Wireman

CHAPTER 24

NICK LOUNGED in a chair in Sidney Rubens’s office thinking about the Italian sausage sandwich he had gulped on his way to see the psychiatrist.

“How have you been sleeping?” Rubens asked.

“So, so. The Valium helps.”

Rubens re-lit the cigar lying in his McDonald’s ashtray and leaned back in his chair.

“What do we have to go through to get me a refill?” Nick asked.

“Not much, Nick. A little chat, that’s all. You’re not exactly under treatment. We’re just trying to get to the root cause of your insomnia and attacks of nerves.”

“So shoot your best shot,” Nick said, very composed. “You tell me why I can’t sleep.”

Rubens smiled slightly before putting on his cigar. “I thought you might tell me.”

Nick shrugged his shoulders and slipped down in the chair until his legs reached to the psychiatrist’s desk.

“It’s your time we’re wasting,” he said sullenly. “I personally don’t think there’s any problem here.” Rubens tapped a folder next to his ashtray. “They say in Tacoma you had a problem.”

“Fuck Tacoma.” Nick said it very calmly.

Rubens tried another tack. “You said the killing you did in the war bothered your conscience.”

Nick snorted and laced his fingers together. He twiddled his thumbs idly and refused to meet the gaze of the man behind the desk.

“Didn’t you say that, Nick?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. That was nearly three years ago. The past is dead far as I’m concerned. You shouldn’t take everything I say too literally, and for that matter, you shouldn’t take what Tacoma said without a grain of salt either. They were all a bunch of jerk-offs.”

“Do you still have nightmares?” Rubens asked.

“I told you I did, but everybody has a nightmare now and then. It’s no big deal.” Nick began getting more anxious as the psychiatrist continued talking about nightmares.

“Can you tell me what your nightmares are about?”

“The usual things—falling, drowning, being chased by something I can’t see, that sort of stuff.” He shifted uneasily in his chair.

Rubens tapped his ashes, biding for time. Now they were getting somewhere. Nick believed it was commonplace to dream so often of being in peril.

“There’s another dream too,” Nick added. He frowned in concentration and unlocked his fingers to stare at the knuckles of his right hand. “I have this one pretty often.” He glanced up suspiciously. “Not that it means anything. It’s just a nightmare.”

Rubens circled the stub of his cigar at Nick to gesture him to continue. Speaking at the wrong time was the mistake most listeners made.

“I’m lying on a hospital bed, all tucked in. I open my eyes and find that I can’t move. Not a muscle. I can’t even lift a finger or wiggle a toe. The only part of me that moves is my eyelids. I lift them and I see two figures beside my bed. I try to turn my head and I can’t. I try to talk and I can’t. I’m paralyzed and I panic. The figures next to me are talking. It’s Daley, my brother, and a doctor.”

Rubens squinted his eyes against the smoke of his cigar. He nodded and waited to hear the rest. So far it was a classic nightmare of impotency, sexual or otherwise. Many sociopaths felt a sense of helplessness.

Nick did not realize he was repeating a dream that in ways coincided with casebook patterns of the disturbed personality.

“In the dream Daley asks the doctor isn’t there something they can do for me. The doctor says there’s nothing to be done and the best thing Daley can do is to forget me, leave me alone, and live the rest of his life without regrets for his brother.

“Meantime, I’m frozen there in that bed trying like hell to talk to Daley, to beg him not to leave me, to rescue me. My tongue’s heavy as a concrete block and it won’t lift off the bottom of my mouth. I blink my eyes, but they aren’t looking at my eyes. They’re both staring at my paralyzed body, the doctor shaking his head. Daley starts to cry and say he can’t leave me this way, like a vegetable.”

Nick stood up and began pacing around his chair. “Fuck, it’s stupid. Really dumb. But I wake up from that dream in a sweat, scared stiff that I won’t be able to move.”

“You were dreaming of a catatonic state,” Rubens said.

“Where you can’t move or talk?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. Dreams are all bullshit. I don’t know why I told you about it.” He sat down again and waved his hand as if dismissing the dream.

“Are there any other recurring dreams that you remember?” the psychiatrist asked.

“No, that’s the only one I have again and again. And it’s always the same. I’m lying there screaming inside my head for Daley to help me and he finally turns away to leave so that I’m left alone, imprisoned. Abandoned.”

Rubens decided to change the subject slightly. “How are you getting along with your brother lately?”

Nick grew restive again and sat up in the chair. He gripped the chair arms and stared at his shoes. “Okay, I guess.”

“Arguments?” Rubens probed.

“A few, nothing serious. We used to fight over his girl friend who moved in with us, but she’s gone now…” His voice trailed away abruptly.

“Where did she go?”

“Fuck if I know!” The belligerent tone surprised Sidney Rubens and Nick noticed. “I mean,” he backtracked, “she moved out. Down to Montrose somewhere is all I know. And good riddance. She was weird.” For some reason he did not want to tell Rubens that Madra died. But then if he told him that, how would he explain her death?

“You’re glad she moved out?” the doctor asked.

“Hell, yes, I’m glad. She was a bitch and Daley didn’t need her.” Nick clamped his mouth shut and looked away from the gaze that seemed to make him say things he did not want to. “It’s just better that’s she’s gone,” he finished lamely.

“And now you and your brother get along much better.”

Nick shrugged again. “Listen,” he said. “my lunch hour’s about up.”

Without consulting his watch, Rubens said, “We have another twenty minutes, then I’ll write your prescription.”

Nick groaned loudly and Rubens noted that when Nick was thwarted he adopted a childish attitude to try and get his way. He must be very good at manipulating people, Rubens thought. How good is he at manipulating his brother?

“You’re not getting along with Daley,” Rubens stated. One of his most effective tools was declarations that brought an emotional response from a patient.

“I didn’t say that!” Nick exploded.

Rubens sucked on his stogie and blew out smoke across the desk. He waited patiently, his eyes never leaving the agitated man.

“I didn’t say we don’t get along,” Nick repeated defensively. “Daley… well, he’s got a strange bag of ideas these days, but nothing I can’t handle on my own.”

“You don’t agree with his ideas?” Rubens asked conversationally.

“Not all of them,” Nick hedged. “He’s… accused me… of some things.”

“Nick, what do you think of those murders we’ve been having in Houston?” Rubens knew he was taking a big chance, but sometimes an earthquake worked better than a tremor.

Nick’s face blanched. “I… I…” he stuttered, unable to gather his thoughts into perspective.

“Everyone’s talking about them,” Rubens pursued. When a raw nerve lay exposed, the best thing was to yank it. “Did you read in the paper how the killer is suspected of using a wire—probably a garrote of some sort?” Press the advantage, he thought, this is the opening you were looking for. “Last time you mentioned you took a garrote off the enemy in Vietnam and you beheaded—”

“Stop it!” Nick jumped out of the chair and reached across the desk for Rubens’s lapels. He jerked the doctor from his seat. Sweat beaded his forehead. “You stop it right now,” he said ominously. “I won’t take the rap for that. I won’t, do you hear me? Daley said it and now you’re saying it, and it’s a goddamn lie!”

“Easy, Nick…”

“Fuck easy! I’ll bust your goddamn face. You want to set me up for this—that’s what you want to do. You’re all against me. It’s because of Nam, that’s what you’re doing it for. You think I was a crazy killer over there and you want to pin this shit on me. Why don’t you pin it on Daley?”

He dropped Rubens back into his chair and stalked away from the desk.

“That’s right,” he shouted, going for the door. “Call up my goddamn brother and ask him where he’s got the garrote. Accuse him, why don’t you?”

“Nick, wait.” For the first time Rubens was worried that he had gone too far.

“Fuck off, shrink. I don’t need your pills, you prick.” Nick slammed the door behind him so hard the psychiatrist jumped.

He had gone too far. In Nick’s parlance, he’d fucked up, but good. Nick would not be back.

Ask him where he’s got the garrote. Nick had said.

Daley had the garrote from Vietnam, the one his brother used to behead three Vietnamese. Why had he kept it? What did it mean to him? Why was one brother accusing another of murder? Or had he?

Rubens reached into his bottom drawer and pulled out the bottle of bourbon. After several gulps his breathing slowed a bit. He poured some into a glass, then lifted the receiver of his phone and asked for a private line. Information gave him the home phone number of Detective Sergeant Sam Bartholomew, retired.

“Hello, Mr. Bartholomew? This is Dr. Sidney Rubens, V.A. hospital. Do you think I could meet you somewhere to talk about the murder case you’re involved in? Yes, I know you’re not the officer in charge of the investigation, but I’d like to have a word with you. Seven o’clock? Danny’s Bar on Holcombe? Fine, I’ll be there. You can’t miss me. I smoke cheap cigars.”

Sam left a note propped against the saltshaker telling Maggie he was at Danny’s and would see her later. At a quarter to six he stepped into the warm, spilled-beer smell of the neighborhood bar and greeted the bartender.

“Bring my bourbon to a booth,” he said, motioning to the rear of the room. Few people were in the bar.

One man perched on a bar stool staring into the depths of his draft beer. A couple hiding in the corner were into the second phase of heavy passion. Two pool hustlers played each other on the table in the back, waiting for the action to come in. Sam sipped his bourbon and watched the door for a government employee type with a cigar in his mouth.

At six-thirty Sam ordered a hamburger and fries from the kitchen. Danny’s wife came down from their upstairs apartment to cook the food orders. Sam suspected she was not fond of the job; the hamburgers were always half raw and cold in the middle. The French fried potatoes were overcooked and almost inedible.

As he ate around the edges of the hamburger, Sam saw a man smoking a cigar enter the bar. He wore a rumpled brown suit with dark stains on the lapels and pockets. He looked like an encyclopedia salesman who had wandered into the wrong place.

Sam raised his hand and caught the man’s eye. As he approached, Sam wondered what kind of doctor he was at the V.A. His bedside manner was no doubt on the skids.

“Detective Bartholomew?” Rubens extended a grubby hand. “I’m Rubens. Glad to meet you. I appreciate your taking the time to see me.”

Sam put down the hamburger, wiped his hands on the napkin, and shook hands. “What’s this all about?” he asked, offering the basket of hard fries to Rubens.

The doctor stuck two of the fries into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “I’m a psychiatrist,” he began. “I’ve been working with returned Vietnam veterans. First of all you’ll have to understand that what I say to you will be in broad, ah… perhaps vague terms. I’m bound by an oath of confidentiality and the reason I’ve come to you at all is because of my conscience. You might guess, and correctly, that I suffer from a moral stance in a world too progressive and violent for my tastes.”

Sam grunted and mistakenly bit the hamburger in the center. Raw meat made him sick. It was a real chore to swallow. He pushed the brown plastic plate aside and quickly downed the remainder of his bourbon.

“You want a drink?” he asked the psychiatrist.

Rubens looked relieved at the offer. “Sure, why not? I’ll I take a double bourbon. ”

Sam got Danny’s attention. “Two double bourbons,” he called across the room. He turned back to Rubens.

“Don’t order a hamburger here unless you want ptomaine,” he said. “They leave the horse meat on the hoof.”

Rubens smiled and munched fries until their drinks were served.

“Now what does all this have to do with the Wireman case?” Sam asked. “Make it as general as you want.”

“It may have absolutely nothing to do with your case…”

Sam held up his hand. “Not my case,” he corrected. “I’m a consultant. My retirement was official eight months ago.”

“Whatever,” Rubens said, clearly not interested in such technicalities. “What I have to say might be worthless to you, but morally speaking, I feel obligated to the city, and not incidentally, to the bereaved families of the victims of this killer.” He took a big gulp from his drink.

“I have a patient…” He hesitated and started over again. “I had a patient until today, who is mentally disturbed. Disturbed enough to have committed these crimes you’re investigating. I haven’t any confession—I want to impress that fact strongly. No confession. Although if I did have one, I couldn’t tell you of it anyway.”

“Can you tell me his name?”

Rubens shook his head and drew the basket of fries closer to him. “Unfortunately I can’t do that. My hands are tied by the office of my profession. I shouldn’t be here now either, discussing the patient at all.”

Rubens ate more of the fries and chased them down with the rest of his bourbon. Sam noticed the cigar still smoldered in the ashtray and had not been put out. A frugal psychiatrist, and a freeloader to boot. If that did not beat all. Despite the seediness of the man, Sam rather liked him. He could see the struggle going on inside Rubens and appreciated his position. That he had come forward at all was surprising.

“What can you tell me then?” Sam asked.

“Very little, I’m afraid. In fact, it was probably foolish of me to ask for your time. I haven’t the right to give you specifics so I’ve made a blunder by bringing it out into the open.” Sam realized the psychiatrist’s oath of silence was making the man nervous about his decision. The interview would have to be conducted by sniffing around the edges, like a hound trying to find a trail.

“Let’s just take it slow and easy,” Sam advised. “You had a patient, a Vietnam veteran, I presume…”

Rubens nodded.

“Until today. Something he told you makes you think he might be connected to or have committed the Wireman murders. ”

“Correct.” Rubens sat back and relaxed. It was easier to let the detective do the work.

“Okay. I’ll throw out some statements and you can either nod or shake your head, and if you can’t answer, don’t. What about it?”

Rubens nodded agreeably. He stuck the cigar in his mouth, and signaled for another round of drinks.

“This man killed in Vietnam.”

Rubens nodded a shade too emphatically. Sam pondered the reaction before forming his next statement.

“It wasn’t the normal, run-of-the-mill kind of killing.”

A shake of the head.

“He killed above and beyond the call of duty.”

Rubens shrugged.

Perplexed, Sam searched for alternative statements that might link a vet with the killer. What was so unusual about this series of murders? The method of murder. Decapitation. He glanced up to the psychiatrist’s face once more.

“He decapitated someone over there.”

Rubens avoided Sam’s stare and seemed to be having a hard time wrestling with himself. Finally he nodded.

Sam felt a chill go up his spine. “Is there more?” he asked, his excitement rising.

Rubens nodded unhappily and almost grabbed the bourbon when Danny brought their drinks.

“Can’t you tell me? Christ, this is important!”

“I’m afraid I’ve told you too much already, Detective. I have to leave now.”

Rubens finished his drink and stood to go. It was clear he was upset with himself. Already he had violated his professional ethics.

Sam grabbed his arm. “Hold on one goddamned minute. How is this supposed to help me? If he’s no longer your patient… if you can’t tell me his name or where he lives…?”

“I’m sorry, I really am. I see now I can’t help and this meeting was a mistake.”

Sam stood and faced Rubens. He stared into the psychiatrist’s eyes and saw the pain. It was the pain that kept him from losing his temper on the spot. “Just tell me one more thing,” Sam pleaded.

Rubens sighed.

“What kind of weapon did your patient use in the decapitations?”

Rubens shook his head sadly and turned to leave again.

“Was it a wire?” Sam shouted at his back. “Was it a garrote?” People in the bar turned at the raised voice and the mention of a garrote.

Sam thought he saw a small nod of Sidney Rubens’s head as he went out the door into the early night. He was not one hundred percent sure, he could not swear on it, but he thought he saw the bedraggled psychiatrist nod his head.

Jack DeShane was waiting for Sam when he returned home from Danny’s Bar.

“Sam, I want you to go with me. I couldn’t catch him at work. They say he hasn’t been in for two days.”

“Hold on, boy. Where’s Maggie?” Sam asked.

“She said to tell you she wouldn’t be back until late. She went to see her sister in Galveston.”

“Okay, now tell me where you’re wanting me to go with you?”

Sam sat down in a living room chair and bent over to unlace his shoes. His fallen arches were playing hell.

“No! Don’t take your shoes off. I want to go now,” Jack insisted.

Sam looked up, frowning. “What’s got into you? What’s so all-fired important it can’t wait until tomorrow, Jack?”

“The guy I told you about. I know it’s crazy, but Eileen knew this same guy as a kid. I have to talk to him tonight. I can’t sleep, Sam. Don’t you see what this is doing to me? For Christ’s sake, go with me,” Jack begged.

“You realize you’re jumping to conclusions? If this man has a medical record with the service, he’ll be questioned. You should let Garbo handle it.” Sam wanted to go to bed.

“I can’t!” Jack crossed the room, picked up a magazine from the sofa, put it down again. When he spoke, he suddenly was deadly calm. “I’ll do it alone,” he said, his back to Sam. “I know you think I’m nuts. I know what everyone thinks. I can’t help it. I have to find him.” He smacked a fist against the sofa’s back.

“I’ve got to stop him.”

Sam sighed and retied his shoes. He stood and touched Jack’s shoulder. “Let’s move it,” he said. “The night’s still young.”

The address the manager of Apex Burglar Alarm had supplied to Jack proved to be in an area of Houston that could be described as a genteel slum district. There were two- and three-story homes that dated back to the early l900s, most of which needed renovation. The notorious South Main strip was to the east, and to the west huddled shacks and unpainted tenements. It was a district where people were afraid to walk their dogs at twilight, and the shades were drawn tight twenty-four hours of the day. At eight-thirty the sidewalks were empty.

“This place is getting sleazy,” Sam commented. “I can remember when it still had a little class. But the class moved out to the suburbs.”

“It’s exactly where I expected to find him living,” Jack said, baring his teeth in an unconscious gesture of disgust.

“Jack, I want you to let me do the talking. You’re in no mood for it.” Sam was beginning to worry about their trip.

“I don’t give a shit who talks, just so we verify where the bastard was at the time of the murders,” Jack said as he pulled the car over to the curb and looked at a red-brick house set back from the sidewalk. “This is it,” he said.

“If he’s home.”

“He better be home,” Jack spoke with the low snarl of a big mad cat.

Sam led the way to the front door. The doorbell button was dangling from a broken wire so he rapped soundly on the beveled glass. A hall light came on and a man about Jack’s age peered through the glass before unlocking the door.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I’m Detective Bartholomew,” Sam said, pretending to reach inside his coat for a nonexistent badge. “And this is Officer DeShane. I’d like to ask Nick Ringer a few questions, please.”

“I’m Nick, but you’re wasting your time. The cops have already been here about the girl. That’s all cleared up.”

Sam turned to Jack reflexively. He kept the surprise from showing on his face. He removed his hat as if expecting to be asked inside. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t about the girl. Do you mind if we come in?” What girl? he wondered.

Another man appeared in the doorway and gently moved Nick aside. “Did I hear you say Detective?” the second man asked.

“That’s right, and we’d like to…”

“Didn’t my brother tell you that’s all been cleared up?” the man interrupted. “I tried to save her life. I know I was wrong in not reporting it, but…” He shook his head sorrowfully.

“May we come inside, Mr. Ringer? It’s not about the girl,” Sam explained again.

“Sure,” the second man said, stepping aside to allow them inside. “Come on in. This way.”

Sam narrowed his eyes to peer into the gloom. He thought he might sneeze. Dust filled the air and from somewhere the stench of garbage wafted into the room. When a lamp was turned on, Sam was not surprised to find he was in the front sitting room of the old house and that it was far from tidy. College textbooks littered the floor along with beer cans and candy wrappers. A sweater turned wrong side out was draped over a chair back. Unopened mail spilled over a coffee table. Evidently the Ringer brothers lived without the benefit of a woman’s touch. Sam deduced they were bachelors and the state of their home the least of their worries.

“Sit down,” Daley said cordially. He guided them to the sofa, circled the coffee table, and sat in a chair across from them.

“What did you tell the police about the girl?” Sam launched into questioning. “I hope you don’t mind repeating it for us.”

Daley smiled uneasily and shifted in the chair. He shot Nick a glance and motioned for him to take a chair.

“I just told them Madra was my girlfriend once. She used to live here. But we didn’t get along very well—you know how it is—and she moved to Montrose with another girl. The day she died…”

Jack’s attention, which had been on Nick, moved to Daley. “Died?” he asked abruptly.

Daley lowered his gaze and went on. “She had epilepsy. When she lived here, she only had small seizures, like she was daydreaming in the middle of a sentence, things like that. I didn’t know she could have a grand mal. I went to her house that day to talk to her and she… she had a seizure. She was in the shower. I was in the bathroom talking to her and suddenly she clenched up and fell. She hit her head and was choking. I carried her to the bedroom and tried to force open her mouth. I got a spoon from the kitchen and tried that, but it was too late. The other officers who were here said the coroner’s report said she strangled on her own tongue during the time I was getting the spoon.”

Again Daley shifted uneasily and glanced at Nick, who sat nearby.

“Yeah, he told all this to those other fellows,” Nick said. “I don’t see why…” Sam waved his hand at Nick. “I’m afraid, Mr. Ringer, the girl’s death isn’t really why we’re here. I wonder if you’d mind telling me of your whereabouts on the morning of March first.”

Daley looked from the detective to his brother and back again at Sam. “He was here—with me,” he blurted.

“We were both home.”

“What day was that?” Sam asked. He could feel Jack seething beside him, and he hoped Jack would keep his mouth shut.

“Well, it was… it was March first, like you said,” Nick answered.

“If you don’t know what day of the week it was, how can you be sure you were home together that morning?”

Daley and Nick looked at each other.

“It was Monday,” Jack said between clenched teeth. “Today is Wednesday, March the third. Where were you on Monday? You weren’t at work. We’ve checked that.”

Sam wanted to throttle Jack. Instead, he rested his hand on Jack’s arm as if to restrain him.

“Monday?” Nick asked, sounding like a man who has been duped. “Like we said, I was home. I didn’t go to work. I was sick and Daley took care of me. Right?” He looked quickly to Daley for confirmation.

Sam smelled collusion and he did not like it. The brothers could ask them to go at any moment and they would have to leave. They were covering up for one another and Denmark had never smelled anything as rotten as the lies coming from the two Ringer brothers. “Do you have anyone else who could verify you were home that morning?” Sam asked carefully.

“What do you fucking want, a written statement from God Almighty?” Nick shouted.

From the corner of his eye, Sam could see Jack bare his teeth again. He prayed the man would control himself.

“What if I said you were in River Oaks Monday morning?” Jack asked harshly. “What if I said you got your goddamn jollies slicing the throat of a nice lady who spent her time tending to roses? What if I said she’s not the only one?”

“Jack, watch it,” Sam ordered.

“Yeah, Jack, why don’t you fucking watch your lousy lying mouth?” Nick said. He stood up, towering over them, his face very white and angry.

Daley stood too. “I think you’d better go,” he said, as he nervously picked at his brother’s sleeve.

“Come on, Jack.” Sam drew the patrolman along with him to the hall and the front door. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“Sam, we have to—” Jack began pulling away from the older man.

“No, we don’t have to. Let’s go. Now.” Sam’s voice was firm.

The brothers remained standing in the living room while the door was opened, then closed quietly again.

They stood still for a long time, neither man speaking.

On the ride across town Sam reamed out Jack up one side and down the other. When he was finished, Sam added they were not going to continue alone. They needed Lieutenant Garbo and manpower. They needed twenty-four hour surveillance units put on the Ringer house. They needed evidence—if Jack had not already screwed it up too much and warned off the only suspect they had managed to find.

“You don’t go back there, do you hear me, Jack?” Sam hated talking so rough to the younger man, but he had to stop something terrible from happening.

“If you can get Garbo to watch the house, I won’t go back.”

“Is that a promise?” Sam prodded.

“My word’s good.”

“Fine, Jack. That’s what I had to hear. You’re too close to this, and if we’re going to end it, you’ll have to back off.”

The rest of the trip home was made in silence. The excitement Sam had experienced in Danny’s was a hundred times greater. All the pieces were beginning to fall into place, one by one. If Nick was the Wireman, they would get him. “I swear to God,” he said aloud.

“Me too,” Jack said. “I just hope God’s listening.”