Season of the Assassin

by Laird, Thomas

  It got me back to where I’d been at the beginning. We were still trying to nab Anglin for a little conversation about the two recent murders.

  I remembered reading my father’s files on Theresa Rojas. That business had been thirty years ago, and the last I’d heard was that she was still in Elgin. Healthy as a horse physically but just as far from Planet Earth as she had been three decades back.

  Doc and I took a ride up to the hospital. The drive from the city took an hour and a half, allowing for traffic. We breezed through because all the road work would begin in April, a month away.

  When we showed our badges to the receptionist, she called the on-shift doctor and asked if Theresa Rojas was allowed visitors. She looked up from the phone and told us there had to be a doctor in the room with Theresa and any visitor.

  We asked if it could be arranged, and we saw from her look as she asked the shrink that it was a hassle for somebody. But I repeated we were there for a homicide investigation, and the receptionist said the doctor would be down in a minute.

  Five minutes passed, and finally a female therapist presented herself at the desk.

  ‘I’m Carrie Johansen. I’ve worked with Theresa for the last two years.’

  Carrie was barely five feet one and weighed maybe 100 pounds. Kinky blonde hair. And she exuded an up-front sexuality, it seemed to me. She carried herself in a manner that was aggressive and in-your-face for someone with an M.D. in psychiatry. I liked her immediately.

  She walked us onto the ward.

  ‘What’s Miss Rojas’s condition?’ Doc asked Carrie.

  ‘Compared to what?’ she countered, grinning.

  ‘Compared to the way she was when she entered the ward,’ Doc said and smiled back.

  ‘She’s somewhat improved, but she’s still uncommunicative, if that’s what you want to know.’

  ‘She’s the best-kept secret in the case of those nurses’ murders,’ I reminded Dr Johansen.

  ‘We’re all very aware of that, Lieutenant,’ she shot back.

  ‘You’ve done a nice job of keeping it that way for thirty years,’ I stated.

  ‘No small feat. Not when it comes to keeping the press off your back.’

  ‘No. You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘The reason they haven’t been around is because she was excluded from all the paperwork,’ I continued. ‘She was whisked right out of that dorm before the media got on scene. And newsguys were a little more understanding about privacy in years past.’

  Carrie nodded as we arrived at Theresa’s door.

  ‘The federal people are primarily responsible for keeping her unknown up to now. Not us. There are too many open doors at our place downtown. The Feds are skilled at keeping things from the public.’

  She opened the door.

  Theresa Rojas, aged fifty-two, sat by her window. Her gaze stayed fixed. She remained peering out the window into the sunshine of a fifty-degree pre-spring day.

  ‘Theresa,’ Carrie said softly. ‘We have some visitors.’

  Theresa Rojas turned toward us. She was strikingly pretty, even in middle age. Her face did not show the wear of five decades. It was as if she’d been frozen in 1968. The only things that betrayed her real age were the silver streaks at her temples amid the otherwise raven-black hair with its blue sheen and the slight markings of crow’s-feet beneath her eyes. With a little makeup she’d look thirty, no older.

  She looked at us. There was no expression on her face.

  ‘They tried everything. EST — ’

  ‘Electroshock therapy?’ Doc gasped.

  ‘Everything…Nothing rouses her. She seems as if she’s only barely connected to the rest of us. We don’t know if she’s still in that dorm room, hiding under the bed, listening to that man slaughter all her classmates and friends, or whether she’s transported herself somewhere else. We just do not know. If you’re thinking she might come out of this someday, you might be right. Just as right as supposing she’ll go on like this until she dies.’

  I noticed the medicine bottles on top of Theresa’s desk.

  ‘What’s she taking?’ I asked.

  ‘Primarily tranquilizers. Nothing too mind-altering.’

  I went over to the table, took out my notebook and wrote down the names of the medicines.

  ‘Don’t you trust my word, Lieutenant?’ Carrie asked, smiling. It was almost lewd, that grin.

  ‘I trust you. I just like to write down the relevant facts. I’m getting progressively more forgetful…Just like she would be — ’ I pointed to Theresa Rojas ‘ — if she were here in the real world with the rest of us.’

  ‘I think her memory’s intact — somewhere.’

  ‘Who picks up the bill here for her?’

  ‘The State of Illinois, partially. She has some money in her family. And there is one other donor.’

  ‘Namely?’ Doc asked.

  ‘No name. Anonymous.’

  ‘I don’t like that guy,’ Doc said to her.

  She laughed at his pseudo-tough-guy crack. ‘A lot of things about Theresa Rojas are mysterious. She makes her own bed. Refuses to let staff take care of her laundry. She finds her way down to the laundry room where the non-committeds do their own private clothing. She takes me or whoever’s taking care of her down there and she does her own wash. Theresa refuses to take meals with anyone else. Meals are taken here, on the bed. She can be very stubborn about whatever it is she has in her head that she needs or demands…But she will not speak. She will not communicate. Not in writing, sign language or verbally. She hasn’t made a sound that anyone around here has heard in thirty years. I’m told the last utterance she made was a primal shriek aimed at a Homicide detective, thirty years ago.’

  ‘That would have been my father,’ I explained.

  Carrie’s eyebrows rose theatrically.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. His name was Jake Parisi.’

  ‘Is he still alive?’

  I shook my head.

  Did Theresa Rojas remember my gruff-assed old man? Did she recall how he must have been uncomfortable around this brown, beautiful chica? Jake had his doubts about everyone but himself. It wasn’t just a matter of different skin hues.

  ‘Oh,’ Carrie said and lowered her eyes.

  ‘This was the last major piece of business he had before he died. Carl Anglin. It was the only big-time homicide he’d been involved with that he wasn’t able to close. It bothered him until his last day. He was the cop who let Carl Anglin go.’

  ‘Jimmy, people didn’t blame him for that,’ Doc said.

  ‘I read about the case,’ Carrie said. ‘Extensively. It didn’t seem to me that the police bungled anything. It was just that their material witnesses disappeared. First the one was shot, and then we have Ms Rojas here. None of that is connected to your father, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Thanks for the free therapy. I feel better now.’

  She snorted, and I had to laugh aloud with her.

  ‘Can I be with her alone for just a moment?’

  Carrie looked at me quizzically. But then she relented.

  ‘It’s not SOP. But just for a minute. Don’t get me in trouble.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Carrie and Doc went away.

  Then it was Theresa Rojas and me in the room, alone together.

  I sat by the window, on the ledge next to her. We sat quietly.

  ‘Theresa, my name is Jimmy Parisi. I know my father talked to you a long time ago when you first came here. My dad’s dead. He died not too long after he came to visit you. I know when he came he was hoping for some kind of miracle. Hoping that you’d talk to him so that he could help you get justice for all those girls that Carl Anglin killed. We all know about your trauma, so I’m not going to try and tell you anything stupid, like I know what you went through. Nobody knows that except you. And now you’re all alone in that place where no one else is accepted. Nobody’s been where you’ve been. I’ve been in a war. I’ve seen as many dead people as you have
— probably a lot more, actually. But I’m not saying that gets me an invitation to come inside the place where you’re at.’

  Theresa was watching a woman outside who was sitting at a park bench. The woman was sobbing. She’d probably just visited a relative, a loved one, who was in Elgin for a long time. That was the way she seemed to me. I was always supposing. It was what Homicide cops did.

  ‘I saw torn-up bodies all over that little country. And I’ve seen countless more since I’ve done this job. I don’t know what all these therapists tell you, and what I’m saying now is just me taking my best shot in the dark, because I sure as hell am no psychiatrist…I’m trying to break down your door. We both know that. You’re resisting. You’ve resisted for thirty years. I know you’ve heard that one before…Theresa, we’re no closer to grabbing Carl Anglin than we were when he literally frightened hell out of you when he mutilated your friends in that dormitory. But if you’re really in there somewhere and if you can really hear me, I think it’s time you came back out. If you think I’m challenging you, you’re right. You’re about all we’ve got. Just like my father told you. But he never had time to come back and visit you some more. I’m going to keep coming until you talk to me, Theresa. There’s room for you over here, on this side. You’re a pretty woman, you’re in the prime of your life. I want you to come out. Otherwise Anglin’s murder count just went up by one woman.’

  She tapped her fingers on the windowsill. The sound was very brief, but I heard the muted thumping clearly.

  ‘Theresa?’

  She was still once more. I went to the door to bring Doc and the psychiatrist back in.

  ‘Did you try to talk to her?’ Carrie asked.

  I simply looked at her.

  ‘Everybody does,’ she said.

  ‘She drummed her fingers on the window sill,’ I told her.

  ‘Habit,’ Carrie replied.

  ‘We’ll be back, in any case,’ I told her.

  There was no smile for me this time.

  *

  On the way back to the city, Doc looked over at me from the passenger’s side of the Taurus. ‘Miracles don’t solve homicides,’ he uttered.

  ‘No. You’re right.’

  He sat there and stared out through the windshield.

  ‘Why’d you write down the names of her medications?’

  ‘Because I wanted to see how doped up they’ve got her.’

  ‘You think someone might be spiking Theresa’s meds?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘What if she’s simply lost, Jimmy? It happens, you know.’

  ‘Sure. It happens. Thirty years, Doc. She looks like some preserved specimen…I think we ought to put her under surveillance.’

  ‘What if she already is?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean if she’s being doped by somebody, it’s pretty obvious they’re also going to keep a close eye on her. They haven’t killed her, which they would’ve done if they didn’t think she’d veggied out permanently. They must be convinced, Jimmy. They must be sure. They could’ve made her disappear a long time ago. That’s the kind of thing Anglin’s war buddies did so well.’

  ‘They’ve had plenty of opportunity, sure. And you’re right. Why take a chance by whacking her when she’s one of the walking dead already?’

  ‘Sure. These guys don’t take unnecessary risks.’

  ‘But what if Theresa Rojas came out of it somewhere along the line? What if she recognized the medication they were giving her as prescribed mind control? What if she, a nursing student, realized that someone was trying to keep her locked up in her own psychosis?’

  ‘Jimmy. Wasn’t it enough what she went through with Anglin, that night?’

  ‘But she’s a survivor, Doc! She held her breath, never made a whimper. She outfoxed him — a professional assassin. She stayed with him all night long, all those hours, and she didn’t give it up. I think she’s home with the lights on, Doc. I think she was trapped in hysteria for a while after that night in 1968, but I think she gradually came out of it. Then they had to back up their bet by making it all a sure thing, and I think Theresa Rojas got hip to all the pharmaceuticals they were trying to pump into her and she’s been allowing herself to be kept captive in the hospital.’

  ‘That’s very wild, Lieutenant.’

  ‘No wilder than what Anglin did to get himself protected by some outlaws in the government who’re willing to kill anybody just to keep it inside the sack where it hides.’

  ‘Jesus, Jimmy, we’re talking about people who’ve got no scruples at all. They’ll kill anybody. Good guys, bad guys — they don’t make any distinction.’

  ‘You saw them lurking about in the aftermath of the Korean War, and I saw them in Vietnam.’

  Doc nodded.

  I went on. ‘These creeps. They’re like sappers, if only in one way. Slithering through the bush on their bellies. They don’t know boundaries, no. Once you let them loose…It’s like a bacteria. It’s got no conscience. It kills and spreads and kills. Nothing stops it except a burning-out. A purge.’

  ‘Or…Theresa really is in some kind of mute state and your theory is paranoid bullshit.’

  ‘Yeah, Doc, and I’m pulling for your paranoid bullshit explanation.’

  He laughed and turned on the radio. He switched to a classic-rock FM station rather than his usual jazz preference. Doc turned to me and said that rock and roll helped him turn back time occasionally. Like taking a dip in the Fountain of Youth via the airwaves.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  [October 1968]

  The Bureau investigates the death of Agent Callan, as do we. I take a close look at the toxicology of his medication, but nothing I discover invalidates the conclusion that he was what the FBI calls a special agent under ‘duress’. They tell Eddie and me that this guy Callan’s been inside the pressure cooker for too long.

  The interesting thing I find out about this Fed is that he was in the Marines before joining the Bureau. He served on board a ship, the Icon, during the Bay of Pigs disaster. It makes me wonder if his path crossed Anglin’s back then. But I’ve already received the royal runaround from the government. Getting information from them is like prying open a rusted-out vault. You’ve got to blow the door off the hinges to get inside.

  Callan wanted to do the right thing. He was prepared to help us, and suddenly he was taken out of play. There are too many coincidences, too many odd circumstances. I’m not a conspiracy freak. I don’t see the work of the devil in a corrupt City Hall deal. I see human crooks. That’s all. Maybe I’m too simple for this job, but I’ve been hauling out the trash on these streets for a long time, and my arrest record is as good as that of any of my colleagues.

  Frustration happens when doors slam in your face. I understand that much psychology. But with this case there are too many doors, too many slams. Callan comes along, and suddenly I’m thinking I see some daylight.

  Then, on a Friday afternoon, his sister from Dubuque, Iowa calls me. She wants a meeting, a face-to-face. I arrange it for this afternoon. At Garvin’s Comeback Inn in Berwyn. It’s a dump, but it probably isn’t bugged, either.

  Her name is Doris. She’s Agent Callan’s twin. I can see the resemblance.

  She takes a look around the seedy saloon and her nose goes skyward. I have to laugh. Eddie looks at me like I’m laughing at a funeral.

  ‘I know. It’s terrible, this place, isn’t it?’

  She looks at me and smiles. She’s a pretty woman, but I don’t see a wedding band.

  ‘Andy didn’t kill himself.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Eddie asks her.

  ‘He’s my twin. I knew him like no one else knew him. Someone murdered my brother. And I think you know why.’

  ‘Did Agent Callan talk business with you?’ I ask.

  ‘He did. I was the only person he ever talked to. Our parents are dead. Neither Andy nor I ever got married. My work — I’ve got a PhD in English Literature
— took me to Iowa, and so we’ve communicated over the telephone.’

  I look over to my partner. We’re both thinking a bugged telephone had something to do with Callan’s demise. Andy had told Doris things she shouldn’t have heard. Now she’s as much a target as her brother was, if the conspiracy theory is really true.

  ‘Are you afraid for your safety?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes. I think our calls were being listened to. Andy knew something was wrong before he died. He stopped discussing his work, the last three weeks or so. But we met about ten days ago, and he told me it was dangerous to share anything else about this Anglin case with me. He apologized for being stupid enough to have said things over the phone. He told me to quit my job, get out and not leave a forwarding address…Was he right? Is all this as dangerous as he said?’

  ‘I think you might want to do what your brother said,’ I tell her.

  ‘Oh, my God.’

  ‘You’re single, right? You can work anywhere. I’d do what Andrew told you to do. I wouldn’t be able to offer you protection here. And I don’t have much confidence in any federal aid at the moment. There might be one other way.’

  ‘What’s that?’ she asks.

  ‘Go public. Get some journalist to write it down. The problem is that they’d have to substantiate all your allegations, and to date we’ve got nothing to prove your brother didn’t kill himself. They’ve done this thing very cleverly. If they drugged him, they did it with something that leaves no trace. We run into questionable deaths all the time. They don’t all get resolved…No, if I were you, I’d head out until — maybe — all this comes out in the wash. I wish I could offer you more.’

  ‘Andrew didn’t kill himself. Don’t let it lie, Lieutenant Parish’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Eddie looks down at his shoes. The three soft drinks we ordered from the owner of Garvin’s sit on top of the slab, untouched. Ms. Callan gets up and leaves us there. She’s driven all the way in from Dubuque, but I can’t guess where she’s headed now.