Psychopath (6 page)

The tankers used to drift in, be drained of their black blood, and drift away without a show of force, without drawing any more notice than the smokestacks that silently spewed soot onto Chelsea’s neighborhoods or the soft-soled sneakers of the drug dealers padding along Broadway.  But that was before the world changed on September 11.  Now anything that could be blown up seemed as though it might get blown up.  The whole country had come down with a bad case of posttraumatic stress disorder.  Bad for us.  Good for Eli Lilly and Pfizer and Merck.  Eventually, they’d put Prozac and Zoloft and Paxil in the drinking water, see whether that kept the anxiety at bay.  Because nobody really wanted to figure out anything anymore, not when the knots in the world’s psyche had gotten so tight that untying them might mean unraveling a preconception or two.  Better to keep the serotonin flowing, bathe our brains in the calm water of denial.

These were some of the thoughts in Clevenger’s mind when his phone began to ring.  It rang five times before he reached for it.  "Frank Clevenger," he said, as if to remind himself.

"Dr. Clevenger, this is Agent Kane Warner," a raspy voice on the line said.  He said it as though it were a question, the end of the sentence rising:  ...
this is Agent Kane Warner?

People from L.A. spoke that way, like they never wanted to commit to anything.  Clevenger glanced at the Caller ID screen.  703.  Virginia.  The FBI was headquartered in Quantico.  "What can I do for you?" he asked.

"I’m the director of the Behavioral Sciences Unit at the Bureau. FBI.  I’d like to speak with you about helping us with an investigation."  Warner finished with that interrogatory flourish of his again:  ...
an investigation?

"What case?" Clevenger asked.

"I’d prefer we talk in person?"

"I’m in the office most of the day tomorrow," Clevenger said.

"Actually," Warner said. "I was going to suggest my office."

"Afraid to fly?" Clevenger said.

Warner didn’t laugh.

"It was a joke," Clevenger said.

"Okay," Warner said stiffly.

"Before I could meet with you," Clevenger said, "I would have to know..."

"I really would rather wait until we sit down," Warner said.

Warner didn’t sound friendly — especially for someone asking for help.  "I’d rather not wait," Clevenger said.

A pause.  "The Highway Killer."

Clevenger pulled his feet off the desk, pulled his eyes away from the harbor.  He’d been following news coverage of the Highway Killer for years.  "Twelve bodies, twelve states," he said.

"Thirteen bodies," Warner said.

"As of?"

"This morning."

"Where?"

"A young couple driving Route 90 East in New York, headed to their ski house, stopped in a rest area.  Their dog ran off.  They chased him into the woods, and the girl twisted her ankle on something.  It turned out to be a frozen arm."

"Male or female?"

"Female," Warner said.  "Anna Beckwith.  Forty-four years old.  Single.  From Pennsylvania."  He paused.

"So that’s eight men, five women," Clevenger said.

"Thirteen victims.  Thirteen states."

"That you know of," Clevenger said.  He reached for the package of Marlboros on his desk, lighted one, took a long drag.

There was an uncomfortable silence.  "That we know of," Warner allowed.

"Why me?" Clevenger said, smoke drifting out with his words.  "You’ve got experts in house."

"There seems to be agreement here that we could use a forensic psychiatrist with a fresh perspective.  Someone outside the agency."

There
seemed
to be agreement.  Clevenger smiled wryly.  How many more bodies would it take for
definite
agreement?   "You could use someone outside — or someone a little ’out there?’ "

"You have a reputation for working on the edge," Warner said.  "You’re...  unorthodox.  We understand that.  It may be time for us to think outside the box."

It
may
be time.  Clevenger turned and looked out his window as a red Porsche Carrera pulled to a stop alongside the docks.  North Anderson, a tough, black, forty-three-year-old former cop, got out.  "I have a partner," Clevenger said.

"Who you work with is your business," Warner said.  "But for our first meeting, we’d like to speak with you privately — until we know whether you’re signing on.  We’re playing this as close to the vest as possible.  I’m sure you understand."

"What time did you want to meet tomorrow?"

"Is there a chance for later today?"

"Booked.  Parent-teacher conference."

"How’s Billy doing?" Warner asked.

"Fine," Clevenger lied, taken aback.  He sometimes forgot his adopted son was as well-known as he.

"Good," Warner said.  "It must have been tough rebounding from a bum rap like he got."

"Yes, it was," Clevenger said. 
Still is
.

"I’ll leave it to you, then.  Anytime tomorrow," Warner said.

"I’ll be on the six
A.M.
US Air shuttle to National," Clevenger said.

"I’ll have a car waiting for you," Warner said. "I look forward to meeting."

"Same here."

Warner hung up.

"Skipping town?" North Anderson said from Clevenger’s door.

Clevenger clicked the phone off and looked at Anderson.  They were close in age, each of them with a nearly shaved head, each of them standing nearly six feet tall, each of them having worked his body until it was lean and muscular.  They shared an intensity of gaze, a kind of insistent sincerity that could elicit confessions from con men and romantic concessions from women.  If Anderson hadn’t been black, the two of them would have looked very much like brothers, instead of just feeling that way.  "The Highway Killer," Clevenger said.

"FBI?" Anderson asked.

Clevenger nodded.  "They found another victim this morning.  A woman in upstate New York.  Shallow grave, like the others."

"We’ve got plenty on our plates right now, if you ask me," Anderson said.

"I don’t think they have a single lead," Clevenger said.  He dropped his cigarette into a coffee cup, listened to it sizzle.

"Doesn’t sound like the kind of team we need to be signing on with," Anderson said.

"He’s killed at least thirteen people," Clevenger said.

"Maybe thirteen’s his unlucky number."

"The Bureau wouldn’t call unless they were at a dead end," Clevenger said.  "My bet — they’ve got zero.  No leads."  He tapped another Marlboro out of the package.

Anderson shook his head.  "Listen," he said.  "The FBI may want to believe they’re ready to bring somebody like you in, because they’re desperate, but they’re not gonna give up control.  They’ll never let you make the moves you need to make."

Clevenger smiled, lit the cigarette.  "Nobody’s tried reining us in before?"

"This is different," Anderson said.  "This is the FBI.  They’re experts at it."

"No harm talking to them."

"Maybe not," Anderson said.  "Unless all they want to do is talk."

"Meaning?" Clevenger asked.

"Talking to you isn’t necessarily the simple thing it used to be, Frank," Anderson said.  "Not since Nantucket."

Nantucket meant the Bishop family murder, an infanticide in the home of billionaire investor Darwin Bishop during 2001.  By the time that case had ended, Darwin Bishop and his son Garret had been jailed, Bishop’s wife Julia had been deemed an unfit parent, and Clevenger had ended up on the cover of
Newsweek
, beneath a headline that read,
FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST FRANK CLEVENGER SOLVES MURDER OF THE DECADE
.  He’d also ended up adopting Bishop’s other son, an emotionally troubled boy named Billy who had been the lead suspect in the killing — until Clevenger proved him innocent.  Billy’s photograph, inset beside Clevenger’s on the
Newsweek
cover, had carried the caption, "...And Gives Young Billy Bishop a Fresh Start."

Billy had only been sixteen years old at the time of the murder and should have been shielded from the media.  But the public had had an insatiable appetite for the Bishop case, and the district attorney’s office had been only too eager to feed them anything and everything on Billy — so long as it made him look guilty.  When he was finally cleared, the media feeding frenzy only intensified.  Billy was young, tough, and handsome.  His prior history of violence made him every little girl’s bad boy fantasy.  Leno called.  Couric actually visited Billy just before his release from jail.  The producers of
Survivor
offered him two hundred grand to be a contestant.  Luckily, Clevenger was his legal guardian by then and turned them down.

"You really think the FBI needs the PR?" Clevenger asked.

"They need something," Anderson said.  "They’re taking major heat for this guy still being on the streets.  If they leak a meeting with you to the press, they get instant headlines.  They look like they’re pulling out all the stops.  They get the public off their backs — at least for a while.  As long as you’re officially on the case, everybody’s going to focus on you.  And you’re the one who’ll take the heat when another body turns up."

"So maybe I don’t end up looking good," Clevenger said.  "Since when did we start worrying about my image?  You’re my partner.  You want to be my agent?"

"Do what you have to do," Anderson said.  "Just remember, I warned you."

"I wasn’t planning to do it alone."

Anderson ran a finger along the thick, pink scar over his right eye, something he did when he saw trouble on the horizon.  "Like I said, we’ve got plenty on our plates.  The Conway case.  Bramble.  Vega.  They may not be national news, but they came through the door first.  I’ll hold the fort down here."

"We’re not that backed up," Qevenger said.  "You have that bad a feeling about this?"

"I just don’t need it," Anderson said, staring at him.  "That’s all."

"Ah," Clevenger said, leaning back in his chair.  "I get it now.  You think I do.  You think I want the publicity.  I
need
it."

Anderson held up his hands.  "Forget I said anything."

"No.  Please.  Tell me what you think."

Anderson shook his head.  "You don’t want to hear it."

"Unless you’re really only worried about me overfeeding my ego — or bruising yours."

"What’s that supposed to mean?" Anderson asked.

"Maybe I do like it when I make headlines," Clevenger said, shrugging.  "And, deep inside, maybe you don’t."

"I’m jealous?" Anderson said, smiling.  "You think that’s what this is about?"  He folded his thick arms.  "Okay.  Here’s what I really think, deep inside:  I think you put down the booze and you put down the coke and you stopped betting your future at the track and you’re doing a great thing raising Billy and you ought to leave well enough alone.  Because you’re still a gambler at heart, Frank.  You still like the highs and the lows more than you should.  Deep inside, you still want to lay it all on the line.  But now you’re betting more than your future.  There’s Billy’s, too.  And mine.  Because we are partners.  So why not take it slow?  I’m not saying forever.  Just for now."

"I feel all right," Clevenger said.  "I’m not in the same place I was."

"Exactly.  That’s my point here.  I remember what you were like coming off Nantucket."

"You think I forget?"

"Maybe.  Maybe you do," Anderson said.  "Because if you take this case, you take on a world of trouble.  Never mind the travel around the country.  Never mind the media breathing down your neck, staking out your apartment, camped out where you get your fucking laundry done.  I know you.  When another body turns up, then another, no one’s gonna have to come pin the blame on you.  You’ll nail yourself to a cross.  Because in your heart, you think you can solve this."

"I am talking to the same person who convinced me to take the Nantucket case in the first place," Clevenger said.

"Same person," Anderson said.  "I didn’t doubt you then and I don’t doubt you now.  I’d take any odds you break this thing wide open.  But this is a guy who’s killed thirteen people over three years across the United States while the FBI has been hunting him like he’s bin Laden.  And he’s not even worried enough to dispose of the bodies properly.  He leaves them with their driver’s licenses, just in case anybody might get confused who the decomposing remains belong to.  If you make a big difference here, Frank, you cut this maniac’s run from ten years to five.  But that still leaves you in hell for the next two.  Not to mention Billy.  And he’s not exactly coasting right now."

"I didn’t say I was taking the case," Clevenger said.  "I’m going to a meeting.  Then I come back, and we talk things through."

Anderson looked down at the ground, took a deep breath, looked back at Clevenger.  "Like I said, you do what you got to do."  He turned and walked away.

*            *            *

Auden Prep in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, was seven miles north of Chelsea, but a world away.  Its two hundred-acre campus had more lawn than existed in the whole of Chelsea’s two square miles.  Counting interest on trust funds and inflated stipends for summer internships, its 1,500 male students netted substantially more per-capita income.  Lynnfield was land-locked and flat.  There was no soot and no grit.

Clevenger disliked the place, especially today, waiting for more bad news about Billy.  He was sitting in the reception area outside the office of Stouffer Walsh, Auden’s Dean for Student Affairs, taking in all the carved mahogany woodwork, the crown moldings, the gleaming chair rail, breathing the stuffy air, wishing he had never agreed to enroll Billy in the first place.  The kid probably would have done better at Chelsea High, where his street smarts might have been prized enough by street-smart teachers to mold it into something else — like moral courage or grace under pressure.  But Auden Prep had been cited in the Massachusetts Department of Social Services "Action Plan" for Billy, so Clevenger had signed him up.

His grades had lagged from the start, but that was to be expected.  Billy had been fresh from losing his baby sister to murder and losing his father and brother to jail sentences.  He himself had come close to being framed and sent to prison for life.  So a C- in French and even a D+ in geometry weren’t the end of the world.  Even his first fist-fight had been handled by the deans like a bump in the road.  Nobody had been badly hurt, nothing more than a bloody nose for the other boy and a fat lip for Billy.  It really looked like kid stuff.  The other boy was more to blame.  On top of that, it was football season.  And Billy could stop just about anyone from taking a step over the line of scrimmage.  He was already five-foot-ten, 170 pounds — all of it muscle — with the reflexes of a panther.  So the Prep was lenient with him.  A quick month of academic probation, volunteering at a local shelter two nights a week.  Then the month was over, and all was forgiven.