Whisper in the Dark (A Thriller) (27 page)

After a moment, she spoke. “You remember when Abby used to say, ‘Careful, now, the rhythm is gonna get you’?”

Tolan nodded. “What about it?”

“I always figured she got it from that song. I mean, she did, but she didn’t really use it in the same way. For her it was a warning.”

“It’s just something she said. I never really gave it much thought.”

“Neither did I, until today, when the old man started talking about it.”

“About what? The song?”

“No, Michael, pay attention. The Rhythm. The way of The Rhythm.” A pause. “Abby was from Louisiana, just like him.”

It’s the way, Michael
.
The Rhythm
.
The heartbeat
.

“Maybe you should back up and tell me who the hell this old man is.”

“First, I need you to tell me something.”

He said nothing. Waited.

“Why did you leave the hospital today? Why did you take off without saying anything?”

Tolan hesitated, thinking about what he’d seen and heard in that seclusion room. Early this morning, he had chastised Blackburn for his insensitive use of labels, but there was no better way to describe what he’d been through.

“You’ll think I’m nuts.”

“I doubt it,” she said. “Just answer the question. Tell me why you left.”

He hesitated again, wondering how much he should say.

But what exactly did he have to lose? Things couldn’t be much worse than they were right now.

So he told her. Told his story from the beginning. About the blackout the night Abby died, and again today, just before finding Carmody in her shower. About the details of Vincent’s phone calls and his fear that they might not be real. About Jane’s changing eyes, the disappearing needle tracks. About the song that only he and Abby knew, the shifting facial bones, the words she spoke. Saying his name.

It was an unburdening. A confession.

The confession of a madman.

Because he now knew that’s what he was.

Lisa said nothing as he spoke, staring out her window into the night.

“The missing ear was the kicker,” he said. “I had a panic attack, ran to my car, then . . . nothing. Until I woke up on your living-room floor.”

They were silent as he rounded a curve, threading his way through the tangle of pepper trees, then into a clearing where the old hospital stood, illuminated only by the moon.

The place was a throwback to a more primitive time. A time when the mentally ill needed to be hidden from the world. Shunned.

As he pulled into the front drive, Tolan couldn’t help feeling the heat of a thousand eyes on him. The ghosts of the many patients who had come and gone over the years.

Watching him.

Judging him.

When he finally brought the car to a stop, Lisa turned to him. “I knew this was coming, you know. I guess it’s pretty ironic it happens today of all days.”

Tolan was puzzled. “You knew
what
was coming?”

“This moment. The moment you finally realize what you’re capable of. What you did to Abby.” She paused. “Sooner or later it had to catch up to you.”

What he did to Abby.

“You
knew
? You’ve known about her all along?”

“Yes,” she said.

Tolan was at a loss. “. . . How?”

“The same way I know about Detective Carmody. And Anna Marie Colson.”

He just looked at her.
“What?”
 

“Come on, Michael. Do you really think this is the first time I’ve helped you?”

49

L
IKE THE LOWLIFES
who had broken into Hastert’s apartment, Blackburn always kept a ring of bump keys handy. Such keys were once a well-kept secret in the locksmith’s arsenal, an essential tool for quick and easy entry. But it didn’t take long for the home-invasion crowd to catch on.

The keys were of various makes, each with its grooves filed down to the lowest cut, allowing it to be used in just about any lock that accepted that particular make of key. Once the key was inserted, the locksmith or thief—or, in this case, cop—would lightly “bump” the back of it with a screwdriver, or some other blunt instrument, until the key turned and the lock opened.

The process was so simple, a kid could do it. And Blackburn had no doubt that more than a few had.

After he and Kat took a quick look around the perimeter of the house, they decided to go in through the rear door. There were two locks, the knob and a deadbolt, but Blackburn had no trouble bumping them both.

“I knew those hands were good for something,” Kat said.

The moment they were inside they flicked on their Mag-Lites, illuminating a basic, upscale tract home: kitchen attached to a sunken living room. Hallway leading to a bathroom and three bedrooms.

“Where do you want to start?” Kat asked.

Blackburn handed her a pair of crime scene gloves, then shone his light toward the bedroom doors. “Most people keep their secrets in their closets. You take the first one, I’ll take the last, and we’ll meet in the middle.”

“A head-on collision.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Just thinking out loud. What exactly are we looking for?”

“Bank statements, check stubs. The most recent ones you can find. Patient files would be nice.”

“Janovic?”

“Or the new victim—Hastert.”

“Good luck.”

“I can dream, can’t I?” He gestured for her to get started. “Make sure you put everything back where you got it. We don’t want to leave any footprints.”

“Roger.”

As Kat pulled her gloves on and headed for the first bedroom, Blackburn navigated the narrow hallway until he reached the last door. Resting a hand on the butt of his holstered Glock, he pushed inside, shone the light around.

The master bedroom.

King-size bed, double-wide dresser, closet to the left, bathroom to the right. Nothing special. The wall above the bed featured a stark black-and-white photograph of Tolan, awash in sunlight, standing in a large, open room with high windows.

Taken by the wife, no doubt.

On closer inspection, Blackburn realized it was shot at the old Baycliff Hospital. A gathering spot. A Day Room. He remembered seeing this and several more like it in
The New Times
magazine, shortly after Abby’s murder.

He took a quick look through the dresser drawers, making sure that every sock, every pair of boxers remained in place, but found nothing of interest.

Moving to the closet, he slid open the door, shone his light inside, and found the usual assortment of clothes and shoes. A set of pristine golf clubs were buried in a corner, looking as if they’d been sitting there since the day they were purchased.

Undoubtedly the product of peer pressure.

The shelf above held a few boxes, their handwritten labels chronicling several years’ worth of tax returns. Blackburn pulled the most recent year down and quickly rifled through it, found a couple of check registers. A scan of their contents, however, yielded nothing of use.

Replacing the box, he closed the closet and turned, sweeping the flashlight beam around the room again.

He decided to move on.

The center bedroom was a home office. Functional and unpretentious. Bookcases holding a mix of hardcover and paperback books, both fiction and nonfiction.

Another reader, like Hastert.

The closet was a bust. A couple of coats hanging inside, more books piled on the shelf above them.

Shutting the closet door, he moved to a desk that was pushed up against the far wall, its blotter littered with various pieces of paperwork and mail. Blackburn quickly looked through them, but again found nothing of interest.

Sliding open the bottom drawer, he was hoping to see a row of hanging file folders, but instead found even more books, most of them snooze-inducing tomes covering a variety of mental health issues.

One of them had Tolan’s byline and the title
What Color Is Your Anger?
Blackburn pulled it out and leafed through it, vaguely remembering that it had been a bestseller a couple years back. The book that put Tolan on the map.

As far as Blackburn could tell, there was nothing special about it. Just a retread of every other self-help book out there, this one assigning colors to our various moods, followed by an armchair analysis of what triggers them.

It was all gobbledygook to Blackburn and seemed out of character for Tolan. As if he’d been slumming in the world of pop psychology. Why the public and the press latched on to this kind of nonsense was anybody’s guess. One of the many mysteries of our culture.

He was returning this masterpiece to its designated spot when he realized he’d missed something in the back of the drawer, wedged behind the rest of the books. Quickly moving them out of the way, he reached in and pulled out a box. A rectangular metal box with a padlock attached.

Blackburn felt a tiny surge of adrenaline that was immediately offset by puzzlement.

It was a tackle box.

The kind fishermen use.

But if this connected in the way he thought it might, that didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense at all.

Still, he had to wonder, if you’re using a box like this to store your fishing tackle, why not keep it in the garage with the rest of your gear? Assuming Tolan had any. Why stick it in the back of a desk drawer, hidden by a bunch of books?

Setting it on the desktop, Blackburn rattled the padlock, but it was securely fastened. Bump keys wouldn’t be any help with this, but a properly bent paper clip would.

He had just found one in the top desk drawer when Kat’s voice rang out from the adjoining bedroom.

“Hey, Frank, I think I’ve got something here.”

Snatching up the tackle box and carrying it with him, he moved down the hallway to the next room, which had been set up as a den.

Sofa. Armchairs. TV.

Kat stood near the closet, a box of her own at her feet. This one made of battered cardboard.

“The shelf in there is full of these,” she said. “All labeled. Old mementos and stuff.” She held out a newspaper clipping. “Take a look at this.”

Blackburn set the tackle box on the floor, then took the clipping from her and shone his light on it. It was a fifteen-year-old article taken from the
LA Times
, yellowed with age, its headline reading:

COED AND BOYFRIEND GUNNED DOWN

The story that followed told of a young UCLA student named Anna Marie Colson, who had been gunned down one night while she and her boyfriend were returning from a walk to Westwood Village. Several of Colson’s roommates had been questioned, including one Michael Edward Tolan, a pre-med student whom police said was Colson’s former boyfriend.

While Tolan was initially a “person of interest,” no charges were ever brought, and the official conclusion was that the murders were the result of a random mugging.

A photo accompanied the article. The coed and several of her roommates. Six in all.

One of them was clearly Tolan. Much younger. Happier than Blackburn had ever seen him. And sitting on his lap was a cute brunette with a cheerleader’s smile.

Anna Marie Colson.

“The wife wasn’t his first,” Blackburn said. “The sonofabitch did it before.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

Blackburn continued to stare at the photo, looking at all those fresh young faces, none of them knowing that they had a killer among them.

But how could they? How can you look in someone’s eyes and really know what’s behind them?

Tolan had certainly fooled Blackburn. And Blackburn was a professional.

“What’s that?”

He looked up to see Kat gesturing toward his feet.

The tackle box. He’d forgotten about it.

“I’m not sure,” he said, “but we’re about to find out.” Folding the article, he stuck it in his shirt pocket.

“Shouldn’t I return that? I thought you said no footprints.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Picking up the tackle box, Blackburn carried it to an armchair and sat, pulling it into his lap. Then he took the paper clip from his coat pocket, bent it straight, and went to work on the padlock.

Unfortunately, it was tougher than he’d expected.

“Let me try,” Kat said, crouching next to him.

Taking the paper clip, she attacked the lock, working it like a seasoned pro. Less than half a minute later, it was open.

She saw Blackburn’s look and grinned. “Gym class, senior year. I pulled a lot of locker room pranks.”

“What I would’ve given to be a fly on that wall.”

Her grin widened as he pulled the lock free and set it aside. Flipping up the latch, he carefully swung the lid of the tackle box open and shone his light on it.

There was a tray full of fishing lures on top. Weights. A spool of line. A couple of cork floats. Everything quite innocent and unremarkable.

Blackburn hooked the tray’s handle with a finger and pulled it out, setting it on the floor.

Then he froze.

Holy shit.

“What? What’ve you got?”

“What
don’t
I have is the question.”

Reaching into the bottom of the box, he pulled out a fat, pen-shaped object, the words
PowerBlast 2000
printed on the side.

The cauterizing tool.

Beneath it lay a small hacksaw and a razor-sharp kitchen knife. And next to that was a stack of photographs.

Blackburn pulled them out and stared at them. The same photos he’d seen on the printed web page Tolan had given him. Dismembered bodies arranged in several different configurations. The last of the photos were shots of Abby Tolan. Her eyes cut out.

Kat eyed the contents of the box. “Is this what I think it is?”

Blackburn nodded. “The whole goddamn enchilada.”

“The murder kit, right?
Vincent’s
murder kit.”

Blackburn nodded again, knowing this didn’t quite fit—that something was off—but was unable to refute the evidence in front of him. There was no other conclusion he could reach.

Dr. Michael Tolan wasn’t a simple wife killer.