Psychopath (26 page)

"I went over her skin very carefully," Ketterling said.  "No sign of phlebotomy.  Of course, he could have taken blood from one of the vessels he severed.  Carotids.  Jugulars.  There had to be massive hemorrhaging."  She moved to the end of the table, nodded toward Pierce’s groin.  "I did note the large volume of dried blood at the vulva and upper thighs," she said.  "I’ll do a full pelvic exam later to look for any injury and test for semen."

"No semen," Clevenger said, mostly to himself.

"Excuse me," Ketterling said.

"His rage is pure now," he said, still looking down at the body.  "He can’t contain it.  He was hungry to destroy this woman — and Paulette Bramberg — not get close to them."

"Well, that’s pretty obvious," Warner said.  He looked at Clevenger.  "We had an emotionally conflicted killer, now we have one with a clear mind.  I guess I’m having a little trouble seeing how that brings us closer to catching him."

"He has anything but a clear mind now," Clevenger said.  "He’s losing it."

"Excellent," Warner said.  "I’ll put out a press release about how the slaughter in Wyoming is actually a good sign."

McCormick looked at Warner.  "Can we please save it for later?"

"No problem," Warner said.  "See you in fifteen."  He walked away.

*            *            *

"It’s working," Clevenger said, seated on the couch in Whitney McCormick’s office.  He turned from McCormick to Kane Warner.  "For the first time he’s killed in a risky location.  He could have been caught in the act or seen fleeing.  He acted precipitously.  Less planning.  It’s what we want."

Warner chuckled imperiously. "It’s what
you
want, Doctor," he said from his armchair in front of McCormick’s desk.  "I want to stick with the data.  He wasn’t caught.  He wasn’t spotted.  He didn’t use a weapon we could trace.  We’ve had a couple dozen agents poking around the area today with no leads.  If he’s so out of control, why didn’t he make a mistake?  Why didn’t he use his own knife and drop it at the scene?  Why didn’t he kill in broad daylight, in front of eyewitnesses?"

"If we keep up the pressure, he will," Clevenger said.  "Then we’ve got him — a lot sooner than we would have."

"Says you," Warner said, leaning forward in his chair.  "Maybe he really starts to ‘bleed’ and decapitates a couple people in some variety store along any one of fifty thousand back roads across this great nation.  Maybe he doesn’t get sloppy until the whole country is petrified, and we’re on the cover of
Newsweek
, trying to explain) why Clevenger-style therapy for serial killers just doesn’t look like the right prescription for this particular maniac."

He smirked.  "Of course, you’d still have that cover..."

"Is that what you’re afraid of Kane?" Clevenger asked.  "The bad press?"

"I’m not afraid of any—"

"You like a slower, steadier killer, somebody who generates fewer headlines, further apart.  Let him drop bodies here and there, time to time, string things out long enough for you to get your next promotion, or maybe a really big payday running security at Reagan National or Caesar’s Palace."

Warner’s neck was turning red.  "I don’t think I’ll match the five hundred dollars an hour we pay you anytime soon."

"You get what you—"

"This isn’t getting us anywhere," McCormick broke in.  She looked at Warner.  "Just tell him," she said.

Clevenger looked at her askance.  She wouldn’t meet his gaze.

Warner sat back in his seat, straightened his tie.  "We met with Director Hanley this morning," he said, sounding triumphant.  "You’re to confine future correspondence with the Highway Killer to recommendations of how he can contain his violence, with a clear slant toward turning himself in.  We don’t want you getting the pot boiling, so to speak."

"Sounds like selling abstinence to seventeen-year-olds on the pill," Clevenger said.  He looked at Whitney McCormick for support.

She stayed silent.

"You agree with him?" Clevenger asked.

"I’m not sure that I do," she said tentatively.  "But I’m not certain I don’t."

Clevenger squinted at her.  "Paulette Bramberg’s corpse was in those woods for months.  He decapitated her a long time before he and I started trading letters."

"But you dredged her right up," Warner said.  "Whatever you sparked inside this guy, he coughed up a corpse that symbolizes his explosiveness.  And now he’s killed with even more brutality.  I don’t like the pattern.  Neither does the director."

"Who just happens to be thinking about running for Senate," Clevenger said.

The phone rang.  McCormick picked up.  "Yes?" Her face fell as she listened.  "I see.  Thank you.  I’ll let everyone know."  She hung up.

Warner and Clevenger looked at her.

"That was pathology.  They found a knife inside the victim — Ms. Pierce."

"Inside... where?" Warner asked.

McCormick looked at Clevenger like the news she was about to deliver would be the last nail in his coffin.  "The handle emerged from the cervix," she said.

"The blade bisected the uterus.  No semen detected."

As grotesque as the data was, as much as it horrified Clevenger, it only confirmed what he believed was happening inside the Highway Killer’s mind — the shredding of his psychological defense mechanisms.  But he could see that he was alone in that belief.

Warner looked at him as though he was personally responsible for Pierce’s demise.  "You get it now?" he asked.  "You need to shift him to a lower gear, get him back in some kind of control.  Buy us more time."

"It’s the wrong strategy," Clevenger said.  "Time was on his side.  He liked setting the pace."

"So you refuse," Warner said.

Clevenger saw the satisfaction in Warner’s face and realized he wanted him to quit, was itching to race upstairs to the corner office and tell Jake Hanley that the letters would stop altogether.

"Give me one day to think it over," he said.

Warner stood up.  "Take as long as you like," he said.  "In the meantime, should we receive another letter from... your patient, we’ll glean what we can from it and let it go at that — unanswered."

"You may let it go," Clevenger said.  "He might not.  You think he’s out of control now?  Watch him when he feels abandoned, like no one’s listening anymore."

Warner smiled his best glad-hander’s smile.  "He can always book an appointment right here in this office," he said.  "I’ll clear you to visit him twice a week at Leavenworth."  He gave McCormick a little bow.  "Take care."

"What the hell is going on with you?" Clevenger asked McCormick once Warner was gone.  "You left me all alone there."

"They’re worried," McCormick said.

"I asked about you."

"I have concerns."

"What, that he might not crumble instantly, that this might actually take a while?  Why would you expect anything else?  He’s been at this game a long time.  Too long."

McCormick stiffened a little.  "Not just that," she said, her voice dropping a few octaves.

"Okay. .."

She leaned forward.  "I think you should give a little thought to how your own issues could be alive in this thing."

"My own issues?"

"Your
strategy
is clear.  You want to bring his rage to such a fever pitch that he overheats.  But I don’t think you’ve even considered whether you have any unconscious motivation to watch the meltdown."

"To watch..." Clevenger said, baffled.  He shook his head, looked back at McCormick.  Then it dawned on him what she was driving at.  "You think I’d manipulate him into becoming more vicious — for
me
?  To express
my
rage?"

"Never intentionally."

Clevenger laughed.  "You’re kidding, right?"

McCormick didn’t respond.

"You don’t think I’ve seen enough violence?"

"We’re seeing more than ever in this case.  That’s all I know.  And you have no second thoughts about it, which worries me.  If it were solely up to you, you’d just push harder and harder."

"Until he breaks."

"Without taking feedback from anyone else on the team."

Clevenger looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath, then focused on McCormick again.  "Your father would be proud," he said.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" she shot back.

"His daughter turned out to be a politician, just like him."

"I’m not trying to be a politician, Frank.  I..."

"Maybe it’s in the genes."  He focused on her more intently.  "You know we’re on the right track.  Other than the fact that it happens to take place in the
New York Times
, this is no different than any other therapy.  You don’t get to the other side of any serious psychopathology without going through a little bit of hell.  The question is always whether you have the backbone for the trip.  Maybe you just don’t."

"That’s not fair."

"You can’t stand up for what you know," Clevenger pressed.

"I can, too," she said, sounding very much like a little girl and looking very bothered her words had come out that way.

He shook his head.  "Deep down, you don’t believe you have permission to say what you think and defend it.  You aren’t sure whether this is really your office or your father’s.  So you’re playing it the way he would — safe."

"This
is
my office.  And I want you to leave.  Now."

"There," Clevenger said.  "Now that’s backbone.  You just have to show it when there’s something bigger at stake than your ego — like people’s lives."  He stood up and walked out.

*            *            *

Clevenger didn’t get back to the airport until after 7:00
P.M.
   He reserved a seat on the 8:20 to Boston, checked his messages at home.  There was one from Billy, telling him he was comfortable enough on the detox unit at North Shore Medical Center and thanking him for taking him there.  He sounded pretty good, which made Clevenger feel a little bit better than he had leaving Quantico.  But the message following Billy’s sank his mood.

"Dr. Clevenger," a woman’s voice said, "this is Linda Diario at the Massachusetts Department of Social Services.  I’m calling to see when we could meet to talk about a discussion I had with one of Billy’s clinicians at the detox unit earlier this afternoon.  If you could contact me at your earliest convenience, I’d appreciate it."

The Department of Social Services would never call with good news.  Clevenger dialed North Shore Medical Center, got connected to Billy’s room.  "How you feeling, champ?" he asked.

"Like a truck hit me," Billy said.  "They’re going pretty light with the detox meds."

"It’s never easy, but it’s worth it.  Stick it out."

"I will," Billy said.  "How are you?"

"Headed back."  He paused.  "I heard you got interviewed by a social worker today."

"Some woman came by."

"Did she ask you about our relationship?"

"Sure.  I told her we were tight.  Tighter than ever.  Even working together a little."

Clevenger felt his chest tighten.  "Did you mention the Highway Killer investigation?"

"She asked about it.  I just told her I was reading up on him, trying to help out."  A couple seconds passed in silence.  "Was I not supposed to tell her?"

Clevenger didn’t want to saddle Billy with another worry.  "It’s fine.  I think DSS may have a few questions for me, but nothing I can’t handle."

"I shouldn’t have said anything."

"It’s not a problem," Clevenger said.  "Honestly."  He paused.  "What are the rules on visitors there?"

"None for the first three days," Billy said.

"Then I’ll call you in the morning."

"Thanks."

"Love you, buddy."

"Love you, too."

Clevenger hung up.

The flight had started to board.  Clevenger got in line.  He was almost to the door when he heard Whitney McCormick call out his name.  He turned around, saw her headed his way.

She walked up to him.  "I don’t think we should let it end like this," she said.

"Us, or our work on the case?" Clevenger asked.

"Us," she said.  "Stay over tonight.  We don’t have to talk about the investigation."

Clevenger looked into her eyes.  They were bright and beautiful and brimming with a certain hunger that he recognized for the first time as the look he had seen in the eyes of addicts, the look in his own eyes when he was chasing drugs.

McCormick needed him like a person needs a fix, maybe exactly the way she needed her father’s approval, thirsted for his love, when what she really needed was to love herself.  "I’ve got Billy in detox back home," he said.  "I need to be around for him."

She nodded, managed a half-smile.  "My offer to show him around the Academy still stands."

"We may take you up on that."  When she leaned and hugged him, he hugged her back.  But when she looked up at him in a way that invited him to kiss her, he looked away.

She let go.  "Take care of yourself," she said.

"You, too."

*            *            *

Clevenger checked his messages again when he got back to the loft in Chelsea.  North Anderson had called twice while he was in flight.  He turned on his mobile, saw that Anderson had tried him on that phone twice.  He called the office, got no answer, and dialed Anderson at home.

"Hello?" Anderson answered.

"It’s Frank."

"I’ve got something you need to know."

"Shoot."

"Stephanie Schorow from the
Herald
called me in the office today.  She was asking questions about you and Billy."

"What questions?"

"She knew Billy was in detox.  She seemed to be saying that your custody of him was being called into question by DSS.  She’d already interviewed a couple sources there.  They gave her the ‘can’t confirm or deny’ routine, which got her more interested."

Clevenger dropped his chin to his chest.  For the first time he felt like the Highway Killer investigation and his personal life had collided head-on.  "Anyone on staff at the medical center could have gotten the bright idea to call the press."