Speaking in Tongues

by Jeffery Deaver

  "She's sure it was her son who talked to her?"

  "She said."

  "But she was drugged up. So maybe it was somebody else talking to her."

  "Maybe. But--"

  "We can talk to Hanson?"

  "Nope. Not till the arraignment on Monday. And he's probably not gonna be in any mood even then."

  "All right. Answer me one question. Can you look up what kind of car he drives?"

  "Who? Hanson? Yeah, hold on."

  Tate heard typing as he filled Bett in on what Konnie'd said.

  "Oh, my," she said, hand rising to her mouth.

  A moment later the detective came back on the line. "Two cars. A Mazda nine two-nine and a Ford Explorer. Both this year's models."

  "What colors?"

  "Mazda's green. The Explorer's black."

  "It was somebody else, Konnie. Somebody was following Megan."

  "Tate, she took the train to New York. She's going to see the Statue of Liberty and hang out in Greenwich Village and do whatever kids do in New York and--"

  "You know the Bust-er Book?"

  "What the hell is a buster book?" the detective grumbled.

  "Kids at Jefferson High are supposed to write down anybody who comes up and offers them drugs or candy or flashes them."

  "Oh, that shit. Right."

  "A friend of Megan's said there'd been a car following her. In the Bust-er Book, some kids reported a gray car parked near the school in the afternoon. And Megan herself reported it last week."

  "Gray car?"

  "Right."

  A sigh. "Tate, lemme ask you. Just how many kids go to that school of hers?"

  "I'm not saying it's a good lead, Konnie--"

  "And just how many parents in gray cars pick 'em up?"

  "--but it is a lead."

  "Tag number? Make, model, year?"

  Tate sighed. "Nothing."

  "Look, Counselor, get me at least one of the above and we'll talk . . . So, what're you thinking, somebody snatched her? The Amtrak schedule is bogus?"

  "I don't know. It's just fishy."

  "It's not a case, Tate. That's the watchword for today. Look, I gotta go."

  "One last question, Konnie. Does she have cancer? Hanson's mother?"

  The detective hesitated. "No. At least it's not what they're treating her for."

  "So somebody talked her into believing she's dying. Talked her into trying to kill herself."

  "Yeah. And that somebody was her son. He could have a hundred motives. Gotta go, Counselor."

  Click.

  He relayed to Bett the rest of his conversation with Konnie.

  "Megan was seeing a therapist who tried to kill his mother? God."

  "I don't know, Bett," he said. "You saw his face. Did he look guilty?"

  "He looked caught," she said.

  Tate glanced at his watch. It was two-thirty. "Let's get back to Fairfax and find that teacher. Eckhard."

  *

  Crazy Megan finally gets a chance to talk.

  Listen up, girl. Listen here, kiddo. Biz-nitch, you listening? Good. You need me. This is serious . . . You're not sneaking cigarettes in the Fair Oaks mall parking lot. You're not flirting with a George Mason junior to get him to buy you a pint of Comfort or Turkey. You're not sitting in Amy's room, snarfing wine, hating it and saying it's great, while you're like, "Sure, I come every time Josh and I fuck . . ."

  Leave me alone, Megan thought.

  But C.M. won't have any of her attitude. She snaps, You hate the world. Okay. What you want--

  A family is what I want, Megan responded. That's all I wanted.

  Oh. Well, that's precious, her crazy side offers, nice and sarcastic. Who the fuck doesn't? You want Mommy and Daddy to wave their magic wand and get you out of here? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well, ain't going to happen, girl. So get off your fat ass and get out.

  I can't move, Megan thought. I'm scared, I'm tired.

  Up, girl. Up. Look, he--

  And who is he?

  Crazy Megan is in good form today. What difference does it make? He's the bogeyman, he's Jason, he's Leatherface, he's Freddy Krueger, he's your father--

  All right, stop it. You're like so . . . tedious.

  But C.M.'s wound up now. He's everything bad, he's your mother giving Brad a blow job, he's the barn at your father's farm, he's an inconvenient child, he's a whispering bear--

  "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" Megan screamed out loud.

  But nothing stops Crazy Megan when she gets going. It doesn't matter who he is. Don't you get it? He thinks you're locked up tight in your little padded cell. But you're not. You're out. And you may not have much time. So get your shit together and get the hell out of here.

  I don't have any clothes, Megan pointed out.

  That's the girl I love. Oooo. The sarcasm is thick as Noxema. Sit back and find excuses. Let's see: You're pissed 'cause Mom's off to Baltimore to fuck Mr. Rogers and do you say anything about it? No. It rags you that Dad fits you in around his dates with girls who've got inflatable boobs but do you bitch about it? Do you call him on it? No. You go off and get drunk. You have another cigarette. What other distractions can we come up with? Nail polish, CDs, Victoria's Secret Taco Bell the mall the multiplex a boy's fat dick gossip . . .

  I hate you, Megan thought. I really, really hate you. Go away, go back where you came from.

  I am where I came from, Crazy Megan responds. You may have some time to fuck around like this, whining, and you may not. Now, you're buck naked and you don't like it. Well, if that's an issue, go find some clothes. And, no, there's no Contempo Casual around here. Of course, I personally would say, Fuck the clothes, find a door and run like hell. But that's up to you.

  Megan rolled to her feet.

  She stepped into the corridor.

  Cold, painful. Her feet stung from kicking the wall. She started walking. Looking around, she saw it was a rambling place, one story, and built of concrete blocks. All the windows had thick bars on them. With the padded cell, she figured it was a mental hospital but she couldn't imagine treating patients here. It was totally depressing. No one could have gotten better here.

  She found a door leading outside and pushed it. It was locked tight. The same with two others. She looked outside for a car, didn't see one in the lot. At least she was alone. Dr. Peters must have left.

  Keep going, Crazy Megan insists.

  But--

  Keep. Going.

  She did.

  The place was huge, wing after wing, dozens of corridors, gloomy wards, private rooms, two-bed rooms. But all the doors leading outside were sealed tight and all the windows were barred. Every damn one of them. Two large interior doorways had been bricked off sloppily with cinder blocks and Sakrete--maybe because they led to less restricted wings. Dozens of the large concrete blocks that hadn't been needed lay scattered on the floor. She picked up one and slammed it into a barred window. It didn't even bend the metal rods.

  For several hours she made a circuit of the hospital, moving quietly. She was careful; in the dim light she could make out footprints, hundreds of them. She couldn't tell if they'd been left by Dr. Peters alone or by him and someone else but she was all too aware that she might not be alone.

  By the time she'd made it back to her cell she hadn't found a single door or window that looked promising. Shit. No way out.

  Okay, Crazy Megan offers, chipper as ever. At least find something you can use to nail his ass with.

  What do you mean?

  A weapon, bitch. What do you think?

  Megan remembered seeing a kitchen and returned there.

  She started going through drawers and cupboards. But there wasn't anything she could use. There were no metal knives or forks, not even dinner knives, only hundreds of packages of plastic utensils. No glasses or ceramic cups. Everything was paper or Styrofoam.

  She pulled open a door. It was a pantry full of food. She started to close the door but stopped, looked inside again.

 
There was enough food for a family to live on for a year. Cheerios, condensed milk, Diet Pepsi, Doritos, Lay's potato chips, tuna, Hostess cupcakes, Cup-A-Soup, Chef Boyardee . . .

  What's funny here?

  Jesus. Crazy Megan catches on first.

  Megan's hand rose to her mouth as she too understood and she started to cry.

  Jesus, Crazy Megan repeats.

  These were exactly the same brands that Megan liked. This was what her mother's cupboards were stocked with. Here too were her shampoo, conditioner and soap.

  Even the type of tampon that Megan used.

  He'd been in her house, he knew what she liked.

  He'd bought this all for her!

  Don't lose it, babes, don't . . .

  But Megan ignored her crazy side and gave in to the crying.

  Thinking: If a family of four could live on this for a year, just think how long it would last her by herself.

  *

  Twenty minutes later Megan rose from the floor, wiped her face and continued her search. It didn't take her long to find the source of the footprints.

  In a far wing of the hospital were two rooms that had been "homified," as Bett would say when she'd dress up a cold-looking house to make it warmer and more comfortable. One room was an office, filled with thousands of books and files and papers. An armchair and lamp and desk. The other room was a bedroom. It smelled stale, turned her stomach. She looked inside. The bed was unmade and the sheets were stained. Off-white splotches.

  Guys're so disgusting, Crazy Megan offers.

  Megan agreed; who could argue with that?

  This meant that someone else probably lived here--someone young (she supposed older guys jerked off too but tried to imagine, say, her father doing it and couldn't).

  Way gross thought. From C.M.

  Then she saw the closet.

  Oh, please! She mentally crossed her fingers as she pulled the door open.

  Yes! It was filled with clothes. She pulled on some jeans, which were tight around her hips and too long. She rolled the cuffs up. She found a work shirt--which was tight, too, but that didn't matter. She felt a hundred percent better. There were no shoes but she found a pair of thick black socks. For some reason, covering her feet gave her more confidence than covering the rest of her body.

  She looked through the closet for a knife or gun but found nothing. She returned to the other room. Rummaged through the desk. Nothing to use as a weapon, except a Bic pen. She took it anyway. Then she looked through the rest of the room, focusing at first on the bookshelves.

  Some books were about psychiatry but most were fantasy novels and science fiction. Some were pretty weird. Stacks of comic books too--Japanese, a lot of them. Megan flipped through several. Totally icky--girls being raped by monsters and gargoyles and aliens. X-rated. She shivered in disgust.

  The name inside the books and on the front of the comic books was Pete Matthews. Sometimes he'd written Peter M. It was written very carefully but in big block letters. As if he was a young kid.

  Megan looked through the files, most of them filled with psychological mumbo jumbo she couldn't understand. There were also stacks of the American Psychiatric Association Journal. Articles were marked with yellow Post-its. She noticed they'd been written by a doctor named Aaron Matthews. The boy's father? she wondered. His bio gave long lists of credentials. Dozens of awards and honorary degrees. One newspaper clipping called him "the Einstein of therapists" and reported, "He can detect and categorize a psychosis from listening to a patient's words for three or four minutes. A master diagnostician."

  In between two file folders was another clipping. Megan lifted it to the light. It showed Dr. Peters and a young man in his late teens. But wait . . . The doctor's last name wasn't Peters. The caption read: "Dr. Aaron Matthews leaves the funeral home after the memorial service for his wife. He is accompanied by his son, Peter." Matthews . . . the one who wrote those articles. So he must have been a doctor here. That's how he knew about the hospital--and that it would make a perfect prison.

  Megan studied the picture again, feeling crawly and scared. The doctor's son was . . . well, just plain weird. He was a tall boy, lanky, with long arms and huge hands. He had thick floppy hair that looked dirty and his forehead jutted over his dark eye sockets. He had a sick smile on his face.

  Leaving his mother's funeral and he's smiling?

  So this was his room--the son's. Maybe Peters--well, Matthews--kept the boy locked up here, a prisoner too.

  Her eyes fell to an official-looking report. She read the top page.

  EMERGENCY INTAKE EVALUATION

  Patient Peter T. Matthews presents with symptoms typical of an antisocial and paranoid personality. He is not schizophrenic, under DSM-III criteria, but he has, or claims to have, delusions. More likely these are merely fantasies, which in his case are so overpowering that he chooses not to recognize the borderline between his role-playing and reality. These fantasies are generally of a sadoerotic nature, with him playing a nonhuman entity--stalking and raping females. During our sessions Peter would sometimes portray these entities--right down to odd mannerisms and garbled language. He was often "in character," and quite consistent in his role-playing. However, there was no evidence of fugue states or multiple personalities. He changed personas at his convenience, to achieve the greatest stimulation from his fantasies.

  Peter is extremely dangerous. He must be hospitalized in a secure facility until the determination is made for a course of treatment. Recommend immediate psychopharmacological intervention.

  Stalking . . . rape.

  Megan put the report back on the desk. She found a notebook. Peter's name was written on this too. She read through it. In elaborate passages Peter described himself as a spaceman or an alien stalking women, tying them up, raping them. She dropped the book.

  Tears again.

  Then another thought: Her cell! This Dr. Matthews, her kidnapper, had locked her up not only to keep her from getting out but to keep his son from getting in. He was--

  A creak, a faint squeal. A door closed softly in a far part of the hospital.

  Megan shivered in terror.

  Move it, girl! Crazy Megan cries, in a silent voice as panicked as uncrazy Megan's. It's him, it's the son.

  She grabbed a pile of things to take with her--several of the magazines, file folders about the hospital, letters. Anything that might help her figure out who this Dr. Matthews was. Why he'd taken her. How she might get out.

  Footsteps . . .

  He's coming. He's coming here . . . Move it. Now!

  Holding the files and clippings under her arm, Megan fled out the door. She ran down the corridors, getting lost once, pausing often to listen for footsteps. He seemed to be circling her.

  Finally she found her way and raced into the room that adjoined hers, the "rat room." She rubbed the grate along the edges of the hole in the wall to widen it. She started through and, whimpering, clawed her way forward. Five inches, six, a foot, two feet. Finally she grabbed the toilet in her room and wrenched herself through the hole. She replaced the grate on the far side of the wall and then slammed the metal plate into place in her bathroom.

  She ran to the door and pressed her ear against it. The footsteps grew closer and closer. But Peter didn't stop at her door. He kept moving. Maybe he didn't know she was here.

  Megan sat on the icy floor with her hands pressing furiously against the plate until they cramped.

  Listen, C.M. starts to say. Maybe you can--

  Shut up, Megan thought furiously.

  And for once Crazy Megan does what she's told.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The eyes.

  The eyes tell it all.

  When Aaron Matthews was practicing psychotherapy he learned to read the eyes. They told him so much more than words. Words are tools and weapons and camouflage and shields.

  But the eyes tell you the truth.

  An hour ago, in Leesburg, he'd looked into the glassy, grog
gy eyes of a drugged Greta Hanson and knew she was a woman with no reserves of strength. And so he'd leaned close, become her son and spun a tale guaranteed to send her to the very angels that she was babbling on and on about. It's quite a challenge to talk someone into killing herself and he'd thoroughly enjoyed playing the game.

  He doubted she'd die from the dosage of Nembutal he'd given her and he doubted that she could find a vein anyway. Besides, it was important for her to remain alive--to blame her son for the Kevorkian number. Poor Doc Hanson now either in jail or on the run. In any case, he'd be no help as a witness to Tate Collier.

  Now, as he strolled along the sidewalk near Jefferson High School, Aaron Matthews was looking at another set of eyes.

  Robert Eckhard's--the teacher who'd seen his car as he stalked Megan.

  Studying the man's eyes, Matthews was concluding that Eckhard might or might not have been a good English teacher but he didn't doubt that he was one hell of a girls' volleyball coach. The diminutive, tweedy man sat with a sports roster on his lap outside the sports field between the grade and high schools.

  Wearing a baseball cap and thick-framed reading glasses he'd bought at Safeway--he remembered that Eckhard might have seen him near the school in the Mercedes--Matthews walked slowly past. He studied his subject carefully. The teacher was a middle-aged man, in Dockers and a loose tan shirt. Matthews took in all these observations and filed them away but it was the eyes that were most helpful; they told him everything he needed to know about Mr. Eckhard.

  Continuing down the sidewalk, Matthews walked into a drugstore and made several purchases. He slipped into the rest room of the store and five minutes later returned to the school yard. He sat down on the bench next to Eckhard's and rested the Washington Post in his lap. He gazed out at the young girls playing informal games of soccer or jump rope in the school yard.

  Once, then twice, Eckhard glanced at him. The second time, Matthews happened to turn his way and saw the teacher looking at him with a hint of curiosity in his tell-all eyes.

  Matthews's face went still with uneasy alarm. He waited a judicious moment then stood quickly and walked past Eckhard. But as he did, the disposable camera fell from the folds of his newspaper. Matthews blinked then stepped forward suddenly to pick it up but his foot struck the yellow-and-black box. It went skidding along the sidewalk and stopped in front of Eckhard.

  Matthews froze. The teacher, his eyes on Matthews's, smiled again. He reached down and picked up the camera, looked at it. Turned it over.