. I studied the room, taking note of how his books were arranged on their shelves, how close his chair was pushed in against his desk, how three black pens were scattered at random across the desk while two highlighters, one yellow and one orange, were aligned side-by-side.

  I started with the desk, working my way through the three drawers on the right, finding nothing of interest. I slid the desk chair out of my way and opened the pencil drawer in the center of the desk. It was a junk drawer, crammed with pens, Post-it pads, paper clips, rubber bands, and loose change. I massaged the mess, finding a small, single sheet torn from a notepad, folded in half and buried under a tin of peppermint Altoids. I spread it open on the desk reading a handwritten list of initials: RB, TD, WE, AK, the initials too easily translated as Regina Blair, Tom Delaney, Walter Enoch, and Anne Kendall. It was a dead man's list.

  I took a picture of the list with my cell phone before calling Quincy Carter, getting his message to leave a message, telling him that I was e-mailing him Exhibit A for the case against Anthony Corliss. I picked the list up by one corner and slid it into an envelope I found in the pencil drawer, sealing the envelope and sticking it in the inside pocket of my jacket. It wasn't a pristine chain of custody but I couldn't take the chance of leaving the list behind and hoping that Carter got a search warrant before Corliss got rid of it, even if taking it meant that Corliss might realize that someone had searched his office.

  There were two file drawers on the left side of the desk, files hanging from front to back on runners sitting in grooves on either side of the drawer. The top drawer contained copies of journal articles. I sifted through them, not finding anything secreted between the pages.

  The bottom file drawer contained thick files on Corliss and Maggie Brennan, each filled with copies of their résumés and articles they had written, together with thinner files on Janet Casey and Gary Kaufman, whose résumés and publications were shorter and fewer. All their credentials were impeccable and all their articles were inscrutable.

  At the back of the drawer I found files for Regina Blair, Tom Delaney, Walter Enoch, and Anne Kendall. I grabbed Anne's first, looking for the connection between her and Corliss. The file was arranged chronologically, the oldest material at the top. The first item was a printed exchange of innocuous e-mail Anne had initiated last week with Corliss asking if he had time to see her without explaining her purpose, Corliss setting their appointment for last Wednesday at four o'clock.

  The e-mail was followed by a dream project intake questionnaire Anne had completed and signed, also dated last Wednesday, which focused on biographical information and medical history, all of which was unremarkable except for the last question that asked why she wanted to participate in the project. She wrote that she was having nigh
tmares that were disturbing her sleep.

  Next was a psychological test titled Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. When the FBI was trying to decide whether I had a disabling movement disorder or was just a head case, they sent me to a neuropsychologist who gave me a battery of tests spread over three days, one of which was the MMPI. The neuropsychologist explained that the MMPI is used to identify personality structure and psychopathology, including depression, anxiety, and fears. It made sense that Corliss would ask his volunteers to take such a test.

  The MMPI in Anne's file hadn't been completed. There was a handwritten note reading Anne Kendall, Monday 5:30 p.m. clipped to the front page, presumably confirming when she was supposed to have taken the test. The note also confirmed the second and last time Corliss had scheduled a meeting with her.

  Her file was Exhibit B against Corliss, establishing their connection and putting them together when she got off work on Monday. Corliss was supposed to have administered the MMPI to her the evening she was killed though the test was still in his drawer. No wonder he had refused to take a lie detector test.

  The last item in her file was a document titled Harper Institute Dream Project, the next line reading Confidential Dream Narrative. The fine print below the title assured the volunteer that the narrative would be used only for the research project and not disclosed without the subject's written consent. To further preserve confidentiality, the subject was assigned a number and instructed not to put his or her name on the narrative. The subject number on this narrative was 251. I flipped back to Anne's intake form and found the same designation, confirming that this was her dream narrative.

  The handwriting was neat, filling each line margin to margin with delicate looping letters and curlicues, a schoolgirl's cursive.

  My father died when I was three. My mother remarried when I was five and my stepfather started abusing me when I was twelve. I still have nightmares about him abusing me. In my dreams, he finds me no matter where I am. Sometimes I am in my old bedroom in my mother's house. Sometimes I am in my bedroom at my apartment where I live with my fiancé. Other times, I am at work or in the parking garage or even in a store or on the street. No matter where I am he finds me. I turn around and there he is. At first he acts real nice. He asks me how I'm doing. I can't see his face but I recognize his voice and I smell his aftershave and it makes me sick at my stomach. He takes me by the hand and I try to pull away but he won't let me. He tells me how pretty I am and he rubs my face and undresses me.

  I try to run away but my arms and legs won't move. I'm completely paralyzed. I try to scream but nothing comes out. He rapes me over and over and when he's done he sticks something in my vagina and leaves me naked on the ground where everyone can see me. I wake up and can feel him on me. I take a shower to get rid of the smell but it doesn't go away. I can't tell my fiancé about this because I'm afraid he won't want to marry me. He sees what happens when I wake up in the middle of the night and asks me what's going on. I lie to him and he doesn't believe me and we end up having horrible fights. I take antianxiety and antidepressant medications that get me through the day. Everyone sees me as perky little Anne from HR but I don't know how much longer I can pretend that everything is okay when every night before I go to sleep I pray that I won't wake up in the morning.

  I put her file down. All I could do was shake.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Anne Kendall's description of her nightmare turned my theory of a serial killer whose crimes had grown progressively more violent on its head, replaced by a theory that better matched the facts. The killer had staged each murder to mimic the victims' nightmares. Regina Blair dreamt that she would fall to her death. Tom Delaney dreamt that he would commit suicide. Walter Enoch dreamt that he would suffocate. Anne Kendall dreamt that her stepfather raped her, leaving her naked, violated, and exposed. Though she didn't die in her dream, the killer added his own ending to her nightmare.

  Had Anne been the first victim, I would have struggled to explain why the level of violence decreased rather than increased with the subsequent murders. That fact alone may even have been sufficient reason to exclude Anne's murder from the others.

  The brain, Kate had once explained to me, organizes information into patterns based on the sequence in which it receives the information so that it can understand and process similar data in the future. She called this reliance on the order in which we learn things sequential or vertical thinking. When we encounter information that doesn't fit the pattern, we need to blow it up, start over, and build a new one that fits all the information using what she described as lateral thinking and I understood as thinking outside the box.

  I had pictured a serial killer gradually losing control, taunting us with our failure to recognize what was happening or stop him once we figured it out. But this killer was in control, taking his victims from the dream project pipeline. That meant the killer had to have access to the volunteers and their files, which excluded Anne's boyfriend, Michael Lacey. It also excluded Leonard Nagel because he was a stranger to three out of four of the victims. While he could have stalked and harassed Anne Kendall, neither Tom Delaney nor Walter Enoch would have opened their doors for him. All of which brought me back to Anthony Corliss. I may have misunderstood his methodology but that didn't mean I was wrong about his guilt.

  There was still the question of why Corliss chose these victims, whether they shared something in common besides their participation in the dream project. I found the answer in Delaney's and Blair's files. Maggie Brennan had written reports analyzing their test data and interviews she had conducted with them, noting that both had admitted being sexually abused when they were children, Delaney by a Boy Scout leader and Blair by a summer camp counselor. Walter Enoch's mother had abused him, though not sexually, and Anne Kendall's stepfather had repeatedly raped her.

  It wasn't a leap of faith to conclude that the killer had probably also been abused as a child, his rage fueling these murders. Maggie Brennan had told me that she had spent her life studying victims and perpetrators of violent crime. I wanted her take on my theory and I wanted to know whether Corliss had confided in her that he had been abused as a child, questions I needed answered before someone else's dreams came true.

  I took my time going over the rest of his office, no longer caring whether I made it to the retired cops' lunch or whether Corliss knew about my search. I would catch up to Tom Goodell and his cold case as soon as I could. It was more important to find the evidence that would close the book on Anthony Corliss. Short of a confession, the best evidence was the souvenirs the killer took from his victims.

  I combed the office, pulled books off shelves one at a time, removed desk drawers looking for anything that might be taped to the inside of the desk frame. I put a chair on Corliss's desk, stood on it and popped open ceiling tiles scanning the hidden crawl space, finishing my search an hour later without finding Tom Delaney's bullet punctured books, Regina Blair's jewelry, Anne Kendall's severed finger, or Wendy's letter.

  I called Quincy Carter again and left another message, hoping his unavailability meant that he was closing in on Corliss faster than me. That would be both good news and bad news. I wanted Corliss off the streets but I also wanted Wendy's letter so I could deal with Dolan and Kent on my own terms. Corliss's house was the best place to look.

  Corliss didn't have a phone directory in his office. I did a search on his desktop computer, finding his address on Cherry between Fifty-third and Fifty-fourth, and entered his phone number in my cell phone. I tucked the Delaney, Blair, Enoch, and Kendall files under my arm and turned off the light. Looking around his office, I had no doubt he would realize that someone had tossed it; any concerns I had about that long since passed.

  Crestwood, where Corliss lived, was an area I had considered when I moved in from the suburbs. Its borders were Fifty-third on the north, Fifty-sixth on the south, Oak on the west, and Holmes on the east. Built beginning in 1919 by Kansas City's visionary and le
gendary residential developer, J. C. Nichols, it was known for its Colonial and Tudor homes. Beyond the architecture, it was another of Kansas City's many long-established neighborhoods of well-kept homes and welcoming families, young, old, and now ethnically diverse.

  After Corliss was arrested and when the inevitable television crews showed up, its residents would shake their heads and say that Crestwood was the last place on earth they would expect to find a serial killer. The greater surprise would be if they said it wasn't one of those singular, secure last places.

  The 5300 block of Cherry was a five-minute drive from the institute. It was a quiet side street, not providing a shortcut to anywhere; the kind of street you didn't take unless you belonged there and where well-meaning neighbors were serious about the signs posted on both sides of the street proclaiming it a neighborhood watch area.

  I circled the block, disappointed that Corliss's driveway wasn't brimming with police and his house wasn't ringed in yellow tape. I didn't see any cars or vans parked down the block or in driveways that were obvious surveillance vehicles. From all appearances, this peaceful street and Corliss's limestone and brown brick Tudor house, with its detached garage and arched entrance, oak trees made leafless by winter, and six-foot evergreens flanking the front door like sentries, was the last place on earth anyone would look for a killer. On my second pass, I parked in front of a house two doors down and on the opposite side of the street facing away from Corliss's house.

  I never forget about my movement disorder but there are times when I pretend that it isn't real as if my mind can trick my brain into calling the whole thing off. Mornings are the best time to play that game when I'm rested and fresh and the day is a blank check and there's no reason I can't do whatever I want. It's harder to pull the trick off when, like now, the blank check bounces and the brain fog rolls in and my muscles stretch my body to a hair trigger pull. That's when I have to choose between backing down and stepping up; between the more you do the more you do and what the hell was I thinking.