Kill Switch

by Neal Baer

  The bang of the brass knocker on the front door brought her out of her near trance. She looked at the mess on the table, knowing her parents would be upset if they saw what she was doing.

  She glanced at her watch—1:25 in the afternoon. Way too early for either of them to be home, and she wasn’t expecting anyone.

  Claire peeked out the front window. The rain had died down, the torrent of water cascading down the glass having given way to just a few drips. There was a Toyota Camry parked at the curb, one she hadn’t seen before. So it wasn’t a delivery.

  Hesitantly, she crept up to the front door. Her parents had never put a peephole in, not wanting to ruin the integrity of the beautiful oak finish.

  “Who is it?” Claire asked.

  “Police,” came the reply, muffled by the pouring rain.

  The car parked out front was hardly a police car. Her parents had mentioned a rash of midday burglaries plaguing the neighborhood. Was this someone looking to see if the house was empty?

  Though there was no peephole, the door did have a row of glass panes at the top, too high for Claire or anyone else to see over. But Claire thought she could put it to good use. She reached her hand up as if to indicate.

  “Put your badge and ID card up against the glass,” she shouted.

  She heard the light tap of metal against the glass. Claire looked up. And her eyes went wide.

  The badge she saw wasn’t that of a Rochester police officer. It was the gold shield of a New York City police detective. Claire had seen the number enough times to know whose it was. She unlocked the door and pulled it open.

  Nick Lawler stood uncomfortably before her.

  “You changed your hair back,” he said.

  Claire unconsciously twirled a snippet of hair, which she had indeed dyed back to its natural color. “Astute observation, Detective Lawler,” Claire replied.

  They looked at each other for an awkward moment. Claire wasn’t sure whether she was glad to see him or horrified at the prospect of why he might be there.

  “You’re a little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?” she asked, breaking the silence.

  “I need to talk.”

  “About the case?”

  “The case is over.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I’m a detective.” He brushed a drop of water from his nose. “It’s kinda wet out here.”

  Claire’s face flushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she said, stepping aside. “Come in.”

  Nick entered, closing the door behind him. He took his raincoat off, revealing jeans and a maroon golf shirt underneath.

  “That what cops wear when they travel?” Claire asked.

  “Not when they travel on official business,” Nick replied.

  “So this isn’t official business.”

  “Not exactly,” he said, squinting to adjust his eyes to the low level of light.

  “You drove three hundred fifty miles just to chat.”

  “I flew.”

  Claire couldn’t help but grin. He reminded her of a nervous high school boy trying to ask her out. Minus the pimples.

  “So you were in a hurry to get here,” Claire said, automatically turning into shrink mode.

  “You’re not making this easy, Doctor.”

  “Are you here for professional help?” Claire nodded toward the living room, and they walked in. Claire sat on the sofa and Nick took the firm leather chair facing her.

  “I said I needed to talk to you, didn’t I?” Nick replied, annoyed.

  “Let me get this straight,” Claire said. “You flew all the way up here from New York City because you need a shrink.”

  The expression that crossed Nick’s face—one of sheer confusion—told Claire she was right on the money.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said to her.

  “Do about what?” Claire asked.

  “This how you ambush all your patients?” Nick asked.

  Claire softened. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

  Nick haltingly launched himself into his tale of woe regarding Dr. Mangone’s ultimatum. Claire listened intently, empathically, until he was finished.

  “So you have some time left until Dr. Mangone makes good on his . . . threat.”

  “I asked him whether he’d still give me a month to figure out my situation if I took off a couple of weeks.”

  “In other words,” Claire concluded, “you’re facing a life sentence and the good doctor agreed to a plea bargain.”

  Nick grinned at her attempt to make light of it all.

  “Something like that,” he began. “He said he was okay with it as long as I didn’t carry the gun.”

  “And you’re good with that?”

  “What the doctor doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Or me,” Nick said, patting his lower leg where he holstered his weapon.

  “But it could hurt someone else,” Claire said, staring at where she knew the gun rested. “He’s right, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Nick admitted. “But I’ve been a cop my whole adult life. I don’t know how to do anything else.”

  Claire let out a small laugh. Nick looked sharply at her.

  “Something funny about that?” he demanded.

  “Sorry, I’m not laughing at your misfortune. I’m laughing at myself.” Seeing his bewildered look, she explained. “Most shrinks become shrinks because they’re so screwed up that dealing with other people’s problems is a relief. I’ve been here a week and you’re the first person who was able to take my mind off my own shit.”

  Nick couldn’t help but grin. “Glad to be of service, Doc.”

  “Where are you staying?” asked Claire.

  “Didn’t make any plans,” answered Nick. “There’s a flight home tonight at eight-thirty, and I thought I’d make that.”

  “Would you like something to drink?” Claire asked. She found something endearing about his hair, matted down from the rain. It made him look vulnerable.

  “Water’s fine. How do you want to do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “Well, I don’t expect a free ride here,” he said, turning uncomfortably in the chair. The living room was spotless, almost unlived in. Nick noticed oil paintings of seascapes and still lifes of flowers, but no pictures of family—as if people had been banned from the room.

  “Relax, Detective Lawler,” Claire reassured him, taken by his sense of honor. “This one’s on the house. You’ve more than earned it, don’t you think?”

  She smiled as she got up and headed toward the kitchen, already planning her strategy for their session, but she never made it through the doorway.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Nick called to her.

  She turned around to face him. “Ask away,” she said, giving him a small smile.

  “Why were you so obsessed with this case?”

  Claire shrugged. “It’s my job,” she said, trying to throw it away.

  “Obsession isn’t part of the job. And I’m pretty sure changing one’s appearance to get a rise out of a patient isn’t in the shrink instruction manual.”

  A forced smile appeared on Claire’s face as she involuntarily glanced at the box on the dining room table containing her darkest secret. “You came to talk about you, not me,” she said gently. “I’ll be right back.”

  As soon as she disappeared into the kitchen, Nick crossed to the dining room table, wondering what it was that Claire didn’t want him to see. He saw her name written in marker on the side of the carton and noticed the photo album beside it, pretty sure she didn’t want him nosing through her life.

  But nosing through peoples’ lives was what Nick did for a living, and so, without so much as a second thought, he flipped open the cover of the scrapbook. The newspaper headline blaring out like a neon sign shocked him.

  “What are you doing?” Claire demanded, horrified, when she came back in.

  “Interesting hobby you had,” Nick said, never tak
ing his eyes off the article. “Collecting articles about child molesters. No wonder you became a shrink.”

  Claire slammed the album shut. “It’s none of your business.”

  “At least I answered my own question about why you were so interested in Todd Quimby.” He looked down at the closed scrapbook. “You’ve been obsessed with pervs since you were a little girl.”

  “Quimby wasn’t just a perv. He killed my boyfriend and six other innocent people.”

  Nick froze. He’d pushed her too far. Why am I always pushing? Why can’t I accept the inevitable?

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said. “This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come here.” He grabbed his raincoat and headed for the door.

  “Wait,” Claire said.

  Nick stopped but didn’t turn around.

  “She was my friend,” Claire said, her voice cracking.

  “The girl in the article?” Nick asked, turning to face her.

  “Her name was Amy. That whole box is about her.”

  Nick moved back toward Claire. “What happened?”

  “We were jumping rope out in front of this house. A guy pulled up, said Amy’s father was in an accident and he’d been sent to take her to the hospital.”

  “You witnessed it,” Nick said, coming to the table.

  “But I couldn’t stop him,” Claire answered.

  It explains so much, Nick thought. Of course she’s obsessed. About what she lost and can never get back.

  “Did they ever catch him?”

  “No.”

  She looked down. It was the first time she’d spoken about this to anyone since she was eight, and it was making her bottom lip quiver.

  “They never found your friend, did they,” she heard Nick say, not as a question but as a statement of fact.

  Claire shook her head as she turned away. He’s seen enough of my tears, she thought as her eyes started to well up.

  Nick came up behind her and was about to put his hands on her shoulders, then thought better of it.

  “You were a kid,” he said gently. “There was nothing you could have done.”

  “I . . . I know,” Claire stammered, trying to hold herself together. “But Ian—”

  “Todd Quimby killed him. Not you.”

  “But because of me,” Claire said.

  “Quimby was a monster. You didn’t put the knife in his hand.”

  “All I wanted was to stop people like him from hurting others. And all I got was a bunch of dead bodies with my name on them.”

  “His name. Not yours. This pity party isn’t gonna bring any of them back.”

  Claire wheeled on him. “And you know that because you’ve never felt sorry for yourself. You don’t blame yourself for your wife’s death, do you?”

  “We’re not talking about me—”

  “You came here to talk about you. I’m the shrink, remember?” Claire said angrily. “I know you much better than you do. They accused you of murdering her. You may not have pulled the trigger, but something inside you believes you killed her just the same.”

  “She needed help! But I told her she would be okay! Because I didn’t trust you people.”

  The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

  “You people?” Claire asked, even though she knew exactly what he meant.

  “Shrinks,” Nick blurted.

  Claire looked at him. “Did your wife seem suicidal?”

  “She had weeks when she couldn’t get out of bed. And then weeks where she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop doing things.”

  “Sounds like she was bipolar.”

  “That’s what the police psychologist said after she killed herself.”

  “Did you go voluntarily? To the police psychologist?”

  “No,” said Nick, though the answer was much more complicated. A cop who didn’t want to drive his career into a brick wall avoided the department shrinks at all cost, for fear that whatever was discussed would wind up in one’s personnel file down at One Police Plaza. Any cop who thought he needed mental help saw someone privately, on the outside, someone who could never divulge a word from any session to the NYPD powers-that-be without running afoul of privacy laws and their own oath to preserve patient confidentiality.

  “Then someone obviously forced you to see a therapist,” Claire said.

  “Internal Affairs,” Nick answered. “It was that or take a polygraph.”

  “And what did the doctor say?”

  Nick drew a deep breath. “That my wife shot herself.”

  “A human lie detector,” Claire said, “whose testimony is admissible in court, found you innocent. As opposed to polygraph results that can’t be entered as evidence.”

  “You’re good,” Nick said.

  “Not nearly as good as you, though,” Claire shot back, her anger growing. “For a few minutes I actually believed you.”

  Nick didn’t understand. “Everything I told you is the God’s honest truth,” he said sincerely.

  “About your wife. Yes. I know you didn’t kill her.”

  “Then what the hell are you talking about?”

  “You didn’t come here just for my help, did you?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Then make it simple,” Claire said, “because I’m too tired to play any more games.”

  “I’m not really sure,” Nick said. “We’re not finished, you and me. I can’t explain it, but it doesn’t feel over.”

  “What?” Claire asked, puzzled.

  “It’s just a feeling,” Nick said. He couldn’t find the words to say any more.

  Claire had no words, either. But she knew what he meant. She, too, had that feeling of unease. Of not knowing something that was almost within reach.

  After a long silence, Nick asked, “Why did you quit?”

  Claire could have come up with a dozen questions Nick could have asked her. That one wasn’t on the list.

  “You know damn well why I quit,” was the best she could do.

  “I didn’t before I came here,” Nick retorted, “but you’re right. I do now.”

  He gestured toward the table, realizing he’d found the missing piece of the puzzle that was Claire Waters. “You came back here to find your friend,” he said. “You came back here to find Amy.”

  Claire could feel him looking right through her. “I need to know why.”

  “I understand. But let me tell you something. Why is overrated when it comes to dead people. Why sometimes makes it all worse. Because there’s no good reason for murder. And sometimes, bad shit just happens even to the best people. Finding Amy isn’t gonna bring back your boyfriend.”

  “At least I know where my boyfriend is.”

  Nick got it. “If it’s closure you want, there’ll never be any. Especially for a kid.”

  “But it’ll at least give her parents someone to bury in that empty grave.” A look of panic crossed her face. She started to dig through the box.

  “What’s wrong?” Nick asked.

  Claire found what she was looking for and pulled it out of the box. It was a photo of Claire and Amy together, holding a doll.

  “What’s this?”

  “Amy gave it to me. For my eighth birthday. I buried her.”

  “The doll,” he said, clarifying.

  Claire nodded, staring at the image.

  “Do you remember where?”

  “Yes.”

  The rain had stopped as Claire, shovel in hand, slung mud from an ever-growing hole in the grass of her parents’ backyard.

  “Why?” Nick asked her.

  “I thought you said why was overrated,” Claire said.

  The digging was therapeutic. She pressed the shovel into the moist earth and lifted out a heap of dark soil. “I always imagined he took Amy and buried her body somewhere. I wanted to feel how she must’ve felt. The dirt on her face. In her eyes. What that bastard felt when he put my friend in the ground.”

  Nick could see she was
crying. Gently, he took the shovel from her. She let him move her aside as he dug until he felt something.

  He bent down and grabbed a plastic hand. Pulled the doll from the dirt.

  “Stupid, right?” Claire asked.

  Nick looked at the doll. Its painted eyes were barely visible. “She was as much a part of you as Amy was.”

  “We had a funeral for Amy. We buried a casket but it was empty. It shouldn’t have been.”

  “Let me help you,” Nick said.

  “Help me what?”

  “Find Amy. And the man who stole her from you.”

  “Why do you want to find him?”

  “So you can ask him why.”

  Claire looked at him. She knew the reason was more than what he was willing to say. But she had known all along she couldn’t do this on her own. Or was it that she didn’t want to?

  Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe we can save each other.

  “Okay,” she said.

  CHAPTER 21

  The click-clack of heels along the gray-walled hallways of Rochester’s Public Safety Building reminded Claire of that first day with Paul Curtin, walking through the cinder-block and concrete corridors of Rikers Island. That had been less than a month ago, but to Claire it felt like a decade.

  This time, though, was different. Instead of the fear and intimidation she felt walking behind Curtin that morning, her step was filled with confidence and purpose as she strode beside NYPD detective Nick Lawler, convinced that with his help, they’d find both her friend Amy Danforth (or her remains) and Mr. Winslow, the man who’d taken Amy from Claire’s driveway so many years ago.

  Nick had offered to remain for several days to help Claire, and she immediately accepted, inviting him to stay in her parents’ guest room. Claire thought they should begin with a tour of the places she and Amy visited together as children, thinking it might trigger a memory of a place where she’d seen Winslow. But Nick insisted the only place to start was the case file, which meant contacting the Rochester Police Department’s Homicide Unit. Claire’s parents were well connected in Rochester’s political circles, and she suggested using her parents’ clout to secure the police chief’s cooperation with their investigation. To which Nick replied that he was more connected in the RPD than her parents could ever be.