Side Effects: An FBI Psychological Thriller (7 page)

“
Why burn him?” Morris.

“
Wait, wait, wait—let’s back up a minute.” Me.

“
No.” Morris goes into his pocket, pulls the roll of peppermint TUMS, pops a few into his mouth. “Let’s do the here and now. Why’d he burn him?”

“
We can only arrive at the here and now if we go back to the
then
and
before
.”

“
Bullshit—we
are
here. Why’d he burn him?”

Quick fast-forward to a few minutes later:

I open the file and start reading. Head still in the file, I point to the west wall where local PD had lifted prints. “Local PD lifted several prints there—” I point to the far wall. “And there.”

“
I know,” Morris says, sounding dejected. “They’re the victim’s prints.”

I lift my head from the file. “You’re missing the point. If the victim’s prints are on two of the four walls, that means he wasn’t cuffed at the time. How could he have been?” I gesture down at the victim and the way he’s cuffed behind his back like all the others.

Morris’ dejected face starts to dissolve. “Go on.”

“
How do you get cuffs on a man with nothing to lose?”

“
You threaten him.”

I snort. “With what? There’s no daddy with a family here. This was a man who went to sleep every night prepared for it to be his last.”

Morris looks dejected again.

I hand the file to Morris and glance back at the far wall. “How many prints did they lift from here?”

Morris scans the file. “A lot,” he eventually says.

“
And the west wall?”

He drops his head into the file again. “Quite a few on that one too.”

“
Both hands?”

He groans and drops his head again. “Yeah.”

“
Weird.”

“
What?”

“
Why both hands? He couldn’t have been testing for give; it’s concrete.”

“
Maybe he was pounding on the wall? Calling for help?”

“
Who pounds on a concrete wall?”

“
Someone who’s desperate. Scared.”

“
What scares a hardened man like our victim?”

Quick re-wind as something begins to gel.

“
Why burn him?”

“
Wait, wait, wait—let’s back up a minute.”

“
No...Let’s do the here and now. Why’d he burn him?”

“
We can only arrive at the here and now if we go back to the
then
and
before
.”

“
Bullshit—we
are
here. Why’d he burn him?”

Fast-forward:

“
Maybe he was pounding on the wall? Calling for help?”

“
Who pounds on a concrete wall?”

“
Someone who’s desperate. Scared.”

“
What scares a hardened man like our victim?”

I spun back and looked right at Reggie. “He was burned, Reggie. Set on fire. Who would do that, you think? Who would burn him?”

Morris’ face dropped in disbelief for what I’d just blurted.

Reggie’s face was far different. It was neither the sad nor angry it had been volleying between since our visit, but now ashen and disturbed.

“Oh man…” Reggie said. “Oh man, that’s bad…oh man, that’s really bad…”

“Why is that bad, Reggie?” I asked. “Why is that
really
bad?”

Reggie looked at me with the face of a child again. A frightened child. “Hal’s afraid of fire. I mean really afraid, like a man who afraid of snakes and spiders, you know? He don’t even smoke he’s so afraid.”

“Why is he afraid of fire?” I asked.

“Y’all remember that crazy ass white boy who was coming into the projects, settin’ fire to all of us? Trying to ‘clean up’ the streets? This about ten years back.”

I didn’t, but Morris apparently did. “I remember,” he said.

Reggie nodded. “Yeah, well Hal was one he tried to burn. I didn’t know him then. Obviously Hal lived, but when some crazy ass cracker pours gasoline all over you while you’re tryin’ to sleep, it’s gonna stay with you, you know what I’m saying? Like I said, Hal won’t even smoke—” He suddenly rubbed at his eyes, trying to stop the tears before they arrived. “Now he ain’t ever gonna smoke, is he?”

“Mr. Boyle,” Morris began, “we’re going to have a few more questions for you, okay? However, right now I’d like a few minutes to talk with my colleague. That all right?”

Reggie nodded and walked away, head down. He leaned back against one of the alley walls and slid down onto his butt. He started to light a cigarette, considered the match, and then angrily tossed both the cigarette and the match away. He pulled a pint bottle of whiskey from his coat, took a big swig, tucked it away again, and then dropped his head between his knees and started to cry.

Morris spun on me. “What the hell was that?”

“What?”

“I had no intention of telling him this victim had been burned.”

“I know; that’s why I did.”

He shook his head, annoyed. “That was careless, Maggie.”

Maggie, not Mags again. Such melodrama made my head hurt.

“Oh come on, you think the homeless are going to spring a leak?” I said. “I’m surprised they were willing to speak to
us
.”

“We would have eventually linked the victim to the fire incident from ten years ago.”

“I did it sooner,” I said. “Isn’t that why I’m here?”

Morris sighed. “Why’d you blurt it out like that? Turn away from us and all? You have one of your things?”

I nodded. “I think so. The peppermint smell of your TUMS triggered it. You were chewing them back in Trenton when you kept insisting on knowing why this one had been burned. You started chewing them here, I got a whiff, and suddenly it was like I was in a kooky time machine, back to a few hours ago when we were looking at the body.”

Morris still looked annoyed. “So then what, you needed the smell of peppermint to help you remember what I’d said from only a few hours ago?”

“No—but the clarity of the memory was stronger than anything I’d ever experienced before in my life. Running it all back like that…it was like watching a film for the second time and seeing it in a different light.”

“
Different light
? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. Just that it had more impact the second time around. Either way, it wasn’t a bad thing, was it?”

Morris snorted. “So do I just keep on chewing TUMS until we catch him, is that it?”

I couldn’t hide my frustration. “You just admitted you weren’t planning on telling Reggie about the victim being burned, right? Well I
did
tell him, and look what it got us.”

“What?” Morris said. “What did it get us? Please tell me.”

“We know how our guy got cuffs on a man with nothing to lose. We know what makes a hardened man like the victim desperate enough to pound on concrete walls.”

“Fire.”

I shook my head. “Fire was the conduit.”

“His
fear
of fire then,” Morris said.

“Exactly.”

“So you think our guy exploited the victim’s fear of fire to get him to do what he wanted.”

“At some point, yes.”

“He still bashed him in the head though. That’s what actually killed him, not the fire.”

“The fire seemed more significant,” I said. “It’s why I told Reggie it was the cause of death.”

Morris started gnawing his thumbnail in thought.

“Again,” I said, “the fire—or the
fear
of fire—was just a tool to help fulfill the fantasy.”

Morris stopped eating his thumb. “This was a one-night stand, remember? You don’t even know the
name
of a one-night stand. How the hell could our guy have known the victim was so afraid of fire?”

“I don’t know. Could have come up in conversation. Reggie said he spotted the victim willingly get into the car. It could have been all buddy-buddy for a while as they drove north.”

“How ’bout them Yankees? Oh, and what scares the shit out of you?”

“Would you stop?”

Morris glanced over at Reggie. Reggie hadn’t moved. I saw remorse in Morris’ eyes. He turned back to me. “Let’s let local PD finish questioning Reggie. I say you and I hole up for the night and fine-comb everything we’ve got so far.” He then went into his pocket, handed me his roll of TUMS and said: “For inspiration.”

I shook my head and started towards the car.

Morris apparently didn’t get that memo; I was no sooner stepping into the shower when he came knocking. I wrapped a towel around my head and torso and went to the door. The bulbous view from the peephole made his receding hairline appear larger than life. I snickered and let him in.

“What’s funny?” he said.

“Maybe we pick up some Rogaine later?”

He frowned and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I blame the job.”

“Blame your parents. What do you want?”

“I could use a drink,” he said.

“What happened to ‘holing up’ and ‘fine-combing’ everything?”

“Yes or no?” he said.

I groaned. “Give me a minute.”

I went into the bathroom and changed. I glanced at the shower before exiting and said: “I
will
see you again.”

That was until the dreams came.

Bad flu often comes with bad dreams. Fever dreams. When it all seems so real, yet so impossible. Christopher would visit me in these dreams. He would look like he did when he was healthy…and then he would look like he did days before he died, always asking me for help, wondering why I’d allowed this to happen to him. I would tell myself it was a dream,
know
it was a dream, yet my body would always betray me, insist I lie there paralyzed, in my real bed, in my real bedroom, and watch the unreal image of my dead son asking me for help.

I wouldn’t even wish such a thing on the drunken asshole who ended up killing my husband.

So then why the
hell
was I having a drink now, you ask? Well, a glass or two of chardonnay isn’t half a bottle or more of vodka, is it? Plus, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t touched a drop since the ER incident; I mentioned I’d had a glass of wine with Morris in Philadelphia. Wine was my alternative to benzodiazepines—drugs like Xanax and Klonopin and Valium. I’d had my fair share of benzos in the past under Dr. Cole’s care, and while they certainly helped at times, I didn’t feel they were crucial, especially considering the myriad of other drugs I was ingesting, least of all
the
drug. A glass or two of wine mellowed me out just as much as popping a pill of Xanax did, plus I was getting all the additional benefits of those antioxidants found in wine, wasn’t I? Perhaps I’ll use that one again when Enabling Yourself Appreciation Day rolls around.

Seriously though, it’d been long enough to where I knew my limits now. I never ventured further than two glasses of wine, even on a full stomach.

Sadly, this was the closest I’d come to dirty talk in a long time.

“So he picks him up,” Morris said. “How?”

“You like the money angle,” I said.

“I do.”

“All right then, he offers him money. But for what?”

“Huh?”

“Reggie said he was an average-looking white guy. So, an average-looking white guy cruises by an alley in a rough neighborhood and just randomly offers a homeless man some money provided he gets into his car and goes for a ride? No way. There has to be more of an incentive.”

“Money is the king of all incentives, especially if you don’t have any.”

I shook my head. “You’re missing the point. He’s not just giving him the money; he’s doing it on the condition that the victim gets into the car. What’s the condition?”

Morris sipped his scotch. “Maybe he’s lost. Like you said; average-looking white guy in a rough neighborhood—maybe he says he’s lost, needs help finding his way out.”

“And he doesn’t want mere directions,” I added, “he wants someone
in
the car with him, showing him the way. He’s offering money, after all.”

Morris started nodding. “Okay…okay, good—let’s stick with that for now.”

“All right. So, we know they ended up in Newark. Maybe our guy tells the victim he lives there?”