Mortal Fear m-1

by Greg Iles

  “How do you plan to catch the killer without it?”

  “The old-fashioned way.”

  “What?”

  “We know who he is, Cole. Our UNSUB is no longer UN.”

  So Miles was right. “How? I mean, who is he?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Well, I just talked to him.”

  “You mean the killer?”

  “Yes. For over an hour, via EROS. He thought I was a woman. I’ve got pages of stuff, practically his whole life story.”

  “I’ll be damned. You have any idea where he was when he was talking to you?”

  “No. But if he was at home, my guess would be New York, or some other large city that has brownstone houses.”

  A brief pause. “That’s consistent with what we know.”

  “I really think you should look at this stuff I’ve got.”

  “Cole, you’ve been a big help and a pain in the ass. But the game’s over. We’re about to arrest the guy.”

  A charge of excitement races over my skin, but my experience with Brahma tells me such statements are premature. “Let me ask you something, Mr. Baxter. You don’t have to answer unless I’m right, okay? Is this man you’re arresting a doctor?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I know a lot more than that.”

  “Fax everything you have to Quantico. We may need it if we have hostages, and we’ll definitely use it to build the case against him.”

  “I’ll do that if you tell me one thing. How’d you figure out who the guy is? Was it the organ donor stuff?”

  Silence. Then Baxter says, “I knew that had to be you. You and Turner, right?”

  “No comment.”

  “It wasn’t that. It was flight records. He flew to all the crime scenes.”

  “Commercial flights?”

  “Private. A Beechcraft Baron. Ever since you linked the murders, we’ve been checking everything that moved in or out of each murder city near the death dates. We finally found a private plane that had flown into tiny airports near three of the cities.”

  Baxter pauses so long that I think we’ve lost our connection. Then he says, “Okay listen, Cole. The plane is owned by a doctor from New York. We’ve got him under surveillance now. Hostage Rescue is going to arrest him as soon as I land, to eliminate any chance of a barricade situation. Did the UNSUB reveal anything to you that might have bearing on a plan like this?”

  A doctor from New York. Miles’s home territory. “He’s got a woman helping him. An Indian woman. In our conversations he called her Kali, but I can’t be sure that’s her real name. I’m almost positive she’s the real killer.”

  “Good. What else?”

  “Is this doctor a neurosurgeon, Mr. Baxter?”

  “No. Why?”

  “What kind of doctor is he?”

  “He’s an anesthetist.”

  “You mean an anesthesiologist? An anesthetist is just a technician.”

  “Anesthesiologist, right. He’s an M.D.”

  “Is he married?”

  “I can’t tell you anything else. This thing’s about to explode in the media. I want this guy hog-tied and any hostages freed by the time RBJ open their mouths tonight.”

  “RBJ?”

  “Rather, Brokaw, and Jennings. Gotta go, Cole. Fax your stuff through.”

  “Wait! Is Dr. Lenz okay? He doesn’t seem like the type to take compassionate leave.”

  “I made it compulsory. His wife’s murder put him over the edge. Now that’s it. I’ll see you at the trial, if there is one.”

  And he’s gone.

  If there is one. A sudden memory sends a chill across the back of my neck. I am sitting in the New Orleans police station telling the FBI that I know who the killer is: David M. Strobekker. And I have the strangest feeling that this New York doctor Baxter thinks he’s about to arrest or “take out” will turn out to be as dead as Strobekker was. But of course he can’t be.

  Baxter said they have him under surveillance.

  CHAPTER 35

  Blackness explodes into light and pain, a burst of brightness cored with shimmering dark. I spring up from something soft, sure I’m in a nightmare until the light resolves into a figure standing in a doorway with one hand on a light switch.

  Drewe.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  I rub my fingers hard through my hair to get the blood flowing. I’m on the den couch again. “I guess I fell asleep. I don’t even remember how I got in here.”

  She smiles tightly and moves down the hall toward the kitchen. Still disoriented, I follow and sit down at the table. Drewe stands at the sink, drinking water from a glass. There’s an aspirin bottle on the counter. With a quick movement she puts it back into the cabinet over the sink.

  “Headache?”

  She nods but doesn’t speak.

  “Bad day?”

  She opens the refrigerator and takes out a diet Dr Pepper. Looking at the drink can, she says, “Is Miles still here?”

  “No.”

  “So he wouldn’t tell the FBI anything.”

  “That’s not it. The police showed up right after you left this morning. He barely got away.”

  She’s looking at me now.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway. The FBI called. They’ve identified the killer. They’ve probably arrested him by now.”

  “Really?” Marginal interest.

  “He’s a doctor, just like you guessed.”

  She nods, looks back down at the Dr Pepper can.

  “Drewe, what’s the matter?”

  She shakes her head silently.

  “Drewe?”

  The sight of my wife bowing her head into her hands to hide tears is something I haven’t seen in a very long time. I come to my feet, my stomach churning with anxiety. “What’s going on? Did somebody die? Is it your parents?”

  She shakes her head violently.

  “What then?”

  She drops her hands from her wet face and stares at me as though pleading for an explanation. “Patrick beat up Erin.”

  “What?”

  “Patrick hit Erin! Last night. More than once.”

  “But… why? What happened?”

  “She won’t tell me. I stopped by their house on my way out of Jackson. I saw the bruises the second she answered the door.”

  I cannot think. White-hot rage blots out all reason. Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve snatched Drewe’s car keys off the counter and started for the hall.

  “Where are you going?” she asks, grabbing my arm.

  “To rip that son of a bitch a new asshole.”

  “Harper, don’t! That’s not the way!”

  “It isn’t?”

  “What would it solve?”

  “He won’t hit her anymore.”

  “You don’t know that. If I wanted revenge, I’d tell Daddy what happened and he’d drive to Jackson and blow Patrick’s head off. Then where would Erin and Holly be?”

  I stop trying to pull free. “Where is Holly? Is she okay?”

  Drewe drops her arm and retreats back into the U of the kitchen. “Patrick wouldn’t hurt Holly. You know that.”

  “I don’t know anything. Where is she?”

  “Home, I’m sure.”

  “Is Patrick there too?”

  “I assume he’ll go there after he finishes his rounds.”

  “Drewe, what the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know. They had an argument last night, the worst yet, but she won’t say what it was about. All I know is that Erin believes the beating was her fault.”

  “Nothing justifies beating your wife.”

  Drewe meets my eyes with a piercing gaze. “Erin says she deserved it.”

  How quickly anger can give way to fear. This can only be about one thing.

  “Harper,” she says quietly. “I think she’s having an affair.”

  I have stopped breathing. My effort to look normal is wasted. Drewe has turn
ed away and begun poking listlessly through the refrigerator, seemingly oblivious to the thunderclap reaction in me.

  “Did she tell you that?” I ask.

  “No, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. We all know how she used to be.” A plate of leftover chicken rattles on the counter. “The only thing I can guess is that after three years of trying to be faithful, she found she couldn’t. What else could make her feel guilty enough to stay with Patrick after he beat her?”

  You don’t want to know.

  Drewe shakes her head again. “Still… Patrick is the last man I would expect to lose control over something like that.”

  I nod like a robot.

  “Harper….”

  Jesus.

  “I want to ask you something.”

  I am looking straight into the most vulnerable expression I have ever seen on my wife’s face.

  “Are you sleeping with Erin?”

  The directness of the question almost breaks my composure. For three years I have prayed this suspicion would never be voiced; now it cleaves the air between us like the blade of a guillotine.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “You don’t have to deny it.”

  “You think I am having an affair with her? How can you even ask that?”

  Drewe’s face is pale. “It’s the only thing I can see making Patrick mad enough to hit Erin! Once the thought got into my head, I couldn’t make it go away. And you and I haven’t been making love because of… of me getting off the pill.”

  “Jesus, Drewe! I’m not sleeping with your sister.”

  “I know she’s attractive. Sexually, I mean-”

  “Drewe!”

  “Don’t lie to me, Harper.” Her lower lip is quivering. “That’s all I ask. Just don’t lie.”

  Just don’t lie. How many times have I heard that phrase, and from how many women? Drewe is poised like a teacup on the edge of a table. The slightest touch will shatter her into irrecoverable fragments. When I answer, I enunciate each word, my voice filled with the conviction of an apostle.

  “I’m not sleeping with Erin, Drewe. I wouldn’t screw her if she climbed naked into my bed at three in the morning.”

  Like sunlight burning through fog, belief lights Drewe’s eyes. She bows her head again and wipes away new tears. “God, I don’t know what I’m saying. I think seeing those bruises just about did me in.”

  I hesitate, then lean forward and hug her as tightly as I can. “It’s going to be all right,” I murmur, rocking her gently. “They’ll get it straightened out.”

  “I don’t know. Whatever it is, it may have gone too far.”

  Please God no. “You can’t do anything about it tonight. Why don’t you take a Valium or something from your bag? Just climb under the covers and blank your mind.”

  “You know I never take sedatives.”

  “Maybe today rates an exception.”

  She shakes her head and pulls back enough to look into my eyes. “You know what would make me feel better?”

  “What?”

  “If you’d sleep with me. Forget about those damned murders and just curl up with me.”

  I feel about as sleepy as a strung-out addict, but I am not stupid. “That’s the best suggestion I’ve heard in a month. Go on and wash your face. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Shouldn’t we eat something?”

  “I’ll make some sandwiches and bring them to the bedroom.”

  She smiles.

  As she walks down the hall, I sag back against the counter. For the first time, calling the police after Karin’s death feels like a mistake. Though I see no connection, it seems that my involvement in the hunt for Brahma somehow accelerated the implosion of Erin and Patrick’s marriage-to the point that I stand here now in fear that my own will not survive the week.

  Just don’t lie to me. That line should be added to the Three Biggest Lies in the World. All women say it, but none of them mean it. They think they mean it. But what they really mean is that they want there to be nothing for you to have to lie about. More sobering still, this plea forms the rationale for a very dangerous act. Just come clean, says your conscience, confess now, and everything will finally be all right. The way it used to be.

  But it won’t.

  Women are human beings, and it’s not human nature to forget any more than it is to forgive. Once the soft circuits of human memory are inflamed with carnal images, they can never be erased. More often they grow and metastasize until they take on more passion than mortal bodies could ever experience, and flay the soul of the betrayed with pain as unbearable as any physical torture.

  Of course, keeping back a guilty secret has its own consequences, as I know too well. It is a slow poison, and thorough. Yet it does its work primarily on the betrayer. If one bears up under the strain, almost everything can be salvaged.

  My reasoning is simple. Every time in my life I ever confessed anything, no good came of it. The truth was known, hallelujah, and everybody was miserable. The lesson was plain: deny, deny, deny. And two minutes ago, when put to the test I’ve feared so long, I held true to my belief. I did the best thing for everybody.

  So why do I feel like shit?

  Drewe and I never finished our sandwiches. We never even started them. When I climbed onto the bed with the plate, she pushed aside the covers and without words pulled me under them with her. She was naked, she quickly made me that way, and for the first time in months I had not the slightest suspicion that her desire had anything to do with her quest to become pregnant. All I sensed was a desperate flight from everything conscious, a willful narrowing of the external world, a plunge into the only fire that can truly expunge grief and pain.

  Drewe was not Drewe. She was a woman who looked like Drewe, yet moved and urged and cried out without any of the baggage Drewe carries through everyday life-duty and self-reproach and second-guessing and obligation to family-only wide green eyes and pale smooth skin and the unruly auburn hair she was born with. All through it, I knew that this intensity so long withheld, this energy repressed, was what I had always been drawn to in her, had believed that I could bring out in time. But I never did. It took the shattering of routine to do it. An eruption of violence and fear into her rigidly defined existence. A shock sufficient to cut her moorings and force her into uncharted water.

  And it will not last. For all the power of her latent passion, Drewe is a creature of equilibrium. Even now, her regular breathing fills the room like the sound of an organic clock measuring the half-life of dreams.

  I’ve rested fitfully, in desultory lapses of consciousness that never quite dissolve into sleep. A while ago, I had an absurd dream. I was a young whale thrashing in the shallows near a volcanic beach, kicking and rolling toward deeper water, yet unable to reach the ledge of the great rock shelf and drop into the blue-black haven of peace and forgetfulness. I’m only thankful the air conditioner is holding its own against the night heat.

  The ring of the phone stuns me like a klaxon, and I grab for it, hoping to keep it from waking Drewe.

  “Cole?”

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “Daniel Baxter.”

  “What is it? You got Brahma?”

  “Brahma?”

  “The killer. The UNSUB.”

  “No. We didn’t.”

  I sit up on the edge of the bed, a strange buzzing in the back of my head. Drewe’s clock reads two a.m. “You missed him?”

  “No, we got the guy we were watching. He was the wrong guy.”

  “But you said you traced the plane.”

  “We did. And it was owned by this doctor. Right identification numbers, everything. Only this plane hasn’t been off the ground for six months. This guy’s a classic doctor. Takes up a new hobby every six months, buys all the best equipment, then gets bored and moves on to the next one. Right now he’s into high-tech scuba diving.”

  “You’re sure it’s the wr
ong guy?”

  “Absolutely. We nailed him as he was walking up to a house. Turns out he was best man at a wedding inside. His brother’s wedding. He had alibis for every single murder. He’s also got one of the best lawyers in New York, and he’s already said publicly that he’ll sue for wrongful arrest.”

  “I don’t get it. What explains the plane?”

  “Here’s what I think. The UNSUB has his own plane. He wants to use it to get to his killing sites, but he doesn’t want it traceable to him. He could try using fake registration number decals, but in real life that kind of stuff never works. So he asks around, and eventually he finds a guy who has the same model plane he does, but doesn’t fly much. Like a doctor. Then he finds an out-of-the-way airstrip to house his plane. The first time he takes it there, it’s already painted with the numbers of this doctor’s plane. Not only that, he’s dummied up a license in the doctor’s name as well. See? Once the original scene is played, he doesn’t have to fake anything. Whenever he goes to that strip, he’s Doctor So-and-So, not himself. You there, Cole?”

  Fully awake now, I speak softly so as not to wake Drewe. “I can see that working. But can’t you just search airports until you find another Beechcraft with those numbers? Or trace every sale of that model for the past twenty years?”

  “We’re trying now. I’m calling because my people say you never faxed us the printouts of your sessions with the killer.”

  I feel a wave of confusion like the one I felt when Drewe startled me awake in the living room. “Jesus, I’m sorry. When you told me you practically had the guy, it just knocked out all the tension of the past week. I crashed.”

  “I know how you feel. But I need everything you have. Right now.”

  Glancing back at Drewe, I memorize the fax number Baxter reads off. “If the stuff he told me is true, you might have enough to ID him just from the printouts.”

  “I hope so. One other thing, Cole.”

  “What?”

  “Where’s Miles Turner?”

  I sigh angrily. “I don’t know and I’m tired of being asked.”

  “Don’t make it worse on yourself. You hid him out. You aided and abetted.”

  “You’re right. I aided and abetted a friend who has nothing to do with these murders. He was trying to solve the goddamn things for you, and he still may do it.”