by Judith Gould
He paused, beer can halfway to his mouth. “Then what is he?”
“He’s sick,” she said simply.
“Said like a real shrink,” he acknowledged dryly, “though I can’t say I agree with you.”
She half-smiled. “I don’t expect you to. You’re a cop. You see things from a different perspective.”
“You can say that again.” He took a final swig out of his beer can, bent it in half, and frowned, as though listening to Billie Holiday. Then he looked at her inquiringly. “All right. You’ve told me Dr. Sharon Mudford’s point of view. Now what’s your personal opinion? What does Sharon Koscina think?”
She looked at him thoughtfully. “Personally,” she sighed, “yes, I would have to agree with you. I think he’s a monster and he’s evil and should be locked up forever. I can’t help it.” She smiled wanly. “I’m only human,” she offered in explanation.
“Thank God for that.”
She plucked the crushed can out of his hand and got up to get two more from the kitchen. When she returned, she popped the cans and they discussed other savage killers.
Again she shook her head. “You’ve got it all wrong, Fred. The so-called Son of Sam, the trailside killer in California—they aren’t evil per se. They’re different from you and me—and most people. But something horrible—something ill inside them—drives them to do these terrifying things. If you scratch deep enough, you’ll find that somewhere in the past they’ve been terribly scarred, Fred. Somewhere in their earliest years they’ve been . . . mentally derailed.”
“And this scalper. What does Dr. Mudford think he’s like?”
She sighed again. “The police psychiatrists are working on a profile?” She shot him a questioning look.
He nodded. “But I trust your opinions more.”
“That’s sweet of you, but silly. You have no one to judge me by. Psychiatrists and psychologists aren’t like riveters, you know. You can’t compare the job results of one with those of another. For all you know, I could be a lousy shrink. Sometimes even I wonder.”
“Well?” he prodded gently. “The scalper . . .”
She frowned. “From what you’ve told me,” she said slowly, picking her words carefully, “I’d venture to guess that he’d been terribly abused during his formative years.”
“By a woman?”
“Perhaps, but again, not necessarily. Remember, we don’t know anything concrete about him yet. All we can do is speculate, and as a cop, you, better than anyone else, should know how dangerous speculation can be.”
“Yeah.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “But it’s better than nothing.”
“Don’t be so sure of that.”
He watched her as she lifted her beer to her lips, drank it, and proceeded to wipe her mouth on her sleeve. Nothing ladylike or shrinklike about the way she gulped beer straight out of the can. She drank it lustily, like one of the guys: her every movement sure, without a hint of coquettish delicacy. That was what he liked about her—that straightforward confidence, that no-nonsense way she had of being herself.
“Think it’s possible,” he asked slowly, “that this guy murdered and scalped for kicks?”
“For kicks?” She leaned forward and set her beer can firmly down amid the flickering jars of votive candles on the coffee table. “For kicks?” she repeated, as though not believing she’d heard him correctly. “You mean for fun? No way.” She shook her head definitely. “It may look that way, but looks are deceiving. Have no doubt about it: this guy is tortured, Fred. He’s driven to violent excesses the same way some people are driven to success.”
“Yeah.” His lips curled up in a twisted smile. “But there’s one big difference between him and them.”
“There is, and there isn’t.”
“You will agree that we’re talking psychopath, at least?”
“Hmmmm.” The sound was maddeningly noncommittal, like the faint buzz of a bumblebee, and her smooth brow furrowed into an expression of concentration that added to her aura of cautious deliberation.
A Supreme Court judge, thought Fred. All she lacks are the robe and gavel.
“You might call him that,” she acknowledged finally with a brisk little nod. “Of course, chances are that most professionals would call him a sociopath.”
“Humph.” He beetled his brows as he frowned. “I keep getting psychos and socios mixed up.”
“The textbook definition of a psychopath is ‘an individual whose behavior is manifestly antisocial and criminal.’ “
“And sociopath?”
“That is a person whose behavior is not only antisocial, but far more important, one who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.”
“So he has no compunctions.”
“None whatsoever,” she murmured.
“Sounds like a psychopath to me.”
“Mmmmm, on the surface, it rather does. But you see, if he lacks all sense of moral responsibility, if he has no conscience to answer to—”
“—then what he’s done isn’t wrong or bad,” he finished softly for her. “At least not to him.”
“There you have it.” She inclined her head solemnly.
“Jesus!” he said in a whisper, and sat abruptly forward. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”
“Yes,” she said, “only too well. If he’s a sociopath, then he’s very dangerous. And should he feel impelled to kill and mutilate again, well, then nothing is going to stand in his way or stop him. Nothing . . . and . . . no . . . one.”
“Aw, shit.”
“ ‘Aw, shit’ is right. Remember, to a totally unconscionable individual, killing is no worse than squeezing a pimple or brushing his teeth. There are no rights or wrongs in his way of thinking.”
He sat back heavily, rubbing his forehead with his ungainly fingers. “So how do you suggest we go about finding him?”
“Through the only means possible,” she said. “Old-fashioned detective work. Only, don’t count on getting any breaks, not unless he wants to toy with you or secretly feels compelled to be caught. He’s liable to be far more clever than you’ll give him credit for. Sociopaths can be brilliant. Even if you were to run across him every single day of the week, you would probably never even suspect him for what he is. On the surface, he could turn out to be more normal-looking than either one of us. Who knows? He could be anything. A short-order cook. The police commissioner. An Academy Award-winning actor. Even the chairman of a Fortune 500 corporation.”
He drew a deep breath, inflated his cheeks, and let the air out noisily. “So. What you’re telling me is that we shouldn’t expect to find some wild-eyed, wild-haired weirdo.”
“No, you should not. Not necessarily.”
“Charming. But the scalping. That’s what I can’t get. What did he have to do that for? Why didn’t he just kill her?”
She raised her hands and then dropped them back in her lap. “Here we go again, hazarding more guesses.” She looked at him severely.
He waited without speaking.
“All right,” she sighed. She sipped at her beer, contemplating her answer. Eventually she raised her eyes and looked over at him. “Let’s say he hates women and has this overwhelming need to punish them. That’s a fairly obvious assumption.”
“Then the scalp is a trophy of the kill?”
“You mean a keepsake to remind him of his victory over women?”
He nodded.
“Perhaps,” she said. “But it may go much deeper than that. It’s possible—remote, but plausible—that in some perverse, twisted sense, he wants to become a woman.”
“Huh? You’ve lost me there.”
“Fred,” she said uneasily, “has it occurred to you that he just may—and I use the word ‘may’ very judiciously—that he may want to become his victim?”
Chapter 26
They had made love twice more— three times altogether—and if it was possible, each time was better than the last. R.L., with instinctive sensi
tivity, had let himself be guided by Edwina’s needs as he felt them, switching from tenderness to forcefulness to abandon and back, whichever he sensed she required. And Edwina, however much she needed the comfort of being loved, was torn between conflicting emotions. She kept wavering between clinging to him like a limpet and guardedly wrenching herself away.
Don’t get involved any deeper! the skeptical part of her mind warned her. Just remember, you left R.L. once, years ago, and married Duncan. Then you divorced Duncan. Then you had more than a few one-night stands before deciding that to have not can be as good as or better than having what isn’t worth it. All in all, as far as men are concerned, your track record’s pretty rotten. She gave a soundless laugh. Rotten? That’s an understatement if ever there was one! Now, just the fact that R.L.’s back in your life, doesn’t mean you can throw all caution to the winds and plunge right back in where you left off. Life doesn’t work that way. One or both of us is liable to get hurt. Remember, you’re older now, and presumably wiser. Orgasms alone do not a relationship make.
Ah, but they’re infinitely better than nothing, she told herself.
“You’re so quiet,” R.L.’s soft voice intruded, his breath ticklish against her bare skin. He placed his lips on her shoulder and sucked gently. “Is everything all right?”
Edwina rolled over on her pillow, smiled, and nodded. “I was just thinking, that’s all.”
“About your resignation?”
Her eyes held his. “That. And a whole lot more.”
“Such as?”
“You. Me.” She frowned slightly. “Us.” She said it like a sigh.
A shadow of worry flitted across his face.
They were lying, blissfully spent, in his big paisley-sheeted bed with the smooth walnut headboard and tartan-plaid pillows. The bedroom was warm and safe and reassuring after the high-wire tension of Anouk’s glittering party. And, after the intimidating palatial grandeur of the de Riscals’, it felt good to be in a human scale room with soothing earth-tone walls and simple sisal carpeting. The party noises inside her head had calmed. Klas Claussen was a faraway creature, a monster of another world.
Here, at R.L.’s, no matter where she looked, her eyes met peace. There was no turning back the clock, no contrived foray into a romantic past, like at Anouk’s. Here, everything was down to earth. Furniture looked like furniture, solid and honest, and paintings looked like what they depicted. All around, dim brass picture lights spilled pools of soft yellow over peaceful landscapes. She studied the one in her direct line of vision. Friendly water lapping the edges of a tranquil pool. Breezes gently ruffling leafy trees. Sunlight warming boulders under a clear, almost cloudless sky. A simple, straightforward painting of a temperate Eden.
But nothing was straightforward. Not really. Who knew what menacing creatures lurked just behind those sun-dappled boulders, to what dark, bottomless depths that deceptively peaceful pool plunged? Tranquility and harmony were illusions—both on canvas and in real life.
R.L. kneaded her shoulders gently and she let herself drift. Friendly hands. Smiling eyes. It was so nice and easy to just let herself go . . .
She pulled herself back sharply. Don’t plunge too deeply! she cautioned herself again. Take it slow. Don’t just dive.
“You’ve suddenly tensed,” he said, his fingers feeling her tightening up. “Your muscles are all knotted.”
She didn’t reply.
There was a bottle of brandy in a bucket on his side of the bed. He refilled the glasses and handed her one. They sipped and listened to the soft music. Just lay there quietly, enjoying the moment.
Forgetting herself, she stretched with contentment and snuggled against him, like a spoon inside a spoon.
“Still thinking?” he asked gently.
She nodded.
“Regretting your decision already? We can always go back and retrieve your resignation from Antonio’s desk, you know.”
She shook her head. “No, now that Klas would be my boss, it’s out of the question.”
“Any idea of what you’re going to do?”
She rolled over again and looked up at him; he was lying on his side, propped on an elbow. “No.” She let out a deep sigh. “Find another job, I suppose. I can’t afford the luxury of unemployment.”
“Do you need money?”
She shook her head. “I need to find a job, though.”
“Whatever happened to the budding fashion designer I met fifteen years ago?”
She gave a little laugh. “She was hit by a king-size dose of reality and came to terms with her limitations.”
“That’s a cop-out, and you know it. Even back then, you were very good. You’ve got what it takes.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” she said. “You’ve got to want it real bad. I obviously didn’t want it badly enough. I gave it up for a husband and motherhood.”
“And now?”
“Now it’s too late.” She turned away.
“Nothing’s too late, Eds. Nothing’s ever too late.”
She was silent.
He smiled. “You could do it now, you know. You’re older. Wiser. You must know the game inside out at this point.”
“That’s one of the things that scares me. Fifteen years ago my illusions were intact. But now?” She let out a reedy, bitter breath. “Now I know how cutthroat this business really is.”
“What you mean is, now you’ve got experience. That amounts to something.”
“Yes, but do I have the talent?”
“Why shouldn’t you?” He sounded surprised. “You had it back then. Talent doesn’t desert you. Technique might get rusty, granted. But talent?” He shook his head. “If you were born with it, you’ve still got it. You only have to use it.”
She smiled. “You make it sound so simple. But it’s not, you know. Even if I wanted to start designing clothes under my own label, we’re talking big bucks. And I don’t have them.”
He held her gaze. “I do. And, thanks to Shacklebury-Prince, I’ve got the retail outlets too.”
She drew a deep breath, letting the pressure build in her lungs, and let it out slowly.
He waited for her to speak.
“Don’t make jokes like that, R.L.,” she said shakily when she found her voice. “They aren’t funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.” His Irish green eyes underwent a sea change, turning almost black. “I never joke where business is concerned.”
For one of the few times in her life, she felt totally thrown, torn between her own fierce independence and the temptation to raid the candy store.
“Thanks, R.L., but no.” She shook her head almost violently. “It’s tempting. Too damn tempting.” She laughed softly. “You know, fourteen years ago I would have jumped at the opportunity.”
“Then jump now,” he urged softly. “Fourteen years ago, I wasn’t in any position to help. Now I am.”
“No. Absolutely, without a doubt, inarguably, no way, no. And that’s final.”
“Why?” he asked softly. His eyes bored into hers. “Because you doubt your own abilities? Or is it because you think it would make you beholden to me?” He looked at her tenderly and brushed an extravagant frizz of hair from her face. “It won’t, you know. I’m not trying to buy you.”
She turned away to avoid his almost hypnotic gaze and caught sight of the bedside clock on the nightstand. It was inching toward three o’clock. “Good Lord!” She sat suddenly bolt upright. “Is it that late already!” She lunged out of bed.
He watched her swiftly don pieces of clothing he’d retrieved from the living room when he went downstairs for their brandy. “I wish you’d reconsider and spend the night,” he said.
She sat down to roll on stockings patterned with roses. “Much as I’d like to, I can’t, R.L.” She looked over at him. “What kind of a role model is a mother to a twelve-year-old if she stays out all night?”
“Then I’ll see you across town.”
She shook her head. “There’s rea
lly no need. I can get a cab at the corner.”
He got out of bed and started to get dressed anyway. “Like I said before, I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy,” he said, stepping into a pair of trousers. “If I pick a girl up at home, I see her back to her door. Besides, I’ve got to bring Les home.”
“You don’t have to do that. He can stay over, and I’ll see to it that Ruby brings him back in the morning.”
He continued getting dressed.
She had to smile. She should have known. She’d almost forgotten how stubborn he could be at times. Trying to argue with him was like beating your head against a brick wall.
When they were set to leave, he took her in his arms. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “Do you want to?”
“Would I have asked you if I didn’t?”
“But . . . I thought you had to go to Boston.”
“I do. But Boston can be postponed. You’re more important.”
Her eyes glowed brightly. Then abruptly they dimmed, as though a rheostat had been turned down. She shook her head and pulled away. “No, R.L.” She put the flat of a hand on his chest. “Go to Boston. I’ll see you when you return.”
He stood very still. “What’s the matter? Are you afraid?”
“No. Yes.” She sighed and her eyes fell away from his. “I don’t know.” She made a gesture of exasperation. “Everything’s happening so fast. I can’t seem to absorb it all at once.”
“God, if you only knew how often I dreamed of this, Eds. I used to make up entire scenarios in my head about running into you. About resuming what we should never have given up.”
She shut her eyes. “Don’t say that, R.L.!” she begged huskily. “Please don’t say that unless you mean it!”
He held her by the arms. “You told me once that you loved me. Remember?”
“I did love you,” she whispered.
“Then what happened? Why did we break up? I just don’t understand it.” His voice was exasperated. “Didn’t we love each other enough?”
She didn’t reply. She knew the answer to that one all too well. She’d given R.L. up for Duncan Cooper, whom she hadn’t loved enough—if she had, they’d still be married.
