The Dead Student (22 page)

But before he could act on this idea, the caller responded with another laugh. “Well then, Doctor, I guess we have the answer to your inquiries about whether I’m a psychotic.”

Outmaneuvered. Come on, think!

Again the caller paused. “It’s interesting talking with you, Doctor. Curious, isn’t it? Relationships: father and son, mother and child, lovers, coworkers, old friends. New friends. Each connection has its own special qualities. But here, we’re in very significant territory, aren’t we? The relationship between a killer and his victim. Puts weight on every word.”

He sounds like me,
Jeremy thought.

Then abruptly:
Follow that.

“Your other victims—if there really are any; I can’t be sure, you know—did you create a connection with each?”

“Astute, Doctor. You challenge me to prove that I’ve killed before. That
might help you figure out who I am. No such luck. Sorry. But this is what I would say: I think in any killing there are at least two levels of conjunction. There’s the level that exists that
caused
the need for killing. Then there is the moment of death. I would think those were arenas that you probed in your career.”

Jeremy found himself nodding.

“Have you spoken to your other victims before you killed them?”

“Some yes. Some no.”

Okay. That’s something,
Jeremy thought.
In some situations Mister Who’s at Fault needs direct confrontation. In others, who knows?
He kept probing.

“Which situation gave you more satisfaction?”

A snort. “They were equally satisfying. Just in different ways. You would know that, Doctor.”

“Do you kill us all in the same way?”

“Good question, Doctor. Police, prosecutors, professors of criminal justice, they all like patterns. They like seeing obvious connections, being able to add details together. They favor crimes that are a little like those paint-by-numbers kits that you might give a child. Fill in blue in number 10. Red in 13. Yellow and green in 2 and 12. And suddenly what you’re painting becomes clear. I’d think you’d have figured that I’m smarter than that.”

Smarter than most of the killers I’ve met. What does that tell me?

A hesitation, then the caller added, “Keep trying, Doctor. I like a challenge. One has to think clearly if one intends to be both oblique and specific at the same time.”

Jeremy imagined a grin on the caller’s face.

“So everyone has died in a different way?”

“Yes.”

He realized that he’d gripped the phone so tightly his fingers were white against the black plastic surface. He guessed the conversation was like steering an out-of-control car down an icy hill. He was careening, sliding, trying to will the tires to regain purchase on the slick road, at the same time that hundreds, perhaps thousands of small inputs were being processed by his brain. Reason battled panic within him.

“Were all of us equally at fault?”

The caller had clearly anticipated this, because he answered without hesitation, “Yes.”

But then, after a pause, he added, his voice slipping into an almost conversational, friendly tone, “Let me ask you a question, Doctor: Suppose you agree to help rob a convenience or a liquor store with your two buddies. Gonna be an easy job. You know, wave around a handgun, collect everything from the register, and get away scot-free. No big deal. Happens every night somewhere in America. You’re sitting outside, behind the wheel, engine running, picturing what you’re going to do with your share of the cash, when you hear gunshots, and your two buddies come racing out. They tell you that they panicked and blew the store owner away. Your nice little easygoing robbery just became felony murder. You drive fast, because that’s your job, but not fast enough, because you look up and see cops behind you …”

Again a small laugh. “Now, Doctor, are you as guilty as your two buddies?”

Jeremy could feel his throat go dry. But he worked hard to process what he heard.

“No,” he said.

“Are you sure? In most states, the law makes no distinction between you in the car and your friend pulling the trigger.”

“Yes,” Jeremy said. “But …”

He stopped. He could see the point. It stifled him.

He felt frozen, as if all his knowledge and understanding and years of experience were just beyond his reach.

He felt old. He looked over at his weapons.
Who am I kidding?

No,
he said to himself.
Fight back. No matter how old you feel.
He took a deep breath.
Why this story about some run-of-the-mill crime, now?

He felt an electric surge inside.
That’s a mistake. That’s maybe his first mistake.

Jeremy took a deep breath and tried to capitalize.

“So, what you are now saying is that I unwittingly drove a car to a crime
that others committed, and this is going to cost me my life now. You would not have used that example if it didn’t in some way mimic your own feelings. Interesting.”

This time he could
feel
a hesitation on the other end of the line.
That struck a chord,
Jeremy thought. He persisted:

“So, Mister Who’s at Fault, your point is that I should look at things I contributed to, not something I might have done exactly. That’s a difficult bar for me to reach. I mean, after all, we’re considering over five decades of experiences here. If you really want me to comprehend what I’ve done, you’re going to have to help me out a little more.”

Another pause, before the caller continued:

“More help from me will just hurry this process.”

Jeremy smiled. He had a small touch of confidence.

“That would be your decision. But it seems to me that this relationship—you and me—only works for you if I have a grasp on the
why
behind your desire.”

Touché, he thought.

A cold response:

“I think that’s true, Doctor. But sometimes knowledge means death.”

This time, Jeremy didn’t glibly answer.

The caller continued. Voice low, clearly electronically masked, but containing so much venom that Jeremy almost looked to his hands for the telltale wounds from a rattler’s bite.

“The ethics of violence are intriguing, Doctor, aren’t they? Almost as intriguing as the psychology of killing.”

“Yes.”

Beyond agreeing, he didn’t know what to say.

“Your fields of expertise, right, Doctor?”

“Yes.”

Words were suddenly failing him right and left.

“It’s frightening, isn’t it, being told you’re going to be murdered.”

Yes. Don’t lie.

“Yes.”

A question came to Jeremy, and he blurted it out. “Did all the others react like me?”

“Again, a good question, Doctor. Let me put it to you this way: My relationship with each death was unique.”

Jeremy thought hard, trying to anticipate the weave of the conversation. As in a tapestry, each thread meant nothing individually, but everything in unison.

“Did you tell each of us you were going to kill us?”

“A better question. The answer is: not necessarily.”

“So, you’re talking to me, but you didn’t talk to all of us before …” he paused, before adding, “you did what you did.”

This was neither grammatically correct not forensically specific.

“That’s right. But in the end, you all get the same deal. A death that belongs all to you.”

“Yes, but isn’t that true for everyone?” Jeremy replied, trying to keep his voice flat and unemotional. The same tone he used in hundreds of interviews with hundreds of killers, but which now seemed useless. “We all have to die someday.”
Obvious. Stupid.

“True enough, Doctor. If a bit of a cliché. We like the uncertainty of hope, do we not, Doctor? We don’t know when we’re going to die. Today? Tomorrow? Five years? Ten years? Who knows? We fear that moment when some date is set, whether we’re in our cell on death row or in some oncologist’s office, when he looks at our latest scans and test results and frowns—because whether we hear it from the warden of the prison or the warden of disease, suddenly a date has been set. In life we embrace certainty about so many things. But when it comes to ourselves, and the moment we have to die, well, uncertainty is what we prefer. Now, I’m not saying it isn’t possible to come to grips with that death date. Some patients and prisoners manage. Religion helps some. Surrounding oneself with friends and family. Maybe even creating a bucket list. But all those things simply obscure that gnawing sensation within, don’t they?”

Jeremy knew he was supposed to answer, but could not. He did concede inwardly,
Well, that’s where my fear comes from. He’s right about that.

He suddenly turned and grabbed his revolver off the kitchen table, as if it could comfort him. It seemed heavy and he was unsure whether he had the strength to lift it and take aim. In the same instant, he realized he’d neglected to reload it. He looked around wildly for the box of ammunition and saw it all the way across the room, sitting on a table where he couldn’t reach it.

Idiot.

But he did not have enough time to berate himself further.

“You think you can protect yourself, Doctor. You can’t. Hire a bodyguard. Go to the police. Tell them about the threats. I’m sure they will be interested … for a time. But eventually, you will be back on your own. So, maybe build a fortress. Run to some forgotten, hidden place. Try to give yourself some hope those ways. All wastes of time. I will always be beside you.”

Jeremy spun around.
He can see me!
Then he shook his head.
Impossible.

Or, maybe it isn’t.

Nothing was ordinary. Nothing was as it should be. He could hear his own breath getting shallow, sickly.
I’m dying
he thought.
I’m being killed by fear.

The voice on the phone interrupted his thoughts.

“I have enjoyed talking with you, Doctor. You are much more clever than I ever remembered, and I’ve said things I probably shouldn’t have. But all good things must come to an end. You should prepare yourself, because you don’t have much time left. A couple of hours. Maybe a day or two. A week, possibly.”

The caller hesitated.

“Or maybe it’s a month. A year. A decade. All you need to know is that I’m on my way.”

Jeremy interjected. His voice was high-pitched, almost girlish. “Tell me what the hell you think I did.”

Another small silence, before the caller replied, “Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.”

Jeremy blurted out, “When?” But this question went into a dead line.

The phone was silent. It was almost as if the man was a ghost, or Jeremy had been the dim-witted, naïve-rube subject of a Las Vegas magic trick. Poof. Disappeared.

“Hello?” he asked. This was a gut reaction. “Hello?”

Why
had disappeared from Jeremy’s lexicon.
That was it,
he thought.
No more calls. What did I say?

He listened to the quiet. Even knowing his killer was no longer there, Jeremy repeated what had become the only relevant question: “When?”

And finally a third time, very softly, more for himself than for the man coming to kill him: “When?”

18

One, two, three, four …

“No answer.”

“Keep trying.”

“Okay.”

Five, six, seven …

“No answer. I don’t think he’s home.”

“No answering machine. That’s weird. Keep trying.”

Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve …

“Where—” Moth started.

“I didn’t think you would call again.” The voice edgy, near anger, fully strained.

“Doctor Hogan?”

Pause.

“Yes. Speaking. Who is this?”

Clipped words. Curt tone. Moth stammered his response, surprised to be talking, taken aback by the intensity of the disembodied voice.

“My name is Timothy Warner. I’m sorry to disturb you at your home
but this was the number I got. I’m seeking some information about my late uncle. Ed Warner. He was a student of yours many years ago. He took your lecture course on forensic psychiatry.”

Another pause. Silence crept across the phone line, but it was the sort of silence that was filled with hidden, explosive noise. Moth waited. He thought he should say something, but the distant doctor spoke slowly.

“And now he’s dead,” Jeremy Hogan said.

“Yes,” Moth blurted out. A single word, but one that carried so much surprise that, watching him, Andy Candy imagined that he’d heard something shocking. Moth’s face seemed to freeze.

“It’s not my fault,” Jeremy Hogan said slowly. “None of it was my fault. At least, I don’t think so. But apparently it was. Whatever it was.”

My fault
made Moth stiffen in his seat. His throat was suddenly dry and he waved his hand almost like someone trying to reach out and touch something that was just beyond his grasp. He looked toward Andy Candy and nodded, signaling something to her that made her own pulse accelerate, and she too leaned forward in her seat.

“You remember my uncle?”

“No,” Jeremy replied. “Perhaps I should, but I do not. Too many classes, too many students, too many grades and recommendations and test scores and classroom talks. After all those years, the faces all blend together. I’m sorry.”

“He became a really good therapist.”

“Not my field. Now look, young man, what did he do? What was he to blame for?”

This question was spoken with urgency.

“I don’t know,” Moth answered. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”