Brazen Virtue (32 page)

“People don’t.” Claire’s smile flared and faded. With her hands in her lap she began to pleat the tablecloth. “He’s very unobtrusive. Bright. Jerald’s a terribly bright young man. He’s in the top ten percent of his graduating class. He’s been on the dean’s list consistently through prep school. Several excellent private colleges have accepted him, though he’ll follow tradition and attend Princeton.” She began to talk quickly, too quickly, as though she were now on the down side of a roller coaster ride and frightened that she’d run out of breath. “I’m afraid he spends more time with his computer than with people. I can’t understand the things myself, but Jerald’s just a whiz with machines. I can honestly say I’ve never had a moment’s trouble from him. He’s never been rebellious or impolite. When friends would tell me
how frustrated they were with their teenagers, I would just marvel that Jerald was always such a quiet, agreeable boy. Perhaps not overly affectionate, but good-natured.”

“The ideal son?” Tess murmured. She knew how deceptive “perfection” could be, how many jagged flaws it could conceal.

“Yes, yes, exactly. He simply worships Charlton. Almost too much, you understand. At times I would be a bit uneasy about it, but it’s so gratifying for a boy to look up to his father. In any case, we’ve never had to be concerned with the problems so many parents seem to face today. Drugs, promiscuity, defiance. Then lately—”

“Take your time, Claire.”

“Thank you.” After reaching for her glass, Claire sipped to moisten her dry throat. “In the last few months, Jerald’s been spending more and more time on his own. He’s locked himself in his room every night. I know how hard he studies and I’ve even tried to persuade him to slow down a bit. He looks so worn-out some mornings. His moods seem to swing. I know I’ve been tied up with the election and campaign, so I excused those swings. I’ve been a bit moody myself.”

“Have you talked with him?”

“I’ve tried. Perhaps not hard enough. I didn’t realize how difficult it could be to deal with. He came home from the library one night recently, and he was—Tess, he was a mess. His clothes were disheveled, his face was scratched up. It was obvious he’d been in a fight of some kind, but he would only say he’d fallen off his bike. I let it drop. I regret that now. I even let his father believe it, though I know Jerald had taken the car that night. I told myself he was entitled to his privacy and that, being a well-brought-up boy, he wouldn’t get in over his head. But there’s been something, something in his eyes lately.”

“Claire, do you suspect Jerald is experimenting with drugs?”

“I don’t know.” For a moment she allowed herself the luxury of covering her face with her hands. “I don’t know, but I do know we have to do something before it gets worse. Just yesterday Jerald was in a dreadful fight at school. He’s been suspended. Tess, they’re claiming he tried to kill the other boy … with his bare hands.” She looked down at her own. Her wedding ring glinted up at her. “He’s never been in trouble before.”

Tess felt chilled to the bone. She swallowed hard, then asked in a carefully managed, neutral tone, “What does Jerald say about the fight?”

“Nothing, not to me. I know he spoke with Charlton, but neither of them will discuss it. Charlton’s worried.” Her gaze darted to Tess’s, then shifted back to the tablecloth. “Charlton is trying to pretend he’s not, but I can see it. I know how damaging this could be if it leaks to the press and I’m terrified about what it might do to his campaign. He keeps insisting that all Jerald needs is a few days to rest his mind and calm down. I wish I could believe it.”

“Would you like me to talk to Jerald?”

“Yes.” Claire reached over to take her hand. “Very much. I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been a better wife, a better partner than a mother. Jerald seems to have slipped out of my hands. I’m really worried about him. He seems distant, and smug somehow, as though he knows something no one else does. I’m hoping that if he talks to someone outside the family, yet someone who’s still one of us, he’ll open up.”

“I’ll do what I can, Claire.”

“I know you will.”

R
ANDOLF LITHGOW HATED THE
hospital. He hated Jerald Hayden for putting him there. It had been the humiliation more than the pain. How could he go back
and face the other guys after he’d been beaten to a pulp by the class freak?

Little creep thought he was big shit on campus because his father was running for president. Lithgow hoped Charlton P. Hayden lost the election without pulling one state. He hoped he lost so bad he’d have to crawl out of Washington in the dead of night, dragging his crazy son with him.

Lithgow shifted in bed and wished, too, that it was time for visiting hours. He sipped through a straw and managed to swallow though his throat still burned like hell. He was going to make that pasty-faced nerd pay when he got back on his feet again.

Bored, restless, and feeling sorry for himself, Lithgow began to switch the television channels with his remote. He wasn’t in the mood for the six o’clock news. He could get all that crap in Current Events when he went back to school. He flipped again and landed on a rerun of a situation comedy. He knew the damn dialogue in that old horse by heart. Swearing, he switched channels. More news. Just when Lithgow was about to give up and read a book, they flashed the sketch of Mary Beth Morrison’s assailant on the screen.

He might have passed it by, but for the eyes. The eyes made him narrow his own. They were the same ones he’d seen as he was losing consciousness and Jerald’s hands had squeezed the air out of him. Concentrating, he struggled to fill in the details the artist had missed. Before he was sure, absolutely sure, the image was replaced by a reporter. Excited, no longer restless, Randolf switched to the next network. He might see it again.

If he did, he had a pretty good idea what to do about it.

W
E’RE GOING TO HAVE
cruisers sweeping that area all night.” Ben flipped the file closed. Ed was still staring at
the map as though he were waiting for something to jump out at him. “He comes out, odds are they’ll spot him.”

“I don’t like the odds.” He glanced toward the hall. Upstairs, Grace was completing her third night as bait. “How many times do you figure we went through that quadrant today, in wheels and on foot?”

“Lost count. Listen, I still figure the school’s a good shot. Wight might not have recognized the sketch, but he was nervous.”

“People get nervous when cops come around.”

“Yeah, but I’ve got a feeling something’s going to click when Lowenstein finishes passing out the sketch to the students.”

“Maybe. But that gives him tonight, and too many hours tomorrow.”

“Look, there’re two of us in the house. Billings is outside and we’ve got pass-bys every fifteen minutes. She’s safer here than if we had her in lockup.”

“I’ve been thinking about the psychiatric profile Tess worked up. Wondering why I can’t seem to think like him.”

“Could be because you’ve got both oars in the water.”

“That’s not it. You know how it gets when you’re close to one of these. No matter how wacko, no matter how sick the perp is, you start to think like him, anticipate him.”

“We are. That’s why we’re going to get him.”

“We’re not on the money.” Ed ran his fingers over his eyes. They’d started aching by midafternoon. “And we’re not on the money because he’s a kid. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure of it. Not just because of Morrison’s ID. Kids don’t think the same way adults do. I always figured that’s why they send kids to war, because they haven’t faced their own mortality yet. It doesn’t hit until a person’s in his twenties.”

It made Ben think of his brother. “Some kids are grown up by the time they hit sixteen.”

“Not this one. Everything Tess has here leads not just to a psychotic but an immature one.”

“So we think like a kid.”

“He’s probably done some pouting since he botched Morrison.” Trying to ride with it, Ed began to pace the room. “It’s just like she said, he was whining like a kid who busted his favorite toy. What does a real snot-nosed little brat do when he breaks his toy?”

“He breaks someone else’s.”

“Bull’s-eye.” Ed turned to him. “You’re going to make a hell of a father.”

“Thanks. Look, the rapes and attempteds that’ve come in since Morrison don’t fit.”

“I know.” Hadn’t he read every report word by word, hoping for a link? “Maybe he hasn’t hit on another woman, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t hit. You know, when a rapist is prevented from following through, he only gets more frustrated and angry. And he’s a kid. He has to take it out on someone.”

“So you figure he was ready for a fight, looking to mix it up with some other kid?”

“I figure he’d go after someone weaker, someone he thought was weaker anyway. It’d make him feel better if it was someone he knew.”

“So we can check the arrest reports for assaults over the last couple of days.”

“And the hospitals. I don’t think he’d settle for a little pushy-shovey.”

“You’re starting to think like Tess.” Ben grinned at him. “That’s why I love you. That’s probably her now,” he said as the phone rang. “I told her to give me a call when she got home.”

“Tell her to push calcium.” Ed picked up the file again. The tone of Ben’s voice had him ignoring it.

“When? You got an address? You and Renockie cover us here and we’ll take it. Look, Lowenstein, I don’t give a
shit who—
Who?
Christ.” Ben ran a hand over his face and tried to think. “Get Judge Meiter, he’s a Republican. No, I’m not kidding. I want the warrant in my hands in an hour or we go without it.”

He hung up. If he could have risked it, he’d have taken a nice clean shot of vodka. “Got an identification on the sketch. A kid in Georgetown Hospital fingered a school buddy who tried to smother his windpipe. He’s a senior at St. James’s. The captain’s sending someone down to get a written statement.”

“Do we have a name?”

“Caller ID’d our boy as Jerald Hayden, address is smack dab in the middle of Billings’s little square.”

“Then let’s move.”

“We’ve got to go through channels on this one, partner.”

“Fuck channels.”

Ben didn’t bother to point out that Ed was the one who always touched the system. “The kid’s the son of Charlton P. Hayden, the people’s choice.”

Ed stared at him for several long seconds. “I’m going up to get Grace.”

Ben barely nodded before the phone rang again. “Paris.”

“Ben, I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“Look, Doc, I can’t tie up this phone.”

“I’ll be quick. I think it may be important.”

With a check of his watch Ben figured Lowenstein still had fifty-eight minutes to come through. “Shoot.”

“I’m skirting very close to patient confidentiality here.” And that had worried her all during her soul-searching. “I talked with a woman today, a woman I know. She’s concerned about her son. He was in an apparently serious fight at school yesterday. He nearly strangled another boy. Ben, a great deal of what she told me mirrors the profile on your serial killer.”

“He broke someone else’s toy,” Ben murmured. “Give me a name, Doc.” When he was met with silence, he pictured her, sitting at her desk wrestling with her oath and her conscience. “Play it this way. Tell me if this name sounds familiar. Jerald Hayden.”

“Oh God.”

“Tess, I need clout. We’re already working on the warrant. A call from you would speed it up.”

“Ben, I agreed to take this boy on as a patient.”

There was no use swearing at her, he thought. She couldn’t help herself. “Then you can consider it in his best interest for us to bring him in quick. And alive. Get in touch with Harris, Tess. Tell him what you told me.”

“Be careful. He’s much more dangerous now.”

“You and Junior wait up for me. I’m crazy about you.”

Ben put down the receiver as Ed led Grace into the room. “Ed says you know who he is.”

“Yeah. You ready to retire as a phone mistress?”

“More than. How much longer before you have him?”

“We’re getting a warrant. You’re a little pale, Grace. Want a brandy?”

“No. Thanks.”

“That was Tess.” Ben took out a cigarette, lit it, and handed it to Grace. “Washington’s a small town. She talked with Jerald Hayden’s mother today. The lady thinks her kid needs a shrink.”

“It’s funny.” Grace blew out a stream of smoke as she waited for it to sink in. “I thought when it happened it would be sort of climactic. Instead, it’s a phone call and a piece of paper.”

“Police work’s mostly paperwork,” Ed told her.

“Yeah.” She tried to smile. “I’ve got the same problem with my job. I want to see him.” She took another drag. “I still want to see him, Ed.”

“Why don’t we wait on that until we tie up loose ends?” He touched her cheek so that she turned her head to
look at him. “You did what you needed to do, Grace. You have to let go of Kathleen now.”

“Once it’s done, and I can call my parents and … and Jonathan, I think I can.”

I
T TOOK LOWENSTEIN LESS
than forty minutes to deliver the warrant. She slapped it into Ben’s hand. “Hayden’s blood type was on file at Georgetown Hospital. It’s a match. Take him down. We’ll cover the house until you call in.”

“Stay.” Ed put his hands on Grace’s shoulders.

“I’m not going anywhere. Listen, I know the world needs heroes, but I figure I need you more. So be a good cop, Jackson, and watch yourself.” Taking his shirtfront, she pulled him down for a kiss. “See you.”

“Take care of his lady, Renockie,” Ben said as they swung out the door. “I’d hate to see Ed drop-kick you.”

Grace let out a long breath and turned to her new guards. “Anybody want some lousy coffee?”

C
LAIRE HEARD THE DOORBELL
ring and nearly swore with annoyance. If they didn’t leave in five minutes they were going to be late. After signaling back the housekeeper, she smoothed down her hair and answered herself.

“Detectives Jackson and Paris.” The badges Claire saw set off a slow, dull alarm within her. “We’d like to speak with Jerald Hayden.”