Whisper in the Dark

21

He couldn’t remember her name.

The day itself was fresh in his mind, imprinted there, and he found himself thinking about it almost as often as a normal man thinks about sex.

But then he wasn’t normal. He knew that. Had known it since he was five years old, chasing spiders across the front porch of his parents’ small house in Carsonville, using his father’s shoe to smack them dead, feeling the thrill of excitment when that tiny round body popped against the wood, spewing gooey yellow spider guts. Gooey yellow spider guts that, to the one they called Vincent, tasted just like candy.

The family kitten came next. His sister’s kitten, to be more precise. Little more than a rodent, really, a stray she had picked up on her way home from school one day, an annoying piece of gray fuzz and sharp nails that crawled up his pantleg one time too many.

He was nine then, and had already killed and eaten his share of insects — a secret he kept to himself, much like the boy down the street who picked his nose and ate his boogers. He had stayed home sick from school and was reading a comic book in bed when the fur ball climbed up onto the blanket, purring furiously.

He couldn’t tell you what possessed him to reach for his baseball glove, but he did, and quietly slipped it on, smothering the pathetic little creature right where it sat.

He took it into the backyard then, and using his father’s rusty hacksaw, cut it into several pieces, which he scattered in the woods.

His grandmother had once told him that, as a child, living on an egg ranch in Oklahoma, it was her job to destroy the chickens when they were past their prime. She would step on the chicken’s neck, then yank its body, ripping its head from its torso.

The chicken, unaware that its head was missing, would shake and shimmy and flap its wings until it drained of blood and finally died. Then it was off for a good plucking and a place on the Sunday dinner table.

This had always been one of Vincent’s favorite stories. Especially the ripping part. He had tried several times in his short life to duplicate the event, using whatever stray animal he might come across.

But the truth was, killing animals bored him. Seemed like some true crime story cliché that had never really given him that kick to the psyche he craved. And by the time he was fourteen, Vincent began looking for a new thrill. A real thrill.

So he killed his first human.

Ten years old, she was a cute little blonde with freckles on her nose, wearing a pink and green Care Bear T-shirt.

But try as he might, he just couldn’t remember her name.

Nancy? Natalie?

Neither one sounded right.

Naomi? No. Strike that one off the list too.

As much as this bothered Vincent, he didn’t suppose it mattered. Despite this small failure, the moment itself was still etched in his mind. The words they spoke, the path they took, the look of spoiled innocence on her young face.

It’s true what they say.

You never forget your first time.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I told you,” Vincent said. “We’re gonna get ice cream.”

“Out here?”

They were walking through the woods about a block and half from Vincent’s house, Vincent trying to hide his giddiness, wondering if anyone had seen them take the pathway into the trees.

He didn’t think so.

Tightening his grip on the chunk of rock in his pocket, he said, “I had to hide it. My mom doesn’t like me eating sweet stuff. Especially ice cream.”

“Why not?”

“I’m diabetic. Have to take shots every day.”

“Eww,” the little girl said. “I don’t like shots. Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore.”

“How come?”

“You get used to it.”

They were nearing the spot now, the small clearing where Vincent had dug a hole. “We’re almost there,” he told her. “What’s your favorite flavor?”

“Mint and chip. What’s yours?”

“Same thing. I even brought some cones.”

“Really?”

Vincent nodded. “Sugar cones. Just like Baskin-Robbins.”

The little girl smiled at him then, and he could see that she was jazzed, her dim little mind probably filled with the image of a double-decker cone, too stupid to realize that a carton of ice cream wouldn’t last ten minutes out here in the woods before the heat and an army of ants got to it.

They walked through the last cluster of trees into the clearing and the little girl frowned, pointing at his handiwork.

“Look,” she said, stopping in her tracks. “Somebody dug a hole. You think it was a coyote?”

“Could be,” Vincent said.

“I don’t like coyotes.”

“Why not?”

“My dad says they ate Melody.”

“Who’s Melody?”

“My cat. She disappeared last month.”

“Oh?” Vincent said. “What did she look like?”

“Orange and white, with stripes and a little black patch by her nose.”

Vincent smiled and brought the rock out of his pocket, feeling his heart start to thump inside his chest.

“I think I remember her,” he said.

It had been an unsatisfying kill. Probably because the girl had been too stupid to know what was coming, and the reaction was not quite what Vincent had anticipated. She had merely stared at him with a confused look on her face, said “Ow,” then dropped to the ground like an empty sack.

He had thought about trying to step on her neck, but considering her size, that would have been impractical. Instead, he hit her several more times with the rock until she was finally dead. Watching her eyes go dim had given him a small charge — made him come in his pants as a matter of fact — but it was all too abrupt. Too rushed.

The real satisfaction had been in the aftermath of the deed. Not only had he looked at her smashed head and thought, how beautiful, but later, when the police and fire department and his neighbors all gathered together to search for the missing girl, he had felt for the first time as if he were something special.

He remembered traipsing through the woods with his buddy Larry and some of the other neighborhood kids, calling out her name, knowing that he had a secret, and wanting desperately to tell them what it was.

But Vincent wasn’t stupid. Although he knew in his heart that what he’d done was not wrong — she was a moronic kid who deserved to die — he was smart enough to also know that the people around him would never understand.

How could they? Their vision was blurred by the rules of society. Rules that did not apply to someone like Vincent.

He was, after all, an artist. And an artist who follows any rigid set of rules could not really call himself an artist at all.

As his namesake once said, “Nature always begins by resisting the artist, but he who really takes it seriously does not allow that resistance to put him off his stride.”

Wise words, those.

Words of a genius.

Not that any of this went through Vincent’s mind at fourteen. He’d been more of an instinctual being then. And his instincts were very good indeed.

The greatest satisfaction from that first kill came a few hours later, when the dogs finally found the girl’s body. The look of horror on the faces of his neighbors, the tears, the cries of anguish — all of it caused by him, his handiwork — had sent such a pleasing jolt through his body that he nearly came in his pants again right then and there.

It was a high that had lasted for days. Weeks, in fact. A memory that he still cherished, even now, all these years — and bodies — later.

If only he could remember her goddamn name.

Vincent had lost track of the number of people he’d killed since then. So many of them had been taken before he’d reached his own stride as an artist, when he was little more than an apprentice to the craft, when quantity seemed more important than quality. He could not claim the astronomical body count of, say, Herman Mudgett. But he had reached double digits a while ago.

The majority of them had been done when he was still a teenager. Every spring break, every summer, every three-day weekend, he’d jump into his prized vintage 280ZX and drive to a new town, trolling for subjects.

He had no particular preferences in those days, had not yet learned to plan and categorize his work. His choice of subjects was random, based on circumstance and opportunity.

That changed during his college and grad-school years, when he learned to slow down, be more selective. His workload at school gave him little time for outside activities, so he limited himself to one or two a year, leaning toward young coeds, using the techniques of Ted Bundy to lure them, techniques he gradually refined and reshaped to make his own.

One he remembered quite fondly was a redheaded Oakland girl he’d picked up hitchhiking on the highway. She had turned to hooking, she told him, to help pay her school tuition.

The story was bullshit, of course, but he’d invited her to climb inside.

After they pulled into the far end of a department store parking lot, the redhead hitched up her skirt, yanked the crotch of her panties aside and straddled him, working her hips as if she were churning butter.

“Oh, yeah, baby. That feels real good.”

Just as they were both getting into it, Vincent put his thumbs against her throat and squeezed.

The startled look on her face had been precious. She began to struggle then, thrashing about in the small car, trying to pull herself off him, hammering at him with her fists. But he jammed his pelvis upward and squeezed a little harder until her windpipe gave out and she finally slumped forward, slack and lifeless.

Then he came.

And as she lay there against him, he spotted a little brown spider crawling along the edge of the car door. Elated, he smacked it dead and popped it into his mouth, savoring its sweet nectar.

Leaving the redhead in the car, he went into the department store and bought a hacksaw and the biggest, baddest hunting blade he could find. Then he took her to the nearby woods, cut her into a dozen pieces, and arranged them on the ground in several different configurations, creating what could only be classified as works of art.

He wished he’d had a camera then. Something to help him capture the moment. He had grabbed his art pad from the trunk and made a few sketches, leaving blood stains on the paper — but drawing had never been his strong suit. Like his namesake, he was less interested in the sketch itself than the color: broad strokes that expressed mood and emotion.

And a simple drawing could never capture that.

Vincent did have a camera now. An twelve megapixel piece of perfection that crystallized his work with such clarity that you almost felt as if you were there.

He had bought it two years ago, shortly before he came to Ocean City, and paid top dollar for it, too. By then, he felt as if he had finally come into his own as an artist, creating true masterpieces in blood. Work that screamed out to be photographed, captured for eternity, remembered.

Then, a little over a year ago, he had begun in earnest to create his abstract collection. After the first, a young bartender named Trudy Dewhurst, he had been struck by a moment of inspiration — a sudden desire to honor his favorite painter.

He had sliced away Trudy’s left ear.

The work itself was more reminiscent of Picasso or Cézanne or even Gleizes. But it was Van Gogh who had always inspired him with his bold use of color, the detailed brush strokes.

His genius.

His madness.

His refusal to compromise.

Taking Trudy’s ear had been Vincent’s way of paying homage to his hero. And the mark he left inside her lower lip — the little smiley face — was a wink and a nod to the police. His special little fuck-you.

This, however, had all been spoiled by Dr. Michael Tolan.

Seven new works completed and still going strong — and this impostor, this fraud, this charlatan, this… this cretin… had destroyed everything Vincent had worked for.

When he first heard about Abby Tolan’s murder, saw the reporter on TV attributing her death to him, he had thought he might actually have a heart attack. His chest tightened, his head tingled, and each breath he drew was constricted by rage. He’d wanted to run to his apartment balcony and howl at the moon.

But he restrained himself. Struggled to regain his usual cool.

He couldn’t quite believe what they were saying, yet there it was in the newspaper the next morning, in bold black typeface:

The words seemed to burn his retinas, as if someone had used his cauterizing tool on his eyes.

What they didn’t understand — what they could never understand — was that Vincent’s subjects were not victims at all. To be a victim, you must be victimized — exploited in some way. But Vincent’s subjects were, in fact, revered. He treasured them. Just as any artist treasures the canvas he paints, the colors he mixes, the brushes he wields.

They weren’t victims, but tools, as important to him as his camera and hacksaw and knife. They were a means to an end.

And the end always justified the means.

As for his eighth subject — a laughable count when you considered all of his previous work — Vincent hadn’t even chosen one yet. He’d had a number of possibilities in mind, certainly, but none of them had been Abby Tolan.

Even if he’d known the woman existed, it wouldn’t have mattered.

The papers said she photographed celebrities for a living, had seen her work published in Rolling Stone and Newsweek, had shown it at some of the most prestigious galleries in the country. And the samples they’d printed had been superb, inspired.

The New Times ran a profile of her a week after the murder, a fairly morbid piece called “A Study in Darkness” that featured several photos she’d taken just days before her death. Haunting shots of the crumbling ruins near Baycliff Hospital. Black-and-white studies of a once majestic structure, of its charred and dilapidated hallways, a communal shower full of moldy, broken tile, a shock therapy table with frayed wrist and ankle straps.

Those shots in particular had touched Vincent. Reminded him of a part of his childhood when the adults around him had decided that they knew more about what was going on inside his head than he did.

The last person Vincent would ever dream of killing was the woman who had created those photographs. She was an artist. And there were already too few of them in the world.

Yet Tolan, who had no interest whatsoever in artistic integrity, had simply wanted the woman dead.

Tolan had used Vincent. Had used his work in a most hateful way. Had snuffed out the life of a beautiful, talented woman, sliced off her ear, then had somehow found out about his little fuck-you—all in a pathetic attempt to cover for his crime.

The police investigators’ failure to see the vast artistic differences between so-called victim number eight and the seven works of genius that preceded her was not surprising to Vincent. Police are pedestrian animals, lacking the sophisticated nature one needs to appreciate fine art.

He had considered sending a letter to the newspaper, pointing out the obvious forgery and expressing his condolences for the unnecessary loss of life. But that would only make him sound like a whiny crybaby.

And Vincent was not a crybaby.

Instead, he got away from Ocean City for a while. Traveled north to see his mother.

But while he was there, he had started drinking again, and one night, found himself in the middle of a bar fight. Someone was stabbed — a minor injury, it turned out — but the blade had been Vincent’s, and the police who arrested him and the judge who heard the case did not take kindly to the use of weapons. Vincent was sentenced to alcohol rehabilitation and several months on an honor farm.

Those months, however, had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Had given him perspective.

He knew now what it was he needed to do. Had thought of a way to turn this travesty of justice around. It would be a private victory, but a victory nonetheless. One that would allow him to reclaim his artistic integrity.

A month after he was released, he headed back to Ocean City — anxious to begin hunting his prey.

For that’s exactly what Dr. Michael Tolan was to him now.

Prey.

22

“This is huge,” Carmody said, after Tolan finished telling his story. Clearly excited, she leafed through the website pages for what must have been the fourth or fifth time since Blackburn had handed them to her. “We need to let Rossbach know about this.”

A moment later she had her cell phone in hand and was punching speed dial.

Blackburn looked annoyed. “You wanna take that somewhere else? Me and the doc need to chat.”

Carmody shot him a look, but didn’t argue. Rising quickly from the table, she went inside.

When she was gone, Blackburn sighed. “And to think I almost had her baby.”

Tolan didn’t know if he was expected to laugh, but he was in no mood for Blackburn’s jokes.

Blackburn didn’t seem to notice. “Pardon me for being a little slow on the uptake, but let me get this straight. What this all boils down to is a guy on the phone accusing you of being some kind of third-rate copycat.”

“Pretty much.”

“You have any idea why he’d think that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not to me, no.”

“You know as well as I do that when a wife is murdered, the husband is usually the prime suspect.”

Blackburn shook his head. “Not when there are clear signs of a serial perp.”

“But what if they were faked? What if this van Meegeren analogy is true?”

Blackburn frowned. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

“I’m just looking at the possibilities. Vincent was pretty adamant. Said the police and the papers got it wrong.”

“And maybe he was just fucking with you.”

“Maybe. But if Vincent didn’t kill my wife, then the question remains—”

“Hold on, now,” Blackburn said, raising a hand for emphasis. “Let’s not forget we’re talking about a nut job. No offense, but that’s what he is. And calling you up and accusing you of murder is probably just the kind of thing he gets off on.”

What Blackburn said made sense, of course, but then he hadn’t been the one to talk to Vincent, to feel his outrage.

“I deal with this stuff every day, Detective. I think I know when someone is telling the truth.”

“And I respect that, Doc, but the fact remains that your wife wasn’t killed by a copycat.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Copycats always get something wrong. Some tiny detail. And your wife’s murder was textbook Vincent. If it hadn’t been, you would’ve had the department so far up your ass you’d be farting donuts.”

Tolan said nothing.

“So unless you want to confess,” Blackburn continued, “we gotta assume the guy’s playing you. He’s already victimized you once. Now he’s getting a charge out of doing it again.” He paused. “Providing, of course, it actually was Vincent who called you.”

This surprised Tolan. “What are you saying?”

“You yourself said it might’ve been one of your patients. A whispery voice making threats on a telephone line doesn’t prove much of anything.”

“You’re forgetting the website,” Tolan said. “The photos.”

Blackburn shrugged. “You can download all kinds of shit off the Internet these days. No telling where they came from. For all I know, it’s just some guy getting creative with Photoshop.”

Tolan stared at him. “Why the resistance, Detective? You don’t believe me?”

“On the contrary, Doc. I’m pretty sure it was Vincent who called you — mostly because I don’t believe in coincidences. But unlike my so-called partner in there, who likes to jump straight to Defcon One, I tend to want to digest things a bit before I go off half-cocked.”

Something he’d said caught Tolan’s attention. “What coincidence?”

“Huh?”

“You said you don’t believe in coincidences. What coincidence?”

Blackburn looked at him. “Remember that little wrinkle I mentioned earlier?”

Tolan nodded.

“The body we found this morning. The one who’s got your new patient all in a tizzy? We have every reason to believe he’s Vincent’s latest victim.”

Tolan felt a chill rush through him. Was this another one of Blackburn’s jokes? “I thought you said that was just a stabbing.”

“It pretty much was.”

“I don’t understand, then. Was he sliced up like the others?”

Blackburn shook his head. “The perp was interrupted before he could get that far.”

“Then how do you know it was Vincent?”

“The details,” Blackburn said. “It’s all in the details.”

Blackburn spent the next several minutes explaining those details, telling Tolan about the medical examiner’s findings, the reassembly of the task force, and the belief that Jane Doe Number 314 could well be the key to finally catching Vincent Van Gogh.

As Blackburn spoke, Tolan began to feel light-headed. This was all coming at him too fast.

“Keep in mind, Doc, that what I’m telling you is strictly confidential. But I figure the more you know, the better you’ll be able to get her to open up. Unfortunately, we may have a problem in that area.”

“I’ve been saying that all along.”

“Not with the witness. With you. Not everybody on the task force is as enthusiastic about your involvement as me and Carmody.”

Tolan wasn’t surprised. “They’re worried about my objectivity.”

“Or lack thereof.”

He was right, it was a valid concern. Tolan now had a personal stake in the case and if it went to trial, any defense attorney worth his salt would claim that he had somehow manipulated or coached the witness.

“So the question is,” Blackburn said, “can you be objective about this?”

Tolan wasn’t sure he knew the answer. Objectivity had not been his strong suit this morning. Far from it.

He thought of Jane and those brown eyes that looked just like Abby’s and wondered what they’d seen. Even if he could set aside his feelings, would he ever be able to break through the seemingly impenetrable wall she’d built?

Before he could respond, the door opened and Carmody stepped back onto the patio. “Rossbach’s sending a tech team up.” She looked at Tolan. “Do you have any objection to phone taps?”

“None at all.”

“What about your office line?”

“Considering the circumstances, I’m sure the administration will be happy to cooperate.”

“Good,” she said, then turned to Blackburn. “Rossbach says they’re going to hit up all the victims’ families, see if Vincent made any more phone calls. And there’s been a change of plans: He wants the witness transferred to County.”

Blackburn looked surprised. “I thought we all agreed to give the doc a shot at this.”

“That was before they knew about the calls. He says there’s too much at stake.”

“Rossbach’s a douche,” Blackburn said.

“He’s also right. And what he says goes.” She looked at Tolan again. “I’m sorry it has to be like this, but—”

“Wait a minute, wait.” Tolan raised his hands in protest. Despite any conflicts, he knew he couldn’t let Jane out of this hospital. Not now. “I think I may have a solution. A compromise.”

“What kind of compromise?”

He was thinking on his feet at this point and had no idea if what he was about to propose would fly, but it was worth a shot. “The problem isn’t with Baycliff but with me, right?”

“Right,” Carmody said.

“So what if we keep her here, but I turn her care over to another therapist?”

Blackburn snorted. “That pretty much defeats the whole purpose of me bringing her here in the first place.”

“I understand that,” he said. “But I can still serve as a consultant. Make suggestions on how best to approach her, without being accused of trying to manipulate her.”

Blackburn thought about it a moment. “Head shrinking by proxy. I like that, Doc. I’d rather have some of you than none at all.”

“Besides,” Tolan continued, “if Jane saw Vincent stab that man in his apartment, what’s to stop him from coming after her, too?”

“Don’t think we haven’t thought of that,” Carmody said.

“He’s right,” Blackburn told her. “We keep her here, we won’t have to spread ourselves so thin.”

Carmody ignored him, addressing Tolan. “Who do you have in mind to take your place?”

Tolan considered the question. Baycliff had several excellent doctors on staff, including the four of them here in the detention unit. Kessler and Edmunds rotated shifts, Simm worked graveyard and, as supervisor, Tolan was a floater — although he usually worked the day shift when the place was jumping.

Both Kessler and Edmunds were competent, even above-average clinicians. But in the time he’d been here, Simm had proven to be a true asset to the team. Tireless, dedicated, instincts that rivaled some of the best practitioners Tolan had known.

“Clayton Simm,” he said.

Blackburn scoffed. “The guy you want me to apologize to?”

“He’s one of the best I’ve seen.” Tolan didn’t mention the botched heterochromia diagnosis, but it had been a bad morning for all of them and he still had complete confidence in the man. “More important, he listens to me.”

Blackburn nodded, turned to Carmody. “What do you think?”

“I think if we do this, you’re the one who’s running it past Rossbach.”

“No problem,” Blackburn said. “We both speak douche.”

23

“I’d appreciate it, ma’am, if you could answer a question for me.”

The woman looked up from her paperwork, waiting for Solomon to continue. She had the face of somebody who wished she were on a beach somewhere, soaking up some sun, rather than stuck behind this desk, dealing with the likes of him. It was the kind of face you’d find at the DMV or the Social Services office. Pinched and unhappy. And very, very tired. A look Solomon had seen a thousand times in his life.

He tried his best smile on her. “You probably see just about everyone comes in here, right?”

“Is that the question?”

“Pardon me?”

“You said you wanted to ask me a question. Was that it, or are you gonna waste my time with a lot of mindless chitchat?”

She went back to her paperwork and Solomon felt his smile falter. You work in a warehouse like County General, you’re bound to be a bit surly, but this one was downright nasty.

The way he figured it, nobody was chaining her to this desk.

He decided to cut straight to the heart of the matter. “I’m lookin’ for a friend of mine. I think the police mighta brought her here earlier this morning.”

She looked up at him again. “A friend of yours.” It wasn’t a question, just a flat, disinterested statement with a touch of weariness thrown in for good measure. “And who would that friend be? Abe Lincoln? The tooth fairy? Somebody from your home planet?”

Wondering what had crawled up this woman’s ass and died, Solomon said, “Her name is Myra. And you’d remember her, because all she had on was a blanket and a lot of blood.”

The woman scowled. “We don’t discuss our patients.”

“You see,” Solomon went on, “the reason I ask is because she’s got some health issues I think the doctors need to know about.”

“They’re doctors. They’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe so, but what if she goes into insulin shock before they get to her?” It was a lie, of course, but bound to provoke a response.

“She’s diabetic?”

Solomon nodded. “She don’t get proper treatment, she could die.”

“I could think of worse things,” the woman muttered, then returned her attention to her task.

“So that’s it? You don’t give a damn?”

“No, Mr. — ” She glanced at the top of the page in front of her. “—St. Fort, I don’t.”

“What kinda nurse are you?”

She glared at him. “First off, I’m not a nurse. I run the emergency intake desk. The one you’re sitting in front of right now. Second, I’m tired of seeing people like you take a free ride off the backs of hard-working people like me. And third, I especially don’t give a damn because I’ve never seen this woman in a blanket you’re talking about, and I figure she’s either already dead or just a figment of your alcohol-soaked imagination.”

This lady was mad at the world. Give her ten minutes with Katrina or a couple days down at the river bottom, maybe she’d realize just how good she had it.

But no matter. Solomon had found out what he needed to know. He’d lost the coin toss. Myra wasn’t here. Now all he had to do was figure out a way to get himself up to Headcase Hotel.

“Just so you know, ma’am, people like me ain’t no different from people like you. We’ve just had some bad breaks, is all.”

She glanced at the page again.

“It says here you urinated on a police car. Was that a bad break?”

Solomon said nothing.

She gave him a nasty little smile, then looked past his shoulder and gestured with two fingers. “You can uncuff him now. The orderlies will take him from here.”

One of the cops who’d arrested him came over then and told him to stand up.

“When do I get to see Dr. Clarence?”

The woman behind the desk frowned. “Who?”

“Dr. Clarence,” Solomon said. “He’s been my doctor for what? Three years now? Every time I come to Baycliff he takes good care of me.”

“Look around, Mr. St. Fort. This isn’t Baycliff, it’s County General.”

Solomon squinted at her. “What’re you talking about? I told this fool. I’m supposed to go to Baycliff and see Dr. Clarence.”

“You didn’t tell me shit,” the cop said. He was about to take the cuffs off, but Solomon jerked away from him.

“Somebody call Dr. Clarence. I need to see him right now. He’s gotta take care of me.”

“Easy,” the cop said.

But Solomon didn’t listen to him. He started thrashing now, twisting away from his grasp. “Get me Dr. Clarence, goddamn it! Where’s Dr. Clarence?”

The woman behind the desk looked sharply at the cop. “You might’ve mentioned he was already under somebody else’s care.”

“How the hell was I supposed to know?”

Solomon kept thrashing, shouting out for Dr. Clarence. An orderly came over and grabbed him by the arms.

“She’s hurting me, Mama! Make her stop hurting me!”

The woman behind the desk stood up, her face reddening. “You shut up.”

“Make her stop! Make her stop!”

The woman was glaring at the cop now. “You think I’m going to sit here and do all this paperwork just so we can transfer him out in a couple hours?”

“What do you want me to do about it?” the cop said.

“What do you think? Get him the hell out of here. Now. Take him up to Baycliff to see his precious Dr. Clarence.”

“I’m not a goddamn taxi service.”

“Then throw him back on the street, for all I care.”

“You’re County General, for crissakes. You can’t just turn him away like that.”

“Oh?” the woman said. “Watch me.”

She grabbed the paperwork in front of her and unceremoniously ripped it in half, flashing her nasty little smile again. “Sorry, Officer, we’re full up this morning. You’ll have to take him somewhere else.”

“What’d you just do there, little Miss Hard Worker? You rip up my note to Dr. Clarence? Was that my note to Dr. Clarence?”

The woman kept her gaze on the cop. “Get him out. Now.”

And as the cop scowled at her and roughly grabbed hold of Solomon, Solomon bit back his own smile.

The Rhythm never lets you down.

24

It was closing in on noon when the caravan of police technicians took the winding road up to Baycliff Psychiatric. A special communications truck was parked near the ambulance bay, just outside Tolan’s office, his land line rigged with recording and tracing equipment.

The signal from his cell phone, Sue Carmody explained, would be picked up at a cellular switching station. And if Vincent was using one to make his calls, current technology allowed them to track his whereabouts within a three-hundred-foot radius.

There was a palpable, almost desperate excitement in the air. A hope that this might be it. An actual shot at catching a serial killer.

But Tolan didn’t share the excitement. As much as he appreciated the effort, it was, he thought, a waste of time.

Vincent was no dummy. He knew that Tolan would go straight to the police. There wouldn’t be anymore phone calls. And despite what Blackburn had said, Tolan knew that Vincent wasn’t playing games with him. Not about this.

Not about Abby.

You. You hurt me.

As he stood near his office doorway, watching a technician test his land line, Tolan thought back to that night again, to the fight he’d had with Abby.

It had all started with a stick of gum.

Craving a sugar fix, Tolan had been searching through her purse, looking for the pack of Doublemint she always kept in there — when he found something else. Something entirely out of place.

A small blue box.

The words on the label were still imprinted on his brain: Lifestyles Sheer Pleasure. Three-pack.

A box of condoms.

A box of condoms that had been opened.

And two of them were missing.

At first, Tolan couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Had even checked to make sure it was Abby’s purse. But the gesture was pointless. He knew it was hers, the one she carried wherever she went. And as he began to understand what this meant, what that open blue box signified, surprise gave way to hurt, then anger, then…

Then…

Then what, Michael? Keep going.

One of the police technicians coughed, bringing Tolan back to the present as dread blossomed inside him like a malignant growth.

But it wasn’t Vincent’s threat that weighed on him now. It was that simple, dark truth he had kept hidden away for over a year. A simple truth that Vincent’s phone calls and this morning’s events had brought screaming back to the surface.

Tolan had a blank spot.

A gap in his memory.

Was missing time from that night.

You. You hurt me.

Abby had been coming out of the bathroom when he confronted her, waving the open box in her face.

“What the hell is this?”

He remembered her startled expression when she realized what he was holding. The fading smile. The puzzled frown. “Where did you get that?”

“Where do you think?” He indicated her purse.

She just stood there a moment, then shook her head. “You’re kidding me, right? Those aren’t mine.”

But he wasn’t kidding. And when she realized that, her expression immediately changed. Hurt. Guilt. Fear? He wasn’t sure which.

“Who is he?” Tolan demanded.

“There’s no one, Michael. You know I wouldn’t—”

“—a client of yours? That guitar guy? You take him in for a little darkroom quickie?”

Abby just stared at him. “Is this what we’ve come to?”

But Tolan didn’t let up. He asked her again, and then again, growing more and more agitated. And despite her denials, despite her insistence that she would never betray him like that, every uncertainty Tolan had about their marriage, every doubt, every concern, coalesced into a rage so all-consuming that his whole body began to shake.

He had shouted at her then and, stunned by his behavior, she had given it right back—

— until he finally crossed the line. Called her a name he knew would cut her to the bone.

You. Fucking. Whore.

That was when Abby slapped him. Right across the face. Tears in her eyes.

Then… nothing.

That slap was the last thing Tolan remembered until a honking horn on the 101 jolted him back to consciousness. He had drifted out of his lane and immediately cut the wheel, righting himself.

It had taken him a moment to catch his bearings. He was alone, headed south toward Los Angeles.

What the hell?

He glanced at the dashboard clock. Two hours had passed. Two hours that seemed like two seconds.

And as the realization that he had just emerged from some kind of mental fog began to register, he wondered if he should call her.

What had happened in those last two hours? How had he wound up here?

He dialed her cell phone, but she didn’t answer. After two rings it went straight to voice mail. And as he waited for the beep, he wondered what he should say to her.

Then the vision of that blue box filled his head and, despite his confusion, he realized he didn’t want to say anything to her. He was still angry. Still hurt by what she’d done. So he simply left a quick message telling her he was close to L.A. and would call her back in the morning. Then he hung up. Whatever had happened after that slap would eventually come back to him and he’d deal with it then.

But it hadn’t come back. Not that night. Not the next morning. Not ever.

Not even after the 3:00 A.M. phone call that changed his life.

And no one had asked him about it either. Not Lisa. Not Ned, his ex-partner and therapist. Not the police.

The detectives had questioned him, yes, but never as a suspect. Abby was, after all, the victim of a high-profile serial killer. It was right there in the details. They were more interested to know if Tolan had ever noticed anyone hanging around the house or near Abby’s studio. Or if she had ever complained of unusual or threatening phone calls or encounters with strangers.

When asked what time he had last seen her, he had used his arrival at the hotel as a marker and merely subtracted three hours.

He hadn’t told them about what he’d found in her purse. Or the fight. Or his blinding anger. He hadn’t told them because it didn’t matter. They had known from the very beginning who her killer was — and Tolan had believed it too.

Or had he?

He had always carried a small measure of doubt about that night. An uneasiness. And maybe that was why he’d had so much trouble sleeping over the last year. Maybe that was the true source of his grief. His guilt.

Was Vincent right? Justified in his outrage?

Could he, Michael Tolan, have killed his own wife?

Impossible. He had been angry that night, yes, angrier than he’d ever been before — an anger so debilitating it had caused some sort of cognitive misfire. But he had never been a violent man. Would never raise a finger against anyone, let alone Abby. He had loved her too much.

His anger had been a momentary aberration, is all, brought on by the sudden fear that she had betrayed him. And yes, he had shouted at her, had called her a whore — an inexcusable insult considering her past — but to think that he could cut her up so savagely, was so far beyond imagining that he almost laughed.

Almost.

Because Tolan knew full well that people often delude themselves about what they’re capable of doing. History has proven time and again that, being the savage animals we are, our instinct for violence often gets the better of us.

That anyone can cross that line. Anyone.

And the trigger is usually something mundane. Something simple and unexpected.

Like an open box of condoms.

25

Blackburn hated circuses, and the scene at the detention unit was quickly turning into one.

Carmody had already shifted into Advance Man mode, working the phone until a crew of dancing bears arrived, all carrying the dim hope that a killer would behave in a way that was contrary to human logic.

Blackburn stood in the observation booth adjacent to Psycho Bitch’s room. Someone had taken her out of her restraints — big mistake — and she was curled up in that fetal ball she seemed to love so much, using only a fraction of the real estate on her hospital bed.

The orderly, Cassie, sat behind the computer, dutifully watching over her.

Tolan’s wonder boy, Clayton Simm, had yet to make an appearance. Tolan had called him at least twice and gotten his machine.

So they were in a holding pattern for the moment. And as much as Blackburn hated circuses, he absolutely despised holding patterns.

He was debating the pros and cons of a frontal lobotomy — could probably get one right down the hall — when the vestibule door opened and a tall, well-toned female in hospital scrubs stepped into the booth.

Yowza.

“Cassie, why don’t you take a break?”

The orderly looked up at her and smiled. “Thanks. I could use a smoke.”

So could I, Blackburn thought. He didn’t figure there was ever an easy time to quit, but it seemed he’d picked the worst one possible. He thought about that bag of carrots on his desk and wished he had one right now to chew on. Pendergast had been right. It was an oral fixation. He needed something in his mouth — which, when he considered the implication, didn’t say much for his masculinity.

But the woman in scrubs did. She was hotter than a goddamn firecracker.

As Cassie left the booth, Scrubs turned to him and offered a hand to shake. “Detective Blackburn, right?”

“So they tell me,” he said, as he shook it.

“I’m Lisa Paymer, director of the EDU nursing staff. You probably don’t remember me, but we met when you were here a few months ago.”

Ahh. He’d thought she looked familiar.

“I must’ve been preoccupied,” he said, “because you’d be awfully hard to forget.”

The remark went over with a resounding thud. She wasn’t biting. She wasn’t even swimming in the same pond.

“We see a lot of uniformed officers around here,” she said stiffly, “but very few detectives. Especially so many all at once. Our patients are getting pretty upset with you people traipsing up and down the…”

She paused, her gaze now fixed on Psycho Bitch.

“My God…”

“What?”

“I read her workup, but this is the first time I’ve seen her. I didn’t realize…”

“Realize what? You know her?”

She thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. “No, but she reminds me of someone.” She shifted her gaze to Blackburn. “Is this all because of her?”

“Part of it,” Blackburn said. “The rest you’ll have to get from Doc Tolan.”

“That’s the problem. He isn’t talking.”

“He doesn’t exactly strike me as the shy type, so he must have a good reason.”

She looked again at Psycho Bitch. “I can see that. But I’m concerned about him. He said something about crank phone calls. Is he in some kind of trouble?”

Blackburn assessed her. “I take it the two of you have more than a professional relationship?”

She nodded.

Well, well, Blackburn thought. The doc wasn’t doing so bad after all. Dipping your pen in the company inkwell is always an iffy proposition — as Blackburn knew too well — but if you’ve gotta break office protocol, you might as well go for the gold.

“He worries about me,” she said. “So he won’t tell me what’s going on. I’m hoping you will.”

Uh-oh. No way was Blackburn getting in the middle of that. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her about Vincent.

“I think this is where I say, sorry, ma’am, police business.”

“Which means?”

“That it’s none of yours.”

She didn’t like that response. There was a momentary flash of anger in her eyes, then she softened. Blackburn got the feeling she did that a lot. Kept her anger bottled up. Controlled. She reminded him of his second wife, who’d always had a kind of Stepford quality about her, until the facade finally cracked. He still had a scar on his scalp as a souvenir.

“I’ve been a psychiatric nurse for over fifteen years, Detective. I worked at County General, for godsakes, and that’s about the worst of the worst. So I think I can handle whatever bad news you people are hiding.”

Blackburn shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am, but I’ve got nothing to tell you. I’m sure the doc’ll clue you in when the time is right.”

And speaking of timing, that’s when the door opened again and Tolan stepped into the booth, obviously surprised to see them. He paused in the doorway, his gaze shifting from one to the other.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“I was just leaving,” Lisa said. She glanced in at Psycho Bitch again, then stared pointedly at Tolan. “Don’t forget our lunch date.” She turned to Blackburn. “Nice to see you again.”

Nice to see you, too, Blackburn thought.

Then she was gone.

Tolan watched after her, looking a lot like a naughty kindergartner who had just been scolded by his teacher. Maybe there was a spanking in his future.

“If you want to hang on to that one,” Blackburn said, “you’d better start communicating with her. And soon.”

“With all due respect, Detective, you’re probably the last person in the world I’d ask for relationship advice.”

“Good point,” Blackburn said.

26

Vincent almost had to laugh.

He had been sitting here for quite some time now, watching the activity around the hospital, the arrival of the unmarked police van, the scurry of technicians.

All because of him, of course.

All because of his genius.

How funny that they didn’t even know just how close he was. Close enough to touch.

It was a scene he’d witnessed dozens of times in his life. Almost routine at this point, but he still enjoyed the spectacle as much as he had after that first kill, so many years ago.

Little ice cream girl.

Oddly enough, one of the detectives reminded him of her. The one with the pale yellow hair.

Unlike the little ice cream girl, however, this one kept it pulled back into a tight ponytail. And there was a sense of intelligence about her. No-nonsense. Always in control.

He liked that. Liked it a lot.

But he had always liked watching the police. The concern laced with excitement. The sense of purpose. As if they might catch him this time.

Oh, they’d catch him, all right.

Sooner than they expected.

And before long, Vincent Van Gogh would be retired to the local history books, the newspaper archives, the memories of the family members who had been touched by his artistry. Blessed by his genius.

Then somewhere, in another town, another state — possibly even another country — Vincent would be reborn. Wiser for the mistakes he’d made. Stronger.

A greater talent than he had ever hoped to be.

Who knows what they’d call him then.

“Your girlfriend says our gal here reminds her of someone. Any idea who that might be?”

Tolan ignored the question. Seemed lost in his own thoughts as he stood at the computer, keying through the notations on-screen.

Blackburn tried another one. “So when do I get the bad news, Doc? Are we wasting our time?”

Tolan looked up. “Hard to say. The tox screen came back negative for drugs or alcohol, so we can rule out any organic disorders.”

Blackburn again thought about those missing smack tracks and decided that, along with the lobotomy, he might order up some LASIK surgery.

“If she’s suffering from BRP,” Tolan continued, “the prognosis is good, but we may simply have to wait it out.”

“You can’t give her a shot or something?”

“Neuroleptics are a wonderful tool, but unlike most of my colleagues, I usually hold off awhile before I go there.”

“This isn’t your usual situation.”

“True,” Tolan said. “But I’m supposed to be hands off, remember? Let’s see how Clayton feels about it. He just called, by the way. He was sound asleep when I—”

“Spare me the play-by-play. What’s his ETA?”

“He said he needed about three gallons of coffee and a shower first.”

“Which means he’ll get here when he gets here, right?”

“Right,” Tolan said.

Blackburn sighed again. More waiting. This Simm guy decides to take a leisurely shower and in the meantime, only God knew what Vincent was up to.

“Hopefully, by the time he arrives,” Blackburn said, “I’ll have some fresh ammunition for you.”

“What kind of ammunition?”

He nodded to Psycho Bitch. “Her identity.”

He told Tolan about the magazine ad. De Mello had already contacted the design company who’d handled the layout. Turned out they’d used customized clip art for the bikini model and Photoshopped the bottle in her hand. The company who sold them the clip was busy trying to locate the photographer who had taken it. De Mello was pretty sure he’d have a name before lunch was over.

“Excellent,” Tolan said. “Might help us track down her medical hist—”

A sound from the intercom cut him off. A guttural moan that came from the room beyond the glass.

Psycho Bitch was stirring now. She began muttering something incomprehensible, then surprised them both by starting to hum.

“That’s something new,” Blackburn said.

“Cassie told me she was singing earlier. Some kind of nursery rhyme.”

They listened a moment, and Blackburn noticed that the doc was frowning now, as if trying to recognize the tune. He started to say something, but Tolan held up a hand, silencing him.

Then, in a timid, childlike voice, Psycho Bitch began to sing:

Blackburn saw Tolan visibly stiffen, eyes widening almost imperceptibly.

“Jesus Christ,” Tolan said.

“What?”

Psycho Bitch kept singing, repeating the words, and Tolan suddenly had that same stunned look on his face that he’d had earlier this morning, right after she attacked him.

“What, Doc? What’s going on?”

It seemed to take Tolan a full thirty seconds to respond, Psycho Bitch continuing to serenade them.

“That song,” he said, his voice cracking.

“What about it?”

“My wife…” He turned, looking straight at Blackburn. “This is impossible…”

“What, Doc? What?”

“That’s Abby’s song.”

27

She used to sing it to him in bed.

She’d trace her fingers along his abdomen, along his “happy trail,” as she called it. Walk them upward toward his stomach and on up to his chest, singing:

Then she’d bring her hand back down, grabbing hold of him, gently tugging at him, letting him grow against her palm. When he was ready, she’d climb on top and guide him into her.

He’d stare up into that beautiful face, all of her concentration centered on her task, her hips moving to find just the right spot, the one that made her eyes close and her jaw go slack, a small moan escaping between her lips.

The first time she sang it to him, he’d asked her where it came from.

“Me,” she’d said with a small laugh. “My first stab at creativity. Write about what you know. Isn’t that what they tell you?”

He wasn’t sure what she meant by that.

“It’s a hopscotch song. My friend Tandi and I used to play in the alley behind our apartment house, while our mothers were working.”

“Working?”

“My mother was a prostitute.”

She said it without hesitation, as if she’d said something as innocuous as My mother was a grocery store clerk. But there was a faraway look in her eyes. A kind of sadness there that Tolan found both heartbreaking and alluring.

He got up on his elbows then. “And you made up that song about her?”

Abby nodded.

“How old were you?”

“Nine or ten, I guess. But there weren’t any secrets in our house. The details may have been a little vague, but I knew exactly what my mother did for a living.”

Tolan didn’t know what to say.

“By the time I was sixteen,” she continued, “I figured I’d be following in her footsteps. Then one of her Johns left his camera behind and I latched on to it and never let go.”

Tolan kept looking at her, wondering how to ask his next question. Wondering if he should ask it.

Then her faraway look abruptly disappeared. “Would it bother you if I said yes?”

“To what?”

“To the question you’re afraid to ask. Would it bother you?”

She looked so beautiful. So… fragile. His gut tightened at the thought of another man touching that flawless skin, kissing those full lips.

“It wouldn’t thrill me,” he said.

Then her eyes clouded and he immediately regretted the words. Although she was still a mystery to him, he felt privileged to be spending time with her. To have her in his bed. And it honestly didn’t matter to him what she might have done in the past. He loved her, unconditionally. Had loved her, he realized, since the moment he walked into her studio, looking only to get a photograph taken for his new book jacket.

“No,” he said quickly. “It wouldn’t bother me at all. Nothing about you could ever bother me.”

If only that had turned out to be true.

“Abby’s song?” Blackburn said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

But Tolan barely heard him. The floor was tilting beneath him and he had to grab on to the computer console to steady himself. This wasn’t happening.

He was hearing things. Had to be. There was no possible way this woman could know that song.

“Doc, what the fuck is going on?”

Tolan glanced through the glass at her, then quickly moved to the seclusion-room door.

“Wait a minute,” Blackburn said.

Tolan ignored him. Punching in the security code, he threw open the door and stepped inside. Her voice was clearer now, no longer distorted by the intercom, and the sound of it knocked his equilibrium even further off-balance.

That was Abby’s voice, all right. No mistake about it.

The room swayed. How was this possible? How?

Tolan staggered over to the bed, wanting to get a look at her again, to see that face, even though he was sure he was hallucinating.

He felt a hand grabbing his shoulder — Blackburn — but he shrugged it off and kept going, moving to the side of the bed.

Jane was hugging herself tightly, rocking gently as she continued to sing.

He grabbed her now, the words dying on her lips as he forced her to turn in his direction. And as her wild hair fell away from her face, he saw those hazel eyes again, Abby’s eyes, staring up at him as they had before. But this time looking directly at him. Full of pain.

But it wasn’t just Abby’s eyes he saw. Those were her cheekbones, too, and maybe even her nose. It was a face that seemed to be at war with itself, as if she were some kind of shapeshifter in the middle of a transformation. The skin undulated, her bone structure subtly changing right there before him.

Oh, my fucking God…

Then she said, in a small, plaintive voice, “Why, Michael… Why…?”

And the sound of it, the sound of his name, brought tears to his eyes. Filled him with an incongruous mix of joy and bewilderment and horror—

— a horror that deepened when his gaze dropped to the left side of her face.

And what he saw there — or didn’t see — sent him spiraling out of control, certain now that he had indeed lost his mind. He was as much a candidate for admission to this hospital as anyone the police had ever brought through those front doors.

The woman who had Abby’s eyes, Abby’s nose, Abby’s cheekbones, and what would surely soon be Abby’s chin…

… was missing her left ear.

28

It wasn’t just the room that was swaying now, but the whole goddamn world. Tolan stumbled away from Jane or Abby or whoever the hell she was, and turned, only to find Blackburn staring at him with a quizzical look on his face, saying something to him.

But all Tolan saw was a moving mouth. Heard nothing but the beating of his own heart, an accelerating tha-thump reverberating inside his head.

He had to get out of here. Had to get away from this woman and this cop and this room and this hospital. Had to find some place to be alone for a while, to clear his mind.

He launched himself past Blackburn and through the open door into a corridor filled with staff and patients — a security guard crossing toward him; an orderly escorting an elderly man toward the shower room; a nurse pushing a medicine cart; Bobby Fremont, framed in his windowed doorway, shouting angrily at Tolan as he flew past.

Tolan ignored them all, continuing down the hallway and around the corner until he reached a private access door. Fumbling his key card from his pocket, he quickly beeped himself out.

Then he was outside, sucking in fresh air, taking in gulps of it as if he’d been holding his breath underwater for the last several minutes. But he couldn’t seem to get enough, couldn’t fill his lungs, and he didn’t slow down, kept moving around the side of the building to the main walkway and on toward the staff parking lot.

The thumping in his head had started to subside now, only to be replaced by the sound of the rustling pepper trees, which seemed to be watching him, whispering their disapproval.

Then he was in the lot, found his car, unlocked the door, threw it open. But he didn’t get inside, just stood there a moment, using the doorframe for support, still trying to breathe.

He was, he knew, smack in the middle of a full-born panic attack. He had to relax, talk himself down, to release the toxins that had invaded his mind. But he still couldn’t breathe.

Easy now, a voice said, and he realized it was Abby talking to him. You’re fine, Michael, you’re gonna be fine. Try to slow your breathing, take long deep breaths.

Tolan tried, but he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t seem to get enough air.

Talk, Abby said. Say something. If you can talk, you can breathe.

It was a common technique for dealing with patients suffering a panic attack. Get them talking. But Tolan had never thought it would be used on him.

He said the first thing that came to mind:

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two.”

He didn’t know why that phrase had suddenly popped into his head, but there it was.

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two.”

He thought about the significance of the words. Had he been living a lie this past year? Was that why he seemed to have lost his balance? Why he was suddenly plagued by these hallucinations?

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two.”

The irony, of course, was that Abby had given him the book that contained those words. Poor Richard’s Almanac.

Poor Richard, indeed. Poor Abby.

Poor Michael.

Putting his hands on his stomach, he said the words again, feeling the rhythm of his breathing, each new breath now slower than the last, his panic finally, thankfully, subsiding.

Feeling foolish and ashamed, he climbed into his car, sank deep into the driver’s seat.

He half expected Lisa or Blackburn or someone with a butterfly net to show up, but several minutes went by and no one did. He was alone out here. Just as he’d wanted to be. Alone with his thoughts, his worries, his dread.

His madness?

He knew he should march right back into that hospital and tell them both what was going on. Tell Blackburn about his missing time, that they needed to look more closely at Abby’s murder, because he couldn’t make any guarantees about his own culpability.

This woman, this Jane Doe, had made him see that. Her resemblance to Abby had opened a Pandora’s box of emotions. Emotions he could no longer contain. And in trying to suppress them this past year, he had developed his own psychosis.

The psychosis of a guilty man?

But he didn’t get up. Didn’t march into the hospital. Didn’t tell anyone about the time he’d lost, or the delusions that plagued him.

Instead, he simply leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes.

But the moment he did, a whispery voice said:

“Hello, Dr. Tolan.”

And before he could react, the sting of a needle touched his neck and he was suddenly falling backward down a long, dark hole.