City of Echoes (27 page)

Matt noted the doctor’s smile, took in another deep breath, and exhaled. “I still don’t understand why you care about these people,” he said. “None of them make any difference. They’re background noise. They’re clowns. They’re crackpots and knuckle draggers swimming in a small pond. These girls couldn’t help who their parents were.”

Baylor turned and gave him an odd look, almost as if he were seeing through him from a hundred miles away. After a few moments, he walked back to the stool and reached for something in his makeup kit.

“You’re right about that, Matthew. They couldn’t help who their parents were, and I never would’ve even known Davy Novakoff existed. Unfortunately, the preacher has expensive tastes. He likes to vacation on the Riviera. He likes to throw his money around, sort of the quintessential ugly American. He’s rude and crude and he stood out. Naturally, once I found out what he did for a living I saw the hypocrisy and took an interest in him, just as I did with Brooke Anderson’s mother. Over time my interest grew, along with my personal commitment. The preacher’s got a horse ranch outside Louisville on one hundred of the most beautiful acres I’ve ever seen. He breeds racehorses and holds an annual summer camp for wayward boys. But his church only has one real charity. If you call the number at the bottom of the TV screen and send in a check, everything goes to the ranch. Everything goes to Davy.”

“You were there?”

Baylor nodded and appeared saddened by the thought.

“What about here at the coroner’s office?” Matt said. “Did you watch him identify his daughter’s body?”

Baylor shook his head. “The connection to Millie Brown hadn’t been made yet. I wasn’t invited. But I managed to see him walk out of the building. I was sitting on the steps next door.”

“Was it worth it, Doctor? Did you see what you wanted to see?”

“I did, Matthew. I did. Even better, I followed him back to Kentucky. By chance we sat across the aisle from each other on a red-eye flight to Louisville. Two first-class seats, with the cabin to ourselves. The preacher wasn’t very talkative. Apparently, his daughter, Faith, was the only thing he really loved in this world, and now she was gone. I’m sure you missed it, because you’ve been busy this week, but his Sunday sermon has been dropped by the cable network. Davy got caught smoking crack cocaine and sodomizing one of his boys from the ranch. A fifteen-year-old with a pretty face and a skinny ass in the backseat of his Mercedes. According to the newspaper, the child required medical attention that included a small surgical procedure. They don’t go for that kind of thing in Kentucky. It’s still a bit early, and I’m not sure Davy has the courage, but it’ll be fascinating to see what he does with that gun of his, don’t you think?”

Baylor had slipped into a Southern drawl again as he described the preacher’s disastrous fall. Even worse, he seemed absolutely delighted with himself. Matt remained quiet, watching the beast finish the girl’s makeup and open a tube of dark red lipstick. It seemed clear that the doctor had no respect for anyone or any living thing. It seemed more than clear that he was lost in a world of darkness and that the killing would never end, because no matter what reasons he might conjure up, no matter what societal icons caught his eye, it was the killing that turned him on. The idea that he had the power to save a life cut against the idea that he had the power to take one, too. Matt could see Genet’s impending
dance with the fates
, her rape and murder, going down as if he had become part of the nightmare. The doctor had a location in mind. A place that he’d scouted over the days he’d held her. She was obviously sedated. After packing her up in the body bag and making the drive, he’d turn her naked body facedown, stake her to the ground, and butcher her face. Matt imagined that the big moment came just as consciousness returned, no doubt by something injected into her body at exactly the right moment. And that’s when he’d violate her. That’s when he’d show her what he’d done to her face. It seemed inescapable at this point. That’s why the mirror was there. The doctor didn’t need to beat or kick any of his victims in order to get them to scream.

All he needed to do was show them.

All he needed was a flashlight and a mirror to ignite the terror. Once they cried out into the night, once they began to wail in the moonlight, their wounds would burst open like a dam break. And then their blood would spill over the mirror and into the ground until their bodies were completely drained.

The Glasgow smile. The Chelsea grin.

It was a crime like no other crime. An atrocity so horrific in scope, so mean and cruel, that he wondered if Dr. Baylor wasn’t more of a fiend than Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee Cannibal, who during a period of more than a decade raped, murdered, and ate seventeen boys and men.

Matt looked back at Baylor and watched him color the girl’s lips. “What about this girl, Doctor? Anna Marie. You’re punishing her father because he runs a brokerage house. What did he do to deserve this? Why do you want to hurt him?”

Baylor laughed but shrugged and remained quiet.

Still, the thought settled in Matt’s mind. What crime could the girl’s father have committed that singled him out? Particularly when he worked in a profession where all but a few held sacred the words uttered by the fictional character Gordon Gekko in the movie
Wall Street
.

“Greed is good,” Gekko chanted. “Greed is good.”

What moral crime could Genet’s father have committed that caught the doctor’s eye when this was their universal prayer? Even more, why did the doctor choose a man who ran a brokerage firm in Chicago? Why not New York? Why not the eye of the storm? Why not the place where his own father worked? Dear old Dad. Why not some prick on Wall Street?

Matt tried to make another fist as he chewed it over. The anesthetic’s grip had loosened some. He couldn’t lift his arm, but he could move his fingers.

“What about you?” he said. “Look at your house, Doctor, your address. If it’s all about money and greed, why don’t you do the world a favor and take yourself out?”

Baylor shook his head, painting over the lipstick with a cherry-red gloss. “Now you’re disappointing me again,” he said in a quiet voice. “Nothing we’ve spoken about has had anything to do with how much any of these people have or don’t have. And I couldn’t care less about their political affiliations, or even who or what they pray to. It isn’t the
what
that stands out here, Matthew. It’s the method. You’re smart enough to understand that, aren’t you? You couldn’t be your father’s son and not be bright enough to see the hypocrisy. To see the way things really are.”

The way things really are
 
.
 
.
 
.

Matt let it go. His body was coming back to life. He could bend his knees. He could unfold his arms and feel his back lift away from the stainless steel table as he stretched. Unfortunately, Baylor looked over and noticed. He crossed the room, snatched Matt’s pistol, and slipped it behind his belt.

“Easy, Matthew,” he said. “Relax.”

Matt gave the doctor a long look. The brain fog was lifting. He could feel the rush of energy surging through his arms and legs and flowing into his mind.

He moved his hand over the catheter and began pulling away the dressing as he watched the doctor lift Genet up and lower her into the body bag. He kept his eyes on the doctor’s eyes. The surgeon was distracted by his victim. He was studying her face through the plastic, examining her hair and makeup, evaluating the job he’d done, until his preparations were just right. When he reached inside to make an adjustment, Matt ripped the catheter out of his arm and wrenched his body up and off the table.

But he wasn’t quick enough. Not even close. Baylor took a step forward, pointing the .45 at his chest.

“Don’t make me do it, Matthew. I will if I have to. There’s not much time left.”

“What are you talking about?”

The doctor jabbed the muzzle of the gun toward him. “Time’s running out,” he said.

That odd, penetrating look was back. Matt could see it in the doctor’s eyes. Something was going on. Something Matt didn’t understand. Something hidden from view. Baylor took a step closer, still training the gun on him.

“Your arm’s bleeding,” he said. “You can’t afford to lose another drop. At least not for a day or two. Pull the dressing over the wound and it’ll stop.”

A beat went by, and then another. Matt glanced down at the spot where he’d ripped out the catheter, then back at Baylor with the .45.

“Why did you help me?” he said.

“I’m a surgeon.”

Matt shook his head. “That’s not it. You saved my life. Why?”

“I did what any surgeon would do. I saw a wound and I mended it. Simple as that.”

From the look on the doctor’s face, it was anything but simple. Matt watched him hurry back to the worktable, part open the bag, and check the girl’s body. Then he turned to Matt with the gun in his hand. He seemed jumpy, unusually nervous, his eyes flicking around the room.

“We’re running out of time,” he said. “We’re running out of—”

A shot rang out. A loud blast.

Matt flinched as blood sprayed across his face, then recoiled and tried to focus. Baylor’s knees were buckling. The doctor had been shot and was going down hard. Matt saw the .45 skid across the floor and turned to the doorway. Grace and Orlando were rushing into the greenhouse with their pistols out. Matt noted the smoke venting from Grace’s gun and lunged for the .45 still sliding across the floor. But just as he reached for the handle, Orlando pushed him out of the way and got to it first.

CHAPTER 49

We’re running out of time. We’re running out of
—

Orlando smashed Matt in the face, then knocked him onto the floor and tucked the .45 behind his belt. When he started kicking Matt’s stomach and ribs, Grace pistol-whipped the big man and pushed him out of the way.

“Knock it off, Joey,” he shouted. “There’s no time for your bullshit right now. Jesus Christ.”

Something about Grace’s voice was way over the edge, and Orlando backed away and became quiet. All Matt could hear was the sound of that fan whirring in the background, the water still dripping in the sink, and Lieutenant Bob Grace, of the Los Angeles Police Department, struggling to catch his breath. Grace stepped around the table, turned over the body with his foot, and stared at the doctor’s face for what seemed like a long time. While he may have been bewildered by the true identity of the killer, he looked more distressed than that. More like a man who knew that he was cornered. Matt could see the anxiety showing in Grace’s eyes, the panic.

Baylor had been shot in the back. A plume of blood from the exit wound was spreading across his upper chest. As Matt gazed at the wound, he couldn’t help thinking about what had just happened and why. Baylor kept saying that they were running out of time. Was he expecting Grace and Orlando to show up this soon? And if he was, then why did he take the time to remove the bullet from Matt’s chest? Why did he save his life? There was a moment when the doctor looked up at the glass ceiling, as if he’d just been struck by an idea. But now Matt wondered. Was it an idea, or had he heard something? Is that why he walked over to the French doors and looked outside? Did he know that someone was in the house? And what about those last few moments? Matt could remember the doctor checking the girl, then turning back with the gun. He seemed so agitated, so frightened. Did he know that he was about to be shot? Was there a place in the back of the doctor’s demented mind, a place in the darkness, where there still might have been a bit of light? A place where a single candle burned, a small corner where his conscience remained intact and he understood who and what he had become? Was it possible that Dr. Baylor wanted to stop the murders but couldn’t?

Was it possible that the monster wanted to be killed?

Matt let the questions subside and looked at Grace, wondering how much he and Orlando may have heard. The lieutenant was holding his head, like he had a migraine and was still trying to catch his breath. His suit, like his gray hair, was soaked through with sweat, his gaunt face dripping as if he’d just stepped inside from a hard rain. He holstered his pistol, then knelt down beside the corpse. Matt noticed that Grace had begun to tremble. He was looking the doctor’s body over. He was examining the corpse, measuring it in every detail, inspecting the exit wound. And then the tremors quaking through his body appeared to reach some sort of fever pitch—his eyelids fluttered—and he slapped the doctor across the face.

“You piece of shit,” he said in a low, dark voice.

He slapped him again. “You piece of human shit.”

Matt thought that Grace might be weeping but couldn’t really tell with all the sweat still dripping off his cheeks and forehead. It crossed his mind that Grace was on the verge of a meltdown. And even in death, Baylor wasn’t offering the lieutenant a helping hand. Although his eyes were closed, the expression on the doctor’s face was one of peace and serenity, and Matt imagined that for Grace it amplified his anger and fury beyond any possible calculation.

Grace seized the doctor by his shirt collar and started shaking him. “You died too easy, Baylor. Too fast. Look at what you’ve made me do, Doctor. Look at what you’ve turned me into. A killer, a murderer, just like you. You’re the devil, Doctor. Lucifer and Satan—you’re an evil spirit. Do you hear me? Open your eyes and tell me that you can hear me, Baylor. Open them, you sick son of a bitch. Open them.”

A long moment passed with Grace holding the doctor’s limp body close to his face. No one made a sound, and no one moved. And then, finally, the lieutenant lowered the corpse to the floor, grabbed the worktable, and pulled himself to his feet.

It was almost as if he’d aged twenty years in the last five minutes. There was a certain madness about this man.

It was out in the open, and Matt could see it taking over his entire being. His posture had changed. The way he was carrying himself. The glint in his eye that seemed so twisted now. As Grace moved slowly down the aisle toward the girl inside the plastic bag, his body rocked and swayed, as if he were a machine pieced together with old parts. He stopped and turned and looked through the opening at the naked girl. His head pivoted back and forth, then froze as he rubbed his hand over his whiskers.