The Helper cd-2

by David Jackson

  ‘Uh, no. It can wait.’

  ‘You getting anywhere with that theory of yours about those DOAs being connected?’

  Doyle fingers the recorder in his pocket again.

  ‘No. Other than the shrink, I can’t find anything.’

  Cesario nods, like it’s the outcome he expected. ‘Actually, I’m kinda glad. The last thing I need right now is a serial killer on the loose. It’s bad enough that the city’s murder rate has shot up lately without it all being the work of some mysterious homicidal maniac. Worth a shot, though, huh?’

  He slaps Doyle on the arm and heads out of the room.

  Doyle feels like a kid who’s just lost a major football game and been told he did his best. The patronizing tone in Cesario’s voice was that obvious.

  He shakes his head and moves to his desk. Sits down and stares at the mound of files in front of him. One manila folder for each of the deceased. His lie to Cesario was only a partial one. Of course there’s a link between the victims: they were all killed by the same man. But beyond that there has to be another connecting thread of which he is as yet unaware. Doyle refuses to believe they were targeted at random. There has to be a reason. And the reason has to be in these files.

  But he’s been through them. Time after time. He’s found nothing. It’s another quiz question: What do the following have in common? But this isn’t one he can pass on to Rachel. He has to solve this one for himself. He has to locate the thread so that he can tie it to Repp. Only then can he be certain that he’s figured out the identity of the next victim.

  A few days ago he was convinced he had it. It all looked as though Vasey was the focal point. Both Cindy Mellish and Sean Hanrahan consulted Vasey, and then Vasey himself became a victim. But then it all fell to pieces. None of the other victims were ever clients of Vasey. So maybe the only association there was that Mellish and Hanrahan were murdered partly as a way of signposting the way to Vasey as the next victim.

  Or is that just what the killer wanted him to think?

  Did he want Doyle to think that this was all there was to it, when in fact there was something more concrete in the apparent relationship?

  Okay, so hold that thought. Let’s explore this a little more.

  Mellish and Hanrahan consulted Vasey. Lorna Bonnow and Tabitha Peyton never did. Or, at least, they don’t appear on Vasey’s official client lists. Which in itself is not definitive because Cindy Mellish isn’t on those lists either. The other two victims — the doorman of Vasey’s building and Helena Colquitt — can be disregarded as collateral damage.

  Let’s assume for the moment that Lorna and Tabitha didn’t consult Vasey.

  However. .

  Maybe they did go to see a shrink!

  Tabitha Peyton was a wreck. Beautiful, intelligent, delightful — yes, all those. But a wreck too. She lost both her parents. It drove her to drink, to meaningless relationships, and almost to self-destruction. Wouldn’t it also have driven her to seek professional psychological help at some point?

  It’s a possibility. Doyle regrets now that he didn’t ask her directly when he had the opportunity, but at the time he had already dismissed the Vasey hypothesis.

  And what about the nurse, Lorna Bonnow? Did she ever see a shrink?

  Doyle decides it’s time to abandon his desk.

  The husband or the lover. It’s almost a coin-toss.

  He opts for the boyfriend, partly for the reason that he lives here in Manhattan, but primarily because Doyle suspects that if Lorna was in the habit of divulging her deepest darkest secrets, it was more likely to be to her clandestine lover than to the partner on whom she was cheating.

  Doyle’s immediate impression of Alex Podolski is that he is one of those guys who spends a lot of time in front of the mirror. His long hair is shiny and immaculate. He wears a canary-yellow T-shirt that is tight enough to ripple with the underlying muscles. And he seems to have cultivated a manner of looking sidelong at people when he addresses them, presumably because he has decided that it’s his most striking pose.

  Podolski invites Doyle inside, and glides with the grace of a panther across his living room. Doyle follows him in with the refinement of a bull elephant. He notices how the walls are festooned with martial arts equipment: curved swords, nunchucks and various wooden sticks, poles and spears.

  ‘Quite a collection,’ Doyle says.

  ‘Thanks. Amazing what you can find on eBay. I just finished placing an order for a fukiya. That’s a Japanese blowgun that fires poison darts.’

  Doyle figures he’s supposed to sound impressed. ‘This all for show, or do you put it to use?’

  Podolski smiles. ‘It’s for show. Although I might change my mind if I ever find the bastard who killed Lorna. Not that I’ll need it. My hands should be enough. I’m a karate black belt.’

  Again I should be impressed, thinks Doyle.

  Podolski looks him up and down, assessing him. ‘You do any martial arts yourself?’

  ‘A few years ago,’ Doyle lies.

  ‘What? Kung Fu? Taekwondo?’

  ‘Karaoke,’ Doyle says. ‘Had to give it up after injury, though. Kept straining my throat, you know?’

  Podolski stares at him, obviously trying to figure out whether Doyle is mocking or joshing.

  Get uppity with me, Bruce Lee, and I’ll put you on your ass, thinks Doyle.

  Podolski smiles. ‘I’ll take that as a no. You should try it. Get back into shape.’

  ‘That’s okay. I get enough exercise chasing after assholes all day. Speaking of which. .’

  He pauses, lets his gaze linger on Podolski. He sees the man’s eyes narrow. At least, he sees one of them narrow, given the way Podolski is maintaining his sidelong photoshoot pose.

  For someone who should be supremely confident of his abilities, he’s a touchy bastard, thinks Doyle.

  ‘. . we’re still trying to catch Lorna’s killer,’ he continues, and notices how Podolski relaxes his shoulders. But only slightly.

  Doyle says, ‘You mind if I ask you a few things about her?’

  Podolski hesitates. ‘What did you say your name was again?’

  ‘Detective Callum Doyle.’

  ‘And the precinct?’

  ‘The Eighth. Why do you ask?’ But he knows precisely why. Podolski tightens up again. Doyle sees the muscles twitch in his jaw.

  ‘Lorna got a call, on the night she was killed. It’s what made her go outside. The guy on the phone said he was a detective from the Eighth Precinct. Said his name was Boyle or Doyle — something like that.’

  Doyle tries to remain unruffled. ‘Yeah, we know. To be honest, it’s the only reason I got involved in this case. Officially it belongs to Detective Lopez at the Twenty-Seventh Precinct. He told me the caller tried to pass himself off as me. I want to know why. It could be we’ve crossed paths before.’

  Podolski considers this, then nods. ‘Okay, what can I tell you?’

  Here we go, thinks Doyle. It’s a long shot, but. .

  ‘We’re looking into Lorna’s past. In case there’s something there. Anything you can tell us could be useful, no matter how insignificant it might seem. Okay?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘So what I want to know is whether Lorna ever suffered some kind of trauma. Some event in her life that may have drastically affected her state of mind. Do you understand what I’m getting at?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘So was there anything like that? She ever mention anything to you about some terrible thing that happened to her? Doesn’t have to be recent. Coulda been years ago.’

  It’s gonna be a no, thinks Doyle. Podolski is about to shoot this theory down in flames. At best, he’s gonna say that they never talked about personal shit. They screwed, and that’s as far as it went. Maybe I should have opted for the husband rather than this self-obsessed jerk-off.

  ‘Well, there was the baby.’

  Doyle struggles to keep his voice level. ‘The baby?’

  ‘
Yeah. Lorna and her husband, they were trying for a baby for years. Finally she got pregnant. Went full-term, but something went wrong. It was stillborn.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘About two years ago. Before I knew her, in case you got any funny ideas about me being the father.’

  The thought hadn’t crossed Doyle’s mind. ‘She told you this?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s how we were. We were open with each other. She was crazy about me.’

  Thinks Doyle, Well, who wouldn’t be? What with your fighting prowess and your shiny locks and your remarkable profile and-

  ‘And I was crazy about her too, you want the truth.’

  Doyle detects for the first time a note of genuine emotion in Podolski’s voice. Nice save, man. Maybe you’re not such a prick after all.

  ‘It musta hit her hard.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Podolski, nodding. It seems to Doyle then that Podolski has finally dropped his shield. His body language has changed. He’s no longer out to impress with the macho bullshit. He’s just being himself. Alone and frightened and grief-stricken.

  Then Podolski adds, ‘They went through a bad time, both her and her husband. In fact, I think he was worse, the way she told it.’

  Okay, thinks Doyle. The million-dollar question.

  ‘Did she talk to someone about it? I mean, at the time. A psychologist, someone like that?’

  ‘I dunno. I guess so. I mean, you’d think that must be routine, right? When you go through something like that?’

  Absolutely, Doyle thinks. Routine. The hospital would have provided counseling. No doubt about it. Lorna Bonnow must have talked to a shrink.

  It’s something. Doyle doesn’t know what, but it’s something. It fits a pattern.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘That’s been useful.’

  Podolski seems surprised. ‘It has? That’s all you want to know?’

  ‘For now.’

  He walks to the door, but turns just before he leaves.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he says. And means it.

  The first thing he does when he gets back to the squadroom is to make a phone call to the husband.

  ‘Just a quick question or two, Mr Bonnow, if that’s all right. I understand that you and your wife lost a baby a couple of years ago.’

  Bonnow pauses before answering. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Maybe nothing. We’re just trying to make sure we look into every possible reason for your wife’s death.’

  ‘I don’t understand. How on earth could the loss of our baby lead to my wife’s murder?’

  ‘I’m not saying it did. We just want to talk to people who she had any prolonged contact with. That includes the people she worked with, but also anybody else, such as the people at the hospital where your wife gave birth.’

  ‘Oh. I see. That’s pretty. . well, that’s very thorough. I didn’t think. . I thought the police had given up on my wife, ya know? That other detective — Lopez — he didn’t give me much hope that you would ever catch this lunatic.’

  ‘Well, I have to tell you, Mr Bonnow, we’re working some long shots here. But we’re not giving up just yet.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. That’s good. What do you want to know?’

  ‘The hospital. Which one was it?’

  ‘Mount Sinai.’

  ‘Mount Sinai? Here in Manhattan?

  ‘Yeah. Lorna thought she could get better care over there. I was against it. I was worried we’d get stuck on the Brooklyn Bridge with her pushing out a baby, ya know?’

  ‘Okay. And after the birth, I assume you were offered counseling to help you deal with it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was that also at Mount Sinai?’

  ‘Yes it was.’

  ‘You saw a psychologist, is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you happen to remember his name?’

  Doyle hears an expulsion of breath.

  ‘It was two years ago. I can’t remember things from that long ago.’

  ‘Try, Mr Bonnow, please.’

  The line goes quiet.

  Say Vasey, thinks Doyle. Please say his name was Vasey.

  ‘The only thing I remember about him. .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is that he was Indian.’

  The disappointment pushes Doyle’s eyes closed. ‘Indian?’

  ‘Yes. To be frank with you, I could hardly tell what he was saying. The whole thing was a complete waste of time, ya know?’

  Doyle is starting to believe that this conversation is a waste of time too.

  ‘All right. Thank you, Mr Bonnow. That gives me something to look into.’

  ‘So you’ll keep looking, right? You haven’t given up?’

  ‘No. We haven’t given up. We won’t give up until your wife’s killer is locked up, I promise you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Doyle hangs up the phone and sighs.

  An Indian.

  A shrink yes, but certainly not Vasey. Not even under a different name. This is not what Doyle had hoped to hear.

  But he can’t give up. It’s all he has to go on. It’s still possible that there is a connection between Vasey and this Indian doctor.

  Doyle slides a telephone directory across and looks up the number for Mount Sinai Hospital on Fifth Avenue. He calls the switchboard, asks for the records department. When he gets put through, he explains who he is and what he wants, which is the name of the psychologist who counseled the Bonnows about two years ago. In response, they tell him that their records office has only a skeleton staff on Sundays, and that it would take them at least a day to find the information he is requesting. They also inform him that they would need to see a court order before they could release that data.

  Doyle hangs up. So much for that.

  He can’t wait a day, and he can’t ask for a court order.

  Sighing again, he leaves his desk and goes to fetch the printouts of Vasey’s client records. He limits himself to the past five years, but it’s still a forest’s worth of paper. He sits down with them, starts to work his way through them yet again, this time looking for any mentions of an Indian psychologist or Mount Sinai Hospital.

  The process eats hungrily into the time he has left.

  And he finds nothing.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘So, have you come to apologize?’

  Anna Friedrich lounges back in her expensive white leather sofa and crosses her impossibly long legs. Doyle tries not to let himself be distracted by those legs, but it’s difficult when they’re so naked and exposed. Not that she’s indecent in any way. She is wearing a baggy woolen sweater and a band of black material that at least has pretensions of being a skirt. But those legs do tend to dominate the view. He thinks it must be like being an umpire at a tennis match for nudists. How the hell can you be expected to keep score?

  ‘Apologize for what, Ms Friedrich?’

  ‘For the way you treated Andrew? For the way you tried to label him as a criminal?’

  ‘We were doing our job. You know better than most that we had to ask him those questions.’

  ‘There are ways of asking.’

  ‘He was linked with two murder victims. It was important that we got to the truth.’

  ‘Yes, well, you didn’t, did you? Because if you had, Andrew would still be alive.’

  Doyle didn’t come here for an argument. To curtail it, he drags his gaze away from Anna Friedrich and her legs, and sets it free to wander around the room. In response, the room shouts money back at him. Doyle doesn’t think he could even afford the wallpaper: it would probably cost less to paper the room in hundred-dollar bills. There’s enough scarce hardwood in the furniture here to make conservationists weep. And the carpet is so plush it makes him feel as though he has bath sponges tied to his feet.

  ‘Your boyfriend working today?’

  ‘Yes. In Saudi Arabia.’

  ‘Boy, that’s some commute.’

&nb
sp; She doesn’t smile. ‘He’s in the oil business. He’s over there a lot.’

  ‘Shaking it with the sheikhs, huh? I bet it’s hot out there right now.’

  ‘Detective, do you really want to get into a discussion about climates, or is there another purpose to your visit here this afternoon?’

  ‘Actually I came to ask you about your ex-husband.’

  ‘Why? Are you still trying to pin the earlier murders on him?’

  ‘No. But I do want to find out who killed him.’

  ‘Really? Then I suggest your time would be better spent elsewhere. I have already been interviewed by the police. Several times, in fact. I have told them everything I can.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Everything. No, Andrew did not have any enemies. No, he was never threatened to my knowledge. No, he did not have any financial worries. No, he did not tell me of any meetings arranged at his apartment on the night of his murder. No, he-’

  ‘Did he know any Indians?’

  She stares at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Did he know any Indian people? I’m thinking psychologists here. Indian psychologists.’

  She continues to stare. ‘Are you trying to be funny, Detective? Throwing out random questions like that just to prove a point? What’s next? Are you going to ask me if he ever ate pistachio ice cream on a Friday? If you’ve come here just to piss me off, then I should warn you-’

  ‘Actually I’m serious.’

  She is silent for a moment while she searches Doyle’s face.

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Deadly.’

  ‘You really want to know if Andrew knew any Indian psychologists?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Another pause. ‘All right. Well, then, I guess the answer is probably yes.’

  ‘Only probably?’

  ‘Andrew was a renowned and well-connected psychotherapist. He attended many conferences and worked with many people. My guess is that he probably had professional dealings with people who were from India.’

  ‘But nobody specific that you can think of? No close friends that you were ever introduced to?’

  ‘No. Not that I can recall.’

  Damn, thinks Doyle.

  ‘Okay, I got another one for you. Mount Sinai Hospital. Did your husband ever do any work there?’