Side Effects: An FBI Psychological Thriller (17 page)

“Bartender give you anything?” he asked.

“Said he was visibly upset when he arrived. Started drinking heavily after.”

“Strip club in Philadelphia,” he said. “Good chance he lives here.”

I thought of the guy sharing my city and it made me feel both eager and wary. “Not necessarily,” I said. “Pennsylvania’s huge. He could have traveled in from anywhere in the state.”

“Just to get his rocks off?”

“If that was his intention.”

“Who cares about his intention? Point is, he’s not going to travel here from somewhere like Pittsburgh, is he?”

“Who cares
why
?” I said in a mocking tone. “Is that what you just said?”

“Not the same thing,” he said.

“Sure it is. The bartender said he was upset when he arrived. Something happened earlier to set him off. His visit here was cathartic.”

Morris conceded my point with a quick nod. “So, what Crystal said…?”

“About giving you a free dance?”

“About the guy’s right palm being scarred. Any thoughts?”

“Not yet.”

“‘Not anymore’ she claims he said after showing her his palm. What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Like I said to you before, we might never know, at least until he’s caught. And if we do find out, it will almost assuredly be disappointing.”

“Come again?”

“Why his palm is scarred? Why he injures the palms of his victims? It will be a letdown when we find out. It always is. The reason is his, something personal to him. To the rest of us it’ll probably result in a unanimous chorus of ‘
Is that it???
’ It’s not gonna be some epic reveal that explains all the world’s evil. They’re never the monsters the media paints them to be. No horns, no tails, no fangs. Just sick pathetic men you wouldn’t glance twice at on the street.”

“You ready to come down from your pedestal? Start telling me stuff I don’t know?”

“You’re the one who wanted my thoughts. I gave you what was in my head.”

“Well maybe your head can cook a little longer on it. Or better yet, start pulling out some of your voodoo magic.” He cast me what felt like accusatory eyes. “You haven’t done much of it lately.”

“Oh geez, I’m sorry, Tim—I’ll try harder.”

He pursed his lips at my sarcasm. “Whatever. I’m just saying that you were a human sponge when we started. What’s changed?”

“Nothing has changed. The drug is the same stupid enigma it’s always been.” A thought then occurred to me. “Maybe the side effects are waning.”

“Huh?”

“It happens with some drugs—initial side effects dissipate over time with continued use.”

“So then what—you need to take more?”

“Yeah, that’s it. If I can get my blood pressure up to a coke fiend’s, then no evildoer is safe—assuming I can pause long enough between bathroom breaks to catch them.”

He sighed, dropped his head and nodded a silent apology.

I started for the car.

“Where are you going?”

I stopped at the passenger door. “Did you want to hang outside a strip club all day?”

We pulled into traffic and headed south.

Morris was relatively quiet the entire time, his churning mind pinching his tongue. I couldn’t blame him. We were close. Our guy had been dumping bodies up and down the entire east coast, and here we were, smack in the city he’d just been not more than a few hours ago. There was that paradoxical feeling of both hope and frustration that every member of law enforcement has felt at one time or another. It felt like a game of pin the tail on the donkey. You knew the damn donkey was in the room, but the blindfold prevented you from pinning the tail smack on his butt. What we wouldn’t give to be able to peek.

Morris was in a book store, two shops down. I was in a quaint antique shop that smelled of old wood and polish. A beautiful little music box caught my eye. It was small and silver, tarnished from age. The price tag was not kind, and I hesitated picking it up for fear of breaking, and thus, buying it. Curiosity for its tune got the better of me and I gently placed the silver box in my palm and opened the delicate lid.

I recognized the tune instantly. “All the Pretty Little Horses.” A bitter wave of nostalgia washed over me. My father coming home drunk, deciding to take his frustrations out on both my mother
and
me that night. My mother taking me in her arms after it was over, her face swelling by the second from my father’s hands, my bottom raw from his belt. My mother then singing to me in the most nurturing of tones despite her pain, rocking me gently on the bed as I cried into her chest—

“You break it, you bought it.” A male voice behind me, throwing both a warning and a life-line, rescuing me from my past.

I came to and spun. The shopkeeper, an old and miserable looking man who seemed out of place in the store’s quaint serenity, was underlining his warning with a scowl.

“Huh?”

His scowl dropped towards my hand, now a fist, the tiny box inside it and being squeezed without my realizing. I immediately opened my hand and the box dropped to the wooden floor with a dull clatter. The music stopped.

The shopkeeper’s gaze fell with the box. When he looked back up at me, his scowl was a greedy smirk. “Cash or credit?” he said. “No personal checks.”

I held up the small felt bag containing the pricey music box and said, “Ramen noodles for the next month. You?”

Morris held up a paper bag the size of a large book. “Moby Dick. First edition hardcover.”

“Pants on fire.”

He sighed and pulled the book from his bag and waved it at me. I didn’t catch the title, but there was a baseball player on the front of it.

I smiled and gestured to his hip where he kept his phone. “Anything yet?”

“No. Wanna grab a bite?”

I’d forgotten how much Morris liked to eat. Apparently Chinese food and a hot dog hadn’t been enough. I was still full from lunch, and my pleasant little flashback in the antique store wasn’t helping my appetite any.

“Not hungry,” I said.

“Wanna watch me eat?”

“Oh yes, please.”

We headed towards a café in the distance. My palm was sore from squeezing the music box and I rubbed it along the way.

I sat waiting, turning my newly-acquired music box over and over in my hand. I would not open it, even to check and see if it had truly broken when I’d dropped it to the floor. I’m not even sure why I bought it. I could have easily told the guy to piss off, pulled rank if I had to, but I suppose I was rattled from the whole experience and complied the way a child would—fitting analogy I suppose as I’d just returned from a trip to my childhood.

A weird part of me wanted to have the box—so that no one else could. Like obtaining some deadly artifact and locking it away so it couldn’t hurt anyone. Silly, I know, but when has life ever made any damn sense when it comes to coping with our demons? I was exhibit frickin’ A in this regard. Taking a drug that was chipping away at my life expectancy so I could catch bad guys; keeping my mind rolling with catching a serial killer so the moss of despair over Christopher and Mike wouldn’t gather and envelope it whole.

Moss of despair—not really a metaphor, but I think Morris still would have liked it.

Open it…just to see if you really broke it or not.

No. I know the song.

You’re afraid of it?

I’m afraid of what’s inside.

So you’re never going to open it?

No.

Then get rid of it.

No.

You’re being ridiculous. Meet it head on, Maggie.

I set the box on the table and stared at it as though it were alive, able to jump at me on a moment’s notice.

Are you past your childhood?

Yes.

And yet the box remains closed. Keeping it closed says you’re not past anything.

Just because I’m past it doesn’t mean I enjoy revisiting.

Are you worried that once it’s open, it will remain open? That the past demons will infect recent demons; make them that much stronger?

All demons interact; it’s unavoidable.

Yes, but not all people use those demons to their advantage, to strengthen themselves as you have. Your abusive father made you tough, the loss of your husband and son led you here, searching for a killer. You’re stronger than you think. Open the damn box and prove it, Maggie.

God, I annoy myself.

I snatched the box and opened it, anything but gentle. There was no music. I
had
broken it. I closed the tiny lid and placed it back on the table.

I suppose that was cathartic?

Do you feel better?

I exhaled long and slow through puffed cheeks.

A little.

What would make it a lot?

If Morris came back to the table and told me they picked our guy up in New Jersey somewhere.

Morris came back to the table. He did
not
look as if they just picked up our guy in New Jersey somewhere.

“What’d they say?” I asked.

“No hits from the sketch in West Chester. He must have courted the kid strictly online and then abducted him after they met at the coffee shop…or later, I don’t know.” He was struggling to hide his frustration.

“What else?” I asked.

“No ID on the guy in upstate PA yet. Jesus, how long has it been? Guy must have been a recluse.”

“Not too surprising,” I said. “A crippling phobia is likely to keep more people indoors than out. Could have been agoraphobic too for all we know.”

Morris snorted. “For all we know.”

“What else?” I asked.

“Pulled up nothing in the net we cast,” he said.

I chuckled. “It’s seriously early days, Tim.”

“He’s drunk, wounded, and totally flustered. Should have got something by now.”

“You can’t be serious, Tim. For all we know he’s hiding in a dumpster in an alley somewhere. Or maybe he even lives here like you said. He wouldn’t have far to go if that’s the case, and he’d know the area well enough to stay low and out of sight.”

“We’re so goddamn close,” he said, running a hand through his hair.

“Yes, we are. Don’t start getting flustered. You were optimistic—for you anyway—not a few hours ago.”

Morris grumbled and started gnawing on his thumbnail.

“You’re being silly,” I said.

He took his thumbnail out of his mouth. “How’s that?”

“I don’t need to tell you.”

“I’m as human as the next person. I’m allowed to get frustrated.”

“Except now is the time when you should be
least
frustrated. We’ve got a lot going for us. DNA could come back with a hit; there’s a good chance he’s in the system for lesser crimes when he was escalating. The net you cast is still very sticky; it could turn up something. And someone
will
eventually identify John Doe in upstate PA.”

“The West Chester trip was a bust,” he said, refusing to take off his half-empty filter.

“No it wasn’t. We confirmed the kid had a phobia. The waitress at the coffee shop gave us a solid sketch; the dancer only needed a few seconds with it to recognize our guy. The waitress also gave us some damn good insight into our guy’s psyche with his behavior in the shop.”

“And it gave us what?” he said. “Really, at the end of the day, what did it give us? We’re sitting here now because the guy screwed up. That’s all. If the net catches him it’s because we got lucky.”

“And you won’t take that?” I let out an incredulous little laugh. “You better get your wish list in order, buddy. Not too long ago you said you’d like it if our guy got careless like Dahmer or Bundy. Now you’re saying that’s not good enough?”

“It feels like a cheap win.”

“It’s a win. And what were we supposed to do, Tim? Sit on our butts while our guy keeps on killing, hoping he screws up? We don’t work that way and you know it. We hunt the bastards. Sometimes we catch them red-handed, and sometimes we get lucky.”

I wasn’t telling Morris anything he didn’t already know. But sometimes that’s how it worked. No matter how seasoned the listener might be, sometimes they needed to be reminded of the stinking obvious when frustration made you deaf to it all. And we’d all been there. Sometimes you gave the speech, sometimes you heard it.

Morris began gnawing on his thumbnail again.

“Tim, you’re getting weird on me. Would you please relax? Sit down and eat your sandwich.”

“He screwed up,” he said. “We thought he was too careful, but he screwed up, and now we can’t make him pay for it?”

“Of course we can. But come on, it’s been what—a few
hours
? Sit down and eat or I’m calling your mother.”

Fittingly, Morris took a seat and began poking his sandwich with a distrustful finger as a child might.

“I thought you were hungry,” I said.

“I was,” he said, still poking.

Morris’ phone rang again, and once again he slapped a hand over his ear and hurried inside the café.

When Morris returned he looked a hell of a lot better than he had before. Eager. I didn’t need to ask, he started talking immediately.

“Wilmington PD got something on the first victim. They got around to following up on the phobia angle and visited the guy’s wife. She claimed her husband had a constant fear of his father stemming from childhood.”

I could relate.

Morris went on.

“So, it turns out the guy’s father recently passed and it’s a trigger. Suddenly the guy is drinking too much, sudden outbursts, missing work—all kinds of erratic behavior. His wife begs him to get help but he refuses. They start fighting constantly. Soon the guy is going out for hours at a time and his wife thinks their constant arguing is pushing him into the arms of another woman. So she starts snooping and lo and behold there’s a phone number tucked away in his wallet. But here’s the thing: she never called it. The poor guy gets murdered by our guy soon after and she’s thinking that if her husband
was
having an affair, she doesn’t want to know about it—now that he’s gone, she’d rather go on thinking he’d been faithful, doesn’t want to tarnish her memory of him, et cetera, et cetera.”