“I’ve gotten to the point in my life, Amos, where all I have is time. My professional work is done. My wife is deceased. My health is declining. My old friends are dead. My children have their own health problems. My grandchildren are graduating from college and starting their own careers. So your visit is very welcome to me.”
Decker settled back and kept his gaze on the man while Jamison shot glances between them.
Decker said, “How long have you been gone from the Cognitive Institute?”
“They put me out to pasture ten years ago. I would have stayed longer, but my eyes were starting to go even then.”
“They’ve moved.”
“I know. I keep in touch. The institute has grown, you know.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Hence the move. They needed more space. We’ve come light-years since you were with us. We know so much more.”
“And you obviously remember me.”
“You would be hard to forget. Our only professional football player. It was quite unusual.”
“I went into law enforcement when I left here. First as a cop. Then a detective.”
“You mentioned that was your ambition when you were here.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Good for you. And have you had a productive career?”
“It’s had its ups and downs, like most careers.”
“Hopefully more ups than downs.”
“You may be able to help with that.”
Rabinowitz frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Decker mentioned the Mansfield case.
Rabinowitz said, “I heard about that, along with the rest of the country. So tragic. So awful. So many lives just…ended. For no reason.”
“I’m working that case. And there is a reason. In fact, it might have a personal connection to me.”
“How so?” Rabinowitz said sharply.
“I think someone at the institute while I was there is involved with the massacre at the high school.”
Rabinowitz gripped the edge of his armchair. “What!?”
“I can’t give you specifics, but the killer communicated the old address of the institute to me. He said that I had dissed him. He indicated that was why he killed all those people.”
“Oh my God!” Rabinowitz nearly toppled from his chair, but, moving fast for a big man, Decker managed to snag his arm and hold him in his seat.
Decker looked at Jamison. “Water?”
She jumped up and hurried into the next room. She was back in less than a minute with a glass of water. Decker gave it to Rabinowitz, and he drank down a bit before carefully placing it on the table next to him.
“I’m sorry,” said Decker. “I shouldn’t have just dropped that on you. Sometimes…sometimes I just don’t realize…”
Rabinowitz wiped his lips with a trembling hand and then settled back in his chair. “Your neurological switches were set awry, Amos, for want of a better term. I know that certain societal parameters and cues are difficult for you, as they were for many of the folks who passed through our doors. It just goes with the territory. Parts of the brain become extraordinary in what they can do, while other parts, well, other parts regress a bit, at least from a societal perspective. It’s all a question of priorities for the mind.”
“That’s why I’m here. The folks who passed through your doors. One of them could be our killer.”
Rabinowitz shook his head, his brow scrunched up in distress. “I find that so very…terrible. And unlikely.”
“Damaged minds, Dr. Rabinowitz.”
“I think you can call me Harold now, Amos. We no longer have a doctor-patient relationship.”
“Okay, Harold. Damaged minds, even turned exceptional in some ways, are capable of many things. Some good, some bad.”
“But surely you remember quite vividly the people you met at the institute. Did you see a callous murderer among them?”
“Honestly, no. And I can’t remember ever ‘dissing’ any of them. I can’t recall insulting anyone while I was there.”
“But you say the…the man responsible for these terrible acts gave you the address of the institute?”
“The old address, on Duckton. He did it in code, but it was clearly his intent.”
Rabinowitz rubbed his mouth. “I’m not sure what I can add to what you already know.”
Jamison spoke up. “You’ve focused on patients who were there with you. But what about doctors, psychologists, or other health care professionals you met while you were there?”
Decker nodded slowly. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
Rabinowitz said firmly, “I can’t believe anyone who worked at the institute would ever commit such vile acts.”
“I don’t want to think it either,” said Jamison hurriedly. “But in an investigation like this you really can’t discount any possibility. It would be irresponsible.”
Decker said, “Chris Sizemore.”
Jamison said, “Who?”
Rabinowitz said, “He was a psychologist who worked at the institute. I was told he left there several years ago.”
“Why do you mention him, Decker?” asked Jamison.
“Because he and I did not get along. We had words. Nothing that would have led me to believe he could be our guy. But we didn’t get along.”
“Could he be Leopold twenty years later?” she asked.
Decker closed his eyes and clicked through the appropriate frames in his head. “Right height and build. Facial features similar. But it was hard to tell Leopold’s age. Sizemore would be in his early fifties now. Bottom line, while doubtful, I can’t be certain that Sizemore and Leopold aren’t the same person. The tats on his arm could have come later. He could have lied about being in the Navy. His voice could have changed over the years. A lot of things about him could have changed over two decades. But the police have Leopold’s prints and DNA from when he was arrested. Presumably Sizemore’s prints are available in some professional database. It should be fairly straightforward to see if the two are one and the same.”
He had a photo of Leopold on his phone, but of course he couldn’t show it to Rabinowitz to see if it might be Sizemore.
He looked at Rabinowitz. “Do you know what happened to Sizemore? Why did he leave the institute?”
The older man was nervously tapping his fingers against his thigh. “As I said, I was gone long before he left.”
“But you also said you keep in touch with former colleagues.”
“Yes, well, he had some professional issues.”
“What sort?”
“I really can’t get into that. But I can tell you that they were serious enough for him to be asked to leave.”
Jamison said, “What sort of problems did you have with him, Decker?”
“He had his protégés, and I wasn’t one of them.”
Rabinowitz said, “Chris did have his favorites. I would like to think that I treated all of our patients with the same level of courtesy, respect, and thoroughness. But I’m also human, and I of course would have certain cases that interested me more than others. There are very few blunt-force brain trauma cases where the patient actually died before being resuscitated that result in the sort of cognitive rerouting that took place with you, Amos.” Rabinowitz paused to smile. “And I’ve been a Bears fan for over sixty years, and though you played for Cleveland, you were the only NFL player to ever come through our door. Now that you mention it, I do remember Chris having issues with that. Whether it was from a genuine dislike of you, or rather from the effects of his personal issues that later led him to leave the institute, I don’t know. But he seemed to think that with you our priorities were off.”
“I don’t get that,” said Jamison. “What would he base that on?”
Decker answered, “Sizemore thought that, being a football player, I had accepted the risk of getting my brain destroyed. I guess he thought I was taking up the space of someone who deserved to be there more.”
&nbs
“That’s because I never told anyone. He let that slip during a ‘conversation’ we had one day in the hallway.”
“That was highly unprofessional of him,” said Rabinowitz sharply.
“Perhaps. But I also never considered that it might be the motivation for what happened at Mansfield.”
Jamison said, “So the million-dollar question: Where is Dr. Sizemore now?”
Rabinowitz said, “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him since I left the institute.”
“Maybe he moved to the Burlington area?” commented Jamison.
Decker said, “If he’s still in the profession he has to be on a database somewhere for licensing purposes. We should start there.”
“I can call the institute and get whatever information I can,” offered Rabinowitz. “Since it doesn’t involve a patient, I think they would be more forthcoming. Some of them might know where Chris is now.”
Decker gave him their contact information.
“We’ll be in town for a day or so.” Decker rose and said, “Thank you, Harold, you’ve been a big help.”
Rabinowitz stood too. “I pray that Chris is not your man, but if he is I pray even harder that you will be able catch him and stop him from harming anyone else.”
“Then let’s hope that God is listening,” said Decker.
“So you think the person might kill again?” said Rabinowitz.
“I know he’ll try.”
Chapter
43
AFTER THEY LEFT Rabinowitz, Jamison and Decker stopped to grab some lunch. While they were at a café, Decker called Lancaster and filled her in.
She said, “Okay, we’ll track down this Sizemore guy if we can. And if his prints are online somewhere we’ll subpoena them and compare them to Leopold’s. As soon as we find out anything I’ll call you.” She paused. “So, back at your old stomping grounds. I never knew you were at this institute place.”
“No one knew, other than Cassie.”
“We were partners for a long time, Amos.”
“It never occurred to me that you would be interested in my past, Mary.”
“Well, that goes to show, even people with big brains make mistakes,” she said curtly, her frustration and disappointment evident.
She clicked off and Decker set his phone down next to his plate containing a half-eaten cheeseburger and a small mound of fries.
“Everything okay?” asked Jamison.
“Yeah,” said Decker as he picked at a fry.
Jamison said, “If it turns out Sizemore is Leopold, he must be one sick dude.”
“If he killed thirteen people he is one sick dude.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“So explain.”
She slid her plate aside and leaned in. “The ‘diss’ was you got more attention than some of his protégés? Like it was a beauty pageant for brains? Really? So in retaliation he kills all those people?”
“Correction, if he is Leopold, he killed no one. Well, we don’t know who killed Agent Lafferty. But Leopold was in jail when my family was killed and also when the shootings at Mansfield happened. He has a rock-solid alibi. And it seems that both incarcerations were planned.”
“Meaning he knew your family was going to be killed and he knew the shooter was going to attack Mansfield?”
“The timing of his coming in to confess to the Burlington police was a little too coincidental. And I checked on the arrest record from Cranston. Disorderly conduct. He spent one night in jail and that was it. They didn’t even bother arraigning him. They just let him go the next morning. But that unequivocally proved he could not have committed the murders of my family.”
“Right, so he’s partnered with someone, our five-foot-eleven skinny dude turned broad-shouldered maniac, to do the actual murdering.”
“And there is no way that person is Sizemore.”
“So if Sizemore is the one you dissed, he’s partnered with this person who impersonated a waitress at the bar. I wonder who that person is that kills so readily?”
“I wonder too.”
“But still, if Sizemore is behind this, how does someone that effed up become a psychologist?”
“Something in his mind could have snapped. He could be bipolar and the meds aren’t working anymore. Leopold apparently told his lawyer he was bipolar and had gone off his meds, or at least that’s what the PD told the judge. Or he could have had some sort of trauma, either physical or emotional, that changed him. He had a lump on his neck and drug tracks on his arm. Could be a lot of stuff going on inside him. A lot can happen to someone in twenty years. If it is Sizemore, he took a risk in letting me confront him. He knows how my mind works. I don’t forget anything. If it is him, I could have recognized him.”
“But you didn’t. So maybe it’s not him.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s still all so scary.”
“Of course it’s scary. Because something like that could happen to any of us.”
“Or he could be just plain evil.”
“Or he could be,” agreed Decker. “Does that make you feel better?”
She shivered. “I don’t think anything about this case could make me feel better.”
Decker’s phone buzzed. He answered it.
Rabinowitz said, “Amos, I don’t know if this is good or bad news, but the institute has been forwarding professional mail to Chris since he left. Enough time has passed that it’s slowed to a trickle, but they did have an address.”
Decker wrote it down, thanked Rabinowitz, and then looked up the address on his phone.
He said, “It’s halfway between Chicago and Burlington. We passed it coming up here.”
“Meaning if he still lives there he could get to Burlington and back relatively easily.”
“Let’s go.”
“Decker, shouldn’t we call in the police on this?”
“On what? We have no proof that he’s done anything wrong. Not a shred. We can track this down. And if it turns out we’re right, we bring in the cops.”
He walked briskly out the door of the café and she more slowly followed.
Four hours later they pulled off the highway and spent another twenty minutes on surface streets before Decker, who was using the GPS on his phone, directed Jamison to a many-decades-old, run-down neighborhood.
“The guy looks like he’s fallen on hard times,” noted Jamison.
Decker remained quiet, but his gaze moved steadily around, taking in everything.
“That’s it, the third on the left with the black shutters. Pull past it.”
Jamison drove on, and then Decker had her park at the curb on the opposite side of the street about a half dozen homes down from Sizemore’s.
“Decker, Rabinowitz said that Sizemore had left the institute several years ago.”
“That’s right.”
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