Side Effects: An FBI Psychological Thriller (2 page)

“They also found cuts on the right palm of each victim. Not the left, only the right. Lab reports say the cuts are more like punctures. Surrounding bruises on the palm suggest the victims had something jagged pressed into the hand until it poked through the flesh. Very weird.”

“Could it be drug-related?” Dr. Cole asked.

“Doubtful. Drug traffickers usually prefer to display their victims to send a message. All five of these men were carefully dumped in hopes they wouldn’t be found. Not to mention the profiles of the victims wouldn’t fit such a theory.”

“And what are the profiles? What are the similarities?”

“Apparently there are none, at least none that we can see. Youngest was a nineteen-year-old college junior in southeastern Pennsylvania; oldest was a sixty-five-year-old accountant in upstate New York. College kid was blond and blue, accountant bald and brown.”

“And Agent Morris still believes he’s dealing with serial murder.”

“Yeah. His gut’s got a pretty decent track record.”

“So does yours.” Dr. Cole’s eyes didn’t flinch this time. When he’s the one mentioning his wife, his composure is always stone; only when her murder is alluded to, catching him off guard, does he show the faintest crack.

But now he’s prepared to talk about her
, I thought.
Give him just enough.

“Thomas Hays was a power whore,” I said. “A desperate need to be at the center of it all is what did him in. It’s what does a lot of them in.”

“There was much more to it than that, Maggie.”

He was angling for more than just enough. I wondered if we should switch seats.

“Yeah, I guess there was,” I said.

Dr. Cole placed his pen in his notebook and folded it shut. He did not need notes to remember what I was about to say.

“Since we’d found no indication of trophies being taken from the victims, I came up with the slim possibility that he was getting these same symbols tattooed onto his body in order to remember his victims intimately.”

“This slim possibility just occurred to you out of the blue?” he asked. “There was no trigger?”

It sounded like he emphasized “slim.” Like I wasn’t giving myself enough credit.

“No—not out of the blue,” I said. “I was in a restaurant with a friend. We had a drink at the bar while we waited for our table. My friend had a thing for the bartender. His sleeves were partially rolled up his forearms and she spotted a tattoo peeking out. It was some kind of abstract design; you couldn’t really tell what it was. So she asked him about it and he rolled his sleeve farther up, revealing a pair of angel wings. He said his sister died last year, and the angel wings were so she would be with him always.

“Well, my friend nearly hopped the bar and jumped the guy’s bones then and there, hot
and
sensitive being the Holy Grail that it is. And you know what? If she actually had, I’d have never noticed—I was in another world entirely. What that bartender had said about keeping his sister with him always; the fact that we couldn’t tell what his tattoo was at first, what it meant.

“I think I mumbled an apology to my friend after that, slapped money on the bar and took off.” I shrugged. “She ended up going home with the bartender, so I was forgiven.”

Dr. Cole gave my wit a courtesy smile but remained quiet, waiting for me to continue.

“We began checking tattoo shops within the vicinity of where the bodies had been dumped,” I said. “Showed them pictures of the symbols and asked if any recent clients had gotten work done that resembled any of the symbols in our photos.”

“And you got a hit on one of the shops,” he said.

“We got a hit on several. Hays wasn’t
that
stupid; he did have the presence of mind to go to different artists. Still, we got him.”

“Did he use his real name and address on the releases he was required to fill out for the tattoo parlors?”

“No. But he did use Thomas as a first name at one shop, and Hays as a surname at another. He couldn’t help himself.”

“And you were able to piece that together?”

“Nope. Hays freaked the last tattoo artist out. Started going on about women and how there was only one real way to control them. When the artist asked him what that was he said Hays just grinned at him. The kind of grin that made a two hundred and fifty pound guy covered in tattoos get the willies. So the artist—bless the guy—made sure to get the make and model of Hays’ car as he was leaving. After that, it didn’t take long.”

“You made the arrest.”

“Yes.”

An awkward quiet followed. Dr. Cole offered me tea and I accepted. He left for a few minutes to prepare it.

“It’s not. But I need you to see that unlike your depression over the loss of your son, your investigative work isn’t dependent on a drug.”

“I know that. It sure as hell speeds things up though.”

He pursed his lips. “Maggie…”

I carried on undeterred. “You remember when I helped Morris not long after Christopher died?”

“Yes.”

“I was in no shape to do any investigative thinking. No shape. I couldn’t even follow the stupidest of TV shows. Morris had stopped by, insisting I get out of the house for a bit. The drug was helping me cope a tiny bit better by then, so I agreed. I don’t remember how we ended up at his crime scene; maybe he was thinking of something to occupy my mind while avoiding the subject of Christopher. I appreciated that. One more sympathetic-eyed visitor crooning ‘How you holding up, Maggie?’ and I would have opened fire.”

“You found a crucial bit of evidence at his scene that everyone else had missed,” he said.

“I did. They probably would have found it eventually, I just found it quicker.”

“You
heard
it,” Dr. Cole said.

“Yeah. The flow of air through one of the heating grates in the bedroom sounded…off, like something was obstructing it.”

“They found the murder weapon hidden in the heating duct.”

“Yup. Morris was dumbfounded. Everyone was. I told them I’d heard a rattle, even though I hadn’t; I’d only heard a faint disruption in the flow of air when the heat clicked on. I later told Morris the truth. I’m not sure he believed me at first, and I didn’t blame him. But he couldn’t argue with what he’d seen, and he surely didn’t suspect
me
of hiding the murder weapon in there. Later that night I told him about the drug and how I suspected it was responsible for all of these weird effects on my senses I’d been experiencing. I’m not sure he totally bought into it, but he was grateful for my assistance that day.”

“He’s buying into it now,” Dr. Cole said.

“I think he’s getting desperate.”

“And you still insist on giving the drug full credit for your discovery at Morris’ crime scene?”

“How could I not? It would be impossible for a person to actually
hear
—” I stopped and sighed, deciding to change my approach. “The drug is the reason you’re not sitting across from an empty chair today, Dr. Cole. Please tell me the delicious bit of irony about who survived the crash—and
why
—hasn’t escaped you already.”

“No, it hasn’t,” he said evenly. “So am I to assume you’re willing to deal with the other side effects that come with daily use of a full dose? The negative effects?”

“With your help. You can treat them like you did before.”

Dr. Cole looked away for a moment. “And what if the drug ultimately kills you? Does your knowledge of the drug’s harmful side effects not make you culpable in the event of your death?”

He was talking suicide again. And I guess he was right; I’d never considered this point of view. But Morris had said something when he visited me at the hospital. Something that had practically made up my mind on the spot. I repeated them to Dr. Cole as though they were my own words: “All things considered, I only recently realized that I was fortunate—the last face Christopher saw before he died was mine. He felt loved, he felt safe, and I made sure he felt no pain.” Now it was my turn to look away; the guilt for what I was about to say to Dr. Cole made eye contact impossible. “The monsters I hunt…they ensure their victims experience the total and complete opposite of that.”

Dr. Cole left his office and returned with a six-month supply of the drug. His eyes were red. My guilt on the drive home made me sicker than the drug ever would.

“How’d it go?” he asked as I took a seat across from him.

“I feel dirty,” I said.

“Why?”

I looked around to see if a waiter was floating nearby or if I needed to go to the bar to get a drink. “There a waiter?”

“No.” Morris drained his scotch and then started crunching on a piece of ice. “I got a tab going at the bar though.” He slid his empty glass towards me. “Here, get me another.”

I frowned. “Gee, can I, mister?”

“I buy, you fly. You know the rules.”

I muttered “asshole” and went up to the bar. The bartender, a cute guy with nice arms and what I would soon confirm to be a nice butt when he turned to fix our drinks, smiled as I approached. Though sex seemed like something I did in another life, my libido wasn’t completely dead. On life support, yes, but not completely dead. Although now that I was about to go back on a full dose of the drug I suppose they might as well pull the plug. Complete loss of libido—and I mean complete loss, one step shy of picking up your copy of
So, You’re Asexual
—is yet another lovely side effect of the drug.

“Same again for him—” I gestured back at Morris. “And I’ll have a chardonnay, please.” The bartender turned, showed me that nice butt, and went to work on our drinks. When he returned I pointed to the scotch he’d just poured. “How many is that for him?”

“That’s his third, I think.”

It was only 12:30.

“Good ole three-martini lunch, right?” I said with a smile.

The bartender looked at me, the drink, and then back at me. “That’s scotch,” he said.

I sighed inside. Well, you didn’t take home a guy like that to talk, did you? “Right,” I said. “Thanks.” I took the drinks and headed back to the table.

“So why dirty?” Morris asked.

I sipped my chardonnay. “Because I feel like I manipulated him to get what I wanted.”

“You manipulated
him
? You go on about him like he’s Einstein.”

“He is. But there’s always a button somewhere, you know that.”

Morris sipped his scotch and then looked at me with a face that already knew the answer. “You mentioned his wife.”

I took a healthy pull from my chardonnay. “Yeah.”

“You tell him what I told you?”

“You mean when you found
my
button?” I locked eyes with him, refusing to blink first.

He looked away. “Wasn’t hard to find.”

“Neither was Dr. Cole’s. It doesn’t make it any less of a dick move, Tim. And it doesn’t make me feel any less dirty.”

Morris drained his scotch and started crunching ice again. “You wanna back out, go ahead.”

“No, I don’t.”

“So then what the hell, Maggie?”

Maggie?
It was always Mags. He wasn’t being himself. Either he had a good buzz going or he was stressing more than usual over this one. Or both. Likely both.

I played male and decided to ignore the issue until it went away.

“All right—so tell me about this one,” I said.

“Already told you most.”

“Five so far. All men. No discernible—”

“Six,” he said.

I leaned back in my chair and sighed. This explained the three-martini lunch. “When did you get the call?”

“About an hour ago.”

“How old?”

“No positive ID yet. They’re guessing mid-thirties. Brown and brown. Short and thin. Still no pattern.”

“Where’d they find him?”

“Upstate Pennsylvania.”

“Who reported it?”

“Anonymous call.”

I leaned forward in my chair—

“No,” Morris said quickly, snuffing my optimism. “No, the bastard’s still keeping his ego in check. Turns out a bunch of teens drinking in the woods spotted him.”

“They were worried about the underage drinking, so they phoned it in anonymously,” I said.

He did a
bingo
touch on the tip of his nose. “Finding a dead body though at that age? In a town where a good night is scoring cheap beer and going cow tipping? They weren’t keeping that secret long.”

I nodded in agreement. I grew up in a rural town in Iowa. Your only escape to the outside world was television. To be the kid in school who found a dead body like the ones on TV or in the movies? Hell, we’re talking a mega climb up the Podunk pop charts.

“So,” I continued, “cuffed from behind?”

“Yeah. Gagged too.”

“Gagged?”

Morris nodded. Gagged was a new wrinkle.

“Blunt force trauma the cause of death?” I asked.

“Yeah—but he didn’t go caveman on him like he did the others.”

“He didn’t?”

Morris shook his head and crunched on some ice. “Looks like he hit him just enough to do the job.”

“Wounds on the right palm?” I asked.

“No.”

“No? So it might not be him.”

Morris looked annoyed. “It’s him.”

I didn’t argue. “Okay, it’s him. Tell me more.”

“We’re thinking the murder weapon was a shovel.”

“Why?”

“Forensics. Not to mention kids found the body in a makeshift grave.”