Darkness, Take My Hand

by Dennis Lehane

  “I didn’t…” She peered at the faces. “I didn’t know these people by name, Mr. Kenzie. I took this photo because Stan asked me to. This silly group was something he was involved with, not me. I wouldn’t even allow them to have meetings at our house.”

  “Why not?” Devin said.

  She sighed and waved a frail hand. “All that macho posturing under the guise of community service. It was so ridiculous. Stan would try to convince me how good it would look on his résumé, but he was no different than the rest, forming a street gang and calling it socially benevolent.”

  Bolton said, “Our records indicate that you filed for separation from Mr. Timpson in November of nineteen seventy-four. Why?”

  She shrugged and yawned into her fist.

  “Doctor Warren?”

  “Jesus Christ,” she said sharply. “Jesus Christ.” She looked up at us and for a moment life returned to her, and then just as suddenly dissipated. She dropped her head into her hands and limp strands of hair fell over her fingers.

  “Stanley,” she said, “showed his true colors that summer. He was a Roman basically, convinced of his own moral superiority. He’d come home with blood on his shoe from kicking some unlucky car thief and try to tell me it was about justice. He became ugly…sexually, as if I were no longer his wife but his purchased courtesan. He changed from an essentially decent man with some unanswered questions about his manhood into a storm trooper.” She stabbed her finger into the photo. “And it was this group that caused it. This ridiculous, silly group of fools.”

  “Was there any one particular incident that you can recall, Doctor Warren?”

  “In what way?”

  “Did he ever tell you war stories?” Devin said.

  “No. Not after we fought about the blood on his shoe that time.”

  “And you’re sure it was a car thief’s blood?”

  She nodded.

  “Doctor Warren,” I said and she looked up at me, “if you were estranged from Timpson, why did you help the DA’s office during the Hardiman trial?”

  “Stan had nothing to do with the case. He was prosecuting prostitutes in night court back then. I had helped the DA’s office once before when a defendant was claiming insanity, and they liked the result, so they asked me to interview Alec Hardiman. I found him to be sociopathic, given to delusions of grandeur, and paranoid, but legally sane, fully aware of the diffeRenee between right and wrong.”

  “Was there any connection between EEPA and Alec Hardiman?” Oscar said.

  She shook her head. “None that I ever knew of.”

  “Why did EEPA disband?”

  She shrugged. “I think they just got bored. I really don’t know. I’d moved out of the neighborhood by then. Stan followed a few months later.”

  “There’s nothing else you can remember from that time?”

  She stared at the photograph for a long time.

  “I remember,” she said wearily, “that when I took this picture I was pregnant, and I was feeling nauseous that day. I told myself it was the heat and the baby growing inside me. But it wasn’t. It was them.” She pushed the photo away. “There was a sickness to that group, a corruption. I had the feeling, as I took this picture, that they’d hurt someone very badly some day. And like it.”

  In the RV, Fields removed his headphones and looked at Bolton. “The prison shrink, Doctor Dolquist, has been trying to reach Mr. Kenzie. I can patch him through.”

  Bolton nodded, turned to me. “Put it on speaker.”

  I answered the phone on the first ring.

  “Mr. Kenzie? Ron Dolquist.”

  “Doctor Dolquist,” I said, “may I put you on speaker phone?”

  “Certainly.”

  I did, and his voice picked up a metallic quality, as if it were bouncing off several satellites at once.

  “Mr. Kenzie, I’ve spent a lot of time going over all the notes I’ve kept of my sessions with Alec Hardiman over the years, and I think I may have stumbled on something. Warden Lief tells me you believe Evandro Arujo is working on the outside at Hardiman’s behest?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Have you considered the possibility that Evandro has a partner?”

  There were eight of us packed in the RV, and we all looked at the speaker simultaneously.

  “Why would you say that, Doctor?”

  “Well, it was something I’d forgotten about, but the first few years he was here, Alec spent a lot of time talking about someone named John.”

  “John?”

  “Yes. At the time, Alec was working hard to have his conviction overturned on the grounds of insanity, and he pulled out all the stops to convince the psychiatric staff that he was delusional, paranoid, schizophrenic, you name it. This John, I believed, was just his attempt to establish multiple personality syndrome. After nineteen seventy-nine, he never mentioned him again.”

  Bolton leaned over my shoulder. “What changed your mind, Doctor?”

  “Agent Bolton? Oh. Well, at the time I did allow for the possibility that John was a manifestation of his own personality—a fantasy Alec, if you will, who could walk through walls, disappear in mist, that sort of thing. But as I went through my notes last night, I kept coming upon refeRenees to a trinity, and I recalled that he’d told you, Mr. Kenzie, that you’d be transformed into a ‘man of impact’ by—”

  “The ‘Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,’” I said.

  “Yes. Often, when Alec spoke of this John, he called him Father John. Alec would be the son. And the ghost—”

  “Arujo,” I said. “He vanishes into mist.”

  “Exactly. Alec’s grasp of the true meaning of the Blessed Trinity leaves a lot to be desired, but it’s like a lot of mythological and religious imagery with him—he takes what he needs and molds it to suit his purposes, tosses out the rest.”

  “Tell us more about John, Doctor.”

  “Yes, yes. John, according to Alec, disguises himself as his polar opposite. Only with his victims and his closest intimates—Hardiman, Rugglestone, and now Arujo—does he remove the mask, lets them see the ‘pure fury of his true face,’ as Alec put it. When you look at John, you see what you want to see in a person; you see benevolence and wisdom and gentleness. But John is none of these things. According to Alec, John is a ‘scientist’ who studies human suffering first hand for clues to the motives behind creation.”

  “The motives behind creation?” I said.

  “I’m going to read to you from notes I took during a session with Alec in September of seventy-eight, shortly before he stopped mentioning John entirely. These are Alec Hardiman’s words:

  “’If God is benevolent, then why do we have such a capacity to feel pain? Our nerves are supposed to alert us to dangers; that’s the biological reason for pain. Yet we can feel pain far past the level necessary to alert us to danger. We can feel acute levels of pain beyond description. And not only do we have this capacity, as all animals do, but we further have the mental capacity to suffer it again and again emotionally and psychically. No other animal shares that capacity. Does God hate us that much? Or does He love us that much? And if neither, if it’s just an arbitrary flaw in our DNA, then isn’t the point of all this pain He’s given us to inure us? Make us as indifferent to the suffering of others as He is? And so shouldn’t we emulate Him, do as John does—revel in and prolong and improve upon pain and our methods of inflicting it? John understands that this is the essence of purity.’”

  Dolquist cleared his throat. “End quote.”

  Bolton said, “Doctor?”

  “Yes?”

  “Right off the top of your head, describe John.”

  “He’s physically powerful, and if you met him, you’d be able to see that, but it wouldn’t be overt. He’s not a bodybuilder, you understand, just a strong man. He appears to others to be quite sane and rational, maybe even wise. I would expect that he’s beloved in his community, a doer of good deeds on a small level.”

  “Is
he married?” Bolton said.

  “I doubt it. Even he’d have to know that no matter how good his facade, his spouse and his children would sense his disease. He may have been married once, but not anymore.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t think he’s been able to stop killing for the past two decades. It would be impossible for him. I believe he chose only to keep his kills quiet.”

  We all looked at Angie and she tipped an imaginary hat.

  “What else, Doctor?”

  “The primary thrill for him is the kills. But secondary to that, and only barely, is the joy he gets living behind his mask. John stares out at you from behind that mask and laughs at you from behind the cover it provides. It’s very sexual to him, and that’s why he has to finally take it off after all these years.”

  “I’m not following you,” I said.

  “Think of it as a prolonged erection, if you will. John has been waiting to climax for over twenty years now. As much as he enjoys that erection, his need to ejaculate is even more pressing.”

  “He wants to be caught.”

  “He wants to expose himself. It’s not the same thing. He wants to take off the mask and spit in your face as you’re looking into his real eyes, but that’s not to say he’ll accept handcuffs willingly.”

  “Anything else, Doctor?”

  “Yes. I think he knows Mr. Kenzie. I don’t mean knows of him. I mean, he’s known him for a long time. They’ve met. Face to face.”

  “Why do you say that?” I said.

  “A man like this establishes odd relationships, but no matter how odd, they’re extremely important to him. It would be paramount to him that he know one of his pursuers. For whatever reason, he chose you, Mr. Kenzie. And he let you know by having Hardiman send for you. You and John know each other, Mr. Kenzie. I’d stake my reputation on it.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Bolton said. “I’m assuming the reason you read from your notes is because you have no intention of releasing them to us.”

  “Not without a court order,” Dolquist said, “and even then you’d be in for a battle. If I find anything else in there which I think can stop these murders, I’ll call immediately. Mr. Kenzie?”

  “Yes?”

  “If I could have a word with you alone?”

  Bolton shrugged and I shut off the speaker, cradled the phone to my ear. “Yes, Doctor?”

  “Alec was wrong.”

  “About?”

  “About my wife. He was wrong.”

  “That’s good to hear,” I said.

  “I just wanted that…to be clear. He was wrong,” Dolquist repeated. “Good-bye, Mr. Kenzie.”

  “Good-bye, Doctor.”

  “Stan Timpson is in Cancun,” Erdham said.

  “What?” Bolton said.

  “It’s correct, sir. Took the wife and kids down there three days ago for a little R and R.”

  “A little R and R,” Bolton said. “He’s the district attorney of Suffolk County during a serial-killer crisis. And he goes to Mexico?” He shook his head. “Go get him.”

  “Sir? I’m not a field agent.”

  Bolton pointed his finger at him. “Send someone, then. Send two agents, and bring him back.”

  “Under arrest, sir?”

  “For questioning. Where’s he staying?”

  “His secretary said he was staying at the Marriott.”

  “There’s a but here. I can feel it.”

  Erdham nodded. “He never checked in there.”

  “Four agents,” Bolton said. “I want four agents on the next plane to Cancun. And bring his secretary in, too.”

  “Yes, sir.” Erdham picked up a phone as the RV turned on to the expressway.

  “They’ve all gone for cover, haven’t they?” I said.

  Bolton sighed. “It appears so. Jack Rouse and Kevin Hurlihy can’t be found. Diedre Rider hasn’t been seen since her daughter’s funeral.”

  “What about Burns and Climstich?” Angie said.

  “Both deceased. Paul Burns was a baker who stuck his head in one of his own ovens back in seventy-seven. Climstich died of a coronary in eighty-three. Neither left descendants.” He dropped the photo into his lap and stared at it. “You look just like your father, Mr. Kenzie.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “You said he was a bully. Was that all?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I need to know what the man was capable of.”

  “He was capable of anything, Agent Bolton.”

  Bolton nodded, leafed through his file. “Emma Hurlihy was committed to the Della Vorstin Home in seventy-five. Before that, there was no record of metal illness in her family, nor did she evidence any disturbing behavior until late seventy-four. Diedre Rider’s first arrest for drunk and disorderly occurred in February of seventy-five. After that, she was getting picked up by police on regular basis. Jack Rouse went from being a slightly corrupt corner-store owner to the head of the Irish Mafia in five years. Reports I obtained from the Organized Crime Bureau as well as BPD’s Major Crime Unit say that Rouse’s rise to power was allegedly the bloodiest in the history of the Irish Mafia here. He attained power by killing anyone who got in his way. How did this happen? How did an extremely low-level bookie get the stones to become a made man overnight?”

  He looked at us and we shook our heads.

  He turned another page in the file. “District Attorney Stanley Timpson, now here’s an interesting guy. Graduated near the bottom of his class at Harvard. Reached only the middle of his law school class at Suffolk. Failed his bar twice before he finally passed. The only reason he got in the DA’s office at all was because of Diandra Warren’s father’s connections, and his early performance evaluations were low. Then, starting in seventy-five, he turns into a tiger. He earns a reputation, in night court mind you, for refusing to cut deals. He graduates to superior court, more of the same. People begin to fear him, and the DA’s office starts throwing him felony work, and his star continues rising. By eighty-four he is considered the most feared prosecutor in New England. Again, how did this happen?”

  The RV swung off the expressway in my neighborhood and headed for St. Bart’s Church, where Bolton was holding his morning debriefing.

  “Your father, Mr. Kenzie, runs for city council in seventy-eight. The only thing he seems to do while in office is aquire a reputation for ruthlessness and power-craving which would have made Lyndon Johnson blush. He is, by all accounts, a negligible public servant, but a ferocious politician. Again, we have an obscure person—a fire fighter, for Christ’s sake—who rises far beyond any normal expectations one would hold for him.”

  “What about Climstich?” Angie said. “Burns killed himself, but did Climstich show signs of a transformation?”

  “Mr. Climstich became something of a hermit. His wife left him in the fall of seventy-five. Divorce affidavits attest that Mrs. Climstich cited irreconcilable diffeRenees after twenty-eight years of marriage. She stated that her husband had become withdrawn, morbid, and addicted to pornography. She further stated that said pornography was particularly vile in nature and that Mr. Climstich seemed obsessed with bestiality.”

  “Where are you going with all this, Agent Bolton?” Angie asked.

  “I’m saying something very strange happened to these people. They either became successful—rose beyond any reasonable expectation of their stations in life, or”—he ran his index finger over Emma Hurlihy and Paul Burns—“their lives fell apart and they imploded.” He looked at Angie as if she held the answer. “Something altered these people, Ms. Gennaro. Something transformed them.”

  The RV pulled up behind the church and Angie looked down at the photograph and said it again:

  “What did these people do?”

  “I don’t know,” Bolton said and shot a wry smile my way. “But as Alec Hardiman would say, it definitely had impact.”

  29

  Angie and I walked to a donut shop on Boston Street with Devin an
d Oscar following at a discreet distance.

  We were both well beyond tired and the air danced with transparent bubbles which popped before my eyes.

  We barely spoke as we sipped our coffee by the window and stared out at the gray morning. All the pieces seemed to be falling together in our puzzle, but somehow, the puzzle itself still refused to take on a recognizable image.

  EEPA, I had to assume, had had some sort of encounter with either Hardiman, Rugglestone, or potentially, the third mystery killer. But what kind of encounter? Did they see something that Hardiman or the mystery killer believed compromised them? If so, what could that have been? And why not just knock off the original members of the EEPA back in the mid-seventies? Why wait twenty years to go after their descendants, or the loved ones of their descendants?

  “You look beat, Patrick.”

  I gave her a weary smile. “You too.”

  She sipped her coffee. “After this debriefing, let’s go home to bed.”

  “That didn’t sound right.”

  She chuckled. “No, it didn’t. You know what I mean.”

  I nodded. “Still trying to get me in the sack after all these years.”

  “You wish, slick.”

  “Back in seventy-four,” I said, “what possible reasons could a man have for wearing makeup?”

  “You’re stuck on this point, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know, Patrick. Maybe they were very vain men. Maybe they were covering up crow’s feet.”

  “With white Pan-Cake?”

  “Maybe they were mimes. Or clowns. Or goth freaks.”

  “Or KISS fans,” I said.

  “That, too.” She hummed a bar of “Beth.”

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “The connection’s there,” I said. “I can feel it.”

  “You mean to the makeup?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And the connection between Hardiman and EEPA. I’m certain. It’s staring us in the face and we’re too tired to see it.”

  She shrugged. “Let’s go see what Bolton has to say at his debriefing. Maybe that’ll make sense of everything.”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t be a pessimist,” she said.