Deficiency (15 page)

"Well," Dennis said, holding his smile, "maybe you'll have the same success she did."

"That was a novel, Mr. Dennis. This is real life."

"Doesn't feel like it," he said gazing around.

Terri stopped eating and studied the district attorney a little harder.

"You didn't come here to see if there was some little tidbit I had left out of my report, did you, Mr. Dennis? You have something else in mind, don't you?" she asked him.

For a moment it looked like he wasn't going to reply. He even looked like he might just get up and walk away, Terri thought. There was a debate raging in his own mind. He smiled and leaned forward.

"There is some information no one else has in this county, in your township especially," he said, "and very few have within the state, in fact."

"Am I going to be told this information?"

"I've been deciding that as we speak," he said. "It's not that I don't trust you with it; it's what I want to ask you to do about it."

"I see," she said. "Actually, I don't see," she continued, shaking her head and holding a smile of confusion.

"What would you say if I told you that the two young women who died so unusually here were two of now ten across eight states who have died in similar fashion?"

She shook her head.

"I wouldn't know what to say."

"When we had the diagnosis on Paige Thorndyke, it sent up a flare. The FBI contacted me and we all sort of stepped back and waited to see if the second shoe would drop. It did with Kristin Martin.

"This FBI investigation is a little over a year old, and they have not made any significant headway. They are excited about our situation because this is the first time a second death of similar causes has occurred within the same area. The previous deaths, which we will now call murders, were spread over considerable distance. Whoever is causing these deaths was careful about proximity. This doesn't seem to be a concern any longer and because of that, they believe whoever is doing this is still here. In short, they are expecting another fatality to occur within our county.

"What their serial killer division has concluded is that the time period between killings has gradually been dwindling."

Terri shook her head.

"So you and others believe these are murders? I can't imagine how someone can kill people this way," she said.

"Well, that's another thing, Doctor. He is not killing people. He's killing only relatively young women, women about your age."

Terri's smile seemed to freeze on her face.

"If we're dealing with such a fantastic situation, how do you know it's a he?" she asked.

"In all the cases, ours included, the victims had recently had sexual intercourse. The DNA they have been able to capture is identical, too. Whatever is going on, the same man is at each death scene."

"My God, what is this?" she asked, her heart pounding.

"We have a description of a man seen with Kristin Martin at Diana's Restaurant. It's a better description than the one we got from the bartender at the Underground or anyone else there, but not really detailed enough to get a good police sketch artist involved yet."

"Weren't there any witnesses involved with the previous deaths in other states?"

"Nothing concrete. Somehow, he manages to stay shadowy."

"I see. So this man I said came to question me and claimed to be a BCI investigator… he was FBI. I just got that wrong? My
fianc� thought an undercover investigation might be under way and you were pretending not to know about it," she said quickly.

"No. I was doing nothing of the kind, Doctor. We don't know who that man is. No one from any agency was assigned to interview you, however," he added, his words hanging for a moment in the air between them, "in some of the other instances, a similar thing occurred… there was a man who matches your description of the man who came to see you, and he did the same sort of thing."

"How weird. I thought he was at the funeral, but when I went to check, he was gone. It's all very strange."

"Very, but there is something else I have to tell you which will make it even stranger, I'm afraid."

She held her breath.

"What?"

"The description you gave me of the phoney investigator who had come to your office…"

"Yes?"

"He could very well be the man seen with both Paige Thorndyke and Kristin Martin."

"What?"

"Blond hair and cleft chin in each case."

If Terri didn't fully appreciate what a patient hyperventilating felt like before, she did now.

"So you're saying the killer for some sick reason is pretending to be investigating himself?"

"He might just be seeing how much is known about his activities and about him, although I will tell you the forensic psychiatrists and profilers working for the FBI suggest even weirder explanations."

"Such as?"

"Such as a true schizophrenic who kills as one personality and investigates as another."

"This still doesn't make an iota of scientific sense to me," she said. "How do you kill someone this way, and more importantly perhaps, why?"

"Why might follow how or vice versa. I don't know. What I do know," he said slowly, "is that you spent some quality time with this man. You're observant, doctor observant, and as you said, you thought you had seen him at the funeral."

"In other words, you want me to sit down with a police artist?"

"No, not yet. They don't want to spook him if he's still here and send him fleeing. Not just yet."

"I know I can recognize him quickly if I see him again," she said.

"Precisely," Will Dennis said. "The FBI agents working on the case wanted to come see you themselves, but I suggested they let me talk to you first."

She stared at him and then looked up when one of the interns said hello in passing. He paused after she responded.

"Are you looking in on Mr. Kaplan tonight? He's raising hell up there."

"Yes, I am," she said smiling.

"Great. See you later," he said and walked on. She saw him join Mark Lester, the nurse who had been with Paige Thorndyke's friend Eileen Okun at the restaurant. They spoke and looked her way.

"Why did they want to talk to me? Were they going to tell me all this, too?"

"Perhaps not as much," Will Dennis said. "But enough, I suppose, before they asked you to do something."

"Something you're now going to ask me to do?"

"Yes," he said. He smiled. "I think we should keep all this close to home. It's our territory to protect, our people," he added.

"I thought the FBI works for all of us."

"They do, but it's only natural that the people who will look after you the best are the people who know you the best," he replied.

"Look after me? Why would they have to do that? Does this man come back to the people he questions? Is that the piece of information you're waiting to tell me?"

"Not as fat as I know," Will Dennis said.

She smirked.

"I don't like that sort of answer. It sounds too much like 'To the best of my recollection' or the like."

"I can't tell you any more than they tell me," he said.

"So then, what…"

"What I thought, what they thought once they heard about you and the man who came to see you, was you might go out, on any evening you can, of course, and…"

"Look for him? You mean, in dance clubs and bars?"

"We'll have someone there at all times, of course, but if you spotted this man and pointed him out… well, you might prevent another tragic death here."

She shook her head slowly.

"I don't know. My fianc� won't be too happy about doing that sort of thing, going to those places. He feels he's outgrown it, calls them meat markets, sex pits…"

"We were thinking of you going more in the guise of a single woman," Will Dennis said.

For a moment all the sounds in the cafeteria, the other conversations, the cling and clatter of dishes and glasses disappeared.

She took a deep breath and like someone emerging from under water, released it.

"You mean, be bait, try to attract him?"

"There's probably no other young, very attractive woman within a thousand miles who is also capable of recognizing medical problems or health threats and indeed knowing how to treat them, as well as recognizing the individual who might be responsible for all this," he replied in a single breath. "That's it, all my cards on the table."

"All?"

"Well, there is one more small thing," he said.

"Give me the whole dosage, Will," she told him.

He smiled.

"If you agree to do this, help us, even for a night or two," he said, "you'll have to keep it to yourself for obvious reasons. You'll have to keep everything to yourself. In other words, don't trust anyone, even someone else who might come to you and identify himself as a law enforcement officer of some kind, especially that sort of person. Don't accept any proof and don't talk to him. Just call me," he emphasized.

"You make it sound like there's more than one of them out there."

"At this point, who knows?" he said.

She stared and then shook her head.

"I'd have to tell my fiancé about this idea of my going to local clubs," she said.

"I wouldn't. What if he decides it's too dangerous and comes after you, assuming you still wanted to go forward?"

She thought a moment.

"I don't know," she said. She glanced at her watch. "I have to get moving. My rounds."

"Okay."

"Let me think about it," she said.

"Of course."

"Maybe he's gone."

"Maybe," Will Dennis said. "It will be someone else's problem then, but until then, please remember my admonitions, Doc. Don't talk to anyone but me."

She stood looking at him. He smiled and turned back to his food.

"I think I'll finish this," he said nodding at his plate. "It was better than I expected."

She smiled.

"I'll call you," she said.

"Here," he said quickly reaching into his pocket and producing a card. "It has my personal numbers on it. Call anytime."

"Okay."

She left him, but it wasn't until she was actually at the first patient's bedside, that she stopped thinking about all he had told her and all he wanted her to do.

Even though he was prepared to deal with it, it was encouraging to him that the phone did not ring all day. Aside from the undertaker, no one apparently had any interest in the old lady's well-being. Where were her contemporaries, her friends? Weren't there any relatives who by now would have found out Kristin was dead and would call to offer their condolences and their assistance? What about Kristin's friends? Didn't she have any? He couldn't remember anything he had said to her or she had said to him, so he didn't recall any mention of a girlfriend. If there were any, maybe they didn't like the old lady and didn't want to call her now, especially now. Death, he realized, quarantined the survivors. People ignored or procrastinated as long as they could so they could avoid the sorrow, but more than that, he thought, so they could ignore their own mortality. Every death was a severe reminder that yours was waiting, patiently or impatiently, and no one wanted to be reminded of that, least of all, himself. There was a ruthless determination to keep his body alive and well, perhaps more so than the others, as he had come to call them, for there was he, unique, a wonder, and there were they, the prey, the food source. He thought of the old lady upstairs, no longer involved in the daily struggle to exist.

He went up to the bedroom and looked in on the corpse, still to him lying contentedly, comfortably in the bed.

"I guess you really have been a loner, Grandma," he said. "No gossips coming over for tea and cookies? No cousins, no sisters-in-law, no one?"

Families intrigued him, however. Was it simply because he could recall no one in his own? Vaguely, he thought there were people related to him, but his memory problem had become severe lately. All of the images he had been able to draw up from the well of his past experiences came to him like underexposed film full of shadows, silhouettes, faces with no distinct characteristics, voices garbled like something recorded and played at speeds far too slowly. Even his dreams had become colorless streams of obscure, wispy shapes.

All he had, he concluded, was the present, and of course, the future. Just like the body's nutritional wealth that he was unable to store, so were the events that made up his own history. It sort of made sense to him. Things passed through him. Nothing stayed. He felt loose, primed, and ready for anything, almost virginal.

Maybe not almost, he thought. I am virginal today. I can remember no lovemaking, and just like that, the momentary sense of emptiness, being lost and alone, floating in space, left him. It was replaced instantly with this youthful excitement, the wonder of something new that was about to happen. He was going to go out on his first hot date. Everything about sex and women was back to being mysterious and fresh.

On the other hand, the old lady looked stale. Her memories were squeezed and shoved into every available closet in that yellow brain now rotting away. No wonder she had been so bitter. If people had no memory, they would never feel they had lived too long, nothing would be tired and nothing would be anticipated, no result expected. Every day would be a birthday. Who needs a past? The hell with trying to remember, he told himself.

"I don't want to look at your family albums, read any of your correspondence, or even see your heirlooms. If I could, I'd put it all in the grave with you. It belongs with death," he told her.

Of course, she didn't move, didn't acknowledge anything.

He stepped back and closed the door, and then he went to his room and he changed into a pair of jeans, a black silk short-sleeve shirt that fit him snugly and clearly revealed his buff body, and scooped up his blue sports jacket. He checked his hair, the smoothness of his face and patted it down with some aftershave lotion.

Like some teenager who had been given permission to take the family car for the first night ever, he bounced gleefully down the stairs and hurried out and around to his vehicle. He got in, started the engine, taking pleasure in the sound of its power when he pressed down on the accelerator. Then he turned on the radio, found a station that played upbeat music and, again like some teenager, revved up the volume. The music poured out the open windows and trailed behind him as he shot down the driveway just a little too fast for the turn at the end. The tires squealed their complaint and he laughed.