This Thing of Darkness (40 page)

“Is someone there now? Did you see a white Town Car, for example?”

She bit her lip, looking distressed. “I was out so I didn't see anyone arrive, but I think I heard some sound—maybe voices? A couple of hours ago.”

“Male or female?”

“I couldn't tell. Just a low murmur. But it surprised me, because she's usually alone.”

Green's scalp prickled with dread. “You've been extremely helpful. For now, would you please take your child in your house, lock the doors, and stay inside until we give you the all-clear.”

Her eyes widened. “There
is
danger!” she gasped, snatching up her child again.

“Just as a precaution.”

“Fuck,” she breathed. “You read about these things, but you never think it will ever happen!”

Green watched to ensure she and her son were safely inside before returning to Gibbs. His eyes scoured the windows of the abandoned bungalow for signs of movement within, but they were all opaque, merely reflecting the late afternoon sun and the pale blue sky. He signalled Gibbs to follow as he continued around to the back.

The yard was enclosed by a dilapidated wooden fence with numerous broken slats. He slipped between them and fought his way through the tangle of overgrown lilac on the other side. The centre of the yard was surprisingly orderly. The thistle and goldenrod had been cut back, and a propane barbeque sat on a small patch of gravel. Laid out in patterns on the grass around it were odd stone circles, and an elaborate geometric system of steel pipes wove between them like a post-modern sculpture.

Green dashed across the yard to the shed, crouching low to obtain partial cover from the brush that surrounded the clearing. Thorns clawed at him. Ignoring the scratches, he pressed himself against the rear of the shed and waited for Gibbs. Together they breathed deeply to slow their hearts and to listen through the silence. Nothing but the screeching of a flock of birds in the oak tree. Closer by, a squirrel watched them balefully from a fencepost.

Gibbs nodded towards the steel pipes. “What do you suppose that is, sir? A water system?”

Green shook his head. “It's not connected anywhere. Looks almost like an old-fashioned
TV
antenna, but who knows?” He turned to examine the shed. Its roof was bowed, threatening imminent collapse, and paint flaked off its weathered wood siding. A small window at the back was crisscrossed with cobwebs but by cupping his hand Green was able to distinguish a glint of glass and chrome inside. As his eyes adjusted, the full shape of the Lincoln Town Car emerged.

Fuck.

Green pressed himself against the back wall of the shed, out of sight, and dialled Levesque to tell her that Patrick O'Malley was indeed inside.

“The Tactical Unit has arrived,” she said. “They're setting up a perimeter and planning their approach. Any sign of the subjects?”

Green peered around the corner of the shed and scanned the house. The windows were all covered on the inside by what looked like plywood sheets, but the patio door was uncovered and provided a glimpse into the room beyond.

“Let me get a little closer, and I'll see if I can identify where they are.”

“Sir, that's a job for the Tac—”

“I'll get back to you
ASAP
.” He hung up on her protests, then squeezed through the shrubs to the far side of the shed, using it as cover while he approached the back of the house. When he reached the front of the shed, he sprinted the short distance to the back corner of the house and flattened himself against the rough brick wall, straining to hear over the hammering of his heart. Nothing. No voices, no footsteps.

Too silent.

He signalled for Gibbs to follow, and together they crept along the back wall until they reached the edge of the patio door, then dropped to a crouch to make a less visible target. Pressed against the cold stone of the patio slabs, Green inched forward and peeked through the dust-streaked glass. The room was packed with junk. Not the usual couch and chairs but a broken baby stroller, several upside down lampshades arranged in a circle, a shopping cart plastered with “no trespassing” signs, and an old dog bed buried in broken Barbie dolls in the corner. And around every doorway and window, more steel piping. Green knew enough about the quirks of the schizophrenic mind not to even try for a logical explanation.

Still no sound.

He reached up to test the door and felt it slide beneath his cautious push. The door was not locked. He hesitated, trying to muffle his ragged breath. The Tac commander was waiting for a report. Green needed to let the unit do its job, yet listening through the slit in the door, he could sense no threat. Fear crawled through him, not of what might happen but of what had already happened.

He took out his Glock and stared at it, cold and heavy in his hand. He hated it but knew he needed at least this precaution. Behind him, he heard Gibbs suck in his breath. Before he could protest, Green pressed his finger to his lips. Eyes huge with apprehension, Gibbs took out his own Glock.

Green slid the door back and slipped inside, assailed instantly by the stench of unwashed clothes, urine and rotten food. Now, within the confines of the tiny house, he heard a sound like the rustling of papers. With Gibbs' tense breath in his ear, he crept towards the sound, past a gutted shell that had once been a kitchen and towards a doorway at the front. The door was torn off its hinges and propped against the wall. The sound was clearer now, not the rustling of paper but the soft, sibilant sound of breath. A person weeping.

Green readied his Glock and stepped through the archway. He took a few seconds to make out the shapes in the darkened room. The only furniture was a single cast-iron bed in the corner, made up with a frilly pink duvet and matching pillow. A woman lay on the bed, her hands at her sides and her eyes closed. Her long brown hair fanned out on the pillow as if spread by a tender hand.

She was still. Too still. Green's heart leaped in his throat, and he stepped forward in horror.

Patrick O'Malley sat on the floor by the head of the bed, stroking her hand with his thumb. At the sound of Green's entry, he raised his ravaged face. Didn't attack, didn't even cry out in surprise.

“Please,” he said, “let her be.”

Twenty-Seven

V
iolet darkness had descended. The back-up and emergency response teams had been released, and Levesque had finally been despatched to hospital. While MacPhail and the Ident team did their job inside the house, Patrick paced the little clearing in the backyard. The Tac Unit had set up floodlights, and Green had scrounged three battered lawn chairs from the shed to form a make-shift interview room, but Patrick seemed unable to sit still. He ran his fine, manicured fingers through his greying hair as he circled the yard. His shadow raced in spooky shapes across the dark brush beyond.

“Caitlin has been very ill for a long time,” he said, “but I never, never imagined that she was capable of murder. All I've ever tried to do was protect her.”

Green eyed him skeptically. He felt profoundly weary and sick at heart. A young woman lay dead inside the house because he had failed to put the pieces together in time. No matter the cause or the reason, that was a tragedy.

Dr. MacPhail's preliminary examination had revealed ligature marks on Caitlin's wrists and bruising on her arms, but no signs of injury that would explain her death. Two prescription bottles sat empty on the floor by the bed, their labels revealing that they were sleeping pills prescribed for Annabeth O'Malley. Also on the floor was a glass with traces of a clear liquid, probably the water used to wash down the pills. Lyle Cunningham had already told Green that a clear set of useable latents could be lifted from the glass and one from the bottle. Green suspected they would be Caitlin's. Even if he were guilty, Patrick was too clever for such an obvious oversight. He would have set every detail of the stage.

If this was a performance, however, it was Oscar-worthy. Patrick looked like an old man, his face carved in haggard lines by the harsh lights. He was shrivelled and grey with grief, yet driven by a desperate urge to talk. To be understood.

“So you're saying that your daughter killed Samuel Rosenthal?”

Patrick stopped. Bowed his head in faint assent. “And my wife. God help me, I didn't see that coming.” Tears sprang to his eyes. “You always hope...she'll get better, you know?”

“But what reason would she have? Dr. Rosenthal was helping her.”

He drew himself up, shook his head angrily as if to banish his weakness and strode over to open the door to the shed.

“Hold it!” Green snapped. Three detectives stepped forward to block his path.

Patrick sighed. “I want to show you something.”

Inside, sitting in the trunk of his Lincoln Town Car, was a box of files and a laptop in a black case. Green glimpsed the name “Caitlin O'Malley” on the tab of one file.

“These belong to Dr. Rosenthal. I found them inside Caitlin's bedroom yesterday, hidden in the back of her closet. I was going to turn it all over to you later, that's why it's in the trunk of my car. I wasn't concealing evidence, merely...giving her time.” He raised his hand, ran it through his hair distractedly. “I couldn't break the password on the computer, but the file told me all I needed to know. Rosenthal had been keeping progress notes on her for a year, ever since he encountered her one night in the Market. At first I think he was documenting her progress without the anti-psychotics so that they would have evidence in her suit against me.” He plucked Caitlin's file from the box and thrust it at Green before turning away to resume his pacing, a little off-kilter like a drunk. Green placed the file unopened in his lap, too weary to read it. His stomach churned, and the floodlights were giving him a headache. Instead, he waited for the story to resume.

“Samuel Rosenthal was the agent of his own death.” For the first time Patrick's voice shook with outrage. “Such extraordinary hubris, to believe he understood her, that he understood schizophrenia and the dark, toxic brew that washed her mind. The man was supposed to be an experienced doctor! If he hadn't believed that the brilliant reaches of her mind were more important than sober, stifled sanity—‘unfettered insight', he called it—she would still have been on her clozapine, and she would not have become delusional again.”

He flicked a restless hand at the file in Green's lap. “Last spring it seems he realized his mistake. He began trying to persuade her to go back on the anti-psychotic. But a paranoid, by their very nature, sees conspiracies instead of truth. She resisted. She thought he was being influenced by Lucifer, who was trying to destroy her gift. So he started meeting her every week so that he could persuade her to take at least a little bit of medication. Enough to keep away the worst of the scary voices, he told her, but not enough to interfere with her divine gift or her so-called destiny.”

He stumbled a little on the stony ground and cast a sharp look at Green as if expecting disbelief.

“Divine gift?” was all Green said.

Patrick steadied himself. “Caitlin thought her intelligence was being channelled from God through outer space. That's what these are for.” He waved at the network of steel pipes. “She had all the answers, you know. If millions of people pray to God and think God speaks to them, why not her? Why does her belief make her crazy? In fact, it was her lunatic evangelical husband and his preacher friend who put the idea of Lucifer in her head. Listen to God, they said, destroy Satan. Who was I, the voice of reason, the heretic, in all this? Caitlin has always fought me, even before she got sick. I was already the bad guy. Dr. Rosenthal took a different approach. He didn't argue with her, he went along with it. He seemed to be trying to keep track of how ill she was while still keeping her trust.” He tilted his head to gaze at the darkening sky and drew a deep breath. “Foolish, foolish man, trying to outwit a brilliant paranoid.”

A random piece of Green's puzzle clicked into place. “She got suspicious and broke into his apartment to steal his files. Somehow he gave himself away.”

Patrick nodded. “Apparently, two weeks ago Dr. Rosenthal phoned me. I knew nothing of his meetings with Caitlin, and as you'd imagine, I wasn't kindly disposed towards the man who'd planned to take me to court. Worse, he was encouraging my child to explore her sick, delusional world. I was out, but Annabeth must have taken the message. Annabeth is... To be blunt, she's an alcoholic, has been for years, and both her memory and her judgement are impaired. She never gave me the message, but I'm guessing Caitlin found it or saw his number on Call Display. That would be enough to fuel her paranoia.”

“How did you find out he called?”

He gestured to the file again. “The call is documented in there. Rosenthal had come full circle. He wanted to discuss enlisting my support to have her hospitalized. Committed, if need be. In Caitlin's eyes, that would be the ultimate betrayal. Rosenthal had joined me on the dark side.”

Patrick's words hung in the silence. Night had settled in, sprinkling the sky with pale stars. Green's numb exhaustion robbed his brain of thought. Patrick told a convincing story, but he was a skilled storyteller, well practiced in the art of persuading judges and juries to believe his version of a case.

“She's not a very powerful woman,” he said quietly. “How did she kill him?”

Patrick's face twisted. “You know how strong a person is when they're fighting for their life? Caitlin thought she was. She carries a length of this steel piping in her handbag wherever she goes, to help her hear God. She came home last Saturday night in a state, bloody and half-naked. No coat, no handbag, no steel pipe. When I read in the paper that Rosenthal had been beaten with a heavy bat, I began to fear... I searched all over for her things—the whole house, this place, even the murder scene, but I couldn't find them. She must have thrown them away. In the river, maybe?”