She unfolded the letter inside. It was dated six weeks ago.
Dear Warren,
Thank you for your last letter, and for signing the two release forms. The details you’ve provided go a long way toward helping me understand the difficulties you’ve faced. I have so many other questions to ask you, and I’m glad you’re still willing to meet with me as planned. If you have no objections, I would like to videotape the interview. You know, of course, that your help is absolutely essential to my project.
Sincerely, Dr. O’Donnell
“Who on earth is J. P. O’Donnell?” Rizzoli said.
Dean glanced up in surprise. “Joyce O’Donnell?”
“The envelope just says Dr. J. P. O’Donnell. Cambridge, Mass. She’s been interviewing Hoyt.”
He frowned at the envelope. “I didn’t know she’d moved to Boston.”
“You know her?”
“She’s a neuropsychiatrist. Let’s just say we met under hostile circumstances, across the aisle of a courtroom. Defense attorneys love her.”
“Don’t tell me. An expert witness. She goes to bat for the bad guys.”
He nodded. “No matter what your client’s done, how many people he’s killed, O’Donnell is happy to provide mitigating testimony.”
“I wonder why she’s writing to Hoyt.” She reread the letter. It had been written with the utmost respect, praising him for his cooperation. Already she disliked Dr. O’Donnell.
The next envelope in the stack was also from O’Donnell, but it did not contain a letter. Instead she pulled out three Polaroids—strictly amateurish snapshots. Two of them had been taken outdoors in daylight; the third was an indoor scene. For a moment she just stared, the hairs on the back of her neck standing straight up, her eyes registering what her brain refused to accept. She jerked back, and the photos dropped from her hands like hot coals.
“Jane? What is it?”
“It’s me,” she whispered.
“What?”
“She’s been following me. Taking photos of me. She sent them to him.”
Dean rose from his chair and circled to her side of the table to look over her shoulder. “I don’t see you here—”
“Look. Look.” She pointed to the photo of a dark-green Honda parked on the street. “It’s mine.”
“You can’t see the license number.”
“I can recognize my own car!”
Dean flipped over the Polaroid. On the back, someone had drawn an absurd smiley face and had written in blue felt-tip ink: My car.
Fear beat its drum in her chest. “Look at the next one,” she said.
He picked up the second photo. This one, too, had been taken in daylight, and it showed the facade of a building. He didn’t need to be told which building it was; last night he had been inside it. He turned over the photo and saw the words: My home. Beneath the words was another smiley face.
Dean picked up the third photo, which had been taken inside a restaurant.
At first glance, it appeared to be just a poorly composed image of patrons seated at dining tables, a waitress blurred in action as she crossed the room carrying a coffeepot. It had taken Rizzoli a few seconds to zero in on the figure seated just to the left of center, a woman with dark hair, her face seen only in profile, her features obscured against the glare of the window. She waited for Dean to recognize who the woman was.
He asked softly: “Do you know where this was taken?”
“The Starfish Cafe.”
“When?”
“I don’t know—”
“Is it a place you visit often?”
“On Sundays. For breakfast. It’s the one day of the week when I …” Her voice faded. She stared at the photo of her own profile, the shoulders relaxed, face tilted downward, gazing at an open newspaper. It would have been a Sunday paper. Sunday was when she treated herself to breakfast at the Starfish. A morning of French toast and bacon and the comics.
And a stalker. She’d never known someone was watching her. Taking photos of her. Sending them to the very man who pursued her in her nightmares.
Dean flipped over the Polaroid.
On the back was drawn yet another smiley face. And beneath it, enclosed in a heart, was a single word:
Me.
sixteen
My car. My home. Me.
Rizzoli rode back to Boston with her stomach knotted in anger. Although Dean sat right beside her, she didn’t look at him; she was too focused on nursing her rage, on feeling its flames consume her.
Her rage only deepened when Dean pulled up in front of O’Donnell’s address on Brattle Street. Rizzoli stared at the large Colonial, the clapboards painted a pristine white, accented by slate-gray shutters. A wrought-iron fence enclosed a front yard with a manicured lawn and a pathway of granite pavers. Even by the upscale standards of Brattle Street, this was a handsome house that a public servant could never dream of owning. Yet it’s the public servants like me who face down the Warren Hoyts of the world and who suffer the aftershocks of those battles, she thought. She was the one who bolted her doors and windows at night, who jerked awake to the echo of phantom footsteps moving toward her bed. She fought the monsters and suffered the consequences, while here, in this grand house, lived a woman who offered those same monsters a sympathetic ear, who walked into courts of law and defended the indefensible. It was a house built on the bones of victims.
The ash-blond woman who answered the door was as meticulously groomed as her residence, her hair a gleaming helmet, her Brooks Brothers shirt and slacks crisply pressed. She was about forty, with a face as creamy as alabaster. Like real alabaster, that face revealed no warmth. The eyes projected only chilly intellect.
“Dr. O’Donnell? I’m Detective Jane Rizzoli. And this is Agent Gabriel Dean.”
The woman’s eyes locked on Dean’s. “Agent Dean and I have met.”
And obviously made an impression on each other—not a favorable one, thought Rizzoli.
Clearly not pleased about the visit, O’Donnell was mechanical and unsmiling as she ushered them through the large foyer and into a formal sitting room. The couch was white silk on a rosewood frame, and Oriental carpets in rich shades of red accented the teak floors. Rizzoli knew little about art, but even she recognized that the paintings hanging on the walls were originals, and probably quite valuable. More bones of victims, she thought. She and Dean sat on the couch, facing O’Donnell. No coffee or tea or even water had been offered to them, a not-so-subtle clue that their hostess wanted this to be a brief conversation.
O’Donnell got right to the point and addressed Rizzoli. “You said this was about Warren Hoyt.”
“You’ve corresponded with him.”
“Yes. Is there a problem with that?”
“What was the nature of that correspondence?”
“Since you know about it, I assume you’ve read it.”
“What was the nature of that correspondence?” Rizzoli repeated, her tone unyielding.
O’Donnell stared at her a moment, silently gauging the opposition. By now she understood Rizzoli was the opposition, and she responded accordingly, her posture stiffening into a suit of armor.
“First I should ask you a question, Detective,” countered O’Donnell. “Why is my correspondence with Mr. Hoyt of any concern to the police?”
“You know that he’s escaped custody?”
“Yes. I saw it on the news, of course. And then, the State Police contacted me to ask if he had tried to reach me. They contacted everyone who corresponded with Warren.”
Warren. They were on a first-name basis.
Rizzoli opened the large manila envelope she’d brought with her and removed the three Polaroids, encased in Ziploc bags. These she handed to Dr. O’Donnell. “Did you send these photos to Mr. Hoyt?”
O’Donnell merely glanced at the images. “No. Why?”
“You hardly looked at them.”
“I don’t need to. I never sent Mr. Hoyt any photos of any kind.”
>
“These were found in his cell. In an envelope with your return address.”
“Then he must have used my envelope to store them.” She handed the Polaroids back to Rizzoli.
“What, exactly, did you send him?”
“Letters. Release forms for him to sign and return.”
“Release forms for what?”
“His school records. Pediatric records. Any information that might help me evaluate his history.”
“How many times did you write him?”
“I believe it was four or five times.”
“And he responded?”
“Yes. I have his letters on file. You can have copies.”
“Has he tried to reach you since his escape?”
“Don’t you think I would tell the authorities if he had?”
“I don’t know, Dr. O’Donnell. I don’t know the nature of your relationship with Mr. Hoyt.”
“It was a correspondence. Not a relationship.”
“Yet you wrote him. Four or five times.”
“I visited him, as well. The interview’s on videotape, if you’d like to have it.”
“Why did you talk to him?”
“He has a story to tell. Lessons to teach us.”
“Like how to butcher women?” The words were out of Rizzoli’s mouth before she could think about it, a dart of bitter emotion that failed to pierce the other woman’s armor.
Unruffled, O’Donnell replied: “As law enforcement, you see only the end result. The brutality, the violence. Terrible crimes that are the natural consequence of what these men have experienced.”
“And what do you see?”
“What came before, in their lives.”
“Now you’re going to tell me it’s all due to their unhappy childhoods.”
“Do you know anything about Warren’s childhood?”
Rizzoli could feel her blood pressure rising. She had no desire to talk about the roots of Hoyt’s obsessions. “His victims don’t give a damn about his childhood. And neither do I.”
“But do you know about it?”
“I’m told it was perfectly normal. I know he had a better childhood than a lot of men who don’t cut up women.”
“Normal.” O’Donnell seemed to find this word amusing. She looked at Dean for the first time since they’d all sat down. “Agent Dean, why don’t you give us your definition of normal?”
A look passed between them, hostile echoes of an old battle not fully resolved. But whatever emotions Dean was now feeling did not register in his voice. He said, calmly: “Detective Rizzoli is asking the questions. I suggest you answer them, Doctor.”
That he had not already wrestled away control of the interview surprised Rizzoli. Dean struck her as a man accustomed to taking control, yet in this he had ceded to her and had chosen instead the role of observer.
She had allowed her anger to scattershoot the conversation. Now it was time to reclaim command, and for that she would need to keep her anger in check. To proceed calmly and methodically.
She asked, “When did you start writing to each other?”
O’Donnell responded, just as businesslike: “About three months ago.”
“And why did you decide to write him?”
“Wait a minute.” O’Donnell gave a startled laugh. “You have it wrong. I didn’t initiate this correspondence.”
“Are you saying Hoyt did?”
“Yes. He wrote me first. He said he’d heard of my work on the neurology of violence. He knew I’d been a defense witness in other trials.”
“He wanted to hire you?”
“No. He knew there was no chance his sentence could be altered. Not at this late date. But he thought I’d be interested in his case. I was.”
“Why?”
“Are you asking why was I interested?”
“Why would you waste any time writing to someone like Hoyt?”
“He’s exactly the sort of person I want to know more about.”
“He’s been seen by half a dozen shrinks. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s perfectly normal, except for the fact he likes to kill women. He likes to tie them down and slice open their abdomens. It turns him on to play surgeon. Except he does it while they’re wide awake. While they know exactly what he’s doing to them.”
“Yet you called him normal.”
“He’s not insane. He knew what he was doing, and he enjoyed it.”
“So you believe he was simply born evil.”
“That’s exactly the word I’d use for him,” said Rizzoli.
O’Donnell regarded her for a moment with a gaze that seemed to bore straight into her. How much did she see? Did her psychiatric training enable her to peer through one’s public mask, to see the traumatized flesh below?
Abruptly O’Donnell rose to her feet. “Why don’t you come into my office?” she said. “There’s something you should see.”
Rizzoli and Dean followed her down a hallway, shoes muffled by the wine-red carpet running the length of the corridor. The room she led them into was a stark contrast to the richly decorated sitting room. O’Donnell’s office was devoted strictly to business: white walls, bookshelves lined with reference texts, and standard metal filing cabinets. Walking into this room, thought Rizzoli, would snap one instantly into work mode. And it seemed to have precisely that effect on O’Donnell. With grim purpose, she crossed to her desk, snatched up an X-ray envelope, and carried it to a viewing box mounted on the wall. She thrust a film into the clips and flipped a switch.
The viewing box flickered on, backlighting an image of a human skull.
“Frontal view,” said O’Donnell. “A twenty-eight-year-old white male construction worker. He was a law-abiding citizen described as considerate, a good husband. A loving father to his six-year-old daughter. Then he was hurt at a work site when a beam swung into his head.” She looked at her two visitors. “Agent Dean probably sees it already. How about you, Detective?”
Rizzoli moved closer to the light box. She did not often study X rays, and she could only focus on the broader picture: the dome of the cranium, the twin hollows of the eye sockets, the picket fence of teeth.
“I’ll put up the lateral view,” said O’Donnell, and she slid a second X ray onto the box. “Do you see it now?”
The second film showed the skull in profile. Rizzoli could now see a fine web of fracture lines radiating backward from the front of the cranium. She pointed to them.
O’Donnell nodded. “He was unconscious when they brought him into the E.R. A CT scan showed hemorrhaging, with a large subdural hematoma—a collection of blood—pressing on the frontal lobes of his brain. The blood was surgically drained, and he went on to recover. Or rather, he appeared to recover. He went home and eventually returned to work. But he was not the same man. Again and again, he lost his temper on the job and was fired. He began to sexually molest his daughter. Then, after an argument with his wife, he beat her so brutally her corpse was unrecognizable. He started pounding and he couldn’t stop. Even after he’d shattered most of her teeth. Even when her face was reduced to nothing but pulp and bone fragments.”
“You’re going to tell me it can all be blamed on that?” said Rizzoli, pointing to the fractured skull.
“Yes.”
“Give me a break.”
“Look at that film, Detective. See where the fracture is located? Consider which part of the brain lies right beneath it.” She turned and looked at Dean.
He met her gaze without expression. “The frontal lobes,” he said.
A faint smile twitched on O’Donnell’s lips. Clearly she enjoyed the chance to challenge an old rival.
Rizzoli said, “What’s the point of this X ray?”
“I was called in by the man’s defense attorney to perform a neuropsychiatric evaluation. I used what we call the Wisconsin Card Sort Test and a Category Test from the Halstead-Reitan Battery. I also ordered an MRI—magnetic resonance imaging—scan of his brain. All of them pointed
to the same conclusion: This man suffered severe damage to both his frontal lobes.”
“Yet you said he fully recovered from the injury.”
“He appeared to recover.”
“Was he brain-damaged or wasn’t he?”
“Even with extensive damage to the frontal lobes, you can still walk and talk and perform daily functions. You could have a conversation with someone who’s had a frontal lobotomy and you might not detect anything wrong. But he is most certainly damaged.” She pointed to the X ray. “What this man has is called frontal disinhibition syndrome. The frontal lobes affect our foresight and judgment. Our ability to control inappropriate impulses. If they’re damaged, you become socially disinhibited. You display inappropriate behavior, without any feelings of guilt or emotional pain. You lose the ability to control your violent impulses. And we all have them, those moments of rage, when we want to strike back. Ram our car into someone who’s cut us off in traffic. I’m sure you know what it feels like, Detective. To be so angry you want to hurt someone.”
Rizzoli said nothing, silenced by the truth of O’Donnell’s words.
“Society thinks of violent acts as manifestations of evil or immorality. We’re told we have ultimate control over our own behavior, that each and every one of us has the free will to choose not to hurt another human being. But it’s not just morality that guides us. Biology does as well. Our frontal lobes help us integrate thoughts and actions. They help us weigh the consequences of those actions. Without such control, we’d give in to every wild impulse. That’s what happened to this man. He lost the ability to control his behavior. He had sexual feelings toward his daughter, so he molested her. His wife made him angry, so he beat her to death. From time to time, we all have disturbing or inappropriate thoughts, however fleeting. We see an attractive stranger, and sex flashes into our heads. That’s all it is—just a brief thought. But what if we gave in to the impulse? What if we couldn’t stop ourselves? That sexual impulse could lead to rape. Or worse.”
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