by LS Sygnet
I sat down and patted my side of the bed. “I think I do trust him, Johnny. I think I’m tired of making the same old mistakes, of making the assumption that I know everything and missing the obvious because I can’t possibly be wrong about someone.”
“Aren’t you making assumptions about David? And it’s based on your father’s paranoia, Datello’s word too.”
“You didn’t like him when you met him either, Johnny. And you didn’t trust him in December when he summoned me back to D.C.”
“That was jealousy, and you know it. David helped us get our marriage back on track not so long ago. I’m not criticizing caution, but I don’t think throwing away a decade of friendship and trust is a good idea either. Maybe you and David could actually accomplish something if you’d both stop lying to each other and have an honest conversation.”
Panic swelled in my chest. “He’d arrest me, Johnny.”
“I doubt that would happen, not the way he’s latched onto every bit of plausible falsehood you’ve spouted to him in the past year. I think he’d understand what happened, just like I did.”
His words wormed their way through my brain during sleep, wove an elaborate nightmare I wasn’t convinced was merely dreamland during sleep. I spilled my guts to David, and he whipped out his cuffs, arrested me and read my rights. And Johnny was beside him, silent, not cloaking my sins this time.
They were all there – Devlin who no longer trusted me simply because he believed I was a good person. Datello, getting his revenge for Rick’s murder. Dad, seeing me pay the price for not being better than he raised me to be.
And the very last face I saw before I woke up in a cold sweat was Aidan Conall’s.
Seems like we lost the bad seed after all, Kathleen. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Chapter 23
I crept out of the house before sunrise. My heart thudded loudly when I opted to disengage the electric garage door opener and lift the door open instead. The hum was too loud. It would wake Johnny, alert him to my departure, open a different door, one where answers would be required.
That couldn’t happen. Not this time. There were things that needed to be done. If my nightmares proved anything, it was that complete trust in anyone but myself was foolish.
I drove south and slightly east of Darkwater proper. Fielding, the marshy lowlands to the south east of the bay wasn’t the most beautiful part of the metro area, but it had become a magnet to me. It was the epicenter of something I was only beginning to glimpse two months ago when reality as I’d known it ended.
Jerry Lowe. It kept coming back to Jerry Lowe. His cryptic comment to me when I arrested him last year hadn’t plagued me at the time, but now? Well, I couldn’t seem to get it out of my brain. I was the one, he’d said. I’d figure it out. This was only the beginning. He wished he’d be around to watch it all unfold.
Was that foreshadowing?
I hated that bullshit. Being cryptic was a pain in the ass. If Lowe thought someone would kill him for what he knew, he should’ve opened his mouth and let it all out. Hell, if you’re gonna die anyway, why take the secret with you to the grave?
The last time I’d been at Dunhaven was a nightmare. Oddly, it hadn’t tormented me in my dreams for a long time. Not even last night when all the demons were unleashed in sleep.
The tires of the Expedition crunched over the rocky driveway that led to the hospital. The place was bright, even at this early hour. I imagined techs checking vital signs, nurses reporting to the next shift, assessments taking place, medications being poured. The ventilation system probably pumped the scent of breakfast through the building. Bacon maybe. Something savory enough to pull the antipsychotic-dulled minds into the here and now for another day of structure, of group therapy, behavioral plans and team meetings. I thought of psychologists and psychiatrists discussing treatment plans and medication regimens, what worked, what didn’t.
There was a certain comfort in that structure, in the rote that comprised treatment of mental illness. Within these walls lived safety and a routine that stabilized the chaos of the mind. If only there were a way for it to transcend the brick and mortar of Dunhaven, of mental health facilities all over the world. Society would be a better place without the tumultuousness of men without boundaries enforced.
I parked the Expedition and made my way to the inside of the hospital. The receptionist hadn’t arrived yet. A lone security guard sat dozing at a desk in a room off the main lobby. I tapped lightly on the door. She sprang awake with a start.
“Can I help you?”
“I realize I’m here several hours before visitors are permitted to see patients, but –”
“You want to know if you can see one of them,” she surmised with a not-so-friendly smile. “Who are you here to see?”
“Jerry Lowe.”
She frowned. “I don’t think that’s possible, even if the charge nurse agreed to bend the rules for you, ma’am.”
“Eriksson,” I said. “Dr. Helen Eriksson. I’m a psychologist.”
Recognition flickered in her sleep-crusted eyes. “And the woman who arrested Mr. Lowe. Now I’m sure you won’t be able to talk to him. Mr. Lowe’s lawyer doesn’t want anybody from law enforcement talking to Jerry unless he’s here, Dr. Eriksson.”
“Well, I’m retired from law enforcement, so if you’ll call the charge nurse on his unit and ask her permission, and if she’ll ask Jerry if he’d allow me to visit, I’m quite sure he’d agree to see me. Eagerly even.”
Wary, she complied with my request. She picked up the phone. “Hey Fiona, it’s Callie. I’ve got someone down here in the security office who wants to see one of the patients even though visiting hours don’t start until eleven.”
She paused and looked up at me. “She’s here to see Jerry Lowe. Says he’d want to talk to her if he knew she were here. It’s that woman that arrested him. Yeah, I’ll hold.”
The guard tucked the phone between her breasts and said, “Fiona’s gonna ask Lowe if he’ll talk to you, and then she’s gonna call Kayla Young to see if she’ll agree to let you visit before eleven.”
“I wish she’d skip that step,” I said. “Mrs. Young already told my husband that they’ve restricted access to Jerry. If he’s willing to see me, and Fiona is agreeable to an unscheduled visitation, I’d like to see it happen before anybody can stop it.”
Her suspicion spiked.
“I’m not a cop anymore.”
She depressed the receiver and called the unit again.
“Hey, Fiona, it’s Callie again. Did you call Kayla yet? Well, Dr. Eriksson swears this isn’t anything related to the litigation pending against Mr. Lowe.”
Silence.
“He did, huh? Well, all right then. If you don’t have a problem with it, I’ll escort her up to the unit. That cop still up there?”
I cursed under my breath. He’d call Johnny before I had a chance to say hello, and probably drag me off under orders from his commander before I could talk to Jerry.
“Would it be possible to speak with Fiona before I go upstairs?”
“Hang on Fiona. Dr. Eriksson wants to talk to you.”
She handed me the phone.
“Fiona? This is Dr. Helen Eriksson. First of all, thank you for letting me speak to Jerry this morning. I realize you’re bending the rules for me, and I want you to know that I’m appreciative. I’m also aware that my husband put an officer from OSI on the unit to protect Mr. Lowe.”
“Yes, he did. He’s here, but not guarding Jerry at the moment. Jerry’s still secluded in his room, at least until breakfast arrives. Only the staff have keys to the patient’s rooms.”
“My husband doesn’t know I’m here,” I admitted. “And I’m concerned that if his officer learns that I’m here, he’ll call Johnny right away, and I won’t be able to speak to Jerry. You see, several months ago, he learned that Jerry threatened my life, and he’s been very adamant that I not speak to him for any reason since then.”
“
I don’t know, doctor. If so many people are set against you talking to him –”
“This isn’t about the charges against him,” I said quickly. “Please. I’ve got to talk to him. It’s personal.”
“All right. We’ll let you speak to him in his room before the officer comes to escort Jerry to breakfast. Ask Callie to bring you up the back stairs.”
The idea of being in a little used stairwell with another one of Dunhaven’s security guards made my skin crawl. Last time, it hadn’t gone so well for me. I wondered briefly if Dunhaven’s old treatment room still existed. Had they bricked the hideous monument to psychiatry’s dark ages off? Was it still waiting silently for another victim, to finish me off this time, perhaps?
Callie led me up a stairway toward the back side of the hospital without incident, and I was quickly whisked down a dimly lighted hallway to a locked room.
“You don’t think he’ll try to harm you if we leave you in here alone, do you?” presumably, it was Fiona who asked the question while she jammed a key into a deadbolt and twisted it counter clockwise.
“Even if he tried, I’m a black belt. He’s not going to hurt me. I don’t have to tell you how eager he was when you told him I was here, Fiona.”
“No,” she said, “which is part of what concerns me so much. I’ll wait outside the door, and it won’t be locked if you need to make a hasty retreat.”
She flicked two fingers at a burly tech a few feet away. “Kevin, stay here with me while she talks to Mr. Lowe.”
I stepped inside the room. Jerry was standing, fully dressed in his gray hospital-issue jumpsuit.
“Helen! My God, look at you! I read in the paper that you and Orion married, but I had no idea that you’re pregnant. Congratulations!”
A tiny shiver cascaded down my spine.
Jerry gestured to the single chair in the room. “Please. Sit. I’ll stay over here.” He perched on the edge of a crisply made bed and peered at me expectantly.
“You knew I’d come,” I said. The little jigsaw pieces began to fall into place in my mind. “How long have you known who I really am, Jerry?”
“Honestly? It didn’t occur to me until our second meeting. There was something familiar about you. I played out my hunch.”
“Who ran the DNA test for you?”
“Dr. Storm of course. Naturally, I never told him who the blood sample came from.”
“Did you plan to frame me for Rodney Martin’s murder?”
Lowe sighed, disappointment etched in his face. “Helen, Helen, Helen.”
“Fine, I promise not to ask questions about the case against you. But you must realize how curious I am about why you wanted me here so badly.”
He laughed. “You were the last thing I wanted in Darkwater Bay, but I will admit that I was intrigued once you arrived. Yes, Rodney did inform me that he put your name forward as a candidate to help solve certain problems plaguing George Hardy and Don Weber, but it wasn’t something I thought would ever happen.”
“Did you know they were being blackmailed?”
Lowe grinned. “Of course I knew. I used to know everything that happened in my city. Neither one of their secrets were particularly unknown after all, Helen. So Don had a boyfriend for thirty years. Big deal. And George had a mistress. They weren’t breaking the law. Maybe their marriage vows, but those were hardly cardinal sins.” He sighed wistfully. “I could’ve put an end to their problems if they had just confided in me. They didn’t have to bring you here.”
“You didn’t send Varden and Kelly after me in Washington?”
Lowe’s eyes widened. “I had no idea they went after you. You survived the encounter, obviously. I’d love to know how.”
“Jerry, I think you knew they were following me. Your city and all that. Plus, Fred Varden’s fingerprints were found on one of the threatening letters sent to Gwen Foster. How did that happen if you had nothing to do with them?”
Lowe chuckled. “I knew Orion was playing bodyguard to Gwen. She lived so close to me, you see. I thought it would be funny, you know, throw a red herring out to Orion and see if he’d run with it. It was a simple matter to get one of them to put prints on a letter that landed in their outgoing mailbox. As for hiring them myself? Never happened. But I was approached by people all the time asking for names of private contractors, who could do specific jobs.”
“And someone asked you about Varden and Kelly?”
“Never in the context of hiring them,” he said. “Their methods were whispered in all the right circles, if you know what I mean. But someone did inquire about them shortly before you came to Darkwater Bay.”
“Who was it?”
“Rodney Martin.”
“May I ask what he wanted to know?”
“I believe he said that someone he knew out of state asked if they were licensed elsewhere. There was a job, and he needed to know if they’d get into trouble digging for information in another state without a license.”
“I see. I suppose you told him what you knew.”
“I said that considering the very blurred line those two employed in all of their work that I doubted they’d care one way or the other. Now tell me, Helen. How did you find out that Detective Conall is your long lost brother? Was it the abduction in March?”
Lowe really did know too much.
“Yes,” I admitted. “I find it disconcerting that you knew all along and kept that information to yourself. How much do you know about the infant abduction, Jerry? You couldn’t have been more than a child at the time it happened.”
“I don’t remember it at all,” he said. “But I enjoyed reading every single case that Central Division ever investigated. Of course, when Crevan Conall got his detective promotion, it triggered a memory. I pulled the old file about his abducted baby sister. The two of you bear a remarkable resemblance, Helen. I doubt I was the only one who noticed.”
“Probably not.”
Lowe leaned forward and said quietly. “Crevan knew. He knew right away. Did you know that my detectives told me how strangely he behaved toward you that first night? They said he acted like he’d go up in flames if he got too close to you.”
“Did Rogers and Daltry know why?”
Laughter bounced through the small room. “They were not particularly bright men, Helen. Why do you think I found them so useful? Never keep people who can out-think you in the inner circle. It’s a very poor strategy.”
“Jerry, why are you meeting with the pastor from Foundations Baptist Church. I thought all the important people in Darkwater Bay were Catholics.”
He smiled. “Does it bother you that Lyle is visiting me?”
“I’ve never met the man. Why should I care?”
“Yet you cared enough to ask the question. Tell me why, and I’ll answer your question.”
Playing cat and mouse with Jerry Lowe was a dangerous proposition. “Frankly, I’d have been surprised by interest in any religion. You don’t strike me as a man particularly concerned with divine retribution.”
“Excellent,” he grinned. “I knew you’d figure it out eventually.”
“Figure what out, Jerry? Please tell me. If I’m missing something, I’ll willingly concede that you’ve bested me.”
“What a sweet admission.” Lowe pressed his fingertips together and rocked back and forth on his bed. “But my dear, dear Helen. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t already on the right track. The game loses all meaning if you cheat. And you’re so close now, so close to uncovering all of it.”
“Lyle Henderson was involved in my abduction.”
“But which one?” His gray eyes twinkled with excitement.
“Both of them.”
Lowe smiled. “I knew you were the one. I knew it. They’ve got to be running scared now. You realize they’ll stop at nothing to keep this buried.”
“You told me once that some secrets aren’t meant to remain buried, Jerry. Help me. Help me expose this one.”
“I have suspic
ion, but no evidence.”
“I’d take your instincts at this point,” I said. His mind truly fascinated me. Despite his crimes, I wanted the opportunity to understand what made Jerry Lowe tick.
“Dr. Eriksson, I cannot go to prison,” Lowe said. “I’d never survive it. You know what I’m saying. You understand that the human animal has no greater instinct than survival. Well, perhaps one.” His eyes drifted down to my burgeoning stomach. “To protect our offspring, no matter what the cost. Well, I have no progeny, at least, none that I could easily find. I would love to have seen her just once.”
“Focus, Jerry.”
“Help me stay out of prison. What is sanity after all?”
“You knew what you were doing was wrong. The legal definition is very different from the clinical, Jerry.”
“They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”
“But you weren’t looking for a different result. You wanted those defenseless girls to fight you, just like your Gwen Bennett did. The first one, that first kill, you wanted to relive it.”
“Not the kill,” he confessed. “I wanted, just one time for her to admit it. I wanted to hear her say that she loved me, despite what her brothers told her to do.”
Yes, on some level, Jerry Lowe really was insane. Question was, could I let him live the rest of his life in Dunhaven where I could have access to his mind, or was society’s justice more important?
“I already told you that I won’t oppose the motion to have you declared mentally incompetent,” I said. “Even though we both know it’s a lie.”
He smiled brightly. “Then I shall be delighted to have more of these cozy little chats with you in the future.”
“The future is now. Tell me your suspicions. Let me find the evidence.”
He shook his head. “I’d hate to stunt this opportunity for your growth, Helen. And that’s what it is. You’ll find the proof, and then we’ll talk about what made my theory grow in the first place. But don’t worry. Lyle Henderson isn’t going to have the opportunity to kill me now. I do believe that my Catholic faith has truly been awakened again.”
