Compulsion (Max Revere Novels Book 2)

by Brennan, Allison

  Bachman had no close friends, no roommate, no siblings. His mother lived in Hartford, Connecticut, and his father wasn’t in the picture. His closest childhood friend had enlisted in the army when he turned eighteen and was currently deployed overseas. Bachman’s only known friend from college, his former Boston University roommate Chris Gibson, was a social animal whom Max had already dissected; she could find no violent tendencies. What’s more, Gibson couldn’t have assisted with at least two of the crimes as he was out of town.

  So who was Bachman’s partner in these murders?

  She changed the subject. “Did you tag Riley?”

  “She’s waiting for us.”

  He didn’t say anything more, and Max let it go. David wasn’t sold on Riley. David would come around, because Max trusted her gut, and her gut told her Riley had the chops. Max wanted to train her. She just wished she understood why David didn’t like her.

  Max had sent Riley Butler to befriend Chris Gibson. Max wanted information about Bachman—insight that would help her write a three-dimensional story of a man who by all accounts was average, with a steady job as a bartender at a popular club and a loving mother in Connecticut. He fit the profile of a Ted Bundy—charming, attractive, polite—the last person anyone expected to brutally kill strangers.

  Max had sent Riley because she was closer to Gibson’s age. Gibson worked as a waiter while trying to break into theater. He was sociable and Riley was cute—it worked well. Riley was born to be an undercover reporter. That she came from a long line of Boston cops and had sharp instincts made her even more valuable to Max. She graduated from Columbia with a major in psychology and a minor in journalism, and Max, hands down, thought Riley was smarter than all of her previous assistants combined.

  She wasn’t perfect. In the six weeks she’d worked for Max, she’d once pursued an inquiry without first clearing it with Max—something Max could appreciate, but not when Riley was still in training, so to speak, so Max had to be much clearer about the rules and her expectations. Riley also didn’t care much for the paperwork that went with her job and cut corners, which could be a problem in the future or just a sign of immaturity. Yet Riley was tech-savvy, which streamlined much of the mundane part of her job.

  David pulled over in front of a Starbucks in SoHo and Riley slipped into the backseat. She was a petite bundle of energy. A twenty-three-year-old workaholic. Her dad was an Irish cop from Boston. Her mother was a half-black, half-Hispanic pediatric surgeon at the Children’s Hospital. Riley was a beautiful blend of the two—skin the color of latte with an added shot of espresso, curly light brown hair, and huge green eyes. She looked like a teenager and had an aura of innocence and trustworthiness that put people at ease. She had two older brothers, one a firefighter and one a cop, who’d taught her to defend herself. She leaned forward and handed Max a drink, and another to David. “Latte, black coffee.” She grinned.

  “Thanks,” Max said and sipped.

  “I got something,” Riley said, unable to contain her excitement.

  “Spill it. We have seven minutes until we get to the courthouse.”

  “I brought Chris over a bottle of wine last night after he missed out on a part he wanted Off-Broadway. Which sucked, because he was called back, so thought it was a sure thing, and—”

  “Faster, Riley,” Max interrupted.

  “We played the ‘who you know’ game, back and forth, and he said he knew the most notorious serial killer in New York City, Adam Bachman. We drank, talked, and I learned something that seems important. Chris thinks Bachman is obsessive-compulsive.”

  “And he has a psychiatry degree to back this up?”

  “No, but—”

  “What else?”

  Riley frowned, but continued. “He said Bachman was moody and absolutely anal about his stuff—very meticulous, everything had its place, a place-for-everything kind of OCD. He was gone for a semester his sophomore year. Bachman told Chris that he just needed a break from school, but Chris thinks he was in a mental hospital. Just like you suspected.”

  “Why?”

  “But you said—”

  “I said I had a hunch, but I had no proof. Did he see meds? Bachman say anything about talking to a shrink? Does Chris know where he went?”

  “No, but—”

  Max turned in her seat and caught Riley’s eye. She could see the girl was fuming, but Max needed her to understand that conjecture was bullshit without something tangible to back it up. Max had a lot of theories, but she didn’t flap her mouth until she had a thread she could pull.

  “Riley, what you think means nothing. It means you should follow up on your theory, but it’s not tangible.” She didn’t want to demoralize the novice, but she also needed her to understand that rumors and theories weren’t printable without evidence. “How can you prove Chris’s theory?”

  “Talk to Bachman’s family. Friends.”

  “No one is going to talk to you. I worked that angle hard, and couldn’t get inside. His mother is completely devoted to him, will not talk to reporters or the police. He has few friends—even Gibson hasn’t seen Bachman since college.” Max softened her tone, just a bit. “I can tell you there’s nothing in the files about Bachman being committed. Medical records are practically sacrosanct and if the police don’t know something exists, they aren’t going to know to ask. His mother, if she knew, didn’t tell the police, so she’s not going to tell a reporter. And everything Gibson told you might just be a horny guy bragging in the hopes of getting you horizontal, so take everything he said with a grain of salt.”

  Riley looked down at her hands, which were clenched into fists. She was angry, and Max didn’t blame her—Max had articulated her theory that Bachman had spent time in a psych ward, and Riley thought she had proved it. Max had done some preliminary research, but didn’t have enough information to narrow down where he might have stayed. Plus, medical records were next to impossible to come by and without a specific location, she’d have to spend months of legwork on a hunch that might not pan out—especially after one of the Maximum Exposure researchers had spent two weeks in Boston last fall looking into Max’s theory with zero results. Ben was still fuming over the expenses.

  Riley needed more direction. “If I had that lead, I’d make a list of all the private, live-in, mental health facilities within a hundred-mile radius of Bachman’s home and college that existed during the year in question. That information is already in the files from when we first looked at that angle, so half your work is done for you. Next, I’d find out who ran the facilities and check into disgruntled staff who left after the year in question. Disgruntled employees are the most apt to talk. If I could get someone to confirm that Bachman was a patient, I’d pull as much information as I could from that person, and then use it to put the pieces together and follow up on each claim. The why being the important thing here. Having a time frame helps.”

  Riley was taking notes. Good.

  “But,” Max said, “this is a long shot. I might know in my gut that there’s something here, but proving it is the hard part.” She planned on tugging that thread with Bachman, however. Now that she had a partial confirmation of her theory—even if it was just the opinion of a former roommate—she felt more comfortable pressing it.

  “So I wasted all that time?” Riley’s voice was almost a whine.

  “No. You’re not going to get a big information win here, Riley. Investigative reporting means taking small pieces of information and seeing where they lead. Proving or disproving suspicions. It’s a lot like being a detective, only we don’t have to follow the same rules. Investigation is as much proving something isn’t as proving something is.”

  “Okay,” Riley said. “I get that.” She paused, glanced first at David, then at Max. “Can I sit in the courtroom with you?”

  “I need you outside.”

  “But—”

  David glanced at Max and she knew what he was thinking. She ignored the veiled glare. “I need yo
u in the halls. Observe. Listen. Be accessible for me to send you to follow up on any number of things. Answer Ben’s calls. I guarantee, he’ll call you at least twice an hour, if only to make sure you’ll answer your phone and know where I am.”

  “Fine,” she said with a sigh. David cleared his throat. So Riley was a little dramatic; he needed to cut her some slack.

  “And because you can use your phone and I can’t, start researching those facilities. You can get the list from my cloud files. Go through it, narrow it, be smart. The notes from the staffer we sent to Boston should be there. My guess? He used a facility closer to home than to college. Someplace where he felt comfortable and safe. Being an investigative reporter is not all glitz and glamour. It’s legwork. Paperwork. Research.” Honestly, that was the most fun for Max. She much preferred being in the background to being on camera.

  Max slipped David a note. “Can you follow up on this for me?”

  He glanced at it while stopped at a red light, nodded.

  Riley leaned forward. “What? Can I do it?”

  Max shook her head. “Boundaries, Riley.”

  The paper crumpled in David’s hand. He’d been a soldier. He was used to taking and giving orders, and he didn’t like subordinates to question. He was also both smart and fearsome and Max depended on him. If he really wanted her to drop Riley, she would—because she couldn’t lose the only person she could truly count on. She prayed it never came to that, so she diffused the tension by giving a brief commentary on Bachman’s defense team and the prosecution and describing who Riley needed to keep an eye on in the halls.

  As soon as David pulled up in front of the courthouse in a drop-off zone, Max turned to Riley and handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “The bailiff for Judge Tarkoff is deputy Frank Knolls. He likes his coffee black with a dollop of honey. Go introduce yourself as my assistant, give him the coffee, be nice, smile. Don’t ask questions and just walk away.”

  “Okay. But why?”

  “Because making friends with the bailiff, the clerk, and anyone else in support is how we get ahead in this business.”

  “What about the clerk? Bridget Davis, right?”

  “Good memory. She already hates me, attempted to stab me in the back during the last trial I covered. I wouldn’t give her water on the hottest day in August, let alone the mochas she likes.”

  Max waited until Riley exited, then turned to David.

  “She’s young and inexperienced. But she has good instincts.”

  “You would never have tolerated insubordination with any of the others.”

  “They weren’t as sharp or dedicated as she is.”

  “Intelligent, maybe—but she has no common sense.”

  “Give her time. I’ve gone through a half-dozen assistants. I don’t want to search for another one.” And none of her previous assistants had half Riley’s drive.

  “You’re giving her too much freedom.”

  “Following up on mental health facilities is a good lead. It confirms what I suspected, even if we can’t prove it yet.” Time wasn’t on their side—the trial would last four days, according to the court clerk. Tarkoff kept his court moving, so Max suspected that estimate was accurate—especially since the defense lost a series of pretrial motions that could have extended testimony. “It might lead us to his partner or give us insight into his motivation.”

  If Riley found something to the theory, it might put another spin on Max’s report from the human interest side. Could someone have predicted Bachman would become a killer? If there was truth to him admitting himself to a facility, she could follow up about the viability of these places. Do they really help? Do they have a moral or ethical obligation to share a psychopathic diagnosis with law enforcement if they suspect someone is a danger to others? What flaws are there in the system that so many people who need mental health services fall through the cracks? Was Bachman one of those people?

  She put her hand on David’s. “What is it? Tell me what’s really bothering you about Riley. You ran the background check yourself, you said she was clean. You even said you admired her family.”

  “This is a game to her.”

  “She’s eager. Ben said I like her because I’m a narcissist and she’s a mini-me.”

  Max was trying to be light, but David couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice.

  “That little girl will never be you.”

  “I’m keeping my eye on her. But if you want me to cut her loose, I will. Just say it.”

  David’s eyebrow shot up. “You’d do it, too.”

  “For you I would.”

  “I just want you to be careful with her. You’ve given her a lot of freedom, freedom that she hasn’t earned.”

  “What are you concerned about, David?”

  “Her safety. Your safety. And honestly? She’s overeager. She’s going to make mistakes that will come back and bite you in the ass.”

  Max opened her mouth to argue, but David had touched on something she’d wondered herself. “Point taken.”

  She put her hand on the door handle. “She is a lot like I used to be,” she told David. “She works her ass off and isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.”

  “She may share your work ethic, but she’s nothing like you.”

  David didn’t know the old Max. The wild college girl who’d made far more mistakes than she wanted to talk about. Even if he’d read her book about the murder of her best friend while they’d been on spring break in Miami, it had been written through the lens of history, and while Max had been honest and forthcoming about her mistakes, David might not see them as such because he didn’t know her then.

  One of the courthouse guards approached their car since they were in a no parking zone, and Max couldn’t continue the conversation. She made a mental note to cook dinner for David one night and get him to open up more about this. He was more forthcoming when he’d been well fed. “You okay with talking to the cops up in Queens?”

  “Of course. They didn’t ban me from their precinct.” He smiled, his hard, scarred face bemused. “I’ll be back before your live report at noon, but if I’m not, don’t leave the courthouse until I return.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” Max said, her voice edged with sarcasm.

  David put a hand on her arm before she got out of the car. “Max, since I’ve been working for you, you’ve covered five major trials, and each one of them yielded serious threats. There’s no reason to think the Bachman trial is any different—especially since you’re pursuing the idea that he wasn’t working alone.”

  “I haven’t printed a word about that theory.”

  “But you’re about to ask him.”

  “Good point. I’ll be good.” She blew him a kiss and got out of the car. “You have my word.”

  Chapter Two

  “I’ve advised my client not to speak with the media.”

  Gregory Warren, Bachman’s defense attorney, puffed out his chest as if that would make him look important. It only made him look silly.

  Max didn’t respond. Warren was a blowhard. Bachman couldn’t afford a high-priced lawyer who might have been able to kill this interview, but had just enough scratch to bring on a slimy ambulance chaser. Warren was probably making more from the ancillary gigs. A case like this could yield lecture fees at law schools. A friend of hers in publishing said Warren was already working on a book deal.

  They stood in a corridor on the third floor, adjacent to rooms used primarily for lawyers to consult with their clients between court proceedings. Max looked at her watch. Time was ticking, and Tarkoff ran a tight courtroom. If Richard was playing around with her, giving her this promise then creating delays, she’d skewer him. She and D.A. Richard Milligan had a long friendship—one that Rich might deny if asked. Didn’t matter to Max—she didn’t kiss (or not kiss) and tell—but it certainly helped when she needed something. Like access to Adam Bachman.

  She heard the click click click of sensible heels before she saw th
e petite A.D.A., Charlene Golden, turn the corner and approach them.

  “Maxine.”

  “Counselor.”

  “Richard sent me to babysit you. I have a shitload of work on my desk, not to mention a trial starting in ninety minutes, so I’m holding you to the agreed-upon twenty minutes.”

  “I object to this entire interview,” Warren interjected.

  Charlene dismissed him with a sidelong glance that would have melted ice, but ice had more self-awareness than Warren.

  Rich had brought Charlene on shortly after he was elected as D.A. She was smart and loyal to her boss. Word had it that Charlene would replace Rich when he moved on—he was eyeing attorney general as a stopover to governor or senator. And he’d get it—he was blunt and forthcoming and didn’t bullshit. It’s why she liked him, even if he had called her a bitch on more than one occasion.

  Tenacious bitch.

  If the shoe fit.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” Charlene said. “Mr. Warren and I will be watching through the observation room. There’s a guard outside the door. There will be no physical contact. Mr. Bachman is dressed for court, but will be handcuffed to the table. You’ll leave your phone, briefcase, purse—everything except for one notepad, a pen, and your recorder—at the guard station. You are not to give Bachman anything, nor take anything from him. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll tap on the window when you have two minutes remaining. When the twenty minutes is up, the guard will escort Bachman to the holding room. If Bachman wants to end the interview early, he’ll say so. If you want to end it early, call for the guard.”

  “I understand.” This wasn’t the first time Max had interviewed a prisoner. She’d met with those on trial and those who’d been convicted. She’d gone into maximum security prisons to interview violent predators in the hopes of getting answers.

  Out of the two dozen such interviews she’d conducted over the last decade, she’d often become frustrated. Convicts lied. Or they attempted to manipulate her into printing an article showing them in a convincing light. Others wanted to “set the record straight” either by claiming their innocence or accusing the police of bullying.