Face Off

by Brenda Novak

  “Holy shit,” Delbert said.

  “Do you have any idea who the killer might be?” Easy asked. “I mean … Hilltop is such a small town. You don’t suppose it could be someone from here.”

  “It could be,” Amarok replied. “Or it could be someone who only visits here, for work or whatever.”

  They all looked at one another.

  “Are you suggesting it might be an employee and not an inmate?” Skip asked.

  “All the inmates have been accounted for, and something was found on the road to the prison that makes me wonder if there might be a connection to a member of the staff. That’s why I’m not only talking to you, I’m talking to everyone—as soon as I get the chance.”

  Massimo toyed uncomfortably with his cards. “What was found on the road?”

  Amarok shot Easy and Jasper a quelling glance. He didn’t want them to mention the piece of scalp. Jasper could easily interpret that glance because Evelyn had already asked him to keep quiet about it, and he’d done just that. He didn’t want word to get out himself, didn’t want someone to come forward who might’ve seen him, for one. He also didn’t want Amarok to think he was out blabbing his mouth, couldn’t afford to stand out in any way. “I’d rather not say, not yet,” Amarok told them.

  That confirmed it. Amarok was playing games, all right.

  “Two murders,” Easy muttered, still sounding shocked.

  “What kind of bastard goes around killing random women?” Massimo asked.

  Sean gave him a funny look. “The kind of bastards we have in here.”

  “And the kind of bastard who tortured and attempted to kill Dr. Talbot when she was just a teenager,” Amarok said.

  “You don’t think he’s up here, do you?” Massimo asked. “I mean, they never caught him, and people have speculated that he might try to kill her again, but … shit, that was twenty-something years ago.”

  Amarok scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m keeping an open mind. It doesn’t have to be Jasper. It could be someone who hates Evelyn and is trying to scare her by making her think Jasper’s returned. It could be someone who’s getting high committing murders in the shadow of the institution that’s been built to investigate that type of behavior. It could even be someone who’s recently become unstable. We don’t know a great deal at this point, but twenty-four hours ago, I was at the cabin from which Sierra Yerbowitz went missing, looking for evidence, when someone took a shot at me, so I fired back.”

  Delbert slapped the table. “What? You were in a gunfight?”

  “Whoever it was obviously missed,” Skip pointed out before Amarok could answer.

  “He did, but I didn’t.”

  Galled by the pleasure the sergeant took in that statement, Jasper balled his good hand into a fist under the table.

  “You got him?” Easy asked. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. He was bleeding pretty badly when he took off, left a trail. So I’m asking all of you to keep your eyes open. I just checked with the warden. No one’s called in sick since the incident. That means if whoever it was works here, chances are he wasn’t scheduled. I’ll check again in the morning, but please let me know if you run across someone who’s been injured or is acting strange.”

  Jasper couldn’t believe how narrowly he’d missed the net Amarok had cast. He’d almost called in sick. He’d thought he might be able to get away with it because he’d been “sick” Friday night and that was on record. But if he’d succumbed to the temptation, the trooper would’ve come knocking on his door to see what the problem was.

  He’d made the right choice.

  He would’ve let his breath go in a long sigh of relief—except it felt as though he had blood running down his arm. It might only be a few minutes before everyone noticed the bright red drops rolling off his fingertips and dripping onto the floor.

  He waited until one of the other COs—Sean—caught Amarok’s attention. While Sean talked about some guy who’d seemed a little strange, a guy he’d met in the diner earlier, Jasper risked a glance at his left hand.

  Nothing. He was imagining the sensation, probably because he was so nervous. His heart was pounding like a hammer—in rhythm with the pulsing ache in his shoulder.

  Amarok listened politely before telling Sean he’d see what he could find out about the “weird” dude and got up. “Thanks for your help,” he said, but instead of walking out he took the time to shake each person’s hand.

  Thrilled by this sign of camaraderie and respect, the others eagerly responded while Jasper froze. Was this some sort of test? Could it be that Amarok was trying to gauge each man’s sincerity and physical well-being?

  As the sergeant went around the circle, Jasper thought that might be the case. Jasper lied so often he wasn’t worried about his ability to act sincere. But he was concerned when Delbert gave Amarok a Styrofoam cup filled with coffee, because then the trooper had only his left hand to offer Jasper.

  Jasper had come into physical contact with Amarok once before. They’d shaken hands when he went, as Andy Smith, to visit Evelyn in the hospital after “saving” her last winter. Jasper remembered it clearly. He was so fascinated by Evelyn’s lover that there was something stimulating, almost sexual, about a second encounter. After all, it was Amarok’s hands that touched Evelyn in the most intimate of places.

  The excitement Jasper felt disappeared the moment he had to squeeze Amarok’s hand, however. He hadn’t had time to prepare for or ease into the movement, and it sent a sharp pain through his body.

  He was positive Amarok would see the grimness under his plastic smile or the color drain from his face. But Skip happened to speak just then, and Amarok looked away.

  “I saw a woman with Dr. Talbot at the Moosehead last night, when I stopped to eat before work,” Skip said. “Are we getting a new psychologist or neurologist or something here at Hanover House?”

  Amarok released Jasper’s hand as he took a sip of coffee. “No, that was Brianne, her sister. She’s visiting for a week or so.”

  “Dr. Talbot has company from back home?” Delbert said. “Heck of a time to come to Alaska, what with two murders and all the storms.”

  “I’m happy Evelyn won’t be home alone this week,” Amarok said.

  The sergeant was doing everything he could to cockblock Jasper. It wouldn’t work, but Jasper couldn’t think about how he’d counter that move right now. He had to get out of the room; he felt like he was about to pass out.

  “Gotta take a piss,” he muttered as he slipped through the others. “But if I see anything, I’ll let you know,” he added in a louder voice, along with a little salute using his right hand for Amarok.

  Amarok nodded to signify that he’d heard, but was too busy to respond in any other way.

  Jasper barely made it to the bathroom before his knees buckled. He grabbed the sink with his good arm so he wouldn’t fall and managed to summon the strength to make it into a stall, where he threw up what little he’d eaten.

  Afterwards, he sat on the toilet and hung his head, waiting for the pain in his arm to subside. He was fairly certain he was bleeding again, but he couldn’t change the dressing right now. He had to have a few minutes.

  He was still sitting there when Easy poked his head into the bathroom. “Hey, we’re all clocking back on. You about done in here?”

  He’d been in the bathroom too long if someone had to come after him, but he couldn’t help that.

  “Yeah, I’m right behind you,” he said.

  After Easy left, he took a deep breath and surged to his feet. Then he changed the bandage on his arm and flushed down the other one before walking out as if nothing were wrong.

  He had a solid three hours before he could go home.

  He hoped to hell he lasted that long.

  18

  Evelyn felt terrible leaving Brianne when she headed to work first thing the following morning. Last night had been so stilted and awkward. Even though, once they’d finally returned to Hill
top and Amarok had dropped them off, they’d had dinner at the Moosehead before spending several hours alone, it had been nothing like she’d anticipated when she’d agreed to have Brianne come visit. Her sister simply wasn’t herself. Evelyn didn’t know why, but she couldn’t stay at home, trying to figure out what was wrong. Hilltop was in the middle of another murder investigation, one in which she and the institution she’d fought so hard to create would once again come under fire. Her boss at the Federal Bureau of Prisons would feel the pressure, too. She needed to be there if Janice called.

  On top of that, Hanover House was getting its first female psychopath today and there was a news crew coming from Anchorage to document the occasion. It was more important than ever that she be present and ready to reassure the country that she knew what she was doing, that having a prison like Hanover House did not constitute more of a threat than not having one and that whatever was happening had nothing to do with a lack of security.

  Because she had so much on her mind, she wasn’t pleased to see Dr. James Ricardo waiting for her when she walked through the glass double doors that led into the mental health offices. She could guess what her colleague wanted to talk about and would rather not broach that subject again.

  “Not today, James,” she said when he started to approach her. “I’ve told you before, we’re not ready to publish.”

  “Of course we are!” he argued. “We’ve been doing brain scans for eight months. It’s time to tell the world what we’re finding.”

  “That would be premature. You can’t draw solid conclusions from too small a sample.”

  “We have the biggest sample of any research team so far!”

  Fortunately, they were both early and could argue in private, since none of the support staff had arrived. Judging by the lack of light in the perimeter offices, the rest of the mental health team wasn’t in, either. “It’s still not enough,” she said. “The brain has too many variables. You know that. It can be significantly different from one individual to the next, and yet both can be perfectly normal. We need to continue our studies until our findings are unimpeachable.”

  “If we do that, someone else will publish first.”

  “They already have! A number of researchers from around the world are looking into the same topics.”

  “They don’t have access to the number of violent psychopaths we do, so they don’t have the same amount of data to back up their conclusions.”

  Evelyn grappled for the patience she needed to deal with her shortsighted colleague. She knew his wife was unhappy in Alaska, that he hoped to take her back to the Lower 48 soon, but Evelyn couldn’t let him push her into risking her professional credibility. “That’s part of the problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She didn’t want anything they put out there to be taken as gospel and used in some kind of diagnostic procedure. Their findings weren’t conclusive enough yet. “I’m sorry, James. I know getting this information out there matters a great deal to you—”

  “It should matter to you, too!” he broke in as he followed her into her office. “Everyone in the country is waiting for us to reveal what we’re learning. They’re going to wonder what the hell we’re doing up here—using federal dollars to run this place—if we’re not passing anything along to the public.”

  She flipped on the light before putting her briefcase under her desk and her purse in a drawer she kept locked while she was at work. “So we should make generalizations that could have negative implications for people, based on the size of certain structures in their brains? Even though we can’t be entirely sure those generalizations will hold true from subject to subject? Come on, James. You’re a neurologist! You know there’s a great deal of natural variation in brain structure. If what we’ve done has taught us anything, it’s taught us that.”

  “The corpus callosum is typically bigger in psychopaths! We’re seeing as much as a thirty percent difference.”

  “The corpus callosum can vary from five to nine millimeters in normal individuals! I don’t want to echo what others have said and come up against the same criticism. I believe the differences between ‘psychopath’ and ‘normal’ lie in the microwiring of the brain.”

  “Brain scans don’t show us the microwiring!”

  “That’s true. Which is why we need better procedures before we publish.”

  “So until we get these ‘better procedures,’ we’re just going to toss aside the fact that we’re consistently seeing a larger striatum in psychopaths?”

  “A striatum is no simple thing! It’s a connected set of structures, each with its own subcomponents, and we don’t yet understand all the functions of those structures. Considering that, how can we say what’s normal and what isn’t?”

  “We know the whole complex plays a role in learning, motor control and integrating information—”

  “But we don’t have enough data to confirm that a larger striatum is positively linked to psychopathy. We can’t even say that psychopaths definitely show lower levels of activity in the prefrontal cortex. While we’ve seen that trend, we’ve also seen, with our larger sample and our own scans, that activity levels in the PFC can vary in the same individual from one day to the next.”

  He threw up his hands. “So you won’t do it. I came all the way to Alaska just to research indefinitely, with no end goal in sight?”

  “We’re doing everything we can to reach solid conclusions—and to share them. We’re just not there yet, James. I can’t change reality, no matter how frustrated you are. Give it a little more time. We’ll only lose credibility—and possibly our funding—if we publish too soon. Why not take advantage of the opportunity to research in depth before making any kind of blanket statements?”

  He scratched his head as he paced in front of her desk. She could tell he was trying to come up with an argument that might sway her, but she’d already made up her mind.

  “We have Mary Harpe, our first female psychopath, arriving today,” she said, hoping to distract him. “Including her in our studies might tell us something new. And having her here opens up other issues we can examine. You know how a male with psychopathic traits is more likely to be diagnosed as a psychopath, while a female with the same traits is likely to be given the benefit of the doubt. We’re just getting started. We still have a lot of work to do.”

  His expression said he was reluctant to be mollified but was intrigued in spite of himself. “When will Mary arrive?”

  “You didn’t get the e-mail?” Evelyn notified all personnel whenever they were expecting a high-security transfer.

  “I haven’t checked my inbox recently.” He gave her a pointed look. “I’ve been busy writing the paper I was hoping we’d publish.”

  She ignored that last part. “By the time the plane lands in Anchorage and the marshals bring her over, my guess is it’ll be one or so.”

  “Okay,” he relented, and started to leave.

  “You’re not going to say anything about Sierra Yerbowitz?” she asked before he could clear the door.

  “About what? The fact that her body’s been discovered?”

  “Yes. Along with another body. What do you think happened?”

  He rested his hands on his hips. “Well, we know Tim Fitzpatrick isn’t to blame this time.”

  She frowned at the sarcasm. “I didn’t blame Tim for the last murders. He was charged by the police and convicted by a jury of his peers.” She almost added that she had someone looking into his case, on the off chance he was innocent, but decided not to go into that.

  “It’s not like seeing him go to prison broke your heart.”

  “After what he did to me, do you think it should have?”

  Finally, he seemed to let go of the resentment that had pervaded the conversation so far. “No, I don’t. He was wrong to do what he did. So what do you think happened to Sierra Yerbowitz and the other victim?”

  She almost admitted that she thought Jasper was back, but refus
ed to make that conclusion public when there were still other possibilities. “We obviously have someone very dangerous in our midst.”

  “Here in Hilltop?”

  “That’d be my guess. Although the bodies were found an hour and a half away, Sierra was taken from a cabin not far from here. And something that ties in to the other murder—I can’t say what—was discovered down the road. So even if the culprit doesn’t live in the area, he could easily work here.”

  “You’re not including Hanover House in that statement…”

  “It doesn’t matter if I include Hanover House or not. Amarok definitely does, and I can’t blame him. As he says, we’re the biggest employer in the area.”

  He rolled his eyes as he shook his head. “Great. That’s just what my wife needs to hear. She’ll insist we leave Alaska right away.”

  Penny entered the common area outside Evelyn’s office, along with several others who provided clerical support for the team. Evelyn could see them through the interior glass of her office and returned the waves she received. “We need to instruct everyone to keep a sharp eye out,” she said. “We can’t let anyone else get hurt.”

  “Will you make an official announcement?” he asked.

  She remembered how frightened Penny and everyone else had been—including herself—when Lorraine Drummond, her friend and the woman who ran the kitchen at Hanover House, was murdered eighteen months ago. The fact that Hilltop was so remote was supposed to make the institution safer for society in general, but it made the danger of having a psychopath on the loose even worse for the locals. “I am,” she said. “Tim created a tip sheet when … when we needed it last time. I’ll send that out again.”

  James seemed skeptical. “The question is, will that be enough?”

  If they were talking about Jasper, Evelyn knew it wouldn’t be. If he wanted to take another victim, he’d find a way, and James’s wife was at home alone all day, which left her vulnerable. But Evelyn didn’t have time to reassure her colleague. Penny interrupted them by popping in to tell her that the crew from the Alaska Dispatch News was going through the security checkpoint.