The Last Place

CHAPTER 26

Tess moved through the next week in a strange fog. Technically, she was still working, even if she no longer had an office at the state police barracks. After all, the brief career of Eric-Alan-Charlie was perfect for the needs of her contractors. Whitney had whooped with pleasure when Tess told her the bare outlines of what they had learned. The state police were not going public, not yet, but they would eventually give the story to the press. The consortium would be able to make a lot of political hay, once everything was sorted out.

“Especially with this nut, this Carl Dewitt guy, who almost screwed up the investigation because of his own obsession,” Whitney had said over the phone. Her bell-clear voice had never sounded quite so hard to Tess, so cruel. “He’s practically a walking example of why all branches of law enforcement need training.”

“I don’t know,” Tess had demurred. “I think he had some good ideas.”

“How do you figure? He couldn’t see the killer had been sitting in front of him-until you came along. Then, once he realized the right guy had slipped through his fingers, he couldn’t accept the fact that he might be dead. But why was a Toll Facilities cop investigating a homicide at all? The state police need to be prepared to step in and help these incompetents.”

“He wasn’t incompetent,” Tess said. “Just… inexperienced. And the state police were in charge all along. Carl Dewitt kept investigating this homicide on his own time, even after he retired on disability, because he cared.”

“Or because he had fucked up,” Whitney said, “and was psycho to boot. Look, don’t take it so personally. No one’s accusing you of messing up. The point is, we have reams of stuff to take to the judicial committee next session. You’re working for advocates, remember? When you write your report, be sure to gear it to our needs. Who knew that five seemingly unrelated homicides would actually yield such a rich find?”

Who did know? Tess wondered as she hung up the phone. She had been so focused on Tiffani and Lucy that she had forgotten about the other three names: Hazel Ligetti, Michael Shaw, Julie Carter. Were they significant in some way? Carl had said it wasn’t accidental that their paths had crossed. But Carl was crazy. Well, not crazy, but obsessed.

The day they had returned from Saint Mary’s, Major Shields had taken her into his office for a final conversation.

“I want you to know, we don’t blame you,” he said. “You’re not responsible for Carl’s mistakes.”

“Gee, thanks,” she said.

“But you are responsible for your own. You were insubordinate. In our organization, we need people to follow instructions. I told you we could overlook your visit to the Gunts family. But you should not have tried to interview the little girl, Darby.”

“Why not?”

“Interviewing children is a specialized skill. It requires training.” He allowed himself a one-sided grin. “Just like the domestic violence cases that were supposedly your focus.”

“Point taken.”

Major Shields was not insensitive. He realized that Tess’s sourness was not about being cut out of the official investigation.

“Don’t blame Carl,” he said.

“Why not? You do.”

“Carl suffered a breakdown while working on the Fancher case. That’s why he’s on permanent disability from the state.”

“He told me he screwed up his knee in a fall.”

“He may have, but that’s not why he got early retirement.”

“If he’s such a nut, why did you let him work on this?”

Major Shields was still wearing his trooper hat, which was disconcerting. It made his eyes harder to see.

“That was Sergeant Craig’s idea. He thought it might help Carl. If we made an arrest and he could feel he was part of it, it could have helped him put the whole matter behind him.”

“So instead you humiliated him by dragging him down to Saint Mary’s.”

“That was for you,” Major Shields said. “We wanted you to understand how serious this is. And we wanted you to know the investigation is, for all intents and purposes, over.”

“They never found a body.”

“But that’s where you’re wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

“Several men about the right age have surfaced in the bay since Charlie Chisholm disappeared, including two John Does. Remember, Charlie Chisholm wouldn’t come up as Charlie Chisholm, because the real one is alive. We’re looking at these drowning victims. We’re sure one of them is our guy.”

“But if Charlie had surfaced, wouldn’t someone have brought Mary Ann Melcher in to make the ID? After all, the DNR police knew he had gone missing because of the float report.”

“These bodies were found in such an advanced state of decay that visual ID was-to put it nicely-no longer feasible. But the medical examiner had dental records on file that Mary Ann thought belonged to her boyfriend. She found them in the apartment after he disappeared. Here’s the odd thing: The dental records matched the real Charlie Chisholm, the one in the VA hospital.”

“How did he get those?”

“Believe me, we’re trying to find out. But it explains why they didn’t match up to a John Doe.”

“But what if Carl is right? What if the killer just faked his suicide and he’s still out there? What if he’s moved to another state?”

“We’ve been all over that, Tess. We cannot find a single unsolved homicide that matches. The guy’s either dead or he’s Houdini. Do you believe in criminal masterminds? Do you honestly think that serial killers are geniuses, toying with law enforcement officials? In many cases, they’re the lowest of the low, with barely functional IQs.”

“Still-”

“Go home, Tess.” His voice was not unkind. “Let Carl be an example to you of what can happen when you get obsessed with something.”

“And what if Carl is right?”

The question caught her off guard, but only because it was strange to hear Dr. Armistead say what was inside her head. He had a way of sneaking into her thoughts when she least expected it.

She hated it when he did that.

“I don’t think he is,” she said. “And even if he is-it’s up to the police. I don’t investigate homicides.”

“But you were investigating homicides. Or so you insisted when I made the same point two weeks ago.”

“I was hired to examine the police work on five-well, four-open homicides. I did that. Game over.”

“You think of it as a game?”

“That’s just an expression. From video games, you know? You play for ten or fifteen minutes-or, in my case, more like ninety seconds- and then that’s what it says on the screen: GAME OVER.”

“Are you angry at Carl?”

She sighed. “That word’s never far from us, is it?”

“It’s the reason we’re here.”

“No, I’m not angry, although he undermined me when he didn’t tell me everything he knew. I feel sorry for him. He did the best he could. He had his reasons. They were the reasons of a damaged man, who can’t think things through very well, but they were reasons. I’m sad about Carl. I liked him. I liked working with him. I didn’t want him to be a nut.”

“So someone who spends a few weeks in a mental hospital as the result of a situational trauma is a nut? Or is it the fact of Carl’s obsession that makes him-again, I’ll use your term-a nut?”

“Sorry.” Except she wasn’t. She liked mocking his work, liked being politically incorrect about mental illness.

“Whether he is right or wrong, Carl believes the killer is still at large. What if he’s right?”

“He’s not.”

“But imagine if he were. In his mind, he was in a position to try and prevent another woman’s death. How do you think you’d feel if another woman died now?”

“No one’s going to die. The killer’s dead. Are you saying Carl was right?”

“I’m not saying who’s right or who’s wrong. I’m asking you to show some empathy for this man you claim to like so much. Even if the supposition is false-or even somewhat self-aggrandizing-how would you feel if you thought there was even a chance you could have saved someone’s life if you had done something differently?”

Dr. Armistead’s deep, rumbling voice was extremely mild. He was learning, Tess realized, that she was quick to take offense if he was too sharp, too pointed. Tyner Gray hadn’t mastered that trick, despite knowing her for almost a decade.

“I would feel awful,” she said, “but I would get over it.”

“The same way you got over the death of your boyfriend, Jonathan Ross?”

“How do you know about that?”

“You mentioned it, at one point.”

Had she? She couldn’t remember. She thought she had kept Jonathan to herself, even here.

“I wasn’t at fault in Jonathan’s death. I didn’t cause it, I couldn’t stop it.”

“Did that keep you from feeling guilty?”

“No.”

“So imagine if you were at fault. How would you feel? That’s all I’m asking, Tess. Imagine how you would feel if you believed someone’s death was on your hands, as we used to say.”

“There are no deaths after Lucy Fancher’s. So Carl doesn’t have to feel guilty about anything.”

“Then maybe he feels incomplete.”

“If you use the word closure I’m going to get up and walk out.”

“You can’t walk out,” Dr. Armistead said serenely. “You’re here under court orders. You’re mine for five more months. Do you realize today marks our first-month anniversary?”

The syntax bothered her. It bothered her quite a bit. You’re mine for five more months.

“I’m not yours,” Tess said. “I’m not anyone’s.”

“My apologies. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. All I’m trying to do is get you to be more empathetic. You say you liked this man, Carl Dewitt. Why can’t you see he may have had reasons to do what he did? Why can’t you try and understand him?”

“You’re saying that, even if he’s wrong, his conviction that the killer is still at large would explain why he did what he did.”

“Something like that. I don’t know anything about Carl other than what you’ve told me. But it seems to me that a man who couldn’t solve one woman’s murder might feel better about himself if he could at least bring the man to justice. He’s been denied that. And imagine how he would feel-how you would feel-if someone else were to die now?”

The various minute hands of the various clocks made their way back to twelve and Tess went on her way, her stamped card a reminder this was, in fact, probation, a punishment. Five more months. She’d make it. She was sure of that much.

She was also sure she had no use for the doctor’s theoretical questions. How would you feel if someone else were to die now? It was just the usual psychoanalytic, hypothetical, hyperbolic crap, she told herself.

And so it was, and so it remained-for the next twenty-four hours.

Things are not going according to plan. He is not used to that. Everything always goes according to his plans. He has been so thorough, so careful, ever since-well, since he had to be. And now, to be undone by a single man, a stupid man. He knows it must be that stupid Barney Fife’s fault. How did this happen? He’s not sure, he can’t be sure, he can’t get close enough to be sure.

But the fact remains, she is no longer going to Pikesville every day. She is barely leaving the house, as best as he can tell. And yet there has been nothing in the papers, no announcement of any discoveries. He wonders if the men are cutting her out. Yes, of course. He has once again underestimated the perfidy of his own sex. He has been spending so much time with women-thinking about women, listening to women, catering to women-that he has forgotten how men operate. Their methods are clumsy, barbarous, even-but effective. He wishes he could teach those state cops a thing or two. But he has to hold himself in check, stay in control. It’s all about control. Ego must be held in check.

Tonight, for example. He has to be precise yet restrained and remember the objective. A lesser man would be tempted to make some sort of grand flourish, to call attention to himself. But he has always prided himself on his subtlety, his modesty, his ability to keep souvenirs without attracting attention.

He pulls his van into the alley and waits. The city’s grid of criminal activity has shifted slightly in the time since he last roamed these neighborhoods in search of her. The cops closed down the old markets, but new ones have opened just a few blocks away. God, junkies have so little imagination. They use all their ingenuity to procure the substance they need to destroy themselves. He knows she’ll be here because it’s Friday night, and she likes to score on Friday night. Besides, he left a little message on her pager, one guaranteed to bring her here. He knows what she wants.

True, he doesn’t know her as well as he knew the others. He didn’t have the time to study her. But he knows her tastes, her weaknesses, what motivates her. He knows she is lazy and sly, in equal measure.

But the main thing he knows about her is she fooled him. He can never quite forgive her for that. When he left, he told himself he was done with her. Yet in the back of his mind he must have always suspected this wasn’t true. Even before this unexpected contingency arose, he had a score to settle with her. He doesn’t like being played.

It’s nine o’clock and the spring night should be completely dark by now, but it’s never truly dark in the city’s worst neighborhoods. She pulls her car into an alley and walks out to the street, where the touts wait, singing the praises of their poisons. She’s no crackhead; her taste runs to methamphetamine and heroin. And she won’t make a buy on the street, she’ll visit the rowhouse where a dealer waits, happy to resell the heroin he bought just that afternoon. Why not, if there’s money in it? If the cops gave a rat’s ass, they could make her six blocks away, and not just because she’s white. She’s so small, so obviously out of place. Once she’s gone down the block, he rolls his van into the alley behind her car, blocking it in. Now all he has to do is wait.

In less than ten minutes she’s heading back, her walk almost a run now. She’ll take her treasure home or to her new boyfriend’s house-assuming she has a new man, and she usually does. In her mind, waiting for her blast means she’s in control, not a junkie. “It’s no different than going out and having a beer on a Saturday night,” she had said in her defense, the first time he caught her shooting up. Maybe. But when your girlfriend went out for a beer on Saturday night, she didn’t spend Sunday through Friday robbing you blind.

He still likes that walk, that silhouette, the side-to-side roll in her slender hips. Given the chance, he’d pick her out again. And again and again. She was his type. It kills him, admitting that. But you have to know your weaknesses. You have to be honest about the things that defeated you in the past if you hope to succeed in the future. She was his one mistake. Well, second, although you couldn’t call Saint Mary’s a mistake. More of a detour.

Here she comes, almost skipping, like a little girl on her way home from the candy store. The only difference is that she’s holding a bag of heroin cut with baby laxative. God, she was such a drag high: stupid, insolent, useless. He hadn’t given up on her right away. If rehab had worked, if he had gotten her straight, she might have been his most satisfying transformation ever. But she had only pretended to clean up because it kept his money flowing. Cunning, that was a word for her. Cunning cu-but he promised his mother he would never use that word. It was crude.

She gets into her car and starts the motor, assuming he’ll move so she can get out. Dumb bitch. She honks. He cuts the engine, as if he has no intention of moving. She honks again. He shrugs. She gets out, stalks up to his van, fearless because she’s stupid. Fearless because she’s avid for her treat. She slaps the side of his van, as if it’s a horse she’s trying to shoo from a pasture. But he still doesn’t move, so she marches up to the front of the van. Objects in the mirror, he reminds himself, may be closer than they appear. Still he waits, patient as time, until she’s pounding on his door, calling him all kinds of names, too crazed to realize she knows that profile. He listens to the familiar voice on the other side of the glass, waiting to see if he feels anything, even a trace of the usual wondrous sorrow he brings to his chore. But all he wants to do is get it over with.

Her voice keeps coming, at once hoarse and shrill. “C’mon, you jerk, move this piece of shit. Move, move, move.” She is beating, pounding, slapping the van door, as if she could push the vehicle back with her own impressive energy. She’s that desperate to get home. Oh, yeah, honey. You don’t have a problem. It’s no different than a few drinks on a Saturday night.

He lets her go on for a few more seconds. Then, calmly, always calmly, he lowers the window and shoots the dumb bitch in the face. She doesn’t have time to register what’s going on. If her life passed before her eyes, her only thought was a flicker of regret that she would never enjoy her last dime bag.

He has to shoot her in the face instead of the chest. He hopes that won’t throw anyone off. Because this one-this one he doesn’t love.