Victims

CHAPTER
37

Sean Binchy’s second call pinpointed the coordinates of the shooting.

James Pittson Harrie had died 3.28 miles above the Colony, leaving 15 or so miles of the beach city and anywhere beyond for a hide-spot.

Milo said, “Don’t see them scoring a pad on the sand or an ocean-view ranch in the hills. But if they’re still doing the mountain man bit, they could be squatting in some remote place up in the hills.”

I said, “I’m certain they’re cashing government checks, at some point one or both of them ventures out to get cash. So someone’s seen them. My mind keeps fixing on the beach cities above Malibu. Harrie’s used two phony addresses we know about, the parking lot on Main Street in Ventura when he told the Hollywood cops he was Loyal Steward and the dead mail-drop in Oxnard for his driver’s license. Something in the region attracts him.”

“What attracts me is nailing Huggler before he does more damage. Once the media latch onto Harrie’s death-and they will, a cop shooting’s always a story-he’s bound to rabbit.”

“That assumes Huggler’s wired into the media.”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Harrie could’ve made himself Huggler’s sole link to the outside world.”

“No MTV for ol’ Grant, huh?” he said. “Keeps his nose buried in puzzle books until Harrie tells him it’s time to balance the scales with an anatomy lesson? Even so, Alex, when Harrie doesn’t return, Huggler’s gonna get antsy. If fear overtakes him, he might reveal himself and get taken down easy. But if he goes the rage-route, more people are gonna die. And those guns in Harrie’s trunk might not be the total stash. All I need is a lunatic loaded with heavy-duty firepower.”

Balance the scales.

Unbalanced.

My mind raced. Braked hard.

A warm wave of clarity washed over me. The tickle at the back of my brain, finally gone.

He said, “You just floated off somewhere.”

“What you just said about balancing the scales reminded me of something Harrie mentioned when I met with him. He asked me about my work with the police then claimed to have no interest in the darker aspects of life. Called them ‘terrible dyssynchronies.’ Obviously, he was lying and I think he was playing with me by alluding precisely to what’s framed the murders from the onset: achieving equilibrium by symbolically undoing the past. And that might help focus the search for Huggler: Start where it all began.”

“V-State,” he said. “They’d go back there?”

“They would if it was part of Harrie’s treatment plan for Huggler.”

“You just said his treatment was encouraging Huggler’s gutgames.”

“I did but I was missing something. Harrie really came to see himself as a therapist. Like most psychopaths, he had an inflated belief in his own abilities. No need to actually earn a degree, he was already smarter than the shrinks. So all he had to do was learn enough jargon to impersonate convincingly. And when he went into practice, he started right at the top: high-rent Couch Row. He zeroed in on insurance evaluations because they were lucrative, thin on oversight, and, most important, short term with no clinical demands: Patients wouldn’t spend enough time with him to get suspicious and he wouldn’t be required to actually help anyone.”

“Vita got suspicious.”

“Maybe she sensed something,” I said. “Or she was just being Vita. Overall, Harrie got away with it and that had to be a massive ego trip. And that led him to see himself as a master therapist. With a single long-term patient. Yes, the past five years have been about bloodlust and revenge, but they’ve also been part of a regimen Harrie devised for Huggler: achieving synchrony by working through old traumas. And what better way to achieve that than by returning triumphant to the place where control was ripped away?”

“Neck-snapping and gut-squishing in the name of self-actualization,” he said. “The hospital closed down years ago. What’s there now?”

“Let’s find out.”

Milo typed away. Moments later, we had a capsule history, courtesy of a historical preservation group: The original plan had been to maintain the hospital buildings and convert them to a college campus. Shortage of funds caused that to languish until six years ago when a group of private developers had purchased the site in a sweetheart deal and put up a planned community called SeaBird Estates.

He found the website. “Luxury living for the discerning? Doesn’t sound like our boys would fit in.”

I scrolled. “It also says ‘nestled in sylvan surroundings.’ Enough woodland and our boys could’ve found refuge.”

He shot to his feet, flung his office door open, paced the corridor a few times, returned.

Using both hands to sketch an imaginary window, he peered through, an artless mime.

“Looks like nice weather for a drive, let’s go.”