Not this time.
I said. "You want me to be honest?"
She laughed and the ironic timbre of her chuckle chilled us both.
"No,” she said, slapping me semi-seriously on my hip. "I want you to be reassuring. What do I want? I want to hear that I'm your one and only. I want to know that you haven't decided you made a mistake by marrying a woman with multiple sclerosis, that's what I want to hear. But.., if this woman, this Sawyer, could still get you going, even after all these years, I should probably know that before we start looking for her."
"You are my one and only, and, no. I don't want to see her. Lauren. I’ve never been tempted to find her."
"You're not curious?"
"Let's just say that a long time ago. I came to the conclusion that she's not good for me."
She didn't miss a beat before she said. "Or for us, right?"
Which, of course, was where the money was.
"You're good for me. Lauren. I love you. Deeply. I'd marry you again tomorrow."
"You're sweet, and you always know the right things to say;" she said, but she didn't sound reassured, she grew quiet for a moment, and her breathing changed. When she spoke again, her tone had taken on a rougher burr. "You know, it's a nightmare that this guy is out there, somewhere, threatening your life. It's a double nightmare that indirectly he's also threatening ours, our life together. I'm not sure we have any true choices in this, we either wait for him to try to kill you and hope he fails for the first time in his illustrious career as a serial killer. Or you have to go see your old lover Sawyer in order to try to save your life."
She paused and added. "Even if it kills us."
At breakfast she said she had decided that she wanted to build the garage we'd been so ambivalent about adding to the remodeling project, she was tired of climbing into a hot car in the summer and didn't want to face another winter of frosted windshields, she asked me if I'd think about it.
I had to admit her timing was pretty good. If she had asked me to add an Olympic swimming pool and an indoor tennis court to the remodeling project. I probably would have assented.
Right after I rinsed our breakfast dishes. I phoned the architect and ordered working drawings of the garage.
We signed an AIA agreement with our eager contractor over the lunch hour, he had informed us that he was primed to get going, and apparently he wasn't kidding, the ink on the contract wasn't yet dry when he said he wanted to begin demolition on Thursday morning.
We said we'd be out of the house by Friday afternoon. Disappointed, he asked if he could demo over the weekend.
Lauren looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. I raised my eyebrows in a "why not" gesture.
The contractor's name was Dresden Lamb, we'd heard from friends who used him that he always scheduled scuba diving holidays at the end of his big construction projects. It gave him a selfish reason to meet deadlines, a fact I appreciated.
I said. "After we're out. Dresden, you can tear it apart whenever you're ready."
He said. "Good. First. I have to get the new windows ordered, that's always a problem, getting the windows delivered on time, then I'll get the demo boys in here. This project's gonna cook. You watch, we'll have your home torn apart in no time at all."
The metaphor wasn't lost on either of us. But neither of us mentioned that he might have plenty of help with that endeavor.
I finally reached Sam Purdy later that afternoon, he was still wrapped up in the investigation of the unexplained death on North Broadway, but he didn't think it was going anywhere important.
He said. "Sorry I had to rush away last night. Everyone's noses told them this might be a homicide."
"It isn't?"
"No. Looks more like the guy who lived in the house had a heart attack and fell down some stairs. Broke his neck, he probably just died and then stewed for a few days until he smelled bad enough to bother the neighbors.
Happens sometimes."
I needed to get him talking about Custer and Simes. "Sam, what's your impression about last night? How nervous should I be?"
"About all those dead doctors you worked with? Very nervous. I think this is serious stuff, they've been thoughtful, those two ex-agents. This isn't some bullshit story they're cooking up."
It was exactly what I expected to hear from him. But by nature I'm such an optimistic guy that I was holding out hope that I'd be surprised.
In my best sardonic voice, I said. "Great, that's not what I wanted you to say, you know. I don't have a clue what to do next."
Sam laughed and said. "You know what her name is? Simes. I mean? Do you know what A. J, stands for?"
What?
"No, Sam. What does A. J, stand for?"
"Ambrosia June, her name is Ambrosia June Simes. How's that for a moniker? I'd call myself A.J., too, if my parents planted that one on me."
I didn't want to talk about Simes's unfortunate name. "Sam, what am I going to do?"
He sighed. "I don't know, alan. I'm thinking on it, and I'll talk to some people I know, the whole thing is too goofy for words, with the way this guy works, I mean,
I’ve been thinking that staying out of his way is like trying to protect yourself from mosquitoes in Minnesota in July. No matter how many precautions you take, one of them always seems to get your blood."
Huh? "This guy's a little more dangerous than a mosquito. Sam."
"True, but what do you do? Get a bodyguard? Start living on the run like a Colombian drug lord? Change your identity? How do you defend yourself against someone who is so clever at finding ways to kill people?"
"Sam, you're my expert here. You're the one who's supposed to be supplying the answers, not the questions."
"Sorry. Listen. I'm working on it, okay? For now. I'm going to ask the sheriff to spend a little more time patrolling Spanish Hills. You guys have an alarm system, don't you?"
I thought, as though that's going to be much of a deterrent.
"We're moving into town this week. Sam. To Lauren's old house on the Hill— you were there a long time ago; I don't know if you remember, weVe been planning to do some remodeling for a while and we decided to go ahead and get it done. Lauren says she'll feel safer in town. But yes, her house has an alarm."
"Is it monitored?"
"Yes."
"Remind me, what's the address?"
I told him.
"When are you moving?"
"This week. Should be in there by Friday."
"Well, don't be surprised if you see a lot of patrol cars in your neighborhood. By the way., does Lauren still carry?"
' "What?"
"That little Glock? Have you forgotten about the Glock?"
How could I forget about the damn Glock? "As far as I know, she still has it, Sam. But I don't think she actually carries it with her any longer. I haven't asked."
"Well, ask, and if she doesn't have it with her, ask her to think about it. You know how to use it?"
"No."
"It's time you learned. I'll set it up, and I'll talk to the sheriff about a carry permit for you, too."
"I don't want to carry a gun. Sam."
He snorted, not even attempting to hide his derision. "Get over it. This isn't about liberal angst, alan. This is about self-protection. Got it? What I'm telling you is that you need to learn how to use a handgun. I'm not trying to recruit you to become a lobbyist for the NRA."
"Yeah; well. I'll think about it, that's a big step for me to take. Sam. You know how I feel about guns. Listen.
while you're pondering all this, would you focus on something specific for me, please?"
"Sure. Like what?"
"Give some thought to how you would do it. If you were this guy, this killer, how would you kill me so that it looked like an accident?"
"I don't need to think about it too much. I know what I'd do."
"Go ahead."
"You're not going to like this, but after studying your lifestyle for a good, say, forty-eight hours. I'd
decide to kill you on your bicycle. Run you off the road on one of those streets that go nowhere east of Boulder. Sabotage your equipment so your bike does something it's not supposed to do while you're coming down one of the canyons. I'd do something like that."
"That's what I thought you'd say."
"Don't you agree?"
"Yeah, That's what I'd do, too, You think I should stop riding?"
"For you, that's like you telling me not to follow hockey any more. I'm not sure you can do it. Could you?"
"If it means staying alive. I suppose I could."
"That gives us two things that you can do. Learning how to use a weapon. Giving up your favorite sport."
"If I stop riding, he'll just find another way, though.
won't he?"
"Yeah, He will, and Alan?"
"Yes."
"You have any clues who this might be? Those two. Simes and Custer, are right, you know. It's probably a patient from that unit you all worked on. When you think back on those days, any of your patients seem capable of this? Do any of them seem homicidal?"
"I’ve been trying to remember them all. I’ve thought of a few patients who were angry enough to do it, plenty who might be crazy enough to do it, but no one who was actually resourceful enough to do it. This guy is so resourceful, we have to remember that, he's a meticulous planner, that really limits the diagnostic categories for someone in an inpatient psychiatric unit."
"Go on."
"The vengeance, too. To hold on to this sense of injustice— fury— for so long requires an immense reservoir of vengeance."
"So he's bright, resourceful, and vengeful. Work with that. Expand your list of adjectives. Every adjective you're able to add shortens your list of potential suspects."
"You're right. I hadn't thought about that."
"He's in your memory somewhere. You know that, don't you? You're going to have to dig him up, he left a scrap there, somewhere. It's like physical evidence. You know Locard's principle, don't you?"
"No."
"When a criminal comes in contact with a surface, he always leaves a trace of evidence behind and he always takes a little something with him. This is the same, he left something there for you to find. But it's psychological trace evidence. You're going to have to find it."
"I know I will. Sam. Trouble is that it was a long time ago. Memory fades."
"His hasn't, the murderer's, that's what sucks." • • •
Simes and Custer had checked out of their motel in Boulder. I left a message at their voice-mail number, asking them to call. I didn't tell them that what I wanted was information on how to get in touch with Sawyer.
I didn't want to give them the satisfaction.
I knew that these two were actually trying to save my life, but for now they felt like adversaries. I was desperate to know who from my past might be targeting me. Whether they liked it or not, my partner on the search was going to be Sawyer, not them.
I arrived home from work on Wednesday afternoon to find two new additions to the gravel lane in front of the house, the first was a blue rollaway trash bin that looked larger than our house.
The second was an outhouse crafted of molded plastic.
It was really going to happen. Dresden and his demo boys were going to tear our home apart.
I played with Emily for a while and then busied myself packing. Lauren and I had decided to box the place up ourselves and pay someone to move the things we couldn't use into storage.
While I was tackling the clutter of the hall closet, the phone rang. I checked my watch, hoping it would be Lauren. It was five forty-five; she was due home soon.
"Dr. Gregory? Milt Custer here, returning your call. I'm kind of hoping you're about to tell me you've had a change of heart, we sure could use your assistance with this."
"Actually; no. Milt, no change of heart. But I have decided that it makes sense— that it's prudent— that I do want to compare notes with Sawyer about some things. Could you please tell me how I can reach her?"
"What do you hope to accomplish?"
"I'd like to talk about this with somebody who was there. Someone who's in the same shoes I'm in, that list has grown uncomfortably short. Right now, it begins and ends with Sawyer Sackett."
"Her name's Faire. Sackett was her married name, she's using her maiden name once again, we just did a brief interview with her."
Married? Sawyer was married when she was at the medical school?
No, Custer's information must be incorrect.
I wondered what else he was wrong about. Hoped it was everything.
"I need to consult with A. J, before we send you off to see your old friend. Make sure she's okay with it. For right now, that's her piece of all this."
"Sawyer's her piece? And what. I'm yours?"
"Hardly, a. J, is coordinating all the psychological aspects of the case, the profiles, the professionals, the scenarios. I'm taking care of the investigatory aspects, the nuts and bolts of the crimes themselves. So discretion says I should ask her about you and Dr. Faire having a rendezvous. My guess is you'll hear back from her shortly. Me. I'm on my way to New Zealand in a couple of hours."
Oh God. "Loma?"
"Yes. Ms. Pope, a couple of bodies have been found, the local authorities have been kind enough to offer to let me observe their work."
"Is there evidence that they were, you know, um—"
"Murdered? Can't say at this point. Nothing obvious like bullet holes, but we're apparently talking some serious decomposition, the autopsies are scheduled for tomorrow in Auckland. I think I'll be there in time, but I'va never really understood this international date line thing. I don't know whether the plane I'm on will be arriving in New Zealand yesterday or tomorrow, and I can't believe I'm going to be sitting in one of those crappy little airplane seats for the next fourteen hours."
THIRTEEN
"She lives in Santa Barbara. You know. California? But she's not there now, at least I don't think she is."
Simes had phoned me no more than fifteen minutes after I hung up with Custer.
"You really don't know where she is?" I asked, more than a bit disbelieving. I suspected that if they really wanted to. Simes and Custer could find J. D. Salinger before breakfast, amelia Earhart before afternoon tea.
"No, she told us she's on the road a lot for her work, but she wasn't especially eager to hand us an itinerary after we laid out our concerns."
"What's her work?"
"She's a consultant for some organization that provides psychiatric evals for prisoners in the California penal system, a legal aid type thing."
I could tell that Simes was not enamored of Sawyer's choice of vocation. I said. "Really?"
She didn't respond. Perhaps she couldn't believe I would question her truthfulness.
"Do you have her number in Santa Barbara? I guess I'll just leave her a message and wait to hear back from her."
I could almost feel Simes's reluctance to part with the information, she hugged it as closely as a mother does her baby before handing it over to a stranger. "I'm concerned that you and Dr. Faire may try to lock me out of this, Dr. Gregory. You wouldn't be planning on doing that, would you?"
"If I said no, would you believe me?"
"No, I wouldn't."
"Good. I'm glad we understand each other. So, are you going to give me the number or not? You know I'll get it from someone else if you don't."
"You may get her number but.., you can't get there from here without us, without Milt and me. It's crucial that you recognize that now, early. Before you make mistakes. This man is targeting one of you this very minute, he's examining your lives, assessing your vulnerabilities, planning his.., activities."
"I'm not going to do anything with you and Milt, or without you and Milt, before I speak with Sawyer. It's that simple, we're wasting time."
Simes gave me the number and added, "I'm expecting to hear from you quite soon, as soon as you speak with her, as a matter of fact. You
and I need to be on the same page about this offender. Why? Because I'm beginning to know him already. What he's doing. Why he's doing it. How he's doing it. Even what he's likely to do next. It's crucial that you do whatever is necessary to get yourself to a place where you can take the profile I'm developing and attach a name to it for me."
My reluctance to personalize this murderer was overwhelming. I didn't want to know him. I didn't want to let him be real.
I said. "Please, a.J., let's not go there right now. I need to speak with Sawyer first."
She ignored my plea. "Remember Andrew Cunanan? The man who killed Gianni Versace, among others?"
"Yes."
"He's your model. Dr. Gregory. If you want to identify this offender, start with Cunanan's profile, anger. Vengeance. Power. Power. Don't forget power, then anonymize him— take him off the cover of Newsweek. Increase his IQ by fifty points, maybe more. Decrease his impulsivity by a factor of a hundred. Exaggerate his feelings of being a victim tenfold, and then, then give him the luxury of time, all the time in the world. Do that and you'll have our guy, he's Andrew Cunanan and he's Theodore Kaczynski, all rolled into one lethal package."
Her tone grew excited as she fleshed out this demon that was targeting Sawyer and me.
Right then. I realized something important about Simes. Talking with reluctant civilians— like me— wasn't her bread and butter, anthropomorphizing monsters was, her specialty, her love, involved doing psychological evaluations on people whom she'd never met.
"Cunanan killed himself when he was cornered."
Without the slightest hesitation, a. J. Simes said. "This guy won't, that's the difference."
"Why not?"
"Cunanan was on a spree. Compared to this man. Cunanan was an amateur on a lark. This guy is a professional, he's dedicated. This is his life's work. Remember the Unabomber, too, he didn't give up, he didn't stop."
Something else Simes said resonated long after we hung up.
Anonymize him. Comparing this man to Gianni Versace's murderer, andrew Cunanan, she'd said I had to anonymize him.
This murderer— if he was a murderer— was not currently a fugitive from the law, he wasn't on any Most Wanted list, as a matter of fact, until Arnie Dresser's mother grew suspicious and called for assistance from Simes and Custer, no one in law enforcement had been looking for him at all. No one had even suspected him of a crime— let alone a string of murders, with tha exception of the relatively sloppy murder of Amy Masters in the home tanning bed, no police agency had even bothered to look for suspects in any of the deaths.
Manner of Death Page 11
