Psychopath (10 page)

*            *            *

By the time Kane Warner walked Clevenger to the front door of the Academy and delivered him into another black sedan, Clevenger had the beginnings of a profile of the Highway Killer in mind.  He had stayed in the conference room over two hours, gathering more details on each of the crime scenes and pressing each of the players around the table for their gut feelings on the case.

He believed the killer was indeed probably male, not only because statistics said so, but because of the force with which the blades had sliced through the carotid arteries and the fibrous windpipes of his victims.  He was probably at least forty, because it was hard to imagine someone younger having the social skills and bearing to make victims feel so comfortable with him.  He was good-looking, but not particularly sexual, which made him nonthreatening to women.  He had been around hospitals or first aid or blood banks, given his proficiency with a needle.  And he was probably an only child, because his need for closeness — ’blood relatives’ — was so extreme that it was hard to imagine such a need developing in the presence of a sibling.  Whitney McCormick’s theory that he had been orphaned or abandoned was a decent bet.

No part of the profile was for sure, and it wasn’t much to go on in any case, but Clevenger did feel certain about one thing:  there would be other bodies to examine and other crime scenes to study.  The killer needed to keep killing.  He was hooked.

As the sedan made its way back to National Airport, Clevenger thought again of the thirteen photographs Bob White had spread across the Behavioral Sciences Unit conference table.  Thirteen lives.  And now the body count was up to fourteen, with no way of knowing how many corpses had yet to be found.

Clevenger imagined the killer might be thinking of his victims, too.  At that very moment he could be driving a highway, anxious for the sun to go down, thirsting to extinguish another life and extend his family, his bloodline.

He felt a familiar hatred fill him.  Antipathy.  Because for Clevenger the end of life was the enemy.  He despised death, no matter what form the beast took — cancer, old age, or murder.  He had simply chosen the cause of death he could short-circuit using what he had learned and the ways he could think.  And if people sometimes said he went overboard doing his job, they just didn’t get it, as far as he was concerned.  An investigation was a war.  You were staring death down and you had to be willing to throw everything in the kitty if death upped the ante — even sacrifice yourself, if need be, to end the carnage.

The sedan dropped him outside the US Air terminal.  The first two shuttles from D.C. to Boston were canceled due to fog at Logan, and by the time he landed back home it was 5:15
P.M.
  He drove his truck out of Central Parking and used his mobile phone to dial the lab at Mass General.  "This is Dr. Frank Clevenger," he said to the woman who picked up.  "I’m looking for the result of a toxic screen on Billy Bishop."

"Date of birth?" she asked.

"December 11, 1987."

"One moment, doctor."

"Please be negative," Clevenger whispered.  Not that he thought marijuana was the end of the world.  Not that most sixteen-year-olds didn’t smoke a joint now and then.  But if the stuff was in Billy’s blood, then Billy had lied to him, straight out-about using, and probably about selling.  And that meant his character was anything but on the mend.

A minute went by.  To Clevenger, it felt like ten.  "Hello?" he prodded.

"Just one second," the woman said.  "My computer...  Okay...  No.  We have nothing on record."

"He didn’t come in?" Clevenger asked.

"Apparently not," she said.

"Could the result be recorded anywhere else?"

"If he’d had a tox screen, it would be in the computer, even if the results were pending."

"Well, thanks for looking," Clevenger said, feeling the odd cocktail of anger and frustration and sadness that only Billy Bishop could provoke in him.

"Not at all." She hung up.

Clevenger dialed his loft, got no answer.  He dialed Billy’s cell phone and got his terse recorded message, "You know what to do," then the beep.  He hung up, dialed the cell phone again, got the message again.  "Pain in the ass," he said aloud, clicking off.  He tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and headed for home.

s i x

Billy Bishop sat on the weight bench he’d set up in his room in Clevenger’s Chelsea loft, blaring the Doors and staring out the Paladian windows at the Boston skyline shimmering beyond the Fitzgerald Shipyard.

The room was barren except for the weight bench, a simple bureau, his bed, and the stereo components he’d stacked against one wall, a tangle of wires connecting them.  Posters of the rock groups Puddle of Mud, Pearl Jam and the Grateful Dead covered the walls.

He had maxed out at six reps of 200 pounds.  His body was pumped, and his thoughts were coming fast.

He was feeling pretty good about himself.  He’d gone down to the shipyard, talked to Peter Fitzgerald, and landed a job starting the very next day.  Sure, the whole thing was a favor to Clevenger, but at least he hadn’t blown it.  He’d closed the deal.  Which had to count for something, right?  And it was actually pretty cool stuff.  He’d get to learn to fix tugboat engines.  He’d get to hang with the guys who captained them.  And he’d get ten bucks an hour cash to start, which was chump change, but a whole lot better than volunteering.  Dean Walsh and his tight-ass secretary, and Scott Dillard and the rest of Auden Prep could go to hell, bunch of fucking hypocrites.

Dillard and his tough-guy friends just didn’t like getting the shit knocked out of them.  That was pretty much the whole story, which was pretty funny, considering they’d picked both fights — Dillard talking all kinds of trash about Billy’s hair style and nose ring, then his buddies figuring they’d get revenge for the beating he’d taken.

As far as Billy was concerned, you didn’t start something you couldn’t finish.  If you did, you sucked it up and took your punishment. 

Not Dillard and company.  They’d ratted him out. 

He stood up and walked to the mirror over his bureau.  He was ripped.  His torso looked like a gladiator’s armor — perfectly defined pecs, a six-pack abdomen, not an ounce of fat anywhere.  He flexed his arms and watched his biceps bulge rock-hard.

That’s what they all were:  hypocrites.  To think that Dillard had turned him in for having marijuana in his locker when Dillard had been one of his best customers.  The scumbag had been nursing a habit of an ounce a month until he’d decided to start in on Billy about his dreadlocks — joking at first, but then going overboard and really hassling him. 
From Jamaica, mon?  Off de island, mon?
  So Billy had cut him off.  Cold.  Not a single joint.  Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

That was the real reason Dillard had wanted to fight:  he was hungry for his smoke and couldn’t get it.

Billy leaned closer to the mirror and inspected his nose ring, making sure the piercing was healing up.  Then he stepped back and sat at the end of the weight bench.  He laced his fingers behind his head, rotated his shoulders left and right, stretching before his next set.

Walsh throwing him out over a bag of reefer was a real joke in the first place.  Could anybody seriously believe the dean wasn’t having himself a couple martinis every night he went home to his five-foot wife with the thick legs and bright red lipstick?  How was that different than having yourself a joint?  Or a line?  Other than the government taking a cut of the profits on the booze?  Also, booze could destroy your liver or make somebody roadkill, whereas pot and an occasional blast wouldn’t hurt you at all.

He lay down on the weight bench and gripped the bar overhead.  He’d added ten-pound plates to each side, bringing him up to 220 pounds.  He took a deep breath and pushed the bar off its pegs.  He lowered it to his chest.  Then he blew all the air out of his lungs and pressed the bar back up.  Solid.  He did another rep, struggled through a third.  On the fourth, his pecs shook from his effort to slow the bar as it fell.  His arms felt as though they might give out.  But he reached deep inside himself and imagined that the bar wanted to rise, that gravity was working in reverse, that all he had to do was work with it.  He shut his eyes, craned his neck and pushed with everything he had, gritting his teeth as he powered the bar back up, extending his arms, holding the weight steady a split second before letting it crash back onto the steel pegs.

"Nice," Clevenger yelled over the music, from just outside the room.

Billy sat up, breathing like a bellows, covered in sweat.

Clevenger nodded at the stereo.  "Mind lowering that?"

Billy walked over and dialed down the volume.  "You could have spotted me," he said, turning back to Clevenger.  "I almost lost it there."

"No, you didn’t," Clevenger said.  He stepped into the room.  "Not even close."

"Two-twenty," Billy said.  "Four reps."

"A new record," Clevenger said.  "Congratulations."  He nodded at Billy’s cell phone on the floor beside the weight bench.  "I tried you on my way back from the airport."

"I didn’t hear it," Billy lied.

Clevenger nodded.

"I talked to Peter Fitzgerald today," Billy said.  "I start work tomorrow."

"Good," Clevenger said, in a reserved tone.

"Ten bucks an hour," Billy said, injecting more enthusiasm into his voice than he felt, hoping the energy might propel the discussion past any mention of the drug test.  "And these guys who run the tugs turn out to be—"

"Talk to me about the drug test," Clevenger said.

"I couldn’t get there," Billy said automatically.  He reached for his T-shirt.

"I’ll go tomorrow," he said, pulling it on.  "First thing."

"What do you mean you ’couldn’t get there?’ "

"By the time I finished at the shipyard it was like four-thirty, and I promised Casey, this new girl I met, that I’d call her, which took till like five-fifteen, five-thirty, then it was dark, so I figured I might as well wait."

"Why didn’t you get the test done before going to the shipyard, like we agreed?" Clevenger asked.

"A million things," Billy said.

"A million..."

"Honestly?  I slept in ’til like noon, then ended up going for a run to kind of clear my head, grabbed lunch and whatever.  Then I got worried how jammed the clinic might be, that I might miss Peter.  You know?  But I can definitely go get it done tomorrow morning."

Clevenger knew enough about drug abusers — himself included — to know they were always stalling to avoid turning over their bodily fluids, buying time for their bodies to detoxify, for their kidneys and livers to obliterate the truth.  "How about right now?" he asked.  "We can drop by my buddy Brian Strasnick’s lab in Lynn.  Willow Street Medical Center.  He’s there half the night."

"I told Casey I’d meet her," Billy said.

"Meet her afterwards," Clevenger said, trying to stay in control.

Billy smiled, shook his head.  "She’s not gonna like—"

"I don’t give a fuck what she likes," Clevenger sputtered.  "We had a deal that you’d have a tox screen done at Mass General, then you’d go to your interview at the shipyard.  And you let me down.  So now you’re gonna take the ride to Lynn with me."

"Because you don’t trust me," Billy said, trying to sound wounded.

"Because you didn’t hold up your part of the bargain," Clevenger said.

Billy shook his head. 
Fuck it
, he thought.  Maybe this Strasnick’s machine was a dud.  Maybe he’d get the chance to add some water to his urine and dilute any drug metabolites below their recognizable concentrations.  If none of that worked, he’d still get another night out with Casey before the shit hit the fan with Clevenger.  "Fine," he said.  "Let’s go."

*            *            *

"How was Quantico?" Billy asked, as soon as they’d climbed into Clevenger’s truck.

"I think it went pretty smoothly," Clevenger said.  He hoped Billy would let him leave it at that — for two reasons.  First, he was too angry to make small talk.  Second, and more important, he wanted to keep Billy at a distance from his forensic work, to avoid feeding him a steady diet of darkness.

"What case do they want you on?"

"A murder case."

"The Highway Killer?" Billy asked excitedly.  "How cool would it be working on that?"

"They asked me not to talk about our meeting," Clevenger said tightly.  He glanced at Billy, saw him deflate.  "Not to anyone."

"Sure," Billy said.

"That’s the way they want it."

"But you told them you don’t keep anything from North."

Clevenger could feel Billy jockeying for position.  There was part of Billy that wanted nothing to do with Clevenger and part of him that wanted to get as close as he possibly could.  Closer than anyone else.  And maybe if Billy had followed through with the drug test, Clevenger would have told him a little more about his meeting.  Nothing too grisly.  Nothing truly classified.  Just something to let him know Clevenger was taking him into his confidence.  But that would be sending the wrong message now.  Billy had to learn that trust was something you earned.  "North hasn’t let me down in a long time," he said.

Billy turned away and stared out the passenger window.

They drove in silence the next few minutes, headed down Route 16 East through Revere, Clevenger wondering what Billy was thinking, figuring he was probably less focused on the drug test than on whether he would be done with the drug test in time to catch the train out of Lynn to meet his girlfriend at the North Shore Shopping Center ten miles away in Peabody, something he’d arranged to do just before leaving the loft.  Maybe he was wondering whether Tower Records would have a CD he wanted or whether he had enough cash for a room at the Motel 6 up the street from the mall.

But Billy wasn’t thinking any of those things.  In those two minutes of silence, staring out his window, he was thinking what it would be like to open his door and leap out of the truck.  He imagined a powerful mixture of panic and pleasure just before hitting the road, much of that pleasure deriving from how horrified Clevenger would be.  He heard the screeching of brakes as Clevenger skidded to the side of the road, the sound of footsteps as he ran to where Billy lay facedown, bleeding on the pavement.  And although Billy could not fully explain the satisfaction he felt turning over and seeing the grief and panic in Clevenger’s face, he knew it was connected to the fact that Clevenger was not willing to hurt him nearly so badly as he was willing to hurt himself.  That was his end run, his ace in the hole, even if he could not say what game he and Clevenger were playing, even if he missed entirely the fact that Clevenger’s self-restraint was something called love and that his own lack of it was something called self-loathing.