“She needs to see someone, get past this.” Adam cast a glance at Jon. “Dana’s tried talking to her, but she’s not getting through.”
That didn’t surprise Zach. If they shared one family trait in common it was that no one could get them to do something they didn’t want to do. “What do you want me to do? Hog-tie her and leave her on a shrink’s doorstep?”
Adam sighed. “It’s a thought, but no. We were just expressing our frustration, really.” He sipped from his own glass. “How are things going with you? I hear you got pulled in on this Amazon Killer thing.”
Zach slid into the seat next to Jon. “Yeah.”
“It’s not going to be a problem having Stevie stay with you?”
“Not as long as all parties realize I’m probably not going to be in much. But Stevie’s a responsible girl.”
Adam made a face suggesting that wasn’t entirely true. Zach grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll lay down the law. Or if you’re so worried about her staying with me, why doesn’t she stay with this one over here?” He gestured toward his younger brother with his drink. Jon had a spare bedroom, just as he did.
“That one moved in with Dana two months ago.”
Zach cast a surprised look at Jon. Two months ago? It surprised him less that his brother had made the move than the fact that no one had told him about it.
Zach winked at Adam, letting him know he intended to have a little fun with their younger brother. “Poor girl. Is this a short-term deal or are you planning to make an honest woman of her sometime soon?”
Jon’s expression didn’t betray the barest trace of humor. In fact, his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. “I’m not the one who has trouble finding the right bed.”
Zach exhaled, letting his breath flow out over clenched teeth. He should have known better than to expect a different reaction. Neither of his brothers possessed much of a sense of humor, especially not where their women were concerned. He’d always been the odd man out in that regard. Hell, in any regard. Adam and Jon got along together in a way that he did not with either of them.
Both of them blamed him for the destruction of his own marriage. Nearly six years after the fact, Jon in particular still couldn’t let it go. He’d considered Sherry a sister, much like Zach felt toward Barbara. Neither of them had forgiven him for what they saw as his betrayal of her.
He couldn’t blame either of his brothers for thinking poorly of him for cheating on her. That’s what they’d assumed and he hadn’t told them any different. What difference did it make if they castigated him for imagined sins when he went unpunished for the ones he had? It seemed like a fair exchange, though it hurt sometimes to think his brothers could so easily think the worst of him.
Zach downed the remains in his glass, deposited it on the side table next to his chair and stood. “Well, it’s time for me to get what I came for and go. Any chance Stevie’s ready yet?”
As if on cue, Stevie burst into the room and launched herself at him. She threw her arms around his neck. “Uncle Zach, I’m so glad you’re finally here.”
Zach hugged her back, looking over her shoulder to where her mother stood framed in the doorway. He wasn’t sure what to make of the expression on her face—concern, sadness, disappointment, or a combination of the three. Again, he wished someone would confide in him what was going on between mother and daughter. But if no one found it necessary to divulge such simple things as his brother’s living arrangements, the chances of being informed of a more complex situation were nil.
He released his niece. “Are you ready to go?”
“My bags are by the front door.”
Bags? Adam had given him the impression her stay would last only a few days. Then again, he was dealing with a teenage girl. He had no clue what all she might find essential to bring on a stay away from home.
“Let’s go, then.” He gestured toward the doorway. Just to be perverse, he added, “It’s getting late.”
Stevie went around to give her father a hug, but no similar gesture was given to her mother. Still Barbara followed them to the front door.
“Behave yourself for your uncle Zach,” Barbara said.
Stevie just rolled her eyes and picked up the smallest of the three bags. “I’ll be out in the car.” She slung open the front door and marched out.
Zach turned to Barbara and embraced her. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her.”
She hit him on the shoulder. “I know you will.” She took a step back from him. “You better.”
For a minute, Zach contemplated asking her to confide in him. Barbara was the only one who knew the truth about his marriage, having weaseled it out of him at a low moment. She’d kept his confidence all this time. He wished she trusted him enough to share hers.
The sound of the horn blaring outside cost him the opportunity. Barbara gestured toward the door. “Her Highness awaits.”
With a sigh Zach picked up the remaining two bags and headed outside. He put them in the trunk before sliding into the driver’s seat. Stevie had already switched from his radio station to one that blared rap noises at a high decibel. He switched it back and lowered the volume. She looked at him as if he’d just killed her pet hamster. “I have a few things to say before we get home.”
“Go ahead. I figured as much,” she said in a voice that sounded both bored and impatient.
He pulled out of the driveway onto the quiet suburban street. “I’m glad to have you stay with me if that’s what you want.” Even if Jon hadn’t moved in with Dana, Stevie would have picked his place as her spot of refuge instead of his younger brother’s. Zach was the cool uncle, the one she thought she could cajole into giving her more freedom and keeping a less watchful eye. She wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t intend to let her steamroller over him, either.
“I know, Uncle Zach, and if I didn’t say thank you before, I mean it.”
“But there are a few rules you’ll have to follow.”
She sighed, resting her elbow on the window frame. “Now you sound like my dad.”
Since that was his intent, he didn’t argue with her. “No cutting school, no ‘forgetting’ to do your homework.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I go to Fieldston. They’d kick me out if I did that.”
“No running up a huge phone bill talking all night.”
“I have my cell phone.”
Zach slid a glance at her. That addressed the expense of her phone habit but not the hours of it. He could live with that. “I don’t suppose I have to get into drinking or drugs.”
“Please. My dad told me he’d take me in himself if he ever caught me doing drugs.”
Zach smiled. It was the same thing his father had said when they were young. “No boys unless I’m in the house.”
“You’re not serious, right? That’s so unfair.”
Zach noticed that was the only condition of his she objected to, leading him to believe that might be the issue she and her mother clashed over. “We can always turn around.”
Her hand shot out to cover his on the steering wheel. “All right, all right. But can I have someone over if you’re home?”
“We’ll see.”
She relaxed against her seat, folding her hands in her lap. She was staring out the opposite window, pensive.
“Any chance you want to tell me what’s going on between you and your mother?”
She shook her head.
Well, that made it unanimous, at least. Zach pulled off the New England Thruway at Connor Street, the same exit Ingrid Beltran had used the night she was killed. He traveled the same length of service road where her body had been found, only now there was a patrol car stationed there.
“This is where that girl got killed, isn’t it?”
That was close enough to the truth for him to agree. “Yes.”
“She was only a year older than me.”
Zach hadn’t thought about it in those terms before, or in relation to Stevie. Adam and Barbara worked hard to
afford a nice house outside the city, the best schools, but given the coverage the story had garnered in the media already, she could hardly have missed it. From all accounts so far, Beltran had lived a life nearly sheltered as Stevie’s. Which led him to the question that bothered him that no one yet had answered: How had this man gotten this girl to get in his car?
The prostitutes were easy to figure out. That’s what hookers did. They got in the car to earn their money and, as often happened, they got something they hadn’t bargained for. Even Stevie knew not to get in a stranger’s car. Why hadn’t this other girl figured that out? He couldn’t say. It was an unfortunate truth that often when you shielded your children from the ugliness of life you deprived them of the ability to cope with it when it was shoved in their faces.
“Are they going to catch him, Uncle Zach?”
He smiled in a way that he hoped reassured her. If he had anything to say about it they would.
Alex sat in her living room, nursing a glass of wine while she waited for the eleven o’clock news to start. She didn’t usually drink alcohol of any kind, but today she’d needed something to take the edge off. She’d dug up her personal files on Walter Thorpe and had Alice xerox a copy for Zach. She’d made sure they got there by five o’clock, preferring to take him at his word that he’d be back if she didn’t comply. However, most of her records were still with the hospital, as they were work produced from that job. If he wanted them, he’d have to look there for them.
She’d brought the original files home. For the first time, she regretted taking such detailed notes, since there was a lot to go through. But if Thorpe had revealed to her his propensity for such violence, it would be here, which meant she’d missed it. She intended to be more thorough this time around.
The first papers in the file were Thorpe’s intake sheet that held personal information. Thorpe had refused to give her any of the information pertaining to his family, not even his mother’s name. That in itself wasn’t unusual. Many clients had difficulty revealing personal information at the start. There were plenty who had given her fake addresses and phone numbers so that they were untraceable should they decide not to come back. She couldn’t remember how it had gone with Walter in particular, especially since his referral had come from the state.
She scanned through the notes she’d written on Thorpe’s childhood. Or at least his childhood as he’d reported it to her. That was part of the trouble with psychiatry: You didn’t know any fact; you only knew what the client told you. But Thorpe reported only the last of the triumvirate of predictive behaviors evident in the histories of serial killers: animal cruelty, fire starting, and enuresis—bedwetting—until he was twelve years old.
But that didn’t mean Thorpe’s life had been problem-free. He reported having been abused by an older boy in grade school and his mother died when he was ten. Thorpe and his sister had been scheduled to go to the same foster home, but the sister ran away before the placement was made.
He didn’t hear from her again until he was in his twenties. She was still living upstate while he was here in New York. The two started up a long-distance relationship. Alex didn’t know if that relationship continued, but his sister had divorced herself from his crimes, refusing to attend his trial. Alex had never met her and got the impression she didn’t approve of his therapy despite the fact that it had been court-ordered.
At first glance, nothing jumped out at her suggesting that Thorpe could turn out to be the kind of monster who could kill and mutilate so many young women. She intended to be more thorough in her examination of her notes, but tonight the wine was making her sleepy. After the news she’d head up to bed. Tomorrow was another day, one she would hopefully greet more well rested than she had the present one.
Alex closed her folder and tossed it onto the coffee table in front of her as she heard the music signaling the news was about to begin. She yawned, trying to banish her sleepiness long enough to make it through the first couple of stories. She figured this story had to be one of the first items if not the lead. Despite what Zach had told her about the police releasing Thorpe’s name, that part of the story hadn’t made it into the afternoon newscasts.
After the anchor team of a black man and an Asian woman introduced themselves, the camera narrowed in on the woman. “This just in on the case of the Amazon Killer that claimed the life of young Ingrid Beltran.” A picture of the young woman in what looked to be a cheerleading outfit appeared in the top left corner of the screen. “A source close to the police investigation has revealed that investigators are focusing on this man, Walter Thorpe, as the Amazon Killer.” Thorpe’s mug shot replaced Beltran’s picture on the screen. “Thorpe, also known as the Gentleman Rapist, was convicted of attacking several Upper East Side women in 1999, and has apparently turned toward the macabre. Thorpe is believed to be armed. Anyone spotting him should immediately call police.”
Alex watched the broadcast, her mouth opened, her surprise increasing with every word the woman spoke. Given the fact that Thorpe was missing, it didn’t entirely surprise her that the police might release Thorpe’s name as someone who they wanted to interview in connection with the crimes. This was different; they’d practically announced that they believed Thorpe to be the killer. That she didn’t understand. Serial killers often fed off their own publicity. It was like handing a terrorist an Uzi. More than that, it gave every crackpot in the city incentive to phone in false tips or claim to be the killer themselves, deflecting police resources from legitimate leads. Damn.
But the Asian woman wasn’t finished yet. “Police have already questioned this woman, Dr. Alexandra Waters, Thorpe’s former psychiatrist, in connection with the case.” Alex didn’t hear any more after that. Her attention was taken up by the photo of her that came onto the screen, a four-color version one that had appeared on the front cover of the News.
She’d forgotten how unflattering that picture was. She looked like an idiot and she felt like one every time she saw it. If she hadn’t gone to see McKay, that part of the story, inaccurate as it was, would never have made it onto the screen.
Oh God. She’d thought it would have been bad enough when anyone digging into Thorpe’s story might have stumbled on her name. Now no one had to go digging. There she was, live and in color. Zach had definitely not mentioned that.
Part of her was certain that Zach would have told her about it had he known. If he’d told her about the planned release of Thorpe’s name, why wouldn’t he have told her about the release of her own? Still, doubt niggled in the back of her mind. She’d once thought the young man she knew would never betray her, but he’d proven her wrong about that, too.
The sound of her phone ringing startled her. Her first thought was that it might be Zach. She didn’t want to speak to him now. She let the phone ring until whoever was on the other end of the line gave up.
Eight
Zach stood at the doorway to his spare bedroom that had been decorated in early IKEA, facing his niece. He’d left her alone for fifteen minutes to take a call. In that short span of time, she’d spread her things through the small room in a way that suggested she’d been living there for years. Again he wondered how long she intended to stay, but since he didn’t plan on bringing that up again, he let it slide. He’d just wish her good night and go to bed himself.
“What’s up, Uncle Zach?” Stevie asked from her spot on the bed. She was brushing the fur of a stuffed dog with the same care you would lavish on a real pet.
“I came to ask you if you needed anything, but I can see you’ve made yourself at home. If that veterinarian thing you want to do doesn’t work out, you should give decorating a try.”
She laughed. “Thanks.”
“Do you need me to drop you at school in the morning?”
“No, my dad already called the school. The bus will pick me up here tomorrow.”
For the exorbitant price Adam paid for the service, they’d better. “Good night, then. Go to sleep. It’s gettin
g late.”
“Yes, Dad,” she teased.
He winked at her, backed out the door, and closed it behind him. But as he turned to walk away, he heard Stevie’s cell phone ring.
Shaking his head he made his way down the hall toward the stairs. Good Lord, what had he gotten himself into? He didn’t know a damn thing about handling teenage girls. Aside from the one’s he’d known during his own adolescence the only teenage girl he’d had any experience with was Alex. But Alex had never been a girl in the same way that Stevie was.
He couldn’t say even now why it had been so important to him to win Alex over. It went beyond wanting to get along with his partner’s family, though that was there, too. Sammy was the first parental influence he’d known since his father died so many years before. Although he was way too old to really need one, he appreciated it. With Alex it was something different.
If he wanted to be truthful with himself, he knew that part of it was the wound to his male vanity. He’d met few women, young or old, black or white, rich or poor, or whatever, who didn’t have some positive reaction to him. His mother had labeled him the charmer of the family long before he was old enough to know what that meant. Alex, when she chose to look at him at all, pondered him as if he were some medical curiosity science had yet to figure out.
He had also sensed a sadness in her and a wariness unexplained by anything he knew of except the loss of her mother. He identified with that, even though he’d had longer than she to deal with his own loss. But at least she’d still had her father, overbearing and overprotective as Sammy was. Zach had once remarked to Sammy that he’d never seen Alex go out, that she didn’t seem to have any friends.
Sammy had cast him a scoffing look. “She’s got me. What does she need with friends?”
This from a man who could have dined at a different house every night of the year if he chose, a man Alex seemed to regard as suspect as she did him.
No, Alex was all alone. He identified with that, too. Even though he had siblings, none of them understood him; none of them tried to. He’d learned to cope with that, but in the end it was probably what drove him to befriend her—that maybe he could show her that someone understood, at least a little.
Body of Lies Page 6
