by Gary Braver
Malenko took the clipboard. Lilly Bellingham. Age seven. From Henley, New York. Forty-eight inches tall. Forty-three pounds. And she had an IQ of 168.
And tomorrow, little Amber Bernardi.
Malenko bid a silent night-night to little Lilly and moved down the corridor to the window at the end.
Travis Valentine. He was asleep on his bed, a book on butterflies lay open beside him. The TV monitor flickered mindlessly.
According to the tests and functional scans, he had very high language proficiency—ninety—ninth percentile, in fact. Left-brain incandescence. He would probably grow up to be a first-rate writer or lawyer.
And if the parents decided not to keep him a dim bulb, so might young Dylan Whitman.
43
Because he was now on night shift, Greg didn’t get to bed until around seven A.M. So he was in a deep sleep when the phone rang at nine-thirty that Wednesday morning.
A female identifying herself as Patty Carney from the medical examiner’s office in Boston said she had read his bulletin from last Thursday. Greg was still too furry with sleep to register the name. The forensic pathologist.
“We had a homicide victim two days ago. You probably read about it. A kid from Hawthorne, killed by his mother who then killed herself?”
“Yeah, sure.” The story was all over the media.
“Well, we did an autopsy on the kid, and when we removed his brain we found that he had the same skull perforation clusters as in your bulletin. Thirteen along the left side of his head from the frontal cortex above the eyebrow to over the ear. But there’s a difference from the others. He had eight other holes on the right side of his head, too. And they were clearly done in a medical neurological procedure, probably when he was very young, from the healing signs. But I can’t tell you what for.”
“What’s his name?”
“Julian Watts. The obit’s in today’s paper. The funeral’s tomorrow.” She gave him some of the details. “I sent you a scan of the photo taken from the inside of his skullcap. I don’t know what they’re from, but I thought you’d be interested.”
Greg was suddenly very awake, and his heart was pounding. He thanked the woman, saying that he would get right to his computer for the scan.
“Oh, yeah. One more thing,” Patty said before hanging up. “His brain was over one point six kilograms.”
“Is that significant?”
“Well, the normal fourteen-year-old male’s brain weighs one point four kilos. His brain was nearly half a pound heavier.”
“How do you explain that?”
“I can’t.”
44
Brendan sat by himself at the rear of the Hawthorne Unitarian Church trying not to lose his mind.
He recognized several people from the Dells and the surrounding towns, getting lost in naming each of them and their family members, addresses, the kinds of cars they drove, golfing handicaps, and other biographical junk. That was the danger of large crowds, and the reasons why he hated function nights at the club. To stem the data tide, he tried boxing himself into a single distraction, such as the organ music—except he found himself visualizing the score until the inside of his skull was a running video of endless musical staves and prancing notes. If he took any more medication, he’d go to sleep. What he needed was something in the moment to focus on and cut out all the noise.
He couldn’t flip through the hymnal because he’d only get stuck in lyrics which would play in his head the rest of the day. He tried to think of Vanessa and Julian Watts lying in their coffins, but he began to imagine their state of necropsy, how their bodies had been drained of blood—what was left of it after the police had found them—and replaced with embalming fluids, and how in a few days they would begin to turn dark, and shrivel, and the fluids would begin to leak from their orifices.
He then ran through the capitals of the world, as stupefyingly boring as that was, then moved to the most populous cities including their populations according to the latest World Book of Facts.
What snapped him back was Nicole.
She had entered the rear of the church with her parents. Before they could move to a pew, he put his backpack on his seat and got up. “I have to see you,” he said, pulling her aside.
She gave him her blue-ice look. “Leave me alone.”
“Look, it’s v-v-very important.”
She started after her parents without response.
“Please.”
When her mother looked back, Nicole flashed her face to him. “Later,” she said through her teeth. Then she moved down the aisle.
Brendan returned to his pew and watched her move to the front of the church to join her parents. She was dressed in a simple dark blue sundress with white trim and dark blue pumps—an ensemble that projected a nautical motif, as if she were some kind of naval recruit. As he watched her settle, his mind slipped to that tattoo she wore.
While he worked on that for the hundredth time, he spotted Rachel Whitman walking in with her husband. Nicole had said that they had been on a parent tour of Bloomfield, which didn’t make sense.
A few minutes later Sheila MacPhearson came down the aisle with her daughter, Lucinda, who was carrying a Palm Pilot. They took seats beside the Whitmans. The women were friends—Rachel Whitman of 224 Morningside Drive and Sheila MacPhearson of 22 Willow Lane.
Mrs. MacPhearson’s husband, Harry, had lost all his money in a dot-com venture, then died of heart failure a year ago. According to rumors circulating at the club, he had left his wife with considerable debt, which might explain why she was always hustling off to show a property.
Lucinda fascinated him. She was clever, cunning, and very authoritarian with other children. He once caught her sticking a pin into the head of the rabbit in play school. She also knew how to turn on the charm, winning over Miss Jean and other Dellsies. Her mother, she wore like an engagement ring.
The two caskets lay side by side at the altar.
Rachel sat between Martin and Sheila MacPhearson. They had left Dylan with a sitter for the morning. However, Sheila had brought Lucinda, who was pressed beside her and working on a small computer—probably calculating the flaws in the unified field theory, she thought sickly. Rachel felt the urge to grab the damn thing out of her hands. She also was irritated that Sheila let her click and poke away at the keys while people filed in solemnly.
Rachel was sick at the sight of the two caskets with the twin wreaths of white roses. Such a tragic waste. Last week the world appeared to be Vanessa’s oyster. Then, in a matter of hours it was all over. Apparently the public humiliation had driven her to the brink. But why take Julian with her? How could she kill her own son? And a son she had been so proud of. Something clearly had snapped—and now there was a dead mother and son. Nothing was as it seemed.
Nobody could explain where the incriminating videotape came from or how it had gotten switched for the original. Apparently no fingerprints were found on the cassette. A Hawthorne policeman had come by to ask if Rachel knew of any enemies of Professor Watts since it was clear that somebody had been out to get the woman. Rachel knew of none. In fact, she barely knew Vanessa. He also asked if she knew any possible motives for her killing of her son. Rachel had no idea.
The newspapers had carried an interview with Joshua Blake who said he had been alerted to the plagiarism anonymously while on sabbatical in Western Samoa. He said that he had been encouraged to make the videotape to discourage Professor Watts from going ahead with the publication. He explained that he had just set up his own video camera, taped the interview, then overnighted the cassette to an anonymous post office box in Boston. He had also sent a copy to Vanessa’s publisher by airmail, which explained why her editor at the party was unaware of the plagiarism. He added that he had no idea who was behind the expose.
Sheila was sniffling into her handkerchief and checking her watch as the service began. When Rachel could see that she was not going to stop Lucinda from playing with her Palm Pilot, she leaned across to he
r and in a dead flat voice said, “You can put that away now.”
Lucinda looked up at her with chilling menace. Before another word was exchanged, Sheila snapped the thing out of her daughter’s hand and stuffed it in her purse.
While her parents were huddled by the gravesite, Brendan nodded to Nicole to come over. When she disregarded him, he started toward her—and that got the expected reaction. She came over not out of interest but because she did not want her parents and all their friends to think that golden-girl Nicole DaFoe was pals with the local weirdo—which is how everybody saw him: a creep to shield their children from, a schizoid basket case who talked to himself and suffered poetry seizures; the idiot savant who could recite the script of any movie he had seen. The kid nobody wanted their kids hanging with. Brendan LaMotte, goblin of Cape Ann.
“Make it fast. I’m going back to camp.” She followed him to a spot behind a large gaudy obelisk that blocked the view of the others.
From his backpack he pulled out a folder, saying how he had found it buried in his cellar. “I-it’s a WISC standard intelligence test taken when I was five.” He pointed to some numbers. “My IQ was seventy-seven.” Then he showed her another test taken two years later. “Same test, but intelligence quotient one hundred thirty-nine. That’s practically double. My verbal went from forty-three percentile to ninety-nine.”
Something slithered across her face. “I have to go.”
“N-no, there’s more.”
He then pulled out a photocopy of two canceled bank checks for three hundred thousand dollars each, made out to cash and signed by Brendan’s father, Eugene LaMotte. The dates were two weeks apart and about six months before the date of the second WISC test.
Nicole put her dark glasses on and started away.
“Wait. I also found MRI scans of my b-b-brain,” he said. “They operated on me. They did s-something to make me smarter.”
In the distance, her mother was waving her over. “Be right there,” she called.
She walked away, but Brendan caught up to her. “Nicole, listen to me. They did the same thing to you.”
She looked at him, her face appearing as rigid and white as the nearby headstone.
“Here, look.” In his hand he was holding a slip of paper—a piece of personalized stationery with the address and name of her father, Kingman DaFoe. Written in pen on it was a telephone number with an old exchange.
And the name Lucius Malenko.
Greg sat through the double funeral service at the Hawthorne Unitarian Church. He had removed his weapon and badge from his belt and he tried not to look conspicuous as he made mental notes of family members and close friends. He also tried not to think of what T.J. Gelford would say if he knew Greg was here. But that wouldn’t happen.
At the cemetery, he receded into the background and watched through dark glasses. It was a tasteful and dignified event, where a woman minister gave a moving eulogy before the matching bronze caskets poised above their plots. A large hushed crowd of mourners surrounded them, and a niece read a poem she had written. Greg spoke to no one.
From the newspaper obits, he got the names of the immediate survivors—Bradley Watts, the husband, and Lisa, the daughter. Watts was a tall patrician-looking man in his fifties with streaks of white around his ears, and a tanned angular face. His daughter was a pretty sandy-haired girl with a white full face and red eyes. The girl was not doing well and kept breaking down, so that Watts kept his arm around her throughout the ceremony.
When the service was over, people laid flowers on the coffins and paid their final condolences.
Greg pulled closer. At one point he overheard somebody agreeing with Brad that getting away was the best thing. He thought he heard someone mention Oregon.
Because of the awful circumstances of their deaths, there was no postfuneral dinner. That was unfortunate, because he wanted to speak to Bradley Watts in a more appropriate venue. The gravesite was definitely not the place, but he and his daughter could be departing for Oregon tomorrow, maybe even that night.
As Watts and his daughter started away from the grave toward the limousine, Greg pulled him aside. He expressed his sympathies and introduced himself. The daughter, whose eyes were still wet, stood there limply.
Watts thanked him and looked at the card. “Zakarian, good Albanian name.”
Greg didn’t bother to correct him. “I apologize for the intrusion, but I’m wondering if we could set up a time to ask you a few questions.”
“What about? I’ve already spoken to the police.”
“I realize that, but there are some things I’d like to ask about Julian that may shed light on other cases I’m investigating. Maybe we can meet tomorrow or the next day, at your convenience?”
“I’m taking my daughter to camp tomorrow, and I’m going to the West Coast and won’t be back for a few weeks.” He again glanced at Greg’s card. “Sagamore?”
“I can explain,” Greg said. The daughter looked distraught. So, to show her some interest, he asked, “Where are you going to camp?”
“Allegro Music Camp outside Toronto.” She seemed to perk up a little.
“You must be quite a musician. What do you play?”
“Violin,” she said. Then she added, “Julian was supposed to go to the Nova Children’s Center camp at Lake Tarabec, but …” She trailed off into a choke.
“I’m very sorry,” Greg said. “From what I read, he was a very bright young man.”
Watts gave her a comforting squeeze. “Maybe when I return,” he said.
“I’d rather we talk before you left,” Greg said.
Mr. Watts sighed and told his daughter to get in the limo, that he’d be right there. The girl slumped away to the waiting car.
“Officer Zakarian, I’m taking my daughter home where we’ll try to relax as best as the medication will allow. At nine o’clock tomorrow morning we are out of here. So if you have any questions I’ll take them now.”
This was not how Greg wanted it—standing just feet away from his wife’s and son’s caskets.
“And, please, be brief and to the point.”
Greg nodded. “According to the autopsy report on Julian, clusters of scars were found on his skull. You’re no doubt aware of them.”
Watts’s eye twitched ever so slightly. But he did not respond.
“You do know what I’m talking about?”
Watts’s expression seemed to stiffen. “I’m listening.”
“Can you tell me how they got there?”
“Why are you asking me this, Officer?”
Briefly Greg mentioned the two other cases. He would have preferred to do this in the man’s house or office, but he pulled out the schematic of the skull with holes.
The man glanced at the drawing then looked at Greg. “Julian was treated for epilepsy as a child. He had a severe case.”
“So you’re saying he had some medical procedure.”
“Yes,” Watts said. He gave Greg a saucer-eyed look that seemed to blot out any suspicions that what he said was not the absolute truth.
“Was Julian right-handed or left-handed?”
Watts hesitated for a second, no doubt wondering about the odd question. “Left.”
“Can you tell me the name of his doctor?”
“Daaad?” It was his daughter calling him from the limousine.
“Good day, Officer,” Watts said, and he walked away to the car and got in.
Epilepsy.
Greg looked around. The place was emptying out. People were walking to their cars, and cars were moving in a slow caravan toward the exit. Nearby he spotted a big kid with a black ponytail showing something to an attractive tall blonde behind a monument.
Greg watched the limo pull out of its spot by the edge of the grass. Lisa was sitting at a rear window. He gave a little wave and watched the car pull down the lane.
Nova Children’s Center. The words spread through his mind like a crack.
45
Th
e Whitman home was located in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of Hawthorne where stately Colonials and Tudors reminded Greg that he was an outsider.
On Friday afternoon around two, he pulled in front of a handsome brick garrison with a slate roof, two stately chimneys, and black shutters with white trim. A gold Maxima was parked in the driveway. Because it was next to an open lot, he could spot an elaborate wooden play structure in the backyard. He had a mental flash of the Dixon place with its redbrick box, front yard of scrub and dirt, the tire swing. It was this place, but a couple decimal points to the left.
A bed of daylilies and groundcover neatly lined the flagstone walk to the front door. He rang it and a woman who looked to be in her thirties answered. She was very attractive with shoulder-length shiny black hair, and jagged bangs, and large amber eyes. He had seen her and her husband yesterday at the Wattses’ funeral.
“Mrs. Whitman?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Greg Zakarian. I’m a detective from the Sagamore Police Department.” He handed the woman his card. She looked instantly concerned. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about the Vanessa and Julian Watts case.”
“But I’ve already spoken to the police.”
“I understand, but there are some elements in the case that may have bearing on another case.” Understandably she looked puzzled but let him inside.
He followed her through the living room, attractively decorated in bright colors and oriental rugs. On the coffee table sat copies of The New Yorker and The Quarterly Review of Wine.
She led him to a screened-in porch that was furnished in white wicker and floral cushions. Large pots of red geraniums sat on the floor. Some children’s books were piled neatly on a chair. From the porch he could see that the backyard climbing structure was an elaborate redwood system with ropes, hang rails, and a large yellow sliding tube. Not your basic tire swing. A little boy sat digging in a nearby sandbox.
