Silent Victim (13 page)

It began that day, the delight he took in wearing soft, fluffy fabrics and lacy undergarments
—the kind of thing his mother wore when she was alive. It all started that day Caleb came back home with his father, and the house was so still. Instead of the sound of his mother preparing dinner in the kitchen, there was nothing—only the quiet scuttering of mice in the attic, the dripping of rain from the eaves. It had started raining when they left the river. His father drove without speaking as the drops grew in size, splashing onto the windshield as the wipers did their brisk business of flinging them off the car. He sat watching the wiper blades swoosh back and forth.
Foopah, foohpah, foo-PAH.
The sound they made was so soothing—they swung in front of his tired eyes like a pendulum, hypnotizing him. Their timing was off, so that one blade was always falling a little bit behind the other one. He remembered liking the syncopated rhythm they created—he found it comforting.
Foopah, FOOpah, foo-PAH.

When they returned home, his father said nothing, retreating silently to his workshop in the basement. Caleb wandered the empty house, listening to the sound of rain on the roof. He didn’t remember deciding to go there, but found himself in the little room off the master bedroom his mother used as a dressing room. There was her dressing table, with the brushes and combs laid out, as though she had just gone for a walk. He picked up a tortoiseshell brush and lifted a long brown hair that clung to the bristles. It was her hair, probably brushed from her head this morning, one of the last things she did while still alive. He rolled it up and tucked it carefully into his pocket.

The top drawer of her bureau was open—something black and shiny was poking out. Looking over his shoulder at the open bedroom door, he tiptoed to the dresser and pulled it out, running his hand over the silken material. It was a pair of black panties with lace trim. He put them to his face and caressed his cheek with the fabric as his father’s words ran through his head.
Slut! Evil, whoring slut! She’s just like all the rest of them—can’t be trusted!
He inhaled deeply, the aroma of his mother’s almond-scented body lotion filling his head. Perhaps this was the same pair she wore when she …
slut, whore, evil bitch.

His hands trembled as he slid his own pants to the ground and pulled the panties on. He almost fainted as the cool silk glided up his bare legs. He pulled it snug around his crotch, his mouth dry with excitement and shame as his penis stiffened and grew at the touch of the fabric.
Slut! Whore! Bitch!
He imagined his mother pulling on the panties just like this, standing where he stood now.

He turned and went to her closet, where her dresses hung on their wooden hangers. His mother disliked wire hangers, because they were so easily twisted around each other. He reached for a yellow sleeveless summer dress and pulled it on over his shirt. It fell flat against his thin chest, so he rooted around in the bureau and found some panty hose, which he stuffed in the front of the dress. He had turned to admire himself in the mirror, when he heard his father’s heavy tread on the stairs.

His heart hammered in his chest as he heard the movement of feet under the crack in the door frame, like the scurrying of gray mice, the flitting of far-off shadows—a brief, harried interruption in the thin band of yellow light that hugged the floor. He pulled off the dress, flung it into the closet, and pulled his pants back on. But he could still feel the silk panties on his skin. A satisfied smile crept across his face as he stepped out into the hall. Now he had a secret to keep from his father.

“What happened to you?” Chuck’s voice was weary, a combination of concern and irritation. He stood behind his desk, looking at Lee, arms crossed, his blond eyebrows knit in a frown, staring at his friend’s heavily bandaged hand. Lee had come straight from the emergency room to the afternoon meeting in Chuck’s office.

“I had a misunderstanding with a door,” Lee said, avoiding eye contact.

“Yeah, very funny.” Chuck didn’t move. “What really happened?”

“Seriously, that’s what happened.”

“Okay—let me see, then.”

“Look, I didn’t try to kill myself, if that’s what you’re afraid of. If I’d done that, both wrists would be bandaged.”

“Yeah? So let me see.” Chuck was being unusually obstinate.

“I’ll tell you the whole story, if you really insist on it.”

“Okay.”

Lee told him the whole episode of the visit to John Jay—and the sudden attack of rage that caused him to punch a hole through the glass top of the door.

Chuck listened warily, as if looking to catch him out in a lie, but when he was finished, said, “Okay. Well, maybe that’s a healthier reaction than depression. Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah—right.” They both had to smile at that. It had become a little dance between them over the years: Chuck asking if Lee was okay when he obviously wasn’t, and Lee responding that he was fine. Another inheritance of his stoic Celtic upbringing: to admit weakness was itself a sign of weakness.

“What did you tell the people at John Jay to explain their broken door?” Chuck asked.

“I just said that I slipped on some water in the hall and fell against it.”

Chuck snorted. “And they believed you?”

“I guess so.”

Morton rolled his eyes. “A place full of cops and forensic experts and you get away with a lie like that.”

“I offered to pay for it, insisted actually, told them to take it out of my lecture pay, but they refused.”

“Lecture pay?”

“Oh, yeah. They, uh, asked me if I could come talk about—you know.” He didn’t want to say the words, as if they would scorch the air and burn his skin if released into the atmosphere.

“Are you up to that?”

“Well, I wasn’t sure until yesterday, but yes, I think I am.”

Chuck heaved a deep, disbelieving sigh and put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “If you say so.”

“I got another call about the red dress.”

“You want us to put a trace on your phone?”

“I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but you can try. He could be calling from anywhere—last time it was a public pay phone. This time I tried star sixty-nine, but the number was blocked.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do.” Chuck put a hand on Lee’s shoulder. “I hate to say it, but you’re not looking all that good lately.”

It was true that the return of the depression had caused the usual problems with his appetite. His sleep had been erratic since Ana’s death, and gaunt circles had formed under his eyes.

“Yeah,” Lee said. “I’ll be all right once I get some rest.” “I don’t know,” Chuck said. “Maybe you should—” “What?” Lee said, suddenly angry. “Give up my profession? Give up the search for my sister’s killer?”

“God, Lee, I don’t—”

“And what about this killer? Christ, Chuck, three people are dead already.” “I’m just saying—”

“If I walk away from this, it’ll be worse—a lot worse. At least I’m
doing
something—”

“You know, Lee, sometimes you just have to walk away.”

“Don’t say that, Chuck—don’t
ever
say that to me!”

He was surprised at the vehemence in his own voice. So was Chuck, by the look of it. He stared at Lee, then turned away and plucked a piece of paper from the pile on his desk.

“Fine,” he said tersely. “Have a look at this.”

It appeared to be a copy of a page from a diary. The feathery scrawl was elaborate, showy.

Must confront him,
It read. The words were underlined twice.
Take courage—it’s the only way.

He looked at Chuck. “Ana’s writing—from her diary?”

“It was in a secret drawer hidden in her bureau. The guys who processed her house the first time didn’t find it, but the Jersey cop they posted to watch over the place got bored and started rooting around and discovered it.”

Lee had an image of Trooper Anderson wandering through Ana’s rambling farmhouse, sniffing around for clues.

“Okay,” he said. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“They’re processing it for prints,” Chuck said. “This was the last entry.”

“This could be about almost anyone,” Lee remarked.

“Maybe it refers to her abuser.”

“If she really
was
abused.”

“You think she lied about that?”

“Or was persuaded, or recovered false memories—anything’s possible.”

“Christ,” Chuck said. “So that whole thing could be a red herring?”

“Yep. There are plenty of cases of patients ‘recovering memories’ of things that never happened—especially if the therapist eggs them on. It’s like false confessions—people will say just about anything if you push them hard enough.”

“Great,” Chuck said. “So that’s a possible false lead?”

“I’m afraid so. Unless we find something else more specific, I don’t see what good it does us.” He put the photocopy back on the desk. “When is everyone else getting here?”

“Any minute now—you’re early.”

Lee frowned. “I thought the meeting was at two.”

“Two-thirty.”

“Whatever.” He sank down in one of the captain’s chairs, carefully laying his injured hand on the armrest. He could feel it throbbing with each pulse of his heart.

There was a knock on the door. Chuck was standing next to it, and he flung the door open to admit Elena Krieger, who brushed past him as though she were visiting royalty. She glared at Lee.

“How long have you been here?”

“I just got here,” he lied.

She narrowed her small blue eyes and looked around for a place to sit down. She was wearing tight gray slacks and a white knit shirt with a V neck. She threw herself into the nearest chair, brandishing her cleavage. Lee tried not to stare as her breasts competed with each other to push through the top of her shirt.

“Okay,” she said to Chuck, as if he were the servant and she the master. “What have we got?”

His reply was interrupted by the sound of wheezing. The door was flung open, and Detective Butts stumbled into the room, panting heavily.

“Sorry,” he said. “Goddamn traffic on the GW Bridge.

Am I late?”

“Nope,” Chuck said. “Right on time.”

Krieger raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips, as though Butts were the carrier of an incurable disease and she was determined not inhale the deadly spores.

“Okay,” Butts said, pulling a chair up and sitting. His eyes fell on Lee’s bandaged hand. “What the hell happened to you?”

“I put my hand through a glass partition in a door.”

Butts shook his head. “This is the price you pay for breaking and entering in your spare time.”

Krieger appeared to take his remark seriously. Her mouth fell open, and she turned to Chuck.

“He’s kidding,” Morton said.

Butts pulled a crumpled brown paper bag from his pocket and thrust it toward the others. It was smeared with splotches of grease. “Rugelach, anyone? My wife’s sister made it. Leftover from the funeral.”

Krieger scowled and crossed her arms. “Can we get back to business, please?”

Chuck held up the page with the diary entry. Before he could say anything, Krieger snatched it from him.

“This is from her diary?” she asked, studying it.

“Right,” Chuck answered, with a glance at Butts, who didn’t look at all put out by Krieger’s behavior. It occurred to Lee that he might be deliberately ignoring her.

Krieger held up the diary entry. “So this could be referring to her killer.”

“Unless she made up the whole thing,” Lee remarked.

Krieger stared at him. “Why would she do that?”

Lee explained his history with Ana, and her narcissistic personality.

“She’d do that, then?” Butts asked.

“I think we can’t discount that possibility. She might have even set it up so that her boyfriend would discover the diary.”

“What about the warning note? You believe that is also fake?” Krieger asked.

“Well, it did come from the magazines in her house,” Lee pointed out.

“But the boyfriend definitely could have done that,” Butts said. “We need to have him in for a little chat.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Chuck agreed.

“Think about it, though,” Lee said. “If he
did
create the warning note, then why doesn’t he get rid of the magazines once Ana is dead? Why leave them in the house for us to find?”

“Criminals can be incredibly stupid,” Krieger remarked.

“He didn’t strike me as stupid—quite the opposite,” Lee countered. “Did you think he was stupid?” he asked Butts.

“No,” Butts admitted. “He’s a sharp guy. And he seemed real shaken. Unless he’s a terrific actor, the guy was definitely hit hard by her death. I still say we should bring him in, though. If for nothin’ else, maybe he’s thought of something that might help us find the real UNSUB.”

“Agreed,” Chuck said. “At this point, he’s the one closest to the victim, so we can’t eliminate him yet, and, in any case, he could prove useful.”

“So you say this Ana Watkins was so desperate for attention that she faked being stalked?” Krieger asked.

“That’s what I’m beginning to believe,” Lee answered. “Isn’t that an odd coincidence that she was actually
being
stalked?”

“I’m not sure she was,” Lee said. “I don’t really know yet. But I can see her faking the whole thing to get attention.” “From who?” Butts asked. “You?”

“Yep,” said Chuck.

Lee flushed and held his throbbing arm to his side.

“So she was that into you?” Butts asked.

“I’m sure she was getting attention from other people, too,” Lee said. “Her boyfriend, probably coworkers—if she did invent the whole thing, you can bet she let everyone know about it.” Then he thought about her face that night. “She really was scared—whether or not she had invented parts of it, there was no doubt she thought her life was in danger.”

“You know,” Krieger said, “this UNSUB needs attention, too. He isn’t just punishing his victims—his crimes are also a ploy to be noticed.”

Lee looked at her, surprised by her insight. For all her pooh-poohing the idea of profiling, he thought, she had good instincts.

“That’s exactly right,” he agreed. “This is someone who feels he can’t attract attention unless he behaves in ways increasingly outside societal norms.”

“Or, to put it another way,” Chuck said, “he’s displaying all the attributes of a sociopath. Right?”

“Exactly. There’s another possibility, too. The diary entry could refer to her therapist. Maybe she was going to confront him about something.”

“Or even her boss at the Swan,” Butts suggested.

“Right,” Lee agreed.

Krieger studied the note. “She wasn’t faking it,” she declared. “Her fear was real.”

“How can you tell?” asked Chuck.

“If she was faking it, she would have been more elaborate. When people lie, they add unnecessary details—”

“You’re right!” Butts cried, spewing rugelach crumbs into the air. “That’s one ‘a the ways you can tell if a perp is lying: too many details!”

Krieger gave a dignified sniff and turned to Chuck and Lee. “As I was saying, this note is too brief to be a ruse—it is succinct and to the point. She really is talking to herself, not to some imaginary audience. Look at the wording: ‘Must confront him.’ She doesn’t say ‘I must confront him'—no, she leaves off the subject of the sentence altogether, because she already
knows
who the subject of the sentence is.”

Butts apparently couldn’t help himself. “That is goddamn brilliant, is what that is!”

Krieger’s only reaction was a tiny upward curl of the left side of her mouth. “The real question that remains is who is the
object
of the sentence?”

There was a hesitant tap on the door.

“Come in,” Chuck said.

The door opened just enough to admit Sergeant Ruggles’s head. With his clean-shaven, shiny face, he looked like an anxious schoolboy.

“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but DC Connelly is on the line.”

Chuck rolled his eyes. “I’ll take it outside. Keep going without me,” he said to the rest of them as he brushed past Ruggles, who stood in the doorway staring at Krieger. With his thick neck, bald head, and short, muscular legs, he reminded Lee of a bull terrier.

“Is there anything else, Sergeant?” she said, returning his gaze.

“Uh, no, there isn’t,” he replied, still staring, as if she were the Medusa and he were rooted to the spot by the sight of the writhing snakes on her head.

Butts rescued him. “Rugelach?” he said, thrusting a crumbling fistful under the sergeant’s nose.

“Uh, no thanks,” Ruggles said. Retreating hastily, he closed the door behind him.

Lee thought he saw the corners of Krieger’s mouth turn up in a smile as she watched him go.

“Now then,” she said, turning back to him and Butts, “where were we?”