The Night Bird

17

“The Night Bird,” Frost said.

He watched Francesca Stein stare at the accident scene. The evening was cool, and she wore his sport coat draped over her shoulders. “Yes, that’s right,” she said. “That’s the name he uses in his messages.”

“And you think this person is somehow programming these women?”

She disconnected her cell phone from its portable charger and handed it to him. “You can see the e-mails he sent. He knew Christie was going to have her breakdown at midnight. He wanted me to see it happen.”

Frost studied the messages on Stein’s phone. He enlarged the photograph that had been taken inside the bar, but there was nothing in Christie Parke’s face to suggest what was about to happen to her.

Just like Monica Farr. Just like Brynn Lansing.

The police had closed the intersection. The medical examiner was processing the body. The truck that had struck and killed Christie Parke was still parked in the middle of the street, with blood on its dented grille. He saw a uniformed officer taking a statement from the driver, but there was nothing the man could have done to avoid the collision. Pedestrians gawked from behind the police tape, and neighbors stood in the lit windows of the apartment buildings that overlooked the scene. The media had arrived, too. He spotted video cameras from the local news channels.

Stein’s face pinched into a frown. She saw the cameras, too. Her name would be on television again. It was never good news that made the headlines.

“How is he doing this?” Frost asked. “How does it work?”

“I don’t know.”

Frost handed her the phone. “Can you forward these e-mails to me?”

“Of course, but I’m not sure it will help you. I asked a private security company to examine the messages, and they weren’t able to trace them.”

“We have our own experts,” Frost said. “And if you get any more—”

“You’ll be the first to know, Inspector,” Stein replied.

Her face was a chaos of emotions. She was distracted. Confused. Afraid. Upset. Her eyes kept going back to the street, as if the moment of the accident were replaying in her mind. The impact. The noise. Once you saw someone die, you were never the same. A body always left its mark.

Katie had been his first.

Wind blew down the street and whisked strands of her short brown hair into her face, but she didn’t seem to notice. She leaned her head back against the stone wall of the building behind her and closed her eyes. The downward turn of her lips was eloquent in its sadness.

“He’s taunting you, and he’s targeting your patients,” Frost said. “This is obviously personal.”

“Obviously,” she murmured.

“Do you have any idea who could be doing this?”

Her eyes opened. She stared, not at him, but past him. She was hiding something. “I can’t tell you anything. I’m sorry.”

“Because you don’t know anything, or because this involves your patients?”

The psychiatrist was silent.

“Privilege doesn’t apply if you know a patient represents a serious risk of harm to others,” Frost added.

“I’m well aware of my legal responsibilities, Inspector.”

“Then can you tell me why someone would be doing this?”

“To destroy me,” she replied.

“You think that’s what this is about?”

Her eyes were hard. “Yes, I do.”

“Has this person made any threats against you?” Frost asked.

“He said he’s going to watch me die. Does that count?”

“I wish you’d told me about that when it happened,” he said.

“I’ve been threatened before, Inspector, and the police are no help. Sorry, but that’s reality. The law guards the victimizers, not the victims.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Frost replied. He added, “If you wanted to do this to someone — make them behave in an extreme, erratic way — could you do it?”

“It would depend on the person, but yes.”

“How?”

“A combination of drugs and hypnotic suggestion.”

“Like in your memory practice?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“So someone who went through your treatment would know how the process works.”

“I suppose so,” she said. Her voice was flat. Drained of intensity.

“What kind of drugs do you use?”

“That depends on the patient. A sedative like amobarbital would be a common choice. Sadly, no one would have much trouble putting their hands on it on the street.”

“So the drugs loosen the brain’s control, and hypnosis provides the direction?”

“Basically.”

“Don’t you find that scary?” Frost asked.

“Anything is scary when it’s misused,” she replied.

“Okay. True.”

“Do you need anything else from me right now, Inspector? I’d like to go home.”

“One more question. What did you treat Christie Parke for? What was her problem?”

Stein didn’t answer immediately, but then she said, “Needles.”

“She was afraid of needles?”

“Terrified.”

Frost nodded. He watched her eye the crowds, and he said, “Let me have someone drive you home, Dr. Stein. You don’t want to run the gauntlet.”

“Thank you.”

Stein slipped his sport coat off her shoulders and handed it back to him with a weary smile. She had a precise, elegant way about her. Her movements were graceful, and yet she kept a mysterious distance, as if she invited no one else inside. Frost often chose to be alone, but he enjoyed his solitude when he could get it. Francesca Stein’s aloneness looked like melancholy.

He signaled a policewoman, who accompanied Stein to a squad car. She took a last look at the crime scene before climbing inside. Frost tried to read her mind, and he guessed that she was thinking that her life would never be the same after this night.

Murder was a before-and-after moment.

He knew what that felt like.

Christie’s date, Noah, hummed incessantly. The same chorus of the same song, over and over. Frost found it distracting, but every witness had a different kind of nervous tic. The redheaded man sat on the floor of the lounge, with his back against the pinball machine and his hands wrapped around his knees. They’d already interviewed and dismissed the other patrons from the bar, but Frost wanted to talk to Noah himself.

Frost stood over him. Noah’s head bobbed as he hummed, and he wore an awkward, inappropriate smile. He had a boyish face naturally, and fear made him look even younger.

“Thanks for sticking around,” Frost said.

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” He added, “So is she — I mean, did she—?”

“She didn’t make it. Sorry.”

“Wow. I mean, I didn’t really know her, but still — wow. That’s awful.”

“So exactly what happened, Noah?”

“Hell if I know. I went to get her a drink. Cranberry martini. It was her second. When I got back, she was shaking, screaming, covering her eyes. Then she ran out into the street, and bam. That was it.”

“Was she behaving strangely during the evening?”

“No. If anything, she looked bored. Most of the night, we didn’t really click, you know.”

He started humming again. Same song. It was like an earworm on an infinite loop.

“Did you slip her anything?” Frost asked.

His mouth fell open. “No! No, that’s not my style. No way.”

“What about Christie? Did she take anything? Prescription or otherwise?”

“Not that I saw,” Noah said.

“Where were you before you came to the bar?” he asked.

“I took her to dinner at a Japanese place a couple blocks up Bush Street. I’m not much into sushi, but she said she liked it. Always give the lady what she wants on a first date.”

“Whose idea was it to come here afterward?”

“Hers. I said, how about we get a drink, and she suggested this place.”

“Had she been here before?”

Noah shrugged. “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

“Did Christie talk to anyone else while you guys were together? Or did anyone talk to her? Did you see anyone who seemed to be watching her?”

Noah hummed again, louder, as he thought about the evening. Then he shook his head.

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, Christie was cute. Short skirt, guys go for that. I saw other dudes checking her out. I got the feeling she liked the attention, you know? Pissed me off a little. After all, I was the one paying for dinner and buying the drinks.”

“Was there anyone in particular that she noticed? Or who noticed her?”

“Not that I remember. Sorry.”

“Did Christie talk to you about having been in therapy?” Frost asked.

Noah grinned. “What, like seeing a shrink? No, most girls are smart enough to keep the cray-cray hidden when you start dating them. Comes out sooner or later, though.”

Frost slid out a card and handed it to Noah. “I think that’s all for now.”

“I can get out of here?” he asked.

“Yes. If you think of anything else, my number’s on the card.”

Frost headed for the door of the bar, but as he did, he found that he was whistling under his breath. He was on the street and into the third replay of the chorus before he realized that Noah’s earworm had gotten inside his own head. He was whistling the same song that Noah had been humming, and once a song got into your brain like that, it was impossible to get it out.

Then Frost realized something strange.

The earworm stuck in his head wasn’t new. He’d been whistling a fragment of a song wherever he went for the past couple of days. It popped onto his lips and demanded to come out. Noah had been humming the same song that Frost had been whistling for days.

He went back inside the lounge and nearly bumped into Noah, who was on his way out of the bar.

“What are you humming?” Frost asked.

“Huh? Oh yeah, I do that. I know, it can be irritating. Most of the time, I don’t even know I’m doing it. Women have to tell me to stop.”

“What’s the song?”

Noah listened to the tune on his lips. “I think it’s a Carole King song. It was playing when Christie did her freak-out. I guess it kind of stuck with me, you know?”

Noah was right. It was a Carole King song. Frost had heard it before. Recently. Over and over.

“Which one?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.

“It’s called ‘Nightingale,’” Noah replied. “I always liked that one. It’s a song for lonely people, you know? It’s about the night bird winging his way home.”