Time Release

by Martin J. Smith

  “It’s a crock. The bureau spent close to two million bucks on Primenyl, swept in here like God’s own avengers and got nothing. Griffin gave them the perfect out, and I think they took it. He had motive. He confessed. He’s black. And, best of all, he’s dead. Made a perfect little bookend, didn’t he?”

  “Black?”

  “That was just gravy. On top of everything else, the bureau found a bad guy who played into local prejudices. You’ll understand that better after you’ve been here longer.”

  That sounded just condescending enough to have blown it, Downing thought. But when Kiger spoke again, he said, “Tell me about Corbett.”

  This was a test, Downing figured. New or not, Kiger had to know about Corbett. For a while in 1986, the bastard couldn’t peek out of his front door without every newspaper photographer and TV crew on the East Coast peeing their pants. Kiger wants my take, he thought, wants to know if he can trust my analysis. Spare the venom. Just the facts. Don’t raise old questions.

  “Pharmacist. Very familiar with lot numbers and shelving habits. Lived close to most of the stores where bad capsules were sold. Some record of domestic violence, indications he was abused as a juvenile. FBI profilers at Quantico say he fits a profile—something called a ‘nonspecific multiple murderer.’”

  “Goddamned profiles,” Kiger said, “I probably fit it, too. Anything else?”

  “He was uncooperative, not hostile but closemouthed, when we talked to him in ’86. But he made pretty clear he knew more than he was saying. Guilty man’s bluff, I figured.”

  Kiger studied him a moment. “That’s it?”

  Downing looked down at the file. “No. But that’s all we can use. Corbett was”—he cleared his throat—“problematic.”

  The pillow hit Downing square in the forehead.

  “Sure you told me everything?” Kiger said.

  “Everything you asked.”

  Kiger shrugged and picked up the pillow again. “Good answer,” he said, collapsing back into his chair. “We’ll save the hard questions for next time.”

  “I’ll answer now.”

  Kiger ignored him. “First, this ain’t my call. You got a division head, right? DeLillo knows where he needs you. But if I was him, I’d tell you to steer clear of the ’86 witnesses for now. Ride herd on the boys down in Greene County, check in with whoever’s working the local case, and we’ll take another look down the road. Right now what you’ve got is damned thin. We shouldn’t jump on Corbett just because a couple victims live in his neighborhood. The free-sample stuff was all over the map. Besides, the crack trade being what it is, we got plenty here to keep us busy.”

  The words hit hard. Maybe there is no proof that Ron Corbett is killing his fellow citizens again, sir, or in 1986 for that matter. But you play this game long enough and you learn to trust whatever it is that raises the hair on your arms, learn to recognize when you’re probably damned close to the truth. And the truth about Primenyl, sir, is that the killer is still out there, waiting and planning the next one, king of the goddamned western Pennsylvania hills.

  Downing swallowed. “Maybe it’s Corbett again, maybe it’s not. Hard to say based on what we know so far. But there may be another reason—a stronger reason—to reopen the old investigation and go after Corbett again.”

  “Sure you didn’t get your fill of this case last time?” Kiger asked.

  Their eyes locked. Downing had wondered if he was being baited. Now he was sure. Kiger hadn’t just read the Primenyl case file. He’d read his personnel file, too. Shit. Time to shoot the wad. He eyed the pillow as he stepped off the ledge.

  “Last time, sir, I didn’t believe we had a credible witness. Now I think we might. But it’ll take some work.”

  Downing looked up, expecting another needlepoint fastball. Kiger hadn’t moved.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  Slow down. Tell him about Ron Corbett, about all of the evidence: the list of cyanide distributors, that Corbett knows how the capsules got into the sealed bottles. Tell him about Sonny and repressed memories, about the California case that gave him hope. Make him understand. Downing breathed deep and started to talk.

  When he was finished, the chief laid the pillow down on the desk, stood up, and walked around Downing and out of sight. Downing heard the rustle of cloth on the coat rack in the corner by the door; then, sooner than he would have thought possible, he felt the chief’s coffee-sour breath on his ear.

  “We never had this conversation,” Kiger hissed. The door opened, then shut, and Downing was alone. The letter in his hand was shaking like a leaf.

  Chapter 18

  “Which Beatle was the coach? The dead guy?” Annie sat on the kitchen counter, shoulder-dancing to “A Hard Day’s Night,” watching him chop vegetables for a salad. Christensen wasn’t particularly good at answering his five-year-old’s unanswerable questions. She framed the world in ways he couldn’t begin to comprehend, and her literal interpretations and skewed logic sometimes left him sputtering and helpless.

  “The coach? I’m not sure what you mean, honey,” he said. He tossed a handful of cut carrots onto the shredded pile of romaine, then unwrapped a new container of blue cheese, carefully checking the wax coating for flaws.

  “The coach,” she said, snatching a lettuce leaf and offering it to her box turtle, Thinky, who was riding the crook of her arm like a football. “Which Beatle was the coach?”

  Where to start? “You mean like Mr. Villeran, your soccer coach?”

  “Was it the dead guy? Is that why they aren’t a team any more?”

  Ah, a clue. He remembered a scene from their morning commute. “Paperback Writer” had been on the Explorer’s tape deck; Melissa was deep into her headphones, into her own rhythms, in the backseat. The Beatles were like a team, he’d told Annie. The best team ever. But after a while they decided they couldn’t play nicely together and decided to break up.

  Deciphering this latest question, though, was no help with an answer. Best to get out as quickly as he could.

  “Yes,” he said. “John Lennon was the coach.”

  She hopped down, apparently satisfied, and disappeared with Thinky into the living room. She’d have an equally baffling follow-up question, but right now he was too busy checking the safety seal on a jar of Niçoise olives to clarify the Beatles’ coaching situation.

  “Think about this,” Brenna said, reading the back of the Sgt. Pepper’s CD as she entered the kitchen. Beatles music was one of several passions they shared. “Lennon and McCartney probably wrote ‘She’s Leaving Home’ in 1966. They were, what, twenty-three, twenty-four years old at the time?”

  “You were that wise at twenty-three, right?” He held the olive jar up to his ear and twisted the cap, reassured by the pop of the vacuum seal.

  She pulled a silver clasp from behind her head. A cascade of blond-red hair spilled onto the padded shoulders of her pale green power suit. She’d been in trial all week, defending another of the indefensible, and seemed grateful to have someone cooking for her and Taylor. She seemed just as grateful to have something to think about besides the confession-prone Mr. Cheverton and the carnage he created one ordinary afternoon last year in a suburban postal station.

  “Let’s see, I was twenty-three in 1976,” she said. After a moment’s thought: “Don’t ask.” She unbuttoned her jacket and slid it down her arms. Her white silk blouse offered the most alluring hint of lacy brassiere beneath. The woman knew her lingerie. He imagined her repeating the same motion as a tactical move in front of a jury. Or would she? She might sway some men, but she’d risk irritating the women.

  “Do you think these artichoke hearts are okay?” he said. “There’s no safety seal.”

  Brenna shot him a look. “There’s a difference between caution and paranoia.”

  “Sorr
y.” He opened the jar when she turned away and passed it beneath his nose. Seemed okay, but what would a doctored jar of marinated artichoke hearts smell like, anyway? He ignored his sudden sense of helplessness and arrayed three of the oily hearts on the cutting board.

  Someone rapped hard on the front door, ignoring the doorbell and both brass knockers. He heard Annie and Taylor scramble madly to answer it as he checked his watch. Who’d stop by unannounced at seven-thirty on a weeknight?

  “Chickie!” the visitor said. Christensen picked up a dish towel and walked into the front hall, where Downing was bending low to shake Annie’s tiny hand.

  “He’s a cop,” she was explaining to Brenna’s four-year-old, who seemed impressed. “Show us your gun before my dad comes.”

  “Grady?” Christensen said. “What’s up?”

  “Oops.” Annie stepped aside. “Come on, Taylor. Let’s play Ninjas.”

  Downing watched them pound up the stairs. “You got trouble in her, I’m telling ya,” he said. “Keep the tranquilizer darts handy. Got a minute?”

  Brenna poked her head around the corner, offered a cool greeting, and disappeared back into the living room. Still drying his hands, Christensen led Downing into his office and closed the door.

  “You never write, you never call,” Downing said as he scanned titles on the bookshelves. “Darling, don’t tell me you’ve fallen for someone else.”

  “I don’t have anything to talk to you about, Grady. Remember our deal? Unless Sonny starts bringing up things that seem relevant, what we talk about stays private.”

  The detective held up his hands, palms out. “Don’t get all bunched up. Just curious. It’s been six weeks now. You’ve got nothing so far?”

  Christensen sat down behind his desk. “I’m not an investigator. I’m a psychologist.”

  Downing immediately perched on the edge of the desk, one leg anchored to the floor and the other dangling, looming over him. It felt menacing in a way Christensen couldn’t quite define. “How’s Melissa?” the detective asked.

  “Fine. The hand’s mostly healed up. It bothered me more than her, I think.”

  “Why?” Downing seemed sincerely curious.

  “Why?” he said. “You coax me into helping you on a product-tampering case where the killer’s still loose, then suddenly we end up with acid in our shampoo. And you really wonder why I’m bothered?”

  “Whoa,” Downing said. “Bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”

  Christensen stood up. Fuck these games.

  “No, Grady, it’s not.” He held up his right hand, his thumb and index finger a centimeter apart. “I was this close to calling you after it happened and telling you to find somebody else. I don’t know if there’s a connection. Maybe it was just a weird coincidence that our house happened to be on the hit list. But if there’s even the slightest chance, I want out. I won’t put my kids in that position.”

  “Sonny never talks to his father,” Downing said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Come on, Jim. We’ve got Ron Corbett under constant surveillance. If he was skulking around your neighborhood in the middle of the night, we’d know. Whenever he shits, the chief gets a memo.”

  Christensen stared, reluctant to concede the point. He was pissed and wanted Downing to know it. He angled the photograph of Molly and the kids on his desk so Downing could see, then retreated to the window across the room. The gesture made no apparent impression.

  “You get my message about that drug?” Downing said. “Sodium whachamajig?”

  “Amobarbital. Not an option.”

  “No? I heard it speeds things up.”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes it nudges some people into psychosis, too. Sometimes it kills them. It’s experimental and dangerous and I won’t recommend it.”

  “Sure be nice to pick up the pace. Something’s come up.”

  Downing’s face carried no further information. The comment hung between them, sodden, full of implication. Christensen’s first instinct was to end the conversation there, to leave the room and ask Downing to leave his house, to sever his relationship with Sonny Corbett, to return his study of human memory to the safe, abstract world of volunteer subjects and controlled tests. His second instinct was to punch Downing in the mouth. Instead, he found himself losing to the irresistible force of curiosity.

  “Go ahead, tell me,” he said.

  Downing circled the desk and sat in Christensen’s chair. He was still wearing his trenchcoat, and wet tracks followed him across the carpet. He hadn’t bothered to wipe his feet when he came in.

  “I interviewed Sonny’s mom a few days ago,” he said. “Figured it was worth a shot, what with her being in the house at the time, too. But she’s way too far gone in the head to be much use.”

  “You weren’t counting on her anyway, right?”

  “Like I said, it was worth a shot. But now I’ve got a problem.”

  Christensen sat down in the chair, facing Downing across the desk. His desk. How did Downing always manage to end up behind his desk?

  “She’s got this shrink out at Borman, name’s Root. Douglas Root. Know him?”

  Christensen shrugged.

  “Well, this Root guy calls me practically the minute I get back to my office after talking to her, and he wants to know what the hell I’m doing harassing his patient. I handled it like a pro, very polite, but he doesn’t let up.”

  “Harassing?”

  “I talked to her. That’s all, swear to God. Swapped a few pleasantries. Talked a little about Sonny. Just felt her out about Ron to see if she kept in touch or if she remembered anything from 1986.”

  “And?”

  “Brain mush,” Downing said. “Watches cartoons all day. So I thanked her and left, and the next thing I know her shrink’s in my face talking about harassment and how I could have fucked up years of therapy. Between you, me, and the fence post, if she’s better now, she must have been a total drooler before.”

  Mr. Sensitive.

  “Sonny talked about his mom a little last week,” Christensen said. “Sounds like a classic case. History of documented abuse going back at least to her father. I’m guessing the Bible wasn’t the only thing he thumped. Incest a definite possibility. So, big surprise, Sandra grows up to marry an abusive husband. Therapy can help, but some wounds don’t heal.”

  Downing stopped, sniffed the air. “Dinner smells great,” he said. “What are you having?”

  Brenna must have taken the lasagna tray out of the oven and started serving the kids. Christensen ignored the question, then checked his watch as obviously as he could.

  “Anyway, this Root starts getting a little heavy with me,” Downing said. “I had no right to take advantage of her, that kind of stuff. So I kind of blew him off. That’s my problem. His lawyers wrote this letter.”

  Downing reached into his coat for something in an inside pocket, then handed a piece of paper across the desk. The letter unfolded easily. Its pages had been stapled, but the staple was gone. The letterhead read: Musca, Hickton & Cook.

  Christensen looked it over carefully. From the closing paragraphs and vague reference to an enclosed newspaper clipping, he sensed a carefully worded but unmistakable threat. Leave Mrs. Corbett alone, it said, in order to avoid the “potential embarrassment” of a civil suit that would expose the department’s “continued but misguided faith in Det. Downing.”

  “This went to the police chief?”

  “CC’ed to my department head. Can you believe that? The guano really hit the fan.”

  “Why? They knew you were going to talk to her, right?”

  Downing suddenly seemed to notice the picture of Molly and the girls. “Certain people did, sure. But like I told you when we first talked, there were problems with the original investig
ation. Somebody had to wear the goat head, and that was me. You’ve got to understand something about a police department. It’s like a shark tank. Word gets out I’m back on Primenyl, there’s a feeding frenzy. So I’ve been trying to keep it low-profile.”

  Christensen didn’t like the Polaroid impression of Down­ing that was forming in his mind. The man now sitting casually behind his desk had set Christensen and Sonny off on a very risky journey. At the same time, he apparently was treading into some murky areas of department policy. Downing’s renewed interest in the Primenyl case was making waves, but not the kind Christensen had expected.

  “Grady, I’ve got to be honest. I’m starting to get really uneasy about this.”

  Downing waved him off. “I got it all smoothed over already. I called this Root guy back and made nice. Apologized for blowing him off. He’s really just worried about his patient, and I can respect that, even if his lawyers are thugs. I just explained what happened, that it was a chat, not an interrogation. And I told him I wouldn’t talk to her again. She’s of no use to me.”

  “What about this other stuff?”

  “What other stuff?”

  “The department knows what you’re up to, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Everybody who needs to know is on board.”

  “And they know I’m involved?”

  Downing looked him straight in the eye. “Absolutely. What pisses me off is my bosses cut me some slack so I could work this case again. Something like this could make them change their minds. Pfft. I’m back working junkie snuffs until I retire in a couple months and Primenyl never gets out of the files again. It’s always easier to do nothing than take a chance.”

  The detective sniffed again. “Man, what is that?”

  “Lasagna.”

  “She cooks, too?”

  “Frozen. Just pop it in the oven. I’m raising two kids on frozen food.”

  Downing’s laugh was sharp and forced, then his face went serious. “Look, won’t you tell me anything about what Sonny’s talking about? I need to know where we stand. I’m running out of time. Don’t be coy.”