Director's Cut (25 page)
Once back in the car I placed another call to West. I had two reasons for the call. First to tell him I had just learned it was Andy Buchanan who delivered the script, and, second, to see if I could pick up Catherine and take her home.
On the first point, West chewed me out for meddling. I expected that, but I had done nothing more than ask questions about Catherine. I knew that West would interview everyone at the theater. He was that thorough.
On the second point, I was surprised to learn that Catherine was already gone, dropped off at my house.
“So you're ruling out her involvement in the murders,” I said.
“I'm not ruling anything out. For now, she's not a likely suspect but I'll keep her on my radar. We tested the dress and discovered that the blood was, well, not blood. Nor could we find any gunpowder residue on her hands or on the dress.”
“Who took her to my home?” I asked.
“I did. She said she had a key.”
“She doesn't.” My words were a breath above a whisper.
“What?”
“I said, she doesn't have a key. I never gave her one.”
“Why would she lie about that?”
“I have no idea. You didn't watch her go into the house?”
“No. She said her key was for the back door. She went around back.”
I rubbed my forehead. “The only back door I have is a sliding patio door. It unlocks from the inside and doesn't use a key. How long ago was this?”
“Fifteen minutes. I just got back in the office.”
My heart was having trouble finding its rhythm. “Jerry and I are headed that way now, but you need to get someone over there and make certain she got in.”
Make certain she's still there
, I thought.
West hung up without a word.
“What's up?” Jerry asked.
“We need to get to my house as fast as possible. Catherine is up to something. She lied about having a key to my house. She let West drop her off, knowing that she had no way in.”
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It does if you don't plan on going in the house.”
“Maybe she just wanted out of the police station. I can't imagine a girl her age finding the interrogation room an attractive place.”
“No one would find it attractive. I'm worried that she's going to do something stupid.”
“Like what?” Jerry said as he pressed the accelerator down.
“Like run away.”
W
hen we arrived on my street, I saw a police car out front. A uniformed officer came from the side yard and marched to his car. Jerry pulled in the driveway and we exited. The officer eyed us suspiciously, then recognized me as I stepped into the penumbra of a streetlight.
“Hello, Mayor,” the officer said. His nameplate read David Blake.
“Did you find anything, Officer?”
“No, ma'am. I got here a couple of minutes ago and rang the bell. No answer. No lights. I searched around back but didn't see anyone. The call said to look for a woman outside the house, is that right?”
“Yes. My cousin.”
“White female, early twentiesâ”
Another car drove up. I recognized West's sedan. He parked behind the patrol car. “Anything?”
“Nothing, Detective. I was just telling the mayor that I searched around back.”
“Thanks, David. I'll take it from here. You can go 10â8.”
“Yes, sir.”
Officer Blake entered his car. Before he could start the engine, West was moving to the front door. “Let's check inside.”
Jerry and I followed behind him. I started to insert my key when he stopped me. He bent forward and studied the doorknob, then shook his head. “Nothing. Go ahead.”
I did and swung open the door. I stepped in and flipped the foyer light switch, then moved to the alarm. It was still set with no indication of open doors or windows.
“Does she know the security code?” West asked.
“No. If she came in, the alarm would be sounding and the alarm company would have dispatched one of your men.”
West groaned. “Why would she tell me she had a key when she didn't?”
“To get away from you,” Jerry said.
Uh-oh
.
“What's that supposed to mean?” West turned to face Jerry.
“Don't read anything into it, Detective. It's just that you asked some pretty invasive questions. After something like that, I imagine that even your dog would want to get away.”
“I was doing my job, Doc. Nothing more.”
“I wasn't insinuating anything more.”
It was time to step in. “What about her house? Could she have used her cell phone to call a cab and return there?”
“I just talked to the head scientific investigator. They and a few officers are still checking the grounds and house for evidence. I'm due back over there in a few minutes. They checked. She hasn't shown up.”
“Maybe she will,” Jerry said.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“I should have seen her to the door and all the way inside,” West said. “I just didn't anticipate this kind of deceit.”
We moved into the living room. I waited for Jerry to jump on West's admitted oversight. To my relief, he said nothing.
I crossed the living room, turning on all the lights. I did the same in the dining room and kitchen. I also switched on the rear deck lights.
“What are you doing?” Jerry asked.
“If I was dropped off at a house I couldn't get into, I'd wait for the owner to return. I'd also take a walk along the beach to think things through.” I opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the deck. The salt air swirled around me and the gentle symphony of two-foot waves stroking the sandy beach played along the shore. Jerry and West joined me.
“So the lights are your version of a beacon calling her home,” Jerry said. “You never cease to amaze me.”
I strained my eyes against the darkness, hoping to see Catherine's thin form walking along the sands. I was disappointed. Then I gazed out to sea and tried to force out the image of her swimming out to meet death, propelled by guilt or fear. The cold of the thought made my bones ache. I shivered.
“Come inside,” Jerry said. “I'll make some tea. We'll wait together.” He turned me around and led me into my own house. West closed the door.
“I'll make the tea,” I said. “It'll give me something to do. Besides, your tea always tastes like coffee.”
“That's because it is coffee.”
Jerry and West sat at the table. I started fussing in the kitchen. The open floor plan allowed easy conversation.
“Let me ask you something, Doc,” West began. “This stuff that Maddy was saying about Catherine and OCD, could that have anything to do with the murders?”
“To make sure we're clear on this, Detective, I'm not saying Catherine suffers from OCD. I'm just saying that she might have some version of it. I've not spoken with her about it. I've not had more than a few minutes of opportunity to observe her. Besides all of that, I'm not an expert in the field.”
“But you've seen it before.”
“Many times. Obsessive-compulsive disorder afflicts children too. Usually when I see it, I refer the family to a child psychiatrist where they can receive specialized treatment.”
“Children come down with this?” West asked.
I set the teapot on the flames and joined them at the table.
“Most cases begin in adolescence or early adulthood. It affects about 2 percent of the population. It can be so severe that it requires hospitalization or light enough to be little more than a nuisance.”
“Then it is a mental illness?” I said.
“Absolutely. It is called obsessive-compulsive because the patient obsesses over something. It can be anything from locks, to germs, to sex, to the fear of hurting someone. Patients feel compelled to repeatedly react to the obsession. For example, if my obsession is cleanliness, then I might sink into a cleaning ritual where I wash my hands twenty or thirty times a dayâuntil my skin is raw and bleedingâbut never feel clean. If I have an obsession about locks, then I might spend hours locking and unlocking doors trying to convince myself that they really are secure.”
“But Catherine hasn't shown any signs of that,” I said. “At least not that I've seen.”
“Again, I'm not saying she is OCD, and if she is, it might be mild. In her case, it appears she doesn't like to eat in front of people. Her obsession might be a fear of ridicule and her compulsive response is to avoid eating in public.”
“How does someone come down with a disease like this?” West wondered.
“It's not like catching a cold, Detective. The disorder seems to be a combination of psychological and biological influences. Researchers have done brain scans on people with OCD and have observed unusual activities in the orbital cortex, cingulated cortex, and the caudate nucleusâ”
“You're losing me, Doc,” West said.
“Sorry. There's clinical evidence that part of the problem is rooted in certain brain activity, but there's also a link to some psychological causation. Something bad happens to a child because a door wasn't locked; something especially obnoxious gets spilled on a child and now he never feels clean.”
“I hate to think what might trigger an eating condition,” West said.
“It may not be that she ate something horrible. Maybe as a child she got sick at school and threw up on herself in class. The kids all laugh and tease her and she anchors that embarrassment to eating in public.”
“Is there a treatment available?” I asked. The teapot began to boil but I held my seat. I wanted to hear the answer.
“Some. Every case is different. Sometimes psychotherapy and psychoactive drugs work. Some doctors use what's called âexposure and response prevention.' That treatment requires that the patient be exposed to the obsession but prevented from engaging in the compulsive ritual.”
It took me a second to translate that. “If I have an obsession about germs, the therapist might . . . what? Dirty my hands and then deprive me of a sink in which to wash?”
“Exactly,” Jerry replied.
“What about medications?” I asked.
“There has been success with certain serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac or Luvox and a tricyclic antidepressant, like Anafranil. About 80 percent show improvement with medication and therapy, but relapse if they stop taking their prescriptions. Exposure and response prevention works about 60 percent of the time.”
“And I thought I was depressed before.” I rose and returned to the kitchen. Jerry had been very careful not to say that Catherine was struggling with OCD, but I could see why it crossed his mind.
“Doc, I appreciate all these answers, but what I need to know is this: is she a danger to herself or others?”
“I don't know. I wish I did, but since I don't know what the problem is, I can't be predictive.”
“That's not a very helpful answer, Doc,” West said.
“No, but it is a very honest one.” Jerry looked at me. “I will say this. There have been those who link OCD with certain crimes as well as BPD, borderline personality disorder.” He paused. “One psychiatrist said Jeffrey Dahmer showed symptoms of OCD. I wish I could be more help. Perhaps you should talk to a criminal psychologist instead of a pediatrician.”
“I might do that, Doc. I just might do that.”
I carried the teapot to the table. Jerry jumped up and grabbed cups. “Didn't you tell me that you couldn't find gunpowder residue on Catherine or her dress? Why are you still acting like she's a suspect?”
“I don't think she pulled the trigger that killed Andy Buchanan,” West said.
“That's good. It doesn't make sense to think she did.”
“Maybe not to you.”
W
hen the sun rose, it found me awake and staring at the ceiling. Last night ended quickly. West drank a cup of tea more out of courtesy than desire. It was clear that his mind was elsewhere. He apologized again for not seeing Catherine to the door. The fault was not his. He had been lied to. Nonetheless, he shouldered the blame.
Jerry sat with me for another hour, and we did our best to make small talk but we failed miserably. The ability to focus is one of my strengths, but the utter shock of the last two days had pirated away my ability to marshal productive thought. Mostly I stared at the table and worried about Catherine. The sounding of Jerry's cell phone hauled my weary mind back to the present. I watched as his face drew long and dour.
“I have to go to the hospital,” he said and rose.
I read his face. “The boy?”
“Yeah. He's taken a turn for the worse.”
I saw him to the door, locked it behind him, and started to reset the alarm. The sight of it made me stop. I decided to leave it off. Instead of sleeping in my bed, I chose to leave the lights on for Catherine and to sleep on the sofa so I'd be sure to hear her if she knocked.
At best, I dozed off and on. The lights bothered me. Every sound outside made my heart lurch. And my mind would not stop fabricating tragedies with Catherine at their center. At 4:00 a.m. I knew she wasn't coming, but I waited anyway. At five I rose, took a quick shower, and dressed for work. At six, I made breakfast. At seven I left. Everything in between was a blur.
I arrived at the office uncertain what the day held. I spent the night fluctuating between worry, confusion, and prayer. I prayed for the phone to ring and I prayed it wouldn't, fearful of the bad news that might be waiting on the other end. It was a late-night phone call that had informed me of my husband's murder. That was years ago, but such scarring doesn't disappear over time. Then I prayed that Catherine would ring my doorbell. She didn't. In the wee hours my prayers dissolved into wordless utterances and those were the sweetest of all.
I took the long way to the office, stopping for a latte at a new coffeehouse. With coffee and a cranberry scone in tow, I returned to my car and to the road. The coffee was wonderful, but I never got around to the scone. Hunger was missing in action.