Puppets (17 page)

"Oh, man—"

"I'm sorry. But on every psych test and personality inventory, he showed emotional and cognitive responses like a lab-conditioned
animal.
What was worse, his brain scans showed two symmetrical lesions in his temporal lobes. He'd had
brain surgery,
Mo, but he had no recollection of it and there were no records of it! We knew he'd

been in the army in Vietnam, so we asked for his service records, but we kept not getting them. When we told the prosecutor we couldn't

do without his service medical records,
poof,
we got canned. We were taken off the case. I guess they found somebody else, some whore psychologist who'd ignore the obvious. By then, the three of us, the psych team, had dug up bits and pieces, enough to suspect this man had been part of an experimental weapons program. A program that manufactured assassins—remote-control killers. We were sure he had been made into a specialized killing machine. A programmable sociopath. He'd had brain surgery to help suspend normal inhibitions against killing, and he had been conditioned or trained to accept 'programming' from his controllers. They'd
target
him, see, send him after Ho Chi Minh or local Cong sympathizers or Russian spies or whatever! We believe that he came back to the U.S. and was never able to reintegrate into normal society. He was driven to keep on killing. And he wasn't the only one. I was peripherally involved in a similar case, with another Vietnam vet perpetrator, in Indiana."

Mo drove for a while in silence, now fully aware of where he was going and why, angry at Rebecca for withholding this information from him earlier. Wanting to confront her with the reality, the urgency, of what they were up against.

"In other words," he said, "he was a
puppet,
basically operated by his superiors. And when his strings were finally cut, he just kept on doing what he'd been programmed to do."

She seemed to notice where they were for the first time. "Where are we going? I thought you'd just drive around—"

"I mean, really, who the hell would even
think
of broadcasting rabbits screaming? Where would you even get a tape of rabbits being slaughtered? You'd have to be a sicko to even think that one up."

"Why are you angry at
me,
Mo? I can't see how I have in any way—"

"Answer me, Dr. Ingalls." Mo drove them down the exit ramp and onto the side road. They were very close now. His anger rose, pressure he couldn't hold. "I don't know shrink vernacular, but let me be more scientific. Wouldn't you have to have a rather morbid imagination to think that one up—screaming rabbits? And what happened to all those experimental assassins? Isn't it possible some of them went into other areas of government work? Why not? Keep them on your side, keep them for possible future use, keep them quiet? Keep them off the streets? Suppose they were really
very
well organized,
very
smart, capable guys, very useful guys. Isn't it possible, Dr. Ingalls, that your Erik Biedermann's service in Vietnam was as one of these programmed assassins? Given that we
know
he was associated with,
commanded, a
black-ops hit unit! It was in
Time
magazine, okay? Isn't it possible that maybe in his own special way he's, what'd you say, 'failed to reintegrate' into normal society?"

She was getting angry now, too. "I want you to turn around now, or tell me where we're going. Every time I get in a car with you, I'm

practically abducted, Mo, and I'm not—"

"I'm taking you to where you'll probably go tomorrow anyway, to do your 'color' thing."

"I don't
wish
to go today, thank you—"

"And isn't it possible that the reason
you
get called in on these cases is that your knowledge of these 'unintegrated' killer guinea pigs is an asset in the profiling you do? Your demonstrated willingness to keep quiet about it?" Mo yanked the car around a curve, jostling her against the door.

"My 'demonstrated' . . . Mo, I can't
prove
—what am I supposed to—"

"That in a way, you're whoring, too, you're given a nice incentive to keep quiet, with your nice fat consulting fee—"

"That's it! That's unforgivable. You let me out of this car, or I'll

press charges."

But they were there. Mo pulled off and braked hard, the car skating to a stop on the gravel shoulder. A technical van, a couple of State Police cruisers, and St. Pierre's car were there. Mo shoved open his door and got out and went to sit on the guardrail with his back to Rebecca. He couldn't see anyone upstream, they were all out of view among the tortured sumacs. A hazy, milky sky hung over the flats, depressing as hell.

After a while he heard her door open and close. He glanced to the side and saw her standing on the bridge, looking out over the marsh, a little wind tugging wisps of hair around her cheeks. He felt about as shitty as he could remember ever feeling.

He gave it another minute, all he could take, and then went to lean against the railing near her. "I'm sorry," he said.

She didn't acknowledge him.

"I really want you to forgive me for losing it back there. For acting like you're to blame. It's just that a beautiful girl died out there, and I'm feeling bad about it. This stuff you're telling me scares the shit out of me. I want to do something about it, but I don't have any idea what to do. Will you look at me, please?"

He was grateful that she did, eyes blue-gray and still very guarded.

"I don't want to have a fight with you. I'm, I'm kind of . . . attracted to you. Not just 'attracted,' wrong word. Better than that."

His vocabulary had completely stalled out on him. What was it about shrinks, he wondered, that they make you yammer this way? "I think you're really great, and I want you to . . . feel the same way about me.

This was not how or where he'd have preferred to say it. But her eyes warmed a little. Then she gazed back out over the scene.

Something clicked for him then. "You're not disagreeing very hard. About Biedermann. There's something else, isn't there?"

St. Pierre came into view, deep in the marsh, saw Mo, waved. Mo tipped his chin in acknowledgment. Rebecca turned away, arms still crossed. She walked across the bridge, staring at her feet, then came back to Mo.

When she looked up at him, her eyes were wet, from the gritty breeze or what, he didn't know. "Thanks for saying all that," she said quietly. "For a cop, you handle your own emotions very well, did you know that? I think you're like me, you don't like beating around the bush when it's something that matters."

"True. Thanks."

"So I'm going to tell you something I shouldn't, and hope that you'll understand it. And hope that you'll work with me on what it means. Um, personally as well as professionally."

"Anything."

"We'll see about that." She grinned miserably. "So, Mo, what kind of sex do you like?"

The question startled him. When he looked at her, she just seemed scared, not flirtatious or ironic. "Question like that, I have to wonder what you want, a straight answer or some—"

"A straight answer."

"I guess I like mutually satisfying, loving sex. Technique-wise, I guess I'm, uh, pretty conventional. Open-minded but probably pretty traditional."

"Yeah, well, me, too. Well, you were right that Erik and I were an item," she said bitterly. "I was very lonely when I first came to New York, I don't want to go into the
why
of it. It ended for a variety of reasons. One of them was that we didn't . . . mesh . . . sexually."

"Why are you telling me this?" He didn't want to hear it, didn't

want to risk ruining things for them later.

"Because one of the things he did that I didn't go for was, he wanted to tie me up."

All Mo could do was stare at her.

"I'm open-minded, too. I tried it the once. He used scarves. Didn't

like it, just was not my personal. . . preference. Told him. He wasn't

violent at all, just basic bondage, no pain or derogation or anything, just
control.
And he never suggested it again. But, you know, I thought, I couldn't help but think, afterwards. . . that given what we were working on, it was kind of. . . inappropriate? The resonances should have been a turrioff? They sure were for me."

"You were working on Howdy Doody."

She tossed her head, the
I'm a fuckup
gesture. "Yeah. A guy who tied people up."

Rebecca took a few steps away, turned back looking sick in the muted sunlight. She blew out her cheeks. "I feel like I'm going to throw up. Didn't want to tell you this. I mean, it's such a lousy way to . . . But I felt I had to tell you. Didn't I? Under the circumstances?"

He couldn't think of what to say. So he just took her arm, steered her back toward his car. Opened the door for her, let her settle numbly into her seat, closed the door. What he felt was a volatile mix of emotions: protectiveness of her, hatred of Biedermann, fear of what this could all turn into. A wild yearning barely reined in by caution and decorum and messy circumstances.

When he'd gotten in, he turned to her. "So where do we go from here?" His voice was hoarse.

"Good question," she said grimly.

24

T
HEY DROVE BACK TO Dale Shooting Center, caravanned into the city, left her car at her building's garage, went out to dinner. They weren't dressed for anything fancy, so they headed down Broadway and grabbed an Indian meal at a midtown cafeteria-style restaurant they both knew.

They made a pact to not talk about Biedermann or the murders for the duration of dinner. And they didn't. She was good at keeping pacts, Mo decided, something else to admire about her. So at first they didn't

say much, just watched the other patrons eating, the sullen-looking busboy clearing tables. Mo was thinking about what he'd said to her on the bridge, how he didn't know how to talk about feelings with words that were his own, not some cliche lifted from a movie or a novel.
Attracted
seemed shallow, cheap. Maybe he was uptight about trying to talk intelligibly to a Ph.D. Maybe, more likely, he just wasn't used to trying to find the right words for this, and maybe it was time to get some practice. You could get rusty in this. Looking back, he couldn't tell where the getting together with Carla had turned into the falling apart from Carla, the two were seamlessly merged or were the same thing. It had been a long time since he'd explored the vocabulary of love.

But the storm in the car had broken through some restraint they'd

both maintained. Some dam breaking. For a while there, they'd both been stripped pretty raw, but Mo liked what he'd seen of her. And he liked that he could be real with her and she still seemed to be moving toward him.

"When we first met, you indirectly asked me a question," she said, interrupting his thoughts, "and I didn't fully answer you. I'd like to now, though."

"I don't remember."

She picked at her food. "Why I came to New York when I did, basically ending my relationship in Chicago. I was impressed that you picked right up on that."

"You don't have to—"

"No, this is fine." She shook her head, smiling again, some of the sunny warmth returning. "This is something I want you to know, something very important to me. Down in Decatur, I really was a hell-raisin' farmer's daughter of the old school. Got married when I was barely nineteen, had a daughter six months later. Marriage lasted about that long after, neither of us was ready at all. Just because of where I was at back then, Rachel went with her father. Later, he remarried and had a couple more kids, which meant that with him Rachel had siblings and a better nuclear family than I could offer. So we just kept to that arrangement, her living with him. But all these years, she's been with me every weekend. Then last year, my ex and his family and Rachel moved to New York—he'd gotten a big job at NBC. So there I was, with my practice and my boyfriend in Chicago, my beautiful daughter in New York. So I had to choose. Easiest choice I ever made—I couldn't live without her. And that's the answer to your question."

He smiled with her. "Funny how the one thing we think of as a mistake at the time can later turn into the one thing we know
isn't
a mistake." Meaning,
getting knocked up at eighteen.

"I like that. A very nice insight, Mo."

"So they live in Manhattan?"

"New Jersey—just over the bridge. The only reason I was up at Dale shooting today was that Steve, that's my ex, and family are at his family reunion, back in Illinois, so I don't have Rache this weekend. And I miss her like crazy!"

Mo chewed, thought about that. "Do I get to meet her?"

"Maybe."

That was okay, Mo decided, it was early and she didn't want to make mistakes where her daughter was concerned. He respected that.

They talked about families and earlier years, and somehow Mo got into telling her about the graduate courses he'd taken over the years. Evening classes, an odd mix of subjects, no real intent to get a degree. Some English lit, his biggest pleasure had been reading
The Canterbury
Tales
in Middle English: plain and simple, one of the world's great yarns. Then for a while he'd thought to get out of the investigative side of the job, maybe move over to more technical forensic work, so he'd taken a year of organic chemistry. That was a killer and he decided he'd get too impatient with lab procedure, at least out on the street you got to improvise now and again. Then a couple of Islamic Studies courses, mainly because he'd been hit hard by a book of Rumi's poems given to him by the first woman he'd lived with. Then career stuff again, a software aps course that was fun.

After a while, Mo realized they'd been at the restaurant for a long time. Their talking was completely genuine, but part of him recognized it for what it was—stalling. They both knew that when they walked out of the restaurant, it would be night in Manhattan and they'd have to decide what they did next. And there was only one thing he wanted to do: to be closer to her, to rub up against her, to move on to a new level that he could tell was coming, inevitably, thrilling and scary in a good way. He was feeling irradiated by her again, only this time he couldn't fight it.

Talk about
chemistry,
he thought dazedly.

As usual, Rebecca faced it straight on. "It's getting late," she said reluctantly. "It's that point of the evening when people who like each other have to figure out what to do next, isn't it."

"Yes," Mo said. He felt a little breathless.

"Also the point at which big mistakes are often made," she went on, being very deliberate. "Mo, this has been great, but I raised enough impulsive hell in my first twenty years to last a lifetime. You and I have a lot more to talk about, and I'd love to bring you to my apartment where we can do it in privacy. But I need to be clear on issues of, what would you call it? Timing. Pacing."

"You mean sex."

She liked that he'd cut to the chase, it wasn't always her job. "I have a daughter to think about, I need to do things responsibly? Look like I've got some semblance of stability?"

"Sure. Yeah, no, I understand completely."

"Just for now—"

"Bight. Of course."

"Which isn't to say—"

"No, it's fine. Honestly."

That was such a blatant lie that they both had to laugh out loud. It felt good, real belly laughs. People's heads turned. When they were done and she had wiped the tears out of her eyes, they went out into the noise and light of Broadway at night.

The tang of exhaust-scented May night air sobered her. She stopped and turned Mo toward her. "Mo, I'm serious about keeping an even keel. I've subjected Rachel to enough of Mom's emotional upheavals. We can go back to my place if you think we can both respect that." She searched his eyes, and, yes, he could see she was serious.

"So stipulated," he said.

For a moment, when her apartment door closed and they came out of the entry-hall light into the darker living room, all resolutions wavered. The dark was full of a magnetic pull, and Mo took an involuntary step toward her. But then Rebecca hit the lights, tossed her purse, went into the kitchen to switch on the overheads.

"Want something to drink?" she called.

"Like alcohol?"

She leaned back into the doorway to grin at him. "Like, yeah."

So she opened a bottle of wine and brought it back into the living room with a couple of glasses. Her apartment was pretty and upbeat and comfortable and in good taste yet unpretentious. Eclectic furniture and colorful paintings, obviously the home of a person who bought things because she really liked them and not because they matched each other or proved anything. The big rug on the bright oak floor was an antique, blue-gray, braided oval, Midwestern chic that somehow worked nicely in this Big Apple apartment. On the bookshelf mantel were photos of Rebecca with a blond-haired child at different ages. One was a studio photo of a pale fifteen-year-old whose lips parted just enough to see the glint of braces.

Rebecca sat at the far end of the couch, poured them each a glass of wine, and then followed his gaze. "That's Rachel. I have to tell you, she was prettier before she got her nose pierced. Honestly, maybe I'm

old-fashioned, but I don't understand it, this ritual self-mutilation—"

"She looks like a good kid. Very pretty, like you," Mo told her. Then he lied, "Really, you hardly notice the nose thing."

But the words
ritual
and
mutilation
hung unhappily in the room. Rebecca frowned, acknowledging it. "So maybe it's time we talked about the . . . the problem. If there's any truth in what you're saying about Erik—"

She stopped. But he knew she meant,
Then we have to do something.
Or maybe she was already a jump ahead and meant,
Then we're both in
danger if he thinks we suspect him.

Mo tasted the wine, a crisp white that seemed to clear his head. Despite his body's longing for her, there was serious business at hand that couldn't wait.

"I don't know what's going on here," he told her. "But I have to tell you, from day one, the whole thing of you being bait for a trap, that didn't hang together for me. It was too long a shot that the killer would take notice. That they put any credence in its working says to me they knew beforehand they were playing the scam to somebody who was inside the loop, who would for sure react."

"But how does Erik fit into that at all? It was his idea!"

"I don't know. But there's another thing that ties him in," he said. "Again, I'm not sure exactly how. But from everything I've heard about the night Ronald Parker came here, it sounds like big-time bungle, even for the FBI."

"You could say that, yeah."

"I mean, how did Parker get to this building without being noticed? How'd he get through the FBI's perimeter?"

She nodded, sipped her wine, staring blindly into the whorl of the rug. "You mean, someone was helping him. Telling him what to look out for, how to get in and out. Or maybe screwing up my surveillance and protection just enough to let him through."

"Where was Biedermann that night?"

She looked really miserable. She swallowed, but didn't answer.

"So he was on the detail here. Our hands-on, runs-a-tight-ship SAC."

She nodded.

Mo stood up, took a turn through the room. Bad enough to think that a highly placed federal agent could be a killer. Worse by far to think he would happily kill a woman he had been in a relationship with.

Rebecca said, "Mo, I don't know anything about this end of criminal investigation. I'm a
psychologist]
I wouldn't have any idea how to prove or disprove something like this, or—"

She looked so at a loss he knelt in front of her and held her shoulders, trying to think of something reassuring to say. "Look. I can't figure Biedermann's involvement, I mean, what, he's the killer, or he's one of several killers, or what, I don't know. But I don't

believe this case is hopeless. We've got some very good leads in the power-station murder, it looks like Irene Bushnell was having an affair, we think it may be someone she was working for. This new guy, Biedermann or whoever, is deteriorating, he's making mistakes, we can come up on him with a traditional forensic approach. St. Pierre and I have drummed up a lot of leads, and I'm sure we're going to get DNA evidence from the Carolyn Rappaport murder. We're gaining on the son of a bitch, okay?" He spoke with more confidence than he felt.

She just looked downcast, hopeless. "That was her name? Carolyn Rappaport."

"And I've got some ideas how to help us figure out Biedermann. At the very least, it should be simple to implicate or clear him in direct participation in the murders."

She raised her head. "How?"

Mo hesitated, sensing this was not quite right but plunging on anyway. "Well. It involves
you.
There's something you can do better than I can."

Now she sat straight and hugged her arms around herself, her eyes sparking, confusion and outrage mixed. "Gee, where have I heard this before? About how Jam perfectly positioned to catch the killer—if I'm willing to take certain little risks?"

Mo realized what he'd done, that in his own way he'd recapitulated Biedermann's exploitation of her. The thought made him sick. "You're right," he said immediately. "I hadn't thought of it that way. Jesus. No, you're right, forget it, absolutely—"

"Let's hear it, Mo." They locked eyes. "Go on and tell me your plan, I'll listen. That much I can promise, at least." She really was furious and said that last as if any other implied promises were now being reassessed, put on hold.