The Chill of Night (30 page)

The hell with it. He didn’t want to think about it anymore. In one sense he still had Lainie and he always would. He double-locked the door to 1F, latched the chain, and brought out his box of DVDs from their hiding place behind the false panel in the closet under the stairs. He set the box down next to his favorite chair, a brown corduroy La-Z-Boy recliner.

It was Lainie moving into 2F three years ago that first gave him the idea to install the spycams. Someone really worth looking at taking the apartment. Someone a whole lot sexier than Denise. He remembered showing Lainie the apartment, remembered following her through each of the empty rooms, showing her how big the closets were and how much light the windows let in, pointing out the new appliances in the kitchen, hoping against hope that she might want the place, absolutely certain that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. Those incredible eyes. That gorgeous face. That amazing body. Maybe the best part of it all, maybe the best moment in his entire life, was when Lainie turned to him at the end of the tour, smiled, and said, ‘It’s perfect. I’ll take it.’

Christ, it had been all he could do to keep himself from pumping his arms in the air and shouting ‘Yes!’ like some halfback who just scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. Somehow he managed to hold himself in. Managed to just smile back calmly and say, ‘Great. I’ll run downstairs and print up a lease.’

Yes, Goff taking the apartment was what finally gave him the courage to turn his long-imagined fantasies into action. He knew exactly what he had to do, exactly what equipment he needed for the job, exactly how to make it work. Of course, why wouldn’t he? What with him being a former video professional and all.

Andy’s mind went to that cop who caught him in 2F last night. Guy treated him like he was some kind of pervert. Sure he was turned on by Lainie’s underwear, but so what? Who wouldn’t be? Lacy black thongs pressing into her you know what. Andy should have known the bastard was still there, but he was sitting in that chair just out of range of the bedroom spycam, and it’d been so quiet up there so long, he figured the guy was gone. Bastard sure fooled him.

Twenty-Two

‘Look, you’re her shrink,’ said McCabe. ‘You know how her mind works. If anyone knows where Abby would go to hide from a killer it ought to be you, right?’

Wolfe shook his head helplessly. ‘I’ve already told you what I think.’

‘Kelly?’

‘Yes.’

‘He says he doesn’t know where she is.’

‘Have you searched the place?’

‘Are you suggesting Kelly may be lying?’

‘All I’m suggesting is that Kelly’s unpredictable. The minute anyone starts thinking they know who or what John Kelly is, it’s time to think again.’

‘Aren’t you the one who placed Abby at Kelly’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why? I thought Sanctuary House was supposed to be for sexually abused runaways. Mostly teenagers. I hadn’t heard Abby was abused, and she’s not a teenager.’

‘She wasn’t, and she’s not. At the time, I wanted her out of Winter Haven. She was doing well. Staying on her meds. The voices were quiet –’

‘The voices?’

‘Yes. Abby hears voices. Auditory hallucinations. Common among schizophrenics. At that point, they were under control. But none of the halfway houses I usually work with had space, so I called Kelly and talked him into letting Abby work at Sanctuary House as a staff assistant, a kind of an unpaid intern/big sister. Convinced him her illness wouldn’t get in the way. I thought taking on that kind of responsibility would be good for Abby. Build confidence. Self-esteem.’

‘Did it work?’

‘Yes. For several months it worked very well. Abby was proud of the trust people were placing in her. Especially Kelly. She worked hard. Did a good job.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘She fell in love with Kelly.’

‘I thought Kelly was gay.’

‘He is. She fell in love with him anyway.’

‘What happened?’

‘It kind of blew up in her face. In our sessions I told her pursuing Kelly wasn’t a good idea. She said she couldn’t help how she felt. So I suggested it was time for her to leave Sanctuary House.’

‘What happened next?’

‘She went to Jack. Told him how she felt. Made explicit sexual advances.’

‘She told you that?’

‘Eventually, but Kelly did first. He was worried about her. Said he told her he thought that she was a terrific young woman but that her feelings were inappropriate. That it was an impossible situation and that it would be best all around if she left Sanctuary House.’

‘Sounds like an appropriate response.’

‘I think it was.’

‘How did she react?’

‘She felt abandoned. Humiliated. He was the first man she’d reached out to since her illness began, and he turned her away.’

‘Did he tell her he was gay?’

‘Yes. I think on some level she already knew it. Subconsciously, she was creating a situation she knew would lead to rejection.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe to demonstrate her own worthlessness.’

McCabe remembered the picture of the healthy young woman standing on the rocks by the sea. Only a couple of years older then than Casey was now. grrrl power! her sweatshirt proclaimed. He felt a profound sadness at the curveballs life had a way of throwing at people. He knew there wasn’t much he could do about it.

He pulled out the photo of Lainie Goff and the others at the party and handed it to Wolfe. ‘Any idea what the occasion was?’

‘Yes. A Sanctuary House fund-raiser. A week or so before Christmas. I was there along with about a hundred other people.’

‘I recognize Ogden and Kelly, and Goff, of course. Do you know who the other two are?’

‘The blonde is a Palmer Milliken attorney. Janet something or other. I only met her that night.’

‘Janet Pritchard?’

‘Sounds right.’

‘How about the tall bald guy?’

‘A money man from Boston,’ said Wolfe. ‘Goff hooked him for a decent chunk of change, and Kelly closed the deal.’

‘How big was the donation?’

‘Ten K.’

‘Do you know the money man’s name?’ McCabe asked.

‘Uhh … yes.’ Wolfe paused, trying to remember. ‘Give me a minute. I don’t have your talent for total recall.’ He squinted at the horizon. ‘Tom? Ted? No, Todd. That’s it. Todd Martin? No, that’s a tennis player.’

‘Todd Markham?’

‘Markham, yes, that’s it.’ Wolfe nodded. ‘Todd Markham.’

A buzzer rang. Wolfe looked at his watch. ‘Food’s here,’ he said. ‘Sit tight. I’ll run down and get it.’

Jesus, McCabe thought, this was getting incestuous. He looked again at the photo. Every one of these people was in some way connected to Goff, and any one of them might have had reason to kill her. Kelly for the money. Ogden as her lover. Pritchard as a competitor for a Palmer Milliken partnership and maybe for Ogden’s affections. Markham? All he knew was that Lainie was killed in Markham’s house, in Markham’s bed. Maybe they were lovers as well.

Markham was in Chicago Tuesday night
, Maggie had told him.
Had dinner with a couple of clients. Stayed at the Hyatt. Didn’t get back to Boston till …
Till when? He’d interrupted her before she finished the sentence. He’d have to check.

Wolfe returned carrying a brown paper bag filled with food. He set it on the coffee table. ‘I don’t know if I should even bring this up,’ he said, pulling containers out of the bag, ‘but there is one possibility we haven’t discussed.’

‘Which is?’

‘Which is that maybe Abby didn’t just witness Goff’s murder. Maybe she committed it.’ Wolfe opened a drawer in his desk and started pulling out paper plates, napkins, and chopsticks. ‘Shall I split everything up? Half and half?’

‘Sure. That’s fine.’

As Wolfe began doling out equal portions of the food, McCabe walked over to the window and looked down at the water. The barge hadn’t made a whole lot of progress in the time he’d been there. He guessed barges moved slow. He thought about what Wolfe just said. Could Abby have been the killer? He’d never considered that possibility. None of them had. Not Maggie. Not Bowman. Not any of his team. Probably dumb. It was a scenario too obvious to ignore. He knew she was present when the murder took place – she knew details she couldn’t have known otherwise – and she had run away. Disappeared into the night. They’d all assumed she was hiding from the killer. Wasn’t it equally possible she was hiding from them? From the police? Or maybe hiding from what she had done.

Wolfe held up the bottle of Dewar’s. ‘Sure you won’t join me?’

McCabe glanced back. ‘No thanks.’

‘Another water, then?’

‘Sure.’

Wolfe refilled his own glass and put another bottle of Poland Spring by McCabe’s plate.

If Abby
was
the killer, McCabe wondered, why would she have gone to the police in the first place? Why wake up Bowman in the middle of the night? What about motive? But even as he was asking himself these questions, he knew they were irrelevant. Abby was crazy. Schizophrenic. She suffered from hallucinations and delusions. For someone like Abby, normal concepts of reason and motive didn’t apply. If she killed Lainie Goff, it would have been in the middle of a psychotic episode, probably without even realizing what she had done.

McCabe returned to his chair and took his plate of food. He picked up a spring roll, dipped it in sauce, and took a bite. ‘You say you know Abby better than anyone else. Do you think she’s capable of murder?’

‘Capable of it? Of course she’s capable of it,’ Wolfe said, chewing on a mouthful of spicy duck. ‘Abby’s schizophrenic. She inhabits an alternative reality. If she’s been off her meds for a while – or if they’re starting to lose their effectiveness – she’s capable of damned near anything.’

‘So you’re saying she invented the story of the monster with his face on fire?’

‘No. Probably not,’ Wolfe said. ‘A monster with his face on fire may in fact be exactly what she saw, whether she killed Goff herself or just witnessed the murder. Either way.’

‘You better help me with that, Doctor. I’m a little slow today.’

‘Let me give you some background. Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that’s characterized, more than anything else, by a profound disconnect between perception and reality. Like most schizophrenics Abby suffers from delusions, things that are false but that she believes to be true. She also suffers from hallucinations. False sensory perceptions. She sees and hears things that aren’t there. She really does see them, though, and hear them. They’re as real to her as that coconut shrimp is to you.’

‘So if Abby did kill Goff …’

‘She may really, truly have seen a monster do it. Maybe somewhere in her mind she feels it’s something only a monster could do. What she doesn’t recognize, if that’s the case, is that the monster is her.’

McCabe leaned back and stared at the ceiling. He supposed what Wolfe was suggesting was possible, but the more he thought about it, the more certain he became that it just didn’t happen that way. There were too many details that didn’t fit. Details Wolfe wasn’t aware of. Like the dumping of the body on the Fish Pier. Like the note in the mouth. Like the precise and careful way she’d been killed. No, McCabe was sure Abby hadn’t done it. ‘What if she’s not the killer?’ he asked. ‘What if she did in fact see it happen?’

Wolfe shrugged. ‘Then she’s probably seeing the killer as a monster because what she actually saw was too frightening or too painful for her mind to accept. But really, I’m just guessing now.’

McCabe wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, got up, and tossed his empty plate in the trash. ‘Is there any way to bring the real memory back?’

‘Maybe. When nonschizophrenics repress painful memories, hypnotherapy sometimes works.’

‘Hypnosis?’

‘Yes. It isn’t typically used with schizophrenics, but it’s not necessarily contraindicated either. I’ve never tried it with one, but I’ve read about some experimentation. In fact, I’d be interested to see how it works with someone like Abby.’

‘Do you know anybody who’s an expert in, what did you call it? Hypnotherapy?’

‘Yes. Me.’

‘You’d be willing to hypnotize Abby?’

‘Yes. Of course – but we’ll have to find her first.’

McCabe nodded thoughtfully. ‘Thanks, Doc. I’ll let you know when we do.’ He got his coat and put it on. ‘And thanks for dinner.’

Twenty-Three

‘It’s Andy, right? Do you mind if I call you Andy?’ Maggie leaned into the open back window of the black-and-white patrol car, looking down at the small figure hunched on the backseat. He glanced up at the question but didn’t answer. Maggie smiled. Andy Barker blinked back. ‘You don’t mind if I call you Andy, do you?’ She repeated the question. ‘I’ve got a younger brother named Andy. He’s my favorite brother, actually.’ Her brothers’ names were really Trevor and Harlan. ‘Andy’s always been one of my favorite names.’

Her eyes registered the green and black plaid wool pants the guy was wearing, the green suede ankle boots, the fake snakeskin jacket. Little perv even dresses creepy, she thought.

‘Yeah. That’s fine,’ he said, still blinking. ‘I guess that’s fine. Can I call you Margaret?’

Could he call her Margaret? The name printed on the card she’d given him last night. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You call me Margaret.’

She extended her hand. He looked at it but made no effort to shake it. ‘Nice to meet you, Andy,’ she said. ‘And thanks for agreeing to come in and talk to us.’ She pushed the hand toward him just a bit more.

Finally he took off a glove and shook. His hand felt cold and dry. Like a dead man’s, she thought, letting go. She could see he was shivering. ‘Hey, Castleman,’ she called to the uniform behind the wheel, ‘pump up that heat a little, would you? Man’s cold back here.’

Castleman didn’t do anything right away. Maggie knew the last thing he wanted was to make the guy in the backseat more comfortable. Tough shit. ‘Hey, Castleman, you hear what I said?’ Castleman’s right hand poked at the temp gauge and flipped the fan on to high.

‘Thanks, Castleman,’ Barker said, a little gloat in his voice. Then he looked up. ‘Why do I have to go with him anyway?’ he asked. ‘I’d rather drive with you. In your car.’