Life Sentences (19 page)

Jack and Daisy were greeted by an
escort team of cheerless mental health professionals in the lobby of
the main building. The hospital administrator was a pasty specter of
a man who walked with stiff little steps, as if his legs were made of
glass. "We allow noncontact visits only," he said. "The prisoner
will be escorted into the visitor's room by two correctional officers,
who will remain in the secure area for the duration."

Francois-Giroux Psychiatric Prison
held a distinct smell that Daisy would never forget She felt smaller and
smaller as they walked through a maze of corridors monitored by closed-circuit
TV. The maximum-security prison consisted of a dozen enormous cement-block
buildings set on approximately thirty acres of land, the entire complex
surrounded by perimeter walls topped off with razor wire. They followed
the administrator down one oppressive corridor after another, their
footsteps echoing behind his little
clippety
-clops.

"The entire control and communications
is handled from a centralized area," he said, pulling a squawking
walkie-talkie off his belt. 'The officer at the front desk operates the
doors electronically, controlling all entrances and exits." He
spoke into the walkie-talkie for a moment, then said, "There'll be
nobody else inside the visitor's room with you today. Detective Makowski
and I will monitor the proceedings from an adjacent room, and I can assure
you, Ms. Hubbard, your personal safety is guaranteed."

"Famous last words," she
said with a laugh.

He didn't even crack a smile.

She felt her level of anxiety rising
as they followed this humorless man into the empty visitor's room, where
the floors were tacky from years of foot traffic and the overhead
skylights flooded the area with a diffuse light. She took a seat at one of
the dirty white booths, then stared at the telephone handset. The Plexiglas
had grease marks on it.

"See those surveillance cameras?"
Jack pointed at the video cameras in every corner. "I'll be watching
you the whole time. He'll come in through that door over there. He'll be
handcuffed and manacled. Two guards will escort him over to his seat,
and you'll be protected by this barrier. He'll pick up his handset. You
pick up yours. You can stop talking-or listening-anytime you like, Daisy.
Don't let him bully you. If you feel threatened in any way, just call out to
one of the guards. Ready?"

"Wait," she said, losing
her nerve.

"Relax. You're doing great."
He started to leave, but she grabbed his hand and held on to it for a moment.
"It's okay," he said gently. "I'll be right next door."

She nodded.

"He can't hurt you."

Watching him walk away, she felt a
growing uneasiness. He didn't look back as he opened the heavy perforated
door, then let it slam shut behind him. She sat with her terrible fears,
and after a moment, she could hear footsteps-a door thudding shut, the
clink-clink of chains.

Two armed guards escorted Roy Gaines
into the secured area behind the Plexiglas. She felt sparks of hatred
for him, sparks of fury. His eyes really got to her. They held an awful knowledge.
As she looked into those eyes, she could sense an oiliness spreading
over her, thick and suffocating. He wore his standard-issue jumpsuit,
a white T-shirt and the horn-rimmed glasses of a college professor. The
length of the chain between his legs was about twelve inches, and crossing
the floor in leg irons looked difficult.

Good
,
she thought.
Suffer
.

The armed guards escorted him roughly
over to his chair, then sat him down in front of her. They
uncuffed
the prisoner's right hand and cuffed his left hand to a metal hook on the
tabletop. Their movements were very fluid and mechanical, but she could
detect something else in their demeanor-a thinly disguised fear that
made her feel less safe. They barely acknowledged Daisy's' existence,
and something primitive in her wanted to run away.

Gaines sat just a few feet away
from her now, behind a thick Plexiglas barrier. He picked up his handset
and indicated that she should, too. He seemed relatively low-key,
self-effacing and polite, but it made her recall Jack's warning:
Sociopaths can be charming. Be careful.
He might trick you into thinking he's normal, Daisy. Don't fall for it.

She picked up the handset, dreading
the moment of contact.

"Thanks for agreeing to talk
to me," he said.

Funny, she'd expected him to breathe
fire.
Sh
couldn't stop looking at him and grew extremely
self-conscious. She felt like a mental patient, observed from all angles.
She was keenly aware that Jack and the prison authorities were watching
their every move. "You've got something to say to me?" she asked,
afraid he might not hear her over the hammering of her heart.

He nodded vaguely.

"Well?"

"I wanted you to know a few
things," he said. "I'm not crazy. I don't hear voices in my head.
I don't run around naked, screaming at the top of my lungs. I don't throw my
own feces or drink my own urine, like some of the winners in this establishment."

She didn't argue with him.

"I figured you'd understand
what I'm about to say, since she's your sister."

Her heart wouldn't stop pounding.

Gaines leaned forward, and she could
see his acne scars in great detail through the scratched Plexiglas.
"I shouldn't be here," he said calmly. "I didn't kill anyone."

She blinked. "You
didn't?"

"No. I'm an innocent
man."

"But you led the police to
two bodies," she said angrily. "Three, if you count Colby
Ostrow
."

"I only buried them. I didn't
kill them."

"Who killed them, then?"

"Think about it," he said.

She was going to be sick to her stomach.

He sat there staring at her.

"I don't understand…"

"Your sister," he said,
enunciating every syllable, "killed those people."

"What?"

"I
buried
them, but Anna
murdered
them."

She could feel the flesh quiver
on her bones.

"She's still out there. Killing
people."

"I don't believe you. You're
lying."

He gave her a stony look.

It made her think of a recurring
nightmare she used to have as a little girl-piles of blankets, frightful
anguish. The more she kicked the covers off, the more blankets were piled
on top of her. "Look," she said, "Anna may be many things, but
she'd never murder anyone. Ever!"

"It's just curious, isn't
it?" He gave her such a sincere look it didn't feel like a con. It
felt genuine. "The idea that somebody like your sister… a person
as beautiful as that, with a Virgin Mary complex and everything… could
turn to murder?"

Revulsion rose in her. "You're
full of shit," she said. "What are you saying? Are you saying that
Anna killed these people? My sister? Why would she do such a thing? She
may be sick in the head, but she's not crazy! You're the monster! My sister
wouldn't hurt a flea. And even if it were true… why would you bury the bodies
for her?"

He looked away, his face darkening.
"You know what I think?" she said. "I think you're lying. I
think you killed those people, and you killed my sister, and now you're
trying to confuse me."

He stabbed his finger on the tabletop.
"I never loved anyone… like I loved her. The second Anna came into
my life, I knew… I just knew we belonged together. She didn't feel sorry
for me. She didn't humor me. And most important of all, she wasn't afraid
of me."

"Yeah, well, Anna can be really
stupid when it comes to the men in her life."

He stared at her.

"Forget it," she said, ready
to hang up. "This is bullshit."

"You really don't know, do
you?" he said.

She hesitated.

"When the mice die, and you
put them in the freezer?" he said impatiently. "When your brother
couldn't lift his head off the pillow anymore?"

It was as if they were talking
through a bad connection.

"You try to save lives.
That's your job. This is Anna's." He sat forward, suddenly anxious
to unburden himself. "She found the gene."

"What gene? What are you talking
about?"

"On chromosome 24."

"There are only twenty-three
chromosomes."

He shook his head. "Anna has
twenty-four."

"What? Jesus… I don't understand
what you're saying."

"She has the gene for death."

Her mind was reeling.
"What?"

"She says they never leave
her, not completely. Not the essence of who they are. She says that when
she takes them, sometimes they fight it. Sometimes they fight it, but
eventually, they give in. They all give in eventually… rich or poor,
doesn't matter. She says she can feel their bodies begin to relax when
they suddenly realize it's not as bad as they thought it would be. She
says it's like plugging into an electric outlet, all this energy comes
charging into you and…" He stopped talking and sat back in his chair.

Her emotions grew wild and tangled.
"What do you mean? She thinks she has twenty-four chromosomes, and
this makes her kill people?" Her heart would not stop thundering in
her ears. "I don't understand. Are you saying that the two of you are
in on this together? That you and my sister conspired to kill these people?"

He glanced around at the security
cameras. "I never admitted to killing anyone. I simply told the police
where the bodies were buried. It's part of the plea agreement."

"Okay, fine. So tell me where
Anna is."

He didn't respond.

"Tell me where she is if she's
still alive!"

"I don't know. I thought you
could find her."

"What?"

"I don't know where she is anymore."

"You're full of shit, you know?
Anna was sweet and funny and bright, and you killed her." She swallowed
back the tears. She didn't want to cry in front of him.

"I don't kill people,"
Gaines said evenly. "I thought we covered that."

"But you said-"

"She's Death, is what I said…
Anna is Death. Don't you get it? It's my duty to help her."

"What?"

"I said, what I said was… she
takes them when they're ready to go. She takes them because that's her
job. She's Death, and it's my job to help her, okay? It's my job to bury the
bodies. I'm no murderer. I already told you that."

"So she's alive.”

He nodded moodily.

"And she thinks she's Death!"

"Until she found out who she
really was, Anna didn't have a life," he said. "She was just
alive and breathing."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you have a life, Daisy?
Do you consider yourself to be truly alive?"

She froze.

"Those mice you experiment
with can't choose," he said. "They can't plot their escape, and
neither can you. When your time is up, it's up."

She turned toward the guards.
"I'm done!"

"Listen to me. You can't stop
her, Daisy. You can't stop Death."

She dropped the handset. "Guard?"

Jack slammed into the room.
"Are you okay?"

"He's insane!" She stood
on shaky legs.

He stroked her face and hair.

"Get me out of here," she
whispered.

He was there, and that was all that
mattered.

Back in Daisy's motel room, Jack
held her in his arms and tried to shake off the image of Roy Gaines behind
the Plexiglas barrier, his delusion like a river they'd all been
swept into. "He's lying," he told her. "He's building an insanity
defense. I've seen this before."

"So you think he killed
her?"

"Yes."

"But what if you're
wrong?"

"He's trying to confuse you.
He's only pretending to be crazy, but he's crazy like a fox. Think about it
He gets to blame the one victim who has delusions of grandeur. He knows
her history. It's not such a big leap from the Virgin Mary to Death, is it?
Don't you see what he's doing? He's • buried her somewhere up in those
mountains, convinced we'll never find her. So he tells you she's still
out there, running around killing people. He wants to plant doubt in the
jurors' minds."

Daisy stood moodily in a shaft of
sunlight. "So it's all a scam? Him showing us those other bodies?
Everything?"

"What else could it be?"

"
Folie
a
deux
." Jack frowned. "What's
that?"

"It means shared psychotic
disorder. It happens sometimes when two susceptible individuals become
involved in a mutually dependent psychotic relationship. One person
has delusions, which the other one comes to share, and together they
create a whole new belief system.
Folie
a
deux
."

"I don't buy it."

"Why not?"

"Because I know this guy. He's
smart. He's manipulating you. He's playing off your desire to find your
sister alive. Think about it, Daisy. It's the perfect alibi. 'I didn't
kill them. She did. She thinks she's Death.' So where is she? 'I don't know.
She's crazy. She ran away.'" "You don't think they could both be delusional?"
"I think he's a sociopath. Sociopaths are different from psychotics.
Psychotics hear voices inside their heads. Sociopaths don't feel anything.
They're soulless." She sagged with defeat on the edge of the bed.
"I didn't ask the right questions," she said dejectedly.

He sat down beside her and wrapped
his arm around her. "It's okay. You did good."

"No. I should've asked him
the obvious. If she's Death, why didn't he fear for his life? I could've
tripped him up."

"You did better than ninety
percent of the population would've, under the circumstances."

She shook her head angrily.
"I should have protected her. Anna was three years younger than me
when Mr. Barsum molested us. My sister was just a little girl, and I should
have protected her. Why didn't I protect her?"

"Hey," he said, turning
toward her. "There is no possible scenario in which you are to blame
for any of this."

"Don't you see? I couldn't save
her then, and I can't save her now."

She sat in a patch of sunlight, her
face so sad and lovely it astounded him. He slid the straps of her batik-print
dress off her shoulders and planted little kisses across her throat, making
the beads of a necklace.

He could sense her giving in, but
then something happened, because she slid the straps back up. "Please
don't," she whispered. "I can't."

"Lie down with me," he said,
drawing her onto the bed with him. He ran his fingers along her backbone,
feeling the little bumps there. "I like your body," he said.
"You're so beautiful. Do you like how this feels when I touch
you?"

"Yes," she whispered,
but the muscles of her back kept tensing up.

"We can stop if you want."
He withdrew his hand.

She watched him solemnly, her
eyes rounding a little. "I'm afraid," she admitted.

"Don't be. There's nothing to
be afraid of."

"I don't like feeling vulnerable."

"Okay. We'll just he here,"
he said. "We'll just lie f here together."

Her face relaxed, and he realized
that she trusted him. He wanted her to trust him, not just with her mind but
with her body. She kissed him with a slack willingness, and they fumbled
out of their clothes. Their bodies moved rhythmically together while
the headboard bumped against the wall. He was brown from the sun, and he
liked the way his brown hands explored her pale skin. She was paler,
even, than the palest parts of himself.

"I haven't floated away
yet," she said, looking at him with a kind of wonder. "I keep expecting
to float away."

"Float away?"

"Out of my body."

"It's okay," he told her.

"I can't believe I'm still here
in the room with you."

He could feel the tension in various
parts of her body beginning to release its hold. He could tell it was painful
for her to let go of this tension. He could feel her body relaxing against
him, and as she relaxed, he could feel other areas of her beginning to
stir. These different feelings and sensations held him fast. They moved
him deeply.

"Is it okay?" he asked.
"Does that feel good?"

"I like you inside me,"
she said in a hushed whisper.

A curl of blond hair settled in
the hollow of her throat. The motel bed made a creak-creak sound. The
wind blew through his heart an unexpected echo. It scared him to think
that he might be falling in love with her.

Afterward they lay together, wrapped
in a soft, warm silence. Her reclining body made a curve like a breaker
coming toward him. A wrinkle in the bedspread felt like a finger tracking
along his spine. As he watched her, his mind grew blank as a clean sheet
of paper. "I'll come back tonight," he promised her.

"Yes," she said. "Come
back."

He waited a beat, then said,
"I want this like I've never wanted anything before in my life."

She nodded and looked into his face,
the truth about them finally registering.

"I know all about you,"
he said. "I know how it is to lose somebody you love."

She burst into tears, her grief
flooding forward, and he held her for a very long time. She was hot and human.
She moved and breathed beside him.

"I'm coming back tonight,"
he said, sitting up and getting dressed. He pulled on his sticky clothes.
He zipped and buttoned up.

"Wait," she said, reaching
for her bedside table. "I've been meaning to show you something."

He nodded as he pulled his T-shirt
down over his head.

She opened the diary to a specific
page. "See where she wrote her name a bunch of times? Only that isn't
her last name. Anna
Hildreth
. It's like she's a
schoolgirl, dreaming about getting married to a man named
Hildreth
. See?"

He looked at the cramped signature.
Anna
Hildreth
, Anna
Hildreth
,
Anna
Hildreth
… She had scrawled it a total of
ten times. "Is it code for anything?"

Daisy shook her head.

He frowned down at the page. It made
him wonder. "So who's
Hildreth
?"

"I don't know anyone by that
name. Wait." Daisy I searched for a pen and piece of paper.
"It's an anagram," she said, sitting up.

"You lost me."

"It just hit me. It's an anagram!"

"Again," Jack said.
"Lost."

"Remember when I told you about
her appointment with Dr. E. H. Hilt?" "Yeah?"

Her tongue poked out between her
lips as she wrote something down on a piece of motel stationery, then
held it up for him to see. She'd spelled out: HJJLDRETH = DR E H HILT.
"It's an anagram. Dr. E. H. Hilt is
Hildreth
."
"Okay, so who the hell is
Hildreth
?" Jack
rubbed his jaw. "Wait,
lemme
ask you something.
Why did your sister move to Los Angeles in the first place?"
"I'm not sure."

"Why not Chicago or New
York?" "She said she wanted to get as far away from Lily as possible.
She was only half joking."

"Did she have her own Internet
account at home?" "Yes. Why?"

"Okay, bear with me a minute.
Of all the victims, Anna's the only one who had a relationship with Gaines.
He told you back in prison that he was in love with her, right? 'I never loved
anyone like I loved her.' Loved, by the way. Did you notice that? He
used the past tense. What does that tell you?"

Daisy frowned. "He knows something
we don't know."

"Exactly. But getting back to
my other point.
Let'sjust
suppose your sister
met Roy Gaines over the Internet…"

"I thought you said they met
eight months ago." "According to one witness, they met at least
eight months ago. They could've met earlier. Is there any other reason
she chose L.A.?"

"Just that she was sick of living
in Vermont."

"No other reason?"

"Wait," Daisy said.
"They might've met while she was surfing the Internet, going on all
those chat rooms and Web sites in search of Louis's father. Don't you
think Gaines is the type to look for his victims that way?"

"If they did meet over the Internet,"
Jack said, taking it to its logical conclusion, "then he's the reason
she decided to move to L.A."

"So he's
Hildreth
?"

Jack scratched his chin. "Either
Gaines is
Hildreth
, or
Hildreth
is Gaines. Can I take this?" He indicated the diary.

She nodded. "So then, her saying
that she couldn't wait to see Dr. Hilt meant she couldn't wait to see Roy
Gaines. Oh God. She fell into his trap."

He took her hand. "I've got to
go."

"What are you going to
do?"

At the door he gave her a lingering
kiss. "I'll take care of everything, Daisy," he promised.
"Don't worry anymore."