Do No Harm (47 page)

"I agree with Dr. Trace," Yale said. "This pissing contest is getting us off track. Let's cut the shit and get into it."

"Okay," David said. "Fair enough." He turned to Dalton. "Listen, I am not suggesting that anything in Clyde's childhood does or doesn't get him off the hook. I'm suggesting it's what we need to bring him in. His past doesn't excuse him. It explains him. And if we can figure it out further, it might help predict him."

Dalton finally met David's eyes. Some understanding seemed to pass between them. The politics were now irrelevant. They had to get on the trail and sort all that out later.

"Let's start with the drugs," Yale said, glancing down at his notepad. "Is there any way to determine how much lithium carbonate Clyde is taking?"

"The urine jars in the bathtub are labeled by date and time," David said. "Take the most recent one and send it to a lab. Lithium is cleared by the kidneys, so it'll show up in the urine. That'll help us gauge his level of toxicity."

"Could he die from lithium poisoning?"

"It's difficult to say. When it comes to psychiatric drugs, the dosage variance between patients can be immense. But I would say that if Clyde keeps up at this pace, it'll shut down his kidneys. As it is, he might already need hemodialysis."

Peter leaned heavily on his cane. "Or perhaps he needs to take the rest of the pills at once and have a nice long sleep," he said.

A thoughtful silence.

Dalton jerked his head toward Peter. "I like this guy," he said.

"Did you find the pills?" David asked. "Behind the heating vent?"

Yale nodded.

"Looks like your wish won't come true, Peter," David said. "He left his supply. He's off the meds again. You know what that means?"

"A return of his faculties and motor skills," Diane said. "He'll regain his balance. He'll become more lucid, probably within twenty-four hours."

David looked down, working his cheek between his molars. "And, possibly, more violent," he said.

"We should stake out drugstores in the area in case he tries to break in for more drugs," Yale said. "If he tries to steal more alkali, that might provide an opportunity to catch him."

"There are other trails now, too," David said. "I have the names and birth dates of the study's other subjects. Since the abstract mentioned there was intense bonding between them, it could be a lead. I also have Clyde's file that shows all the addresses he lived at as a child--can you look into those too? We should check out people who worked at Happy Horizons, other kids he overlapped with. Maybe he's in contact with someone. Plus, he mentioned trying to go to a clinic once to get help. In case it's true, maybe we should check that out too."

"Wait a minute." Dalton held up a hand. It was large and weathered, like a baseball mitt. "We need all files and films from that study. We'll follow you home and pick them up." He said it as though expecting David to object.

"Okay," David said. "We can make copies."

Diane seemed to emerge from a separate train of thought. "The fact that Clyde hit you isn't sitting right with me," she said. "It seems so out of character."

"Surprised the hell out of me. So far, he's only attacked women, and even then from something of a distance."

"He attacked two cops in the course of his escape," Yale said.

"He didn't attack them. He injured them trying to escape from them. There was no emotional motive or release there. But me--he wanted to assault me."

"I'll buy that." Yale slid his cheap pen neatly behind his ear. "So then, what enabled him to stray so far and aggressively from his previous pattern of attacks?"

"I think the empty lot and the Pearson Home are comforting to him."

"Why?"

"That house is a place of empowerment to him. It's the place where he was able to inflict fear rather than be victimized by it. Once I spotted him outside Healton's, he may have drawn me into the lot to attack me. Being in the vicinity of the house may have helped him work up the nerve to hit me. I doubt he would've attacked me in public."

"There are more concrete reasons for that," Yale said. "No witnesses. No one to interfere or help you."

"True. But I think my hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that Clyde shows a clear fixation on that house. He took Douglas DaVella's name. He collects items from the house--you saw the photograph and address number by his bed. Plus he still lives within a few blocks of the site. As an adult, he selected that area for a reason. Clearly, it's his comfort zone. He's been clinging to it all these years."

Dalton chewed his cheek, his lips making a sloppy O. "I'd agree. Healton's is two blocks away. And he cashed his checks right over there on Lincoln."

"So by that logic, wouldn't he attack someone in the house?" Yale asked.

"I don't think so," David said. "That doesn't fit into the revenge aspect of his psychopathology. That house never did him wrong, so to speak. The hospital did. To oversimplify, I'd say he draws comfort and empowerment from the house and area around it, and uses that as a springboard to launch his attacks elsewhere."

"And he could be angry that the house was taken away from him," Dalton said. "Maybe he's pissed off that he got removed from his sick-fuck nirvana when he strung up the kid and got shipped off to a youth detention center."

"Again, something he could blame on the experiments and the hospital."

"And so he'll be even more pissed he's been driven from the area again."

"Probably so."

"We'll keep the units in that location on alert," Yale said. "Just in case."

"I doubt he's dumb enough to go back," Peter said.

"It's a base we have to cover. The bulk of our work is proving what we already know. It's tedious, but it helps us sleep at night."

"Our jobs are similar that way," David said. Once the words were out of his mouth, he expected to be rebuked by Yale or Dalton, but was pleasantly surprised.

"You said you believe he's been evolving, becoming more bold and aggressive," Diane said.

"Unusually so," Yale interjected.

"Any way we can figure out that trajectory and intercept it?"

"I think that's our top priority," David said.

"The primary aim of his attacks is to scare people," Yale said. "There's got to be something there, something we can use."

Dalton turned his red, weary eyes to his watch. "Right now, I want to get my hands on those films and files." He turned to the door, prompting David with a tilt of his head.

Peter fiddled with his leg braces. David looked over at Diane, and she tapped two fingers to her forehead in a mock salute.

When David turned back, Yale was standing right beside him. Yale pulled a stick of gum from his pocket and popped it in his mouth, bending it Doublemint-commercial style. He fixed his sharp, indecipherable gaze on David. "We work together now," he said. "On everything."

"All right," David said. "I get it."

"You'd better get it," Dalton said. "Because if you fuck up again . . . " He pointed at the closed door, behind which Jenkins waited. ". . .we're gonna sick Bad Cop on you."

FEELING slightly schoolboyish, David called Diane when he got home to say good night.

She said, "You're not stunning."

He hung up the phone and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling and thinking about Clyde. It sruck him that, when talking to Diane, he'd slowly gravitated to the middle of the bed, rather than leaving his wife's side untouched as he usually did.

He should have been exhausted, but he was wired, still riding his adrenaline high. The clock blinked 3:30 a.m. He'd have a little more than three and a half hours to sleep before getting up for his morning shift. He couldn't even count how long it had been since he'd had a respectable night's sleep. He closed his eyes and forced himself to clear his thoughts. He was just drifting off when the phone rang. He fumbled for the receiver, then answered. "Diane?"

"Almost," a voice said. Suddenly, an awful screaming came through the phone, the sounds of someone being tortured. David bolted up in bed, slowly placing the initial voice as Clyde's. He reached for the answering machine on the nightstand and clicked record. The screams continued, followed by a woman's intense pleading.

"Hello?" David's heart was pounding. Nothing engendered panic like exposure to it. "Hello? Who's there? Are you all right?"

The noise stopped instantly, and David heard only labored breathing. He tried to put his thoughts in order. How had Clyde managed to take someone captive? The screaming had cut off abruptly--maybe it had been recorded. Why would Clyde awaken him with a woman's screaming? To scare him. To scare him off.

David's voice sounded weak, and he had to clear his throat to start over. "Clyde. What have you done? Listen to me. What have you done?"

A silence during which David imagined Clyde relishing the fear that had shown in David's voice.

"You said you were gonna help me and you didn't. You're like them, like the others. You've seen what I can do to them." Clyde's voice firmed with pride. "The hospital was shut down because of me. Security guards to protect people from me. They're scared. And you'll be too."

A woman's scream, prolonged and wavering.

The sheets around David were stained with his sweat. David fought to keep the fear from his voice, because he didn't want to give Clyde the satisfaction. He got up and paced circles around the room, the phone pressed to his ear. "Do you have someone with you, Clyde? Is someone there?"

"Yeah." He laughed. "Yeah. Someone's here. I got her. It's your fault. I did this because of you."

"Clyde, listen to me. This is very important. If you harm another person--one other person--I won't ever try to help you again. Do you understand me?"

A pause, and then a statement, ringing with the clarity of conviction. "I'll. Never. Stop." The line again filled with the woman's wrenching cries, then cut out.

David turned on a light, suddenly spooked by the dark bedroom, and paged Ed. Then, he called Diane's room.

She answered the phone, her voice cracked from sleep. "Hello?"

Relief poured through him. "Clyde called. He might have had someone captive." David's reflection in the window stared back at him, frightened. "Just lock your door. And call security. Have them post a guard at your door."

"Okay. I'll call someone to stay until I get out of here in the morning."

"All right," he said. "All right."

"Are you going to tell the police?"

"I have to." David cursed under his breath. "They'll probably think I instigated this somehow."

"Well," Diane said. "Didn't you?"

After they hung up, Ed called back. He sounded wide-awake. "Something's off," he said, when David finished recounting the call. "I doubt this guy is capable of holding a captive. Plus he no longer has his own space. Was there any background noise?"

"I don't know," David admitted.

"Make me a recording of the call before you turn it over to the cops," Ed said. "Drop it in your mailbox. I'll drive by and pick it up."

Yale returned David's page immediately, listened with a quiet intensity, and said he was on his way.

David found an ancient dictation recorder in his study, and dubbed a copy for Ed. He'd just finished when Yale arrived, and he handed off the answering machine tape at the front door. Yale's face reflected David's own exhaustion. Their exchange was wordless. David watched Yale striding to his car, his impeccable posture undiminished by fatigue or the late hour. David waited for him to drive away, then dropped the copy of the tape in his mailbox for Ed.

When he got back inside, he double-locked the door. After inserting a new tape into the answering machine, he slid beneath the covers, but only stared at the ceiling again, his heart pounding as the early light of morning spilled through the window. The phone rang at 6 a.m. and he readied his hand over the answering machine record button before answering. His voice sounded weak and shaky, even to himself. "Hello?"

"Don't worry about it," Ed said. "Clyde's not holding any captives. He played you a bootleg copy of the Bittaker-Norris torture tapes."

"I . . . I'm sorry?"

"Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris. They raped and tortured girls in the back of their van, and recorded their screaming and pleading."

"But . . . where . . . ?"

"You can get the tapes at any number of places. Like the Amok Bookstore, which I believe you're familiar with."

"Certainly a good place to find tools to scare the shit out of people," David said.

"Make sure you let the flatfoots in on the joke so they're not running circles all day. I'll be enjoying myself thinking about what it'll do to your ego to tell the police you recognized the recording after playing it a few more times. They'll think you have some pretty perverse interests." In the background, a computer monitor hummed. "When I come over to install security equipment, remind me to set a phone trap on your line so we can trace incoming calls."

"You're installing security equipment for me?"