The Madman's Tale (36 page)

After a long pause, Lucy bent her head lower. “Peter, I don’t think we know each other quite well enough. But let me say this: The individual who committed the other three killings managed to get my personal attention by taunting my office.”

“Taunting?”

“Yes. In the you-can’t-catch-me vein.”

“You don’t want to be more specific?”

“Not right now. These are details that we would hope to use in an eventual prosecution. So—”

Peter interrupted her. “You don’t want to share specifics with a couple of crazy guys.”

She took a deep breath. “Not any more than you would like to be specific if I asked about how you spread gasoline through that church. And why.”

Both were silent for a moment, again. Then Peter turned to Francis, and said, “C-Bird, what links all these crimes together? Why these killings?”

Francis realized he was being given a test, and he answered quickly. “The victims’ appearance, for one thing. Age and isolation; they all were in the habit of traveling in a regular fashion by themselves. They were young and they had short hair and slender physiques. They were found in some location, exposed to elements, that was other than where they were killed, which complicates matters for the police. You told me that. And in different jurisdictions, as well, which is another problem. You told me that, too. And they were all mutilated in the same way, progressively. The missing fingers, just like Short Blond.”

Francis took a deep breath. “Am I right?”

Lucy Jones nodded, and Peter the Fireman smiled. “Dead-on,” he said. “We need to be alert, Lucy, because young C-Bird here has a far better memory for detail and observation than anyone gives him credit for.” Then he stopped, seeming to think for a moment. Once again, he started to say one thing, then appeared to change direction at the last moment. “All right, Lucy. You should keep some information that might help us to yourself. For the time being. What’s the drill, then?”

“We have to find a way to find this man,” she said stiffly, but slightly relieved, as if she understood, in that second that Peter meant to ask another question or two that would have turned the conversation in a different direction. Francis couldn’t tell if there was gratitude in what she said, but he saw that his two companions were staring tightly at each other, speaking without saying words, as if they both understood something that had slid past Francis in that moment. Francis thought that might be true, but he did observe something else: Peter and Lucy had established some credentials that seemed to him to place both of them on the same plane of existence. Peter was a little less the mental patient, and Lucy a little less the prosecutor, and what they both suddenly were was something more akin to partners.

“The problem is,” Peter said carefully, “I believe he has already found us.”

I
f Lucy was surprised by what Peter said, she didn’t immediately display it.

“What do you mean, exactly?” she asked.

“I’m guessing that the Angel already knows that you are here and, presumably, the why of your presence, as well. I think there aren’t quite as many secrets around here as one might like. More accurately, there’s a different definition of what constitutes a secret. So I suspect he’s fully aware that you’re here hunting him, despite Gulptilil and Evans’s promises of confidentiality. How long do you suppose those promises lasted? A day? Maybe two? I would wager that just about everyone here who can know, does know. And I would suspect our friend the Angel is alert to the idea that somehow C-Bird and I are helping you.”

“You reach these conclusions precisely how?” Lucy asked slowly. There was a dry and cautious suspiciousness in her voice that Francis noted, but that Peter seemed to ignore.

“Well, it’s mostly supposition, of course,” Peter said. “But one thing leads to another …”

“Well,” Lucy said, “What’s the first
one thing?”

Peter rapidly filled her in on the vision that he’d observed through the window the previous night. As he described what he’d seen, and how quickly he’d moved to the doorway in an effort to catch a better look, he seemed to watch Lucy equally closely, as if to assess her response with some precision. He
finished by saying, “And so, if he knows about us, enough to want to see us, then he knows about you. Hard to tell, but … well, there you have it.” He shrugged slightly, but his eyes wore conviction that contradicted his body language.

“What time last night did this happen?” Lucy asked.

“Late. Well after midnight.”

Peter observed her hesitation. “There’s some detail you would like to share?”

Again, Lucy hesitated. Then she said, “I believe I, too, was visited last night.”

Peter seemed to rock back, slightly alarmed. “How so?”

Lucy took a breath, then described going back to the nurse-trainees’ dormitory and finding her door unlocked, then locked upon her return. Although she was unable to say who, or why, and while she remained convinced that something had been taken, she was unable to say what. Everything seemed to be in place and intact. She had taken the time to inventory her small collection of possessions and could not find anything missing.

“So,” Lucy said briskly, “as far as I can tell it’s all there. Still, I can’t shake the sensation that something is gone.”

Peter nodded. “Perhaps you should double-check. Something obvious would be an article of clothing. Something a little more subtle would be”—he seemed to think hard for a moment—“some hair from your brush. Or perhaps he took a swipe of your lipstick and ran it down his chest. Or sprayed some perfume on the back of his hand. Something like that.”

Lucy seemed slightly taken aback by that suggestion, and she shifted about in her seat as if it was a little hot, but before she replied, Francis shook his head back and forth vigorously. Peter turned to him, and asked, “What is it, C-Bird?”

Francis stuttered slightly, as he spoke. “I don’t think you’re quite right, Peter,” he said, speaking quietly. “He doesn’t need to take anything. Not clothes or a toothbrush or hair or underwear or perfume or anything that Lucy brought with her, because he’s already taken something far bigger, and much more important. She just hasn’t seen it quite yet. Maybe because she doesn’t want to see it.”

Peter smiled. “And what would that be, Francis?” he asked slowly, his voice a little low, but filled with an odd pleasure.

Francis’s voice quavered slightly as he responded. “He took her privacy.”

The three of them were quiet for a moment, as Francis’s words filled each of them. “And then something else,” he added cautiously.

“What’s that?” Lucy demanded. Her face had reddened slightly, and she’d started to tap the end of a pencil against the surface of the desk.

“Maybe your safety, too,” Francis said.

The weight of silence grew in the small room. Francis felt as if he’d overstepped some boundary with what he had said. Peter and Lucy were both professionals at the process of investigation, and he wasn’t, and he was surprised that he’d even had the bravery to say anything, especially something quite as provocative as what he’d suggested. One of his more insistent voices shouted from deep within him
Be quiet! Keep your mouth shut! Don’t volunteer! Stay hidden! Stay safe!
He was unsure whether to listen to this voice or not. After a moment, Francis shook his head and said, “Maybe I’m wrong about this. It just came into my head all of a sudden, and I didn’t really think it through …”

Lucy held up her hand. “I think it’s a most pertinent observation, C-Bird,” Lucy said, in the slightly academic way that she sometimes adopted. “And one that I should keep in mind. But what about the second visit of the night, over to the window looking in on you and Peter? What do you make of that moment?”

Francis stole a quick sideways glance at Peter, who nodded and made a small encouraging gesture. “He could see us anytime, Francis. In the dayroom or at a meal, or even coming and going to a group session. Hell, we’re always hanging out in the corridors. He could get a good look at us then. In fact, he probably has. We’re just not aware of it. Why risk moving about at night?”

“He probably has watched us during the daytime, Peter, you’re right about that,” Francis said slowly. “But it doesn’t mean the same thing to him.”

“How so?”

“Because during the day, he’s just another patient.”

“Yes? Sure. But …”

“But at night, he can become himself.”

Peter spoke first, his voice filled with a kind of admiration. “So,” he said with a little laugh, “it turns out that just as I suspected, C-Bird sees.”

Francis shrugged a little and smiled, thinking that he was getting a compliment and recognizing in some deep and unfamiliar recess that he had very rarely ever been paid any sort of compliment during any of his twenty-one years on the planet. Criticism, complaints, and underscoring his obvious and persistent inadequacy had been what he had known on a pretty steady basis up to that point. Peter leaned across and gave him a little punch on the arm. “You’re going to make a terrific cop yet, Francis,” he said. “A little odd-looking, perhaps, but a dandy one, nevertheless. We’ll need to get you a bit more of an Irish brogue, and a much bigger stomach and puffy red cheeks and a nightstick to swing around and a penchant for doughnuts. No, an
addiction
to doughnuts. But we’ll get you there, sooner or later.”

Then he turned to Lucy, and said, “This gives me an idea.”

She, too, was smiling, because, Francis thought, it wasn’t hard to find the absurd portrait of the irrepressibly skinny Francis as the burly beat cop fairly amusing. “An idea would be good, Peter,” she said in reply. “An idea would be excellent.”

Peter remained quiet, but for a moment he moved his hand in front of him, like a conductor in front of a symphony, or perhaps a mathematician trying out a formula in the air in front of him, lacking a blackboard on which to scribble numbers and equations. Then he pulled up a chair, reversing it, so that he was sitting backward on it, which, Francis thought, gave his posture and his ideas some urgency, as he spoke.

“We have no physical evidence, right? So that’s not a road we can take. And we have no help, especially from the local cops who processed the crime scene, investigated the murder, and arrested Lanky, right?”

“Right,” Lucy said. “Right. And right again.”

“And we don’t really believe, despite what Gulp-a-pill and Mister Evil have said, that they’re gonna help much, right?”

“Right again. I think it’s clear that they’re probably trying to decide what approach creates the least problem.”

“True. Not hard to picture the two of them sitting in Gulp-a-pill’s office, with Miss Luscious taking notes, doping out the least amount they can do to cover their butts in every conceivable direction. So, in fact, we don’t have much going for us right now. In particular, an obvious and fruitful starting point.”

Peter was alive with ideas. Francis could see him electric.

“What is any investigation?” he said rhetorically, looking squarely at Lucy. “I’ve done them, you’ve done them. We take this solid, stolid, sturdy, determined approach. Collect this bit of evidence and add it to that. Build a picture of the crime brick by brick. Every detail of a crime, from inception to conclusion, gets fit into a rational framework to provide an answer. Isn’t that what they taught you in the prosecutor’s office? So that the steady accumulation of provable items eliminates everyone except the suspect? Those are the rules, right?”

“I know that. You know that. But your point, exactly, is what?”

“What makes you think the Angel doesn’t know that, too?”

“Okay. Yes. Probably. And?”

“So, what we need to do is turn everything upside down.”

Lucy looked a little askance. But Francis saw what Peter was driving at.

“What he’s saying,” Francis said carefully, “is we shouldn’t play by any rules.”

Peter nodded. “Here we are, in this mad place, and you know what will be impossible, Lucy?”

She didn’t reply.

“What will be impossible is if we try to impose the reasonableness and the organization of the outside world in here. This place is mad, so what we need is an investigation that reflects the world here. One that fits. Tailor what we do to the place we’re in. When in Rome, so to speak.”

“And what would be the first step?” Lucy asked. It was clear that she was willing to listen, but not sign on immediately.

“Exactly what you imagined,” Peter said. “We interrogate people. You question them in here. Start out all nice and official and by the book. And then turn up the pressure. Accuse people unreasonably. Misrepresent what they say. Turn their paranoia back on top of them. Do as much wrong and irresponsible and outrageous as you can. Unsettle everyone. It will make this place stand on its ear. And the more that we disrupt the ordinary process of this hospital, the less likely the Angel will feel safe.”

Lucy nodded. “It’s a plan. Maybe not much of one, but it’s a plan. Although I can’t see Gulptilil going along with it.”

“Screw him,” Peter said. “Of course he won’t. And neither will Mister Evil. But don’t let that stand in your way.”