Night Terrors

by Dennis Palumbo

  Barnes finally found his voice, though it was so frayed by sleeplessness and disbelief that it was barely recognizeable. Without its usual bravado and blunt disdain, it sounded as faded as the man himself looked.

  “You say you found it at my place?”

  “One of our agents did,” Alcott said. “After we got the go-ahead to arrest you, we secured a search warrant for your home and surrounding premises. It didn’t take long for our people to find the gun. It was in a toolbox on a shelf in the attached garage. Wrapped in some rags.”

  I regarded him. “Pretty convenient, if you ask me.”

  “Nobody did.” Eyes now back on his suspect. “We also brought your home laptop in, had our tech guys go to work.”

  By now, through his haze of fatigue, physical pain, and incredulity, Barnes had recovered some of his grit.

  “Let me guess. You found the names and contact info of the victims. In a file marked ‘My Personal Hitlist.’”

  “Actually, your computer was a dead end. Though I was surprised to hear you’d visited over a dozen websites about Tuscany. Is that where you planned to spend your declining years after your killing spree was finished?”

  “Been there already. Great food, friendly people. But too hot for my delicate constitution.”

  I spoke up. “You find anything else, Neal?”

  “There wasn’t much to find. No Facebook page, Twitter account. Any social media at all. No porn site history. Just a bunch of sites devoted to serial killers, psychopathology. True crime cases. Cold cases.”

  “In other words, pretty much what you’d expect of a retired FBI profiler.”

  “Well, there were a couple of surprises. Regular visits to online poetry magazines, for example.”

  Barnes grunted. “I’m a man of many facets, Neal.”

  “We also found some instructional videos on fly fishing.”

  “I was thinking of taking it up. In my ‘declining years.’” Barnes rubbed his lidded eyes. “So what do you deduce from all this poking around in my private life?”

  “Well…other than being a mass murderer, Lyle, you’re kind of a boring guy.”

  I leaned back and folded my arms. “So all you really have is the gun?”

  “Found in his house. Then there’s his special access, through Bob Henderson, to all task force intel. The whereabouts and movements of the potential victims on his hitlist. Plus his mysterious disappearance, damned unusual for a loyal bureau agent in the midst of an investigation.”

  “You left out one important thing: motive. Why the hell would Lyle want to kill these people?”

  Alcott shrugged. “You’re the headshrinker, you tell me. Maybe after the Jessup case, his last case, he went off his nut.” A studied look at Barnes. “I don’t know how much he told you about his retirement, Doc. But let’s just say, he didn’t go quietly. Maybe the stress of losing his job, the only real thing he had in his pathetic life, sent him over the edge.”

  “I see. Was this before or after he started sending fan mail to John Jessup in prison?”

  “Obviously, we haven’t connected all the dots. The letter writer could be somebody else. Maybe that accomplice I mentioned. But remember, those letters were written on an ancient electric typewriter. Just the kind of thing an old fart like Barnes would use.”

  I stroked my beard.

  “You know, I have a feeling there’s another reason you’ve kept Lyle’s arrest a secret from the cops. And it isn’t because of his relationship with the director.”

  “Yeah, why’s that?”

  Barnes hit the table with his fist. “Because all your evidence is bullshit! Even the doc here can see that, and he’s just a civilian with a hero complex.”

  I winced. Almost the same thing Harry Polk had said.

  But Barnes kept his eyes trained on Alcott. “Other than the gun, which was obviously planted, everything else you have is circumstantial. Hell, not even that. It’s speculation. You arrested me to get me off the goddam street. You figure I’ll never sit still for being stuck in some safehouse. But on the other hand, if I get myself killed, the bureau looks like shit. The press would eat you alive. The FBI unable even to protect one of its own.”

  He slumped back in his chair, winded. As if he’d gone fifteen rounds in the ring. Totally spent, physically and emotionally. Running pretty much on attitude alone.

  I know what that’s like. I’ve been there myself.

  “Lyle’s right,” I said to Alcott. “I happen to know District Attorney Sinclair, and he’s no fool. You come to him with evidence this lame and he’ll laugh you out of his office. Besides, no guy with his political ambitions is gonna charge a decorated FBI agent with murder, only to later have to drop the charges.”

  Alcott took a long time before answering. Hands still clasped before him, he tapped his chin with his knuckles.

  “I’m not authorized to say more than this: We have the murder weapon, Agent Barnes, found at your house. With everything else we have, circumstantial or not, that’s enough to hold you. At least for further questioning. Let’s call it protective custody.”

  I turned to Barnes.

  “Now will you get a lawyer?”

  Alcott groaned. “Christ, Rinaldi…”

  Barnes looked from Alcott to me, then back again. His features grown pale, bloodless.

  “Enough…” Voice strained, ragged in defeat. “You two can argue about it without me. I mean, I don’t give a shit anymore. I gotta find a bed before I pass out. Fuck my night terrors. Let ’em come. I just gotta…I gotta sleep.”

  His head literally started to loll. I gripped his shoulders, at the same time staring across the table.

  “Alcott—!”

  “Don’t worry, I figured he’d be on his last legs. We have rooms—”

  “You mean, cells—”

  “Rooms. Sometimes agents pull all nighters and need to crash for a few hours.”

  He turned in his seat and gestured to Agent Zarnicki.

  “Take Agent Barnes here and find him a room on Six. With a bed. Lock it and post a guard.”

  Zarnicki nodded and came over to help me get Barnes to his feet. Supporting most of the older agent’s weight, he guided his charge toward the door.

  Barnes’ eyes had almost completely closed, and his arms hung lifelessly at his sides. His gait was a slow shuffle, made more so by the heavy orthopedic boot. I suspected he was already half asleep.

  As he was being led out of the room by Zarnicki, Alcott stood and called after the younger agent.

  “And whatever room you put him in, make sure it doesn’t have a goddam window!”

  Chapter Forty-two

  Alcott kept me a little longer, but couldn’t get me to admit I’d known all along that Barnes had been hiding at my place. Because I hadn’t. Sure is easier to stick to your story when it’s true.

  Finally, he gave up and arranged to have me driven home. But not before letting me know how disappointed he was with me.

  “You’re backing the wrong horse, Doc. Whether Barnes is our guy or not, he hasn’t behaved according to normal bureau standards. Way I see it, it’s conduct unbecoming.”

  “I can’t help it, Neal. I like the guy. I mean, as much as he’ll let me.”

  He shook his head sadly, as though reluctantly breaking up with his new best friend, but managed to hold out his hand. I took it.

  “No matter what, Rinaldi, you’re out of this. For good. Agent Barnes is no longer your concern.”

  “He still suffers from the same symptoms.”

  “Maybe. But I’m sure the director can find another therapist to treat him. The thing is, I just don’t trust you anymore. Besides, given the events of the past week, I’d say your clinical effectiveness is compromised.”

  “Funny. I’d say the exact opposite.”

  An in
sincere smile. “Then I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. You take care now, okay?”

  ***

  As soon as I got home, I pulled wide the curtains in the front room, bathing it in winter sunlight. Though it was already late afternoon, which meant it wouldn’t be shining like that much longer.

  Kicking off my shoes, I went into the kitchen and grabbed a Rolling Rock out of the fridge. Standing at the glass door, I took a long pull of the stuff, looking out on the rear deck.

  Had I really, just hours before, vaulted over the wooden railing and rolled down the hill? In pursuit of a renegade FBI agent whose colleagues had come here to arrest him for murder?

  Wincing from the memory as much as from physical pain, I carefully settled into my chair at the kitchen table. Held the cold glass of the bottle against my forehead.

  Were my friends and colleagues right about me? After all, my ostensible job was to sit in my venerable office in my venerable building on Forbes Avenue, treating traumatized patients. Trying to alleviate their pain. Helping them make sense of seemingly senseless events—events marked by violence, loss, a sudden and inexplicable rent in the fabric of their lives.

  In other words, as a clinician, my territory was the interior world of my patients. The subjective terrain through which I was hopefully a guide and support.

  So what was I doing in this outer world, this world of criminals, gunplay, and murder? Was I, as Barnes said, just a civilian with a hero complex?

  I considered this. The classic therapist trap is to see oneself as a rescuer, a savior. As the sympathetic and understanding hero in the shattered narrative of the patient’s lived experience.

  Had I, in recent years, taken this concept one step further? I mean, why the hell had I chased the shooter into that warehouse after he’d killed Vincent Beck? What made me follow Claire Cobb down that godforsaken alley after she’d jumped from the car?

  And yet, as I’d told Eleanor, I couldn’t imagine having done anything else. Even now, sitting alone in my kitchen—and after everything that had happened—I still couldn’t.

  I finished my beer, then got up and tossed it in the trash can under the sink. Which brought my thoughts back to Lyle Barnes.

  It seemed incredible, almost surrealistic, now that he was gone, to realize he’d actually lived here, under my roof. Especially since he’d been so careful to keep himself hidden that there wasn’t an observable trace of his presence. No indication he’d ever been here at all.

  Instead, he seemed like a spirit who’d briefly haunted this house, until he’d been chased out. Exorcised.

  No, I thought. He hadn’t haunted the house. He himself was haunted. By his past, the emotional toll of his work, the countless stories of torture and murder that crowded his sleep-starved head. As he was equally haunted, I felt sure, by the death of his wife and estrangement of his son.

  And, finally, by the loss of his job, the only thing left in his life that gave it meaning.

  I remembered then his telling me that to understand him, I’d have to look up a poem by Jack Gilbert. What was its title again?…“The Abandoned Valley.”

  I returned to the front room and got online, and, within moments, found the poem. Short, simple, vivid:

  Can you understand being alone so long

  you would go out in the middle of the night

  and put a bucket in the well

  so you could feel something down there

  tug at the other end of the rope?

  ***

  An hour later, stretched out on my sofa and nursing my second Rock, I clicked on the TV remote. The evening’s first newscast had already begun.

  The lead story, unsurprisingly, concerned the still unknown shooter and his deadly rampage of the past weeks. After a quick summation of the acknowledged facts of the case, including the dispiriting and by now familiar photos of the victims, the station cut to a live press conference from City Hall, just getting underway.

  I carefully levered myself up on my elbows. Standing at a podium emblazoned with the seal of the City of Pittsburgh, District Attorney Leland Sinclair addressed an array of upraised mikes with his trademark strong, clear voice. Answering the barrage of questions from reporters with just the right combination of calm self-assurance and barely-suppressed outrage.

  Sinclair appeared a bit more careworn than the last time I’d seen him, though, as always, he retained his patrician good looks and Ivy League demeanor. Tailored suit and burgandy tie setting off his focused blue eyes and trimmed, silver-gray hair.

  I smiled to myself, recalling the many verbal jousts the ambitious DA and I had fought, pretty much to a draw, over the years. Especially last summer, during his charged, abortive campaign for governor. And while pundits predicted he’d probably make another run for the office, at the moment he seemed solidly engaged in his role as the city’s no-nonsense district attorney.

  Right behind him, on either side, Chief Logan and Special Agent Alcott stood like sentinels, grim-faced and determined. Neither man offered a single word in answer to the reporters’ shouted questions, apparently content to let Sinclair speak now on behalf of the investigation.

  I also guessed that Alcott and his superiors at the Bureau were still keeping their suspicions about Lyle Barnes—including the fact that they had him in protective custody—under wraps.

  I became convinced of this as the press conference wound down. Overall, Sinclair’s responses to the reporters’ questions had done nothing more than restate the known facts of the case. Though he did announce that all the presumed potential targets on the killer’s hitlist had been sequestered in a secured, undisclosed location.

  This brought a boisterous murmur from his crowd of listeners, one of whom called out a final question.

  “Does that mean you don’t expect the killer to strike again?”

  Sinclair smiled. “As a veteran in this office, I’ve learned not to put much faith in expectations. All I will say is that we’re confident the most likely targets of this murderer’s reign of terror are safely out of his reach.”

  With that, Sinclair showed the room the palm of his hand and stepped away from the podium. As he walked briskly out of camera range, followed by Chief Logan and Agent Alcott, a few determined reporters shouted follow-up questions. Which were studiously ignored.

  Careful of my bruises, I pulled myself up to a sitting position and clicked off the TV.

  Was Sinclair right? Now that his likely victims were—at least for the present—hidden away, would the killer have no choice but to stop? Would he now just go to ground, disappear?

  And coldly, patiently…wait?

  Chapter Forty-three

  “How often are you supposed to change dressings?”

  Eleanor Lowrey gave me a pointed look as she carefully peeled a blood-darkened bandage from my ribs. I was sitting, shirtless, next to her on the sofa in her living room. She’d thrown another log on the fire right after I showed up, and put two snifters of brandy on the coffee table.

  “To take the chill off,” she’d said, though clearly she was the one who was cold. When she answered my knock on her door, twenty minutes before, she was bundled in a thick sweater and loose-fitting yoga pants. And her hair was wet.

  After the press conference had ended, I’d called Eleanor to see if she was free to grab a drink somewhere. To my surprise, she was at home when she answered her cell.

  She explained that she’d just come from checking in on Harry Polk at his apartment, and had gone home for a quick shower and to feed her dog.

  “No reason I can’t feed you, too,” she’d added, that familiar wry smile in her voice. “Why don’tcha come over?”

  Now, removing a second bandage with decidedly more force, she said, “Well? What did the doctor say about changing these?”

  “I didn’t ask. And by the way—Ouch!”


  “Ooh, tough guy…” She bent and peered at my bruises.

  “Any more of these anywhere?”

  “Lots, Detective. All over. I may require a full-body examination.”

  She raised her brandy to her lips. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  I smiled and took a sip of my own drink. Breathing deeply and easily for the first time that day.

  Outside, the night had begun gathering itself like a winter coat about the city’s steel and concrete shoulders. Though the weather forecast I heard on the drive over promised a continued break from the snow, the temperature was expected to plummet.

  I finished my drink and reached for Eleanor, drawing her close. And visibly winced, as the weave of her sweater abraided my exposed bruises.

  “You’re really banged up, aren’t you?” She gently kissed me on the cheek. “And you do need fresh bandages. I’ll get you some.”

  Before I could protest, she rolled the used dressings in a ball and rose to her feet. All business.

  “Meanwhile, you better take a shower and give those war wounds another good cleaning.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Reluctantly, I got up from the sofa and padded to the bathroom. On the way, I passed her bedroom, Luther’s threatening growl coming through the closed door. Closed and locked, I hoped.

  Once inside the bathroom, I undressed and peeled off the remaining bandages. Standing in front of the mirror, I surveyed the many black-and-blue marks tattooing my body. Especially the raised, tender-to-the-touch skin above my ribs. Either a deep bruise or hairline fracture. Terrific.

  All of which reminded me that I wasn’t a kid anymore. Nor a ranked amateur boxer. But just a forty-year-old psychologist who probably should no longer be left off his leash.

  Something about that image made me smile at myself in the mirror. Which lifted my spirits somewhat. Despite recent events, at least I hadn’t lost any teeth.

  I stepped into the shower. The hot, steaming water stung at all the places I expected it to, but I slowly soaped them up anyway. Finally, I put my head under the nozzle and, gratefully closing my eyes, let the cascading water douse me. Obliterate my thoughts.