Darkness peering (35 page)

"I came out of the woods behind Lincoln."

"And that was it? You didn't see anything else?"

"Nothing," she lied, wondering if he could tell she was lying, since
McKissack was a pretty good shit detector. "Downtown was dead."

He nodded. "So maybe this guy you were chasing--"

"Or thought I was chasing--"

"--parked downtown ... escorted Dinger Tedesco through the woods and
pushed him out onto the highway, Boom ... instant puppy chow."

"But that's absurd. Why park downtown?"

"Exactly. Why risk it? Why not just drop him off someplace along the
highway?" McKissack nodded thoughtfully, then changed direction.
"Truck driver says Dinger looked drunk to him. Strung out."

Rachel nodded.

"You ripped the duct tape off his eyes."

"I thought I could save him."

"Paramedics said there was like zero chance of that. He died instantly
of massive internal injuries. Snapped his neck."

"I'm no paramedic, McKissack." She wiped the gooseflesh off her arms.
"When's the autopsy?"

"Archie's on his way right now. Care to join me?"

"I thought I was off the case?"

"Well, now you're a witness." He gave her a halfhearted smile.
"Besides, your brother just called and said he was willing to take a
polygraph."

She could feel herself blushing. "My brother?"

"Yeah. Seems you went over there and accused him of murder. Says he
wants to clear things up as soon as possible. He's being
extraordinarily cooperative."

She shut her eyes and sighed, not wanting to look at him anymore.

"So you saw nothing in the woods?"

"It could've been the wind, swaying branches, a million things. I'm
not sure I saw anything at all, McKissack." She glanced angrily at
him; he shouldn't have trapped her like that. "But when I came out of
the woods, I saw a car I recognized, yes. It looked like my brother's
car."

"Only one car in the whole of downtown?"

"There might Ve been other cars, I don't know. Nobody goes out
anymore. Everyone's terrified."

"These other cars ... you get a description?"

"No, McKissack." Her voice was harsh. "I panicked, okay? Are you
satisfied? I saw Billy's car and I ran back and drove over to his
place."

"And accused him of murder?"

"I told him I was having problems with the case, I told him I had some
suspicions ..."

"Jesus H. Christ."

"I had to, McKissack." Anger heated her face. "He's my brother, I
thought ..." Her shoulders slumped with defeat. "I don't know what
the hell I was thinking."

"You got that right."

"Oh, and you're perfect," she found herself shouting, her limbs
electrified with long-repressed rage, "coming over here and fucking me
while your wife and kids are sound asleep?"

He stared blankly at her, then looked away.

"We all make mistakes, McKissack."

"He's cooperating. No harm done."

"I can't live like this." She touched his arm so that he would look at
her, "I can't do it anymore."

He didn't respond. His eyes were veiled.

"I feel so vulnerable when I'm with you, and I hate feeling that way.
I care so much, it hurts, Jim. I'm scared when I'm with

you and scared when I'm away from you. It's absurd to be so
vulnerable."

He took her hand and looked at it as if it were something delicate he
was charged with protecting. He slid his thumb across the bumps of her
fingers.

"I'm not sure I love you, because I can't ever have you," she
continued, "because it's impossible ... but when you talk to me, when
you're nice to me, McKissack ... I feel so tender inside. So raw. It
hurts all the time. We've got to end this, once and for all."

She watched in silence as a tear slid down his cheek. He was looking
very fragile, and she fought the urge to stroke his face.

"How many times have I asked you, when're you gonna share that
beautiful heart with some nice young man instead of this old
gizzard?"

She smiled through her tears. "These words ... these words we're
speaking right now ... they're going to tear us apart. But that's
good. We need to be torn apart, McKissack."

"I know." His voice was barely audible.

"I hate this."

"So do I."

"But we have to. My heart feels so heavy."

"Mine, too."

He pulled her toward him and kissed her. The knot in her leg throbbed.
She was a bundle of little hurts today, and his kisses stung. His ears
were small and endearing, and the second time they'd ever made love,
inside this house, she'd kissed both his ears, making him turn his head
first this way and then that, and before he went home, he'd left a pair
of his shoes by the front door to frighten away intruders.

"God--" He inhaled. "You smell like soap."

She drew away from him, a guttural sound emitting from her throat as
she bit back her tears. She wasn't going to break down in front of
him. "So it's over?"

"If you say so."

She shivered. "Good night, then."

"Aren't you coming?" he asked, buttoning up his overcoat.

"Coming?"

"To the autopsy?" He held her eye. "I need you back on the case,
Rachel. I seriously doubt your brother's a suspect, and as long as
he's cooperating ..."

"Oh." She looked around, hating this kitchen, the textbook green of
its walls. "Five minutes."

"Look." He grabbed her arm. "Let's talk about this other stuff later,
okay?"

"What other stuff?"

"The 'us' stuff."

"There's nothing more to discuss."

"Yeah, well, I'm not done processing it yet." He smiled. "I knew
someday you'd find out what a loser I was and dump me."

She smiled back. "I've always known what a loser you are."

EVEN STRONGER THAN THE FAMILIAR DISINFECTANT SMELL OF

the morgue was the stench of booze coming from Dinger Tedesco's
split-open body. Archie Fortuna hovered over the steel tray examining
the bloody pulp that had once been Dinger's internal organs. "Nothing
here but kibbles 'n'bits," he announced to the room.

Rachel couldn't look. The victim had "bumper" fractures of the lower
legs from where the truck had struck the tibia and fibula, the calf
region. There was internal hemorrhaging and spiral fracturing of the
bones, and his legs looked like overstuffed Christmas stockings.

"The truck braked late," Archie said into the microphone. "The victim
was impacted, slammed down, and run over by a wheel.

There's a wide patterned tire-tread mark on his chest and a large
purple abrasion on his backside from where the body scraped along the
pavement as the tire passed over it, pushing it backward."

They had found at the back of Dinger's head, clamped to his hair, a
glow-in-the-dark barrette in the shape of a star. One of Nicole's.
McKissack stood examining it in an evidence bag.

"He's mocking us," he said. "He doesn't think we'll catch him. He
thinks he's invincible."

"We'll catch him," Rachel said with certainty, heart pounding.

McKissack put down the evidence bag and shook his head. "This is
looking more and more like somebody in the medical profession. Someone
with access to syringes and Thorazine, who knows how to suture a wound.
Somebody who's maybe got a grudge against the good doctor."

"We've interviewed almost a hundred hospital employees."

"What about patients? Some wacko who came into the ER for treatment
and wasn't satisfied?"

"A patient who's got access to Thorazine?"

"Buck Folette's got access."

"I keep telling you, he also has an alibi."

"If his junkie friends are to be believed. I can't think straight.
Time's it?"

"Three-thirty."

"Jesus wept."

Rachel tried not to think about Billy again. Always Billy. He had
access to medications such as Thorazine at the blind school. Many of
the children were multiply handicapped and some required daily dosages
of Haldol or diazepam or insulin. He'd once told her that security at
the nurses' station was nonexistent, that anyone could jimmy into the
medicine cabinet. She tried to remember if she'd ever seen him sewing
anything, then wondered if that mattered. How difficult was it to
stitch a wound?

"He abducts the victim," McKissack went on, "holds her captive for a
specified period of time before letting her go. He can't

live in an apartment building. Too many potential witnesses. He's
gotta be able to slip in and out undetected."

"Both victims were discovered late at night."

"Under cover of darkness," McKissack said, snapping his fingers.
"Almost forgot. We got the lab results back on the thread today. Turns
out it's all different kinds. White, blue, red, green. Thirty-three
pieces altogether. No single piece any longer than three inches."

Rachel frowned. "I don't understand."

"The kind of thread you'd find around the house. All different lengths
and colors."

"This case just keeps getting weirder."

"What the hell is this?" Archie shouted behind them, and they turned
toward the examination table. The medical examiner rarely swore, and
the surprise on his face alarmed her.

"What is it?" McKissack asked.

Archie was holding up a bloody, pulpy mass in his gloved hands. As the
object came into focus, Rachel could see it was a small plastic bag
with something folded up inside, a rubber band wrapped around it
several times.

"Where'd you find that?" McKissack asked.

"Stomach." Archie gazed at them over his surgical mask.

"Careful," McKissack said as Archie carried the object over to the sink
and rinsed it under the tap. Using a pair of surgical scissors, he
snipped the rubber band in half and the plastic bag expanded, falling
open. Archie handed the bag to McKissack.

With gloved hands, McKissack took out a folded piece of paper from
inside the bag. It looked like computer paper. Smoothing it open on
the flat marble countertop, they could see the looping, girlish script
in felt tip pen.

McKissack and Rachel glanced at one another before bending over the
page to read beneath yesterday's date: "Dear Mom and Dad ..."

SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ASLEEP. SHE'D BEEN UP FOR TWENTY

hours straight and now she was supposed to be catching up on all that
missed REM sleep, but she couldn't stop thinking about the letter.

"Dear Mom and Dad, please don't worry about me. I love you both very
much and I don't want you guys spending the rest of your lives crying
over me and Claire. I'll be with my big sister soon, and I'll be with
Dinger, too. (P.S. Dinger, I love you-wish I'd told you that more
often, but we'll be together soon and then I can tell you in person!)
Mom and Dad, I'm pregnant. Sorry I didn't mention it sooner, but I
thought you'd be really mad. Besides, I really wanted this baby.
Dinger and me were going to get married and everything, but now we'll
be together in heaven, me and Dinger & the baby & also Claire, don't
forget. I'm sure she's smiling down on us right now. I can feel it.
She's an angel. Don't cry, you guys. Be happy for me. Love always,
Nicole."

Rachel bolted upright, her heart a clenched fist. She couldn't sleep.
She'd never sleep again.

THE NEXT DAY AT THE STATION, RACHEL BUMPED INTO BILLY

on his way out. "I passed," he told her without emotion.

Relief suffused her. Passing a polygraph wasn't definitive, but

it was a huge leap in the right direction. "Oh Billy, that's
terrific," she said, meaning it with all her heart.

"You know, it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside to detect the surprise
in your voice." He brushed coldly past her, and she followed him out
of the building onto the front steps of the station.

"Billy, I'm so sorry."

He spun around. "You want me to forgive you, don't your"

"Well... yes," she said, eyes pleading.

"Only problem is, I can't. I'm still pissed at you, Rachel. You and
Dad both."

He strode off, and she followed him with her eyes, hoping that someday
he'd find it in his heart to forgive her. This case had turned her
inside-out, but the truth still mattered. The world had weight. She'd
made a huge mistake, but that was the price you paid. She only
regretted that Billy had had to pay, as well. She felt awful about
it.

McKissack breezed out of his office, his face coated with a patina of
sweat. "Heard the good news?"

She smiled. "Best I've had all week."

"It gets better. Lab results came back on Dinger Tedesco's blood.
They found traces of methohexital in his blood."

Barbiturates and alcohol were a deadly combination. "So he probably
would've died even if he hadn't gotten hit by a truck?"

"No. I said traces." McKissack took her by the elbow and propelled
her into the conference room where the others were waiting. "Not
enough to kill him but enough to severely impair his judgment."

"The UN SUB made sure Dinger was on the highway in a very vulnerable
condition," Tapper continued, picking up the thread. "He knew he'd get
hit by something. Truck, car, motorcycle."

"But he could walk," Rachel said. "His legs weren't bound together, he
could've run away."

"Exactly. He was betting Dinger would be so fucked up, he'd

just stagger around in the middle of the road. He's still playing
mind games with us."

"Maybe he was watching?"

"I doubt it."

"Our very clever UN SUB knew that Dinger was gonna get hit, just like
he knew we'd find Nicole's chain in Claire's hand, just like he knew
we'd do an autopsy and find Nicole's letter inside the victim's
stomach," Keppel said. "This thing's planned out so precisely, it's
freaky. He planted that letter like some crooked bust."

"Let's stay ahead of him, people." McKissack sounded desperate, and
they all sat a little straighter in their chairs. "Let's think the way
he thinks. Let's crawl around inside his skin, let's anticipate his
next move. C'mon! Heads together."