Aberration

by Lisa Regan

  “Then why didn’t you pull the surveillance tape at the gas station?” I asked. I almost said, “That’s the first thing Jory would have done” but held my tongue.

  Remy shook his head and slumped in his chair. “We did that. I was waiting for a call back from the manager about the cashier who was working that day.” Remy gestured toward TK. “Until you jumped in.”

  “Well, I talked to her today,” TK said. “She says that Jory walked across the street and talked to a person parked there in a light blue car. She couldn’t tell if the person was a man or a woman, the car was too far away, but it was a small car—maybe a Hyundai or a Honda—an older model. Any idea who it might have been?”

  Remy’s bushy eyebrows drew together, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling. “He talked to someone?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “They talked for about a minute, the cashier said. Jory went back to his car and drove off. The blue car drove off in the same direction as Jory,” TK added. “I canvassed the street. No one remembers seeing the car, but you work with him every day. Any idea who it might have been?”

  Remy sighed. He looked like he was in pain. Grief and exhaustion paled his face. Slumped in his chair he looked flattened somehow, one-dimensional. “You think it’s important that Jory talked to someone in a blue car before he died?”

  “You don’t?” I challenged, heat rising from my collar to the roots of my hair.

  Remy held up a hand. For a split second I thought I saw tears in his ancient eyes, but he blinked and they were gone. “Now just a minute. I’m only asking you questions here. You think I don’t want to know what happened? He turned the wrong goddamn way into the tree. The wrong goddamned way.” He pointed a finger at me. “I got a bad feeling too.”

  I nodded and put my hands up in concession. “I don’t know why Jory approached the car, if the person drove after him or just happened to be going in the same direction. I don’t know what happened on that road,” I said. “What I do know is that whoever was in that car was the last person to talk to Jory before he died. Maybe it was nothing, but I want to know what they talked about. I think you should find out if anyone he knew owns a small blue foreign-model car. If no one does, I think you should get a list of all owners of blue Hyundais and Hondas in the city and surrounding area and see if there are any names you recognize.”

  Remy rubbed a hand over his face. “It could have been someone asking for directions for all we know.”

  “Yes, it could have been but maybe not. If you just get a list of owners, a name might jog your memory. It could have been anyone. A neighbor, a witness from a case he worked on. I just want to know what they talked about. Please.” I couldn’t keep the pleading note out of my voice.

  “Okay,” Remy said softly. “Okay.”

  He had stopped looking at us. He picked up a pen and put it down, fidgeted with some paperwork on his desk, straightening papers and moving files from one pile to another.

  TK and I exchanged a look. “What is it?” I asked.

  Remy looked up slowly and scratched his chin. “Jory’s wallet is missing,” he said.

  TK’s brow furrowed. “He had it with him on the surveillance tape. He took it out of his pocket when he went to pay.”

  “Could it have flown out of the car?” I asked. “He had a habit of putting it in the center console when he drove.”

  “We checked pretty thoroughly around the perimeter of the accident scene. I checked the evidence logs three times, but I don’t see it on there. I’ve got calls out to the first officer on scene and the crime scene unit to see if anyone remembers seeing it. Maybe it’s sitting down there in evidence and no one logged it in.”

  “Could someone have come along after the accident, stolen his wallet and taken off without reporting anything?” TK suggested.

  I shivered. A fresh wave of tears assailed me, burning the backs of my eyes. I had an image of some heartless person ransacking the crushed car for valuables while Jory lay dying in the driver’s seat. Had someone left him there—alone and injured—stealing the few dollars he had in his wallet and letting him die because of their petty greed?

  “The ME said he died instantly,” Remy said, as if sensing my thoughts. He looked up at TK. “I suppose that’s a possibility, but it’s pretty bizarre. There was about an hour between the time-stamp on the gas station tape and the time the couple driving past saw the car on the side of the road and called it in, so I guess it could have happened. We didn’t see any evidence nearby that anyone had stopped, but I’ll track down the couple who called in the accident and the EMTs—see if they know anything. It’s just odd.”

  TK looked at his watch. “You’ll let us know,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  Silence descended among us, heavy and awkward. Jory’s absence was an oppressive force. I expected to look over my shoulder and see him saunter into the division at any moment. Judging by Remy’s meandering gaze, he felt the same way. After a moment, Remy caught my eye. He swallowed once, the words caught in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  I sat up straight. When I spoke, my voice sounded much stronger than I felt. “And I’m sorry for yours.”

  Linnea, TK and I caught a flight back to DC that evening. Linnea managed to get on the same flight but was seated nowhere near us. Once we were airborne, TK went to the restroom. He was almost as tall as the cabin, and as he went, he retrieved items from the overhead bins for the other, more vertically challenged passengers.

  I closed my eyes and immediately thought of Jory. Then questions about his death crowded in, causing tightness in my chest. I tried to push the thoughts out of my mind and focus instead on Megan Wilkins. Her autopsy showed signs of asphyxiation, but surprisingly, the official cause of death was myocardial infarction.

  Megan Wilkins had died of a heart attack.

  “The killer probably scared her to death,” the ME had said.

  The going theory was that the killer had probably beaten her to subdue her and then been in the act of suffocating her when Megan Wilkins’ heart gave out. I wondered if the killer even realized that she hadn’t died of suffocation. He’d terrorized her for weeks before her death. It was no wonder that her final confrontation with him culminated in a heart attack.

  This is good, I thought. I wasn’t thinking of Jory as much. I unfastened my seat belt and reached under TK’s seat for his briefcase. The combination was TK’s oldest daughter’s birthday. We’d worked enough cases together that we had no trouble rifling through each other’s things. I extracted the Wilkins file and slipped the briefcase back in place. I skipped over the crime scene photos and scanned the interviews with Wilkins’ daughter and ex-husband. Then I turned to the notes taken by various members of the Portland PD during their initial investigation. It was a small piece of information that caught my eye. A notation in the margin. Something I would normally overlook—something that wouldn’t even be in the file except that we were trying so desperately to connect the For You killer’s victims that we were gathering all the information we could compile.

  It said: Place of birth: Sunderlin, PA.

  I stared at the words, uncomprehending. Sunderlin was a small town in Central Pennsylvania, its population no more than 6,000 people. I knew that because Lexie and I had been born there. My parents still lived there.

  “Saw Linnea at the front of the plane. She’s out.” TK’s voice startled me. I clapped the file closed and looked up at him. He smiled. “She’s actually snoring.”

  “She does that,” I said as TK squeezed past my knees and folded his long frame into his seat. I had taken the aisle seat for quicker access to the restroom.

  TK fastened his seat belt and looked at me. “They’re starting a task force.”

  My face burned. I looked at him. He pulled a magazine out of
the pocket in the back of the seat in front of him. “What?” I said.

  “The Bureau—they’re putting together a task force to catch this guy. Lucky us, we’ll get to be in charge of it I’d imagine since this is our case. We’ll be under Crossen’s supervision, but other than that, we’ll be in charge.”

  “A task force?” I said.

  TK shrugged with his eyebrows—a little habit of his I’d grown used to over the years. He flipped a page in his magazine.

  “Bishop, this guy has killed four people in four months and he shows no signs of slowing down.”

  The flight attendant set a plastic cup of ginger ale in front of me which I gulped down. Some of it dribbled down my chin, and I wiped it hastily away. “Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s just that needle in a haystack comes to mind. We may never find this guy. This could go on for years.”

  “Indeed,” TK said as if he were merely concurring that the weather sucked.

  We fell into an easy silence. I stared straight ahead. I didn’t realize I was gripping the armrests until TK slipped a hand over mine. I met his eyes. “You can come stay with us,” he said. “If it helps. You and the dogs. Sometimes it helps to have company. Diane and the kids would love to have you—she’s already quite concerned.”

  Tears welled up in my eyes, but I held them back. In my pregnant state, once I started crying, I couldn’t stop.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And thank you for everything you did in Portland.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  WYATT

  October 7th

  Dusty DeMeo’s Manhattan penthouse offered an expansive view of Central Park. Dusty’s living room was bigger than any house Wyatt had ever lived in. It boasted twelve-foot ceilings with columns throughout the room. A glass enclosure took up one corner of the room, and inside it was an aviary complete with exotic birds whose twitters and shrieks made Wyatt jumpy. Along the opposite wall was a flat screen television nearly the size of a movie screen. A massive circular bed lay before it, illuminated by round lights which were recessed into the floor and encased in glass. It had the effect of a stage. Amid pillows and rumpled bed sheets lay a naked blonde woman. She was spread eagle and snoring. Her head turned to one side, a thick line of drool creeping from the corner of her mouth. Wyatt stared at her body, disgust warring with arousal. Dusty’s slap on his shoulder startled him. Wyatt’s face reddened.

  Dusty laughed and motioned toward the woman. “Fuck her if you want. She won’t mind.”

  Wyatt turned away from the woman and followed Dusty into a smaller room which Dusty used as an office. Dusty was naked except for a silk robe and matching bedroom slippers. He lit a cigarette and plopped into the leather chair behind his desk, looking Wyatt up and down. “Or if you prefer, there’s a brunette in the master bedroom. You look like you could use a good fuck.”

  When Wyatt did not respond, Dusty asked, “How long has it been, George?” Dusty said the name George with a sarcastic edge.

  “I’m not discussing that with you,” Wyatt said quietly.

  Dusty smiled like a fat cat who’d just eaten a canary. “I’ll take that as an ‘it’s-been-over-a-year.’ Living in your stalker fantasy world doesn’t allow for much hedonism, does it? Seriously, George. Fuck the blonde. Your FBI agent is blonde, isn’t she?” Dusty pointed to the doorway. From where he sat, Wyatt could see one of the blonde’s legs. Dusty went on, “Oh wait, my mistake—she’s a brunette. Well, my blonde will let you call her Kassidy.”

  The blood drained from Wyatt’s face. Just hearing Dusty say her name made him feel nauseous. He felt sick, the way he’d felt when he realized that Nico Sala had assaulted Kassidy right under his nose. That was a failure for which he’d never forgive himself. Wyatt wanted to punch Dusty in the face, but he knew that was exactly what Dusty wanted. Dusty loved getting a rise out of people, even at his own expense. He was interested. He would push people just to see what would happen.

  When they were in juvy together, Dusty had manipulated the other boys, pitting them against one another just to watch the conflict unfold. Usually violence erupted, which was when Dusty was happiest and most exhilarated. Wyatt had met some violent sociopaths in juvy. Boys with no consciences—their eyes empty, their impulses primitive. They were like animals. They’d kill a human being with no more thought or compunction than they’d employ in taking a piss. They were unpredictable, and they did not discriminate. They were scary. They belonged in an adult penitentiary for life. In spite of that, Dustin DeMeo was more terrifying than any ten of them put together. Dustin’s mind was lightning quick. He lied as easily as he breathed, and there seemed no limit to his capabilities or to what he would do—stealing, cheating, embezzlement, fraud, identity theft. He’d made an enterprise of peddling drugs which he obtained using mostly forged doctor’s prescriptions through identities he’d either stolen or made up. His entire lavish lifestyle was financed with money he’d embezzled or obtained by various and sundry methods of deceit.

  Wyatt knew from the group therapy sessions at juvy that Dustin, too, was a sociopath. He was the non-violent kind. He lied, stole and cheated for the thrill. He didn’t experience feelings the way normal people did. He had to push the boundaries of acceptable behavior, live on the edge, so to speak, in order to feel anything at all. Some sociopaths could only experience a feeling of fulfillment or euphoria by killing or other abhorrent acts—like Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. Then there were non-violents like Dusty. Other people existed solely for his entertainment. He preferred manipulation to killing.

  Even though Wyatt knew this, and knew that Dusty was goading him, it was difficult to keep his cool.

  “Maybe if you had a good lay, you wouldn’t be losing your head.” Dusty stood up and breezed past Wyatt, flicking Wyatt’s temple as he passed. In the floor behind Wyatt’s chair was a safe which Dusty kept covered with a throw rug. Dusty unlocked the safe and rummaged through it, coming up with two baggies. One was filled with large white pills and the other with small yellow pills. He didn’t give them to Wyatt right away. Wyatt knew this drill. Dusty returned to his chair and held them in one hand, tossing one and then the other into the air and catching them again. “Why the painkillers?” he asked.

  Wyatt suppressed a sigh. “I was in a car accident—I think. Look, I’m in pain. I can’t go through normal channels. I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

  “Something being a criminal enterprise?”

  “What do you think?”

  Dusty regarded Wyatt for a long moment, his Cheshire grin lingering—subtle and intrigued. He waited to see if Wyatt would divulge more, but Wyatt wasn’t giving him any details. His work was too important. He couldn’t risk it by sharing details with a person like Dusty, who was liable to insert himself into Wyatt’s plan just for something to do.

  “Very well,” Dusty conceded. He tossed Wyatt the bag of white pills. “OxyContin. Enjoy them my friend, and don’t operate heavy machinery.”

  Wyatt opened the bag immediately. Dusty got him a bottled water from a small refrigerator behind the desk, and Wyatt took one of the large pills. He plopped into a chair. Dusty watched him, fingering the bag of yellow pills. “I’ve got your Klonopin,” he said. “Although I don’t think you need it.”

  “I’m losing time,” Wyatt said. “Big chunks of time. I have no idea what happened or what I’ve done.”

  “You’re losing time because you’re a pussy. You can’t stand the stress of life so your brain checks out and allows you to become someone else. Has it ever occurred to you that the other person, the someone else you become while you’re blacked out is your true self? You don’t need drugs, my friend. You need to embrace who you really are.” Dusty grinned and tipped his head back, concluding loudly with the word, “INTEGRATE!”

  Wyatt leaned across the desk and snatched the pills from Dusty. Quickly, he swallowed one. “I was ne
ver officially diagnosed with a split personality.”

  “But it was on the table. You don’t know that you don’t have one. You don’t have a conscience though,” Dusty mused.

  “That’s not true.”

  “Sure it is. You don’t have a conscience—just an extremely aggravated sense of fairness—tit for tat, eye for an eye—that does not equal a conscience.”

  Wyatt straightened his back and squared his shoulders. “I’m not a sociopath.”

  Dusty eyed him for a long moment. Perhaps he sensed that Wyatt would next bring up their shared history, and perhaps he didn’t want to revisit it, because he conceded with a sigh. “Well, I suppose the fact that you actually feel guilty about the people you’ve killed brings you into the vicinity of having a conscience.”

  “Some of them. Not all,” Wyatt said.

  Dusty laughed. Then he leaned toward Wyatt, his eyes aglow. “But don’t you want to see what happens? Where it all leads? What your true self is capable of? Come on, lose the drugs and let things unfold as God intended.”

  It was Wyatt’s turn to laugh. “Please. You don’t believe in God, and the problem is that I won’t see how things unfold because I black out.”

  He was starting to relax. The OxyContin worked its way through his veins at a slow crawl, heating his body, giving him the feeling of an incredibly slow orgasm, working outward from his center. Even the shrieking birds ceased to bother him. He started to close his eyes, but the sound of a phone ringing startled him. Dusty pulled a cell phone from a pocket in his robe and answered it. The entire conversation took less than ten seconds and required only three words from Dusty. He hung up and smiled at Wyatt.

  “I have to go. Stay as long as you like.”

  Wyatt shook his head. “I’m leaving in an hour. I have work to do.”