The Prettiest Feathers (18 page)
Read The Prettiest Feathers Online
Authors: John Philpin
The doctor stood and walked behind his chair where he removed a framed certificate from the wall. He placed it on his desk for me to see. “So is this. Your fax quality is poor, but it does appear to be an exact duplicate of this one. I suppose copies can be obtained through the medical school, but I don’t really know how.”
I scrawled a few things into my notebook and was preparing to thank the doctor and leave, when he asked, “If you don’t mind, how was your ex-wife killed?”
“Her throat was cut.”
“I’m sorry,” Chadwick said. “When I was in college I dated a girl who was murdered. We weren’t engaged or even going steady, or anything like that, but I think I had it in my mind that she was going to be my wife.”
“What happened to her?”
Chadwick removed his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “It was a fall from a roof. The police said it was suicide. So did the medical examiner. I had seen her a few times with another young man, also a student at the college. I was convinced then, and I remain convinced, that he pushed her from that roof. No one would listen to me.”
Alan Chadwick was a few years my senior, yet he looked
decades older. As he talked, even his voice seemed to age. “I took it upon myself to follow this man,” he said, “and confront him with what I suspected. Of course he denied it, and he kept denying it. So I decided to beat it out of him. I was never much good at anything physical. I took a baseball bat with me.”
Chadwick held up his hands, displaying his oddly shaped fingers. “I started out to be a surgeon, Detective,” he said, “but I ended up in pathology and have remained there because of these. You see, he took the bat away from me and used it to crush my career. Now I perform surgery on cadavers, and I teach.”
I put my notebook away. “What happened to the guy?”
The doctor shrugged. “He was in and out of college. I don’t know if he ever graduated. About a year after he killed my friend, there was another murder—a young woman who lived off campus. She was found in her bed, strangled. I went to the police about him again, but they insisted there was no possible relationship between the two cases. I didn’t believe them, and I said so, but nobody wanted to listen.”
“I lost track of him when I went on to the medical school,” Chadwick added. “I don’t know what became of him after that.”
Chadwick was an interesting man and his story was intriguing. He obviously had loved the girl—believed she’d been murdered. His belief cost him his hands and his career. His whole life had been redirected because of that incident, and it was clear that he was still haunted by it.
I stood and thanked him for his help. “I’ll probably need to talk to you again,” I said.
“I’ll do whatever I can to help. I don’t like having my identity stolen. And I don’t like murderers. Perhaps I can redeem myself for what I was never able to do in the Wolf matter.”
I was turning toward the door and stopped. “The
what
matter?”
“His name was Wolf. Paul Wolf.”
A
s I pulled away from the antique shop, I wondered why Robert had wanted to check out Wallingford. Had Sarah mentioned something? Or was Wolf the connection? Did Robert know that Wallingford was dead? I also wondered who might have been out to the Landgrove shop claiming to be Robert. Someone was playing games, but every time I tried to wrap my mind around the questions of who and why, my ability to concentrate went to pieces. Nothing made sense, or if it did, I was too tired to see it.
I drove home. I didn’t know what was the matter with me. I just couldn’t get myself going—couldn’t get any kind of a handle on this case. I understood the importance of time in a murder investigation. The colder the trail, the less likely it is that there’ll be an arrest. But I was exhausted. I felt like I did back in college, when I had mono. I knew that I was going to have to make time and get myself to the doctor.
I also realized that I hadn’t eaten. I pulled a plastic bag of mixed vegetables out of the freezer and dropped it into some
boiling water. I thought maybe an infusion of vitamins might get me back on my feet.
I was wrong. I dozed off for a couple of hours, awakening to the phone ringing. It was Robbins from the DA’s office.
“You work late,” I said, glancing at the clock. “Or maybe it’s early.”
“Wondered if you’d had a chance to look at that book yet.”
I had to think for a second, then spotted the book on the chair where I’d dropped it. “Haven’t had a chance,” I said.
“Just wondered.”
“Look,” I said, “it’s not that I don’t appreciate your letting me borrow the book. I don’t even have time to eat or sleep properly right now.”
“No problem,” Robbins said. “It’s just that—”
“What?”
“Remember what I was saying about his next victim?”
“Vaguely,” I said.
I was only half awake, and starting to get annoyed with Robbins’s amateurish crime psychology.
“Well, these guys like to take risks, right?” he said.
“I’ve heard that.”
“He obviously had a relationship of some sort with Ms. Sinclair. That’s risky. Her ex-husband is a cop, right? He’d know that because he was involved with her. So maybe that adds to his excitement.”
“Robbins, I’ve really got to run,” I said. “What are you getting at?”
“The need for more risk,” he said. “He could have a cop on that list of his. Think about it, Lane. Good luck.”
The phone went dead.
Robbins was just too strange. He might be a wizard at accounting procedures, but I didn’t need him dragging me awake to share his theories of criminal behavior.
But, by the time I was sipping my coffee, I realized that Robbins had gotten under my skin. During the days that Wolf spent with Sarah, Robert might have dropped in at any
time. That was risky. Then, after killing Sarah, he called and left a message on Robert’s machine. Now someone was drifting around the edges of this case. He’d been out to Landgrove, posing as Robert Sinclair and shopping for a tree made of feathers.
Robert could be a target. But this guy preferred women. Shooting the two men in the alley seemed incidental—like they were in his way. So, I could be the target. That’s what Robbins had been getting at.
As fast as that thought went through my mind, it was followed by another—a memory. I was sitting with my father at the breakfast table. I’d had a nightmare, and Mom had come into the room and sat on my bed until I’d gone back to sleep. She must have briefed him, because, without my saying anything, Pop looked up from his newspaper and his plate of herring and eggs and said, “Fear is useful, Lanie. It teaches you something about itself. And it teaches you something about
you
.”
Reports had piled up on my desk in my absence. The fibers that Levinson found on Sarah’s dress matched a carpet produced only by Bigelow, a new line that had been on the market less than two months. There had been only one installation in our area; it went down a week earlier at a clothing store. I could easily picture what had happened: Sarah had tried on the dress in the fitting room. When taking it off, she let it fall to the floor and stepped out of it. That’s how it picked up all those particles that Levinson had identified.
I waited until 9:00
A.M.
, then called the shop. I got a clerk on the line (the same one who had waited on Sarah), and learned that, yes, Ms. Sinclair had purchased a dress there recently. “She was a regular,” the clerk told me, “but this time, she was shopping for her wedding gown.”
Wedding gown?
I made a mental note to tell Dr. Rimlin to hurry up the pregnancy report, and to thank him for the toxicology results that he had placed on my desk. The only
thing significant were traces of the antidepressant Tofranil PM. Rimlin’s opinion was that Sarah probably had been on a therapeutic dose, then had taken herself off the medication several days before her death.
Benny had come through with a stack of photos five inches thick. I went through them quickly, but since I didn’t yet know what I was looking for, I decided to move on to the memo from the scientific evidence unit. I recognized Miller’s signature at the bottom, so I knew it had something to do with the fingerprints. But all he wrote was, “Call me. We’ve got something odd here.”
I picked up the phone again, this time pushing the buttons for Miller’s extension. His voice mail came on. I hung up without leaving a message.
While I was still sitting there, wondering if I should try to reach Miller at home, I heard the fax machine switch on.
It was Pop’s response:
TO: Lanie
FROM: Pop
I spent the morning on the lake, locked in a mind game with that wily largemouth bass I’ve been after since last year. For weeks he had me convinced that he was gone—departed to another hole across the lake, or dead. Yesterday he hammered my favorite yellow spinner on the first cast and snapped the line. I just wasn’t expecting him to hit. Today I could see him making passes behind the red and white spoon I was using. The water roiled in great swirls, but that was all.
Tomorrow is another day. He doesn’t know that I have the advantage: more line, more lures, and all the time in the world.
I never have understood why you won’t go to medical school. You could have a great career (even go into psychiatry if you want), meet eligible young doctors, raise a brood of interns, and be miles away from those street-sweepings you surround yourself with.
Think about it. You get yourself in at Johns Hopkins and I’ll write the check. That’s the commercial message for this episode of
Father Wants to Know Best, But Daughter Wont Let Him
.
Your fax tells me volumes (as you will see, I still have my sources here and there). Robert Sinclair. Good potential as a detective, but he hasn’t made much use of it. A bit paranoid for my taste. Heavy drinker. And a bigot.
How did you get by that one? I know you like to “pass” from time to time, but when he moved in with you (sources again) he must have noticed the photos of your marvelously mocha mama.
Lt. Swartz from your department also faxed a summary of the case(s). I did some work for him a few years ago, and now he’s trying to seduce me into this case. Only reason I looked at what he sent was because he said right at the start that you were in charge. I faxed him a note this morning requesting copies of the usual. It should arrive by helicopter tomorrow afternoon, and the bastards better not scare my fish.
I want it understood that I have no intention of getting involved in this case beyond what I can contribute from the comfort of my armchair. I’ll skim the case files when they arrive, give you my impressions, then get back to more pressing business. Fishing.
I already have a few observations to pass on, for what they’re worth:
You don’t need me to tell you that Sarah Sinclair wasn’t this killer’s first victim. Start with a 50 mile radius and collect all unsolved homicides, missing persons, untimely deaths, etc., regardless of MO. Skip VICAP. That whole program was put together by a bunch of anal retentive clerks. Send a fax (I love this thing) to the relevant departments. Victims will be female, 18-40 years old. You will have at least a dozen,
probably 20+. Not only was your victim not his first, he’s been at it for a while.
My initial take on your Sarah is that she had drinks and pleasant conversation with the man who killed her. Her new gentleman friend—the one who pulled the gun in the bookstore (he
did
do the shooting, by the way; I’ve never been a fan of coincidence) is the man you’re after. He fancies himself an artist, a stage director. He selected Ms. Sinclair well ahead of time, engaged her in a parody of courtship, and, when he had amused himself to the max with the details of her life with the risk he was taking, he cut her throat.
Remember, even Ted Bundy made an exception—the young woman in Utah he followed for several days and tried to date; he even told her that he was a student at the law school. The sheriff’s department in that jurisdiction refused to share their case materials (eventually lost them, I believe). Then Colorado and Florida happened. Antone Costa on the Cape was another one. Two of his suspected victims were young women that he’d had relationships with. There were others, but they do appear to be exceptions—the kind that Quantico always seems to fall on their faces over.
This “gentleman” is very bright, clever, devious, etc.—all the qualities we’ve been groomed to expect in our serial killers. But he’s got more of everything, and he’s been at it longer (he’s in his early 40s). You probably won’t pin down a positive ID. Or, if you do, it won’t give you much. He has more people he can be than Laurence Olivier.
Let me have a look at what they drop in the lake tomorrow and I’ll see if I can be of any further help.
P.S. Leonard Cohen is (gulp) my age. Maybe a little older. A poet. A songwriter. A brilliant performer. I’ll fax you a twenty; go buy a CD.
P.P.S. Julian Cope is a different kind of genius. I guess all artists at one time or another get around to wrestling with their concept of God. Cope’s tune is from an entire work
(Jehovakill)
devoted to that theme. The killer’s preference for this piece should not be interpreted as evidence of his grandiosity (although there’s plenty of that). He doesn’t want to
be
God. He wants to destroy Him.
P.P.P.S. If you write to your mother, tell her to send you the twenty for the CD. Then she’ll owe me only $86.50 from our last poker game. Besides, it’s easier for her to get to a post office in Zaire than it is for me here. She knows I love her; you don’t have to tell her that. I don’t want her to think I’m easy.
P.P.P.P.S. I love you, too. Which is why I now fall back into paternalistic mode. When we track down this one, let the SWAT team take him out, and you watch from a great distance. I sense no hesitation in this man. Given the chance, he would kill us all.