Psychopath (29 page)

That was the last thing Warner had said before hanging up, and it was still stuck in Clevenger’s mind as Linda Diario, the DSS Commissioner, came out from behind her desk to greet him.

"So glad you could meet on short notice," Diario said.  She was a grossly overweight woman who might have been forty or fifty underneath all her padding, wearing a tight, navy blue skirt, a belt of shiny gold links, and an ivory-colored silk blouse open too low, exposing more of her generous cleavage than anyone was likely to want to see.  She held out her hand.

Clevenger shook it.

"I’ve asked Richard O’Connor to join us.  He should be right along."

"O’Connor?  The prosecutor?" Clevenger asked.

"He left the district attorney’s office two months ago and signed on with us," Diario said.

Clevenger had testified for the defense in a murder trial prosecuted by O’Connor.  A psychotic woman with postpartum depression had killed her three-year-old daughter. The testimony had helped win a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.  "I suppose that’s alright," he said.  "I didn’t think to bring an attorney of my own."

"It’s a matter of policy for us any time we discuss a child’s welfare."

Clevenger nodded. He figured if things got dicey he could put in a quick call to Sarah Ricciardelli, the Quincy, Massachusetts, lawyer who had so expertly shepherded him through Billy’s adoption in the first place.  Her office was only fifteen minutes away.  "Why don’t we start and see how things go?" he told Diario.

"Why don’t we?" Diario said, looking toward the door.  "Richard. I think you know Dr. Clevenger."

O’Connor walked in.  He was a wiry fellow about five-eight, late thirties, with a prominent forehead and deeply set ice blue eyes.  "Been hearing a lot about you lately," O’Connor said.  "Hard not to."

"Occupational hazard," Clevenger said.  He noticed O’Connor didn’t extend his hand.

The three of them took seats around a conference table that occupied the short arm of the L-shaped office.

Diario let out a long breath, opened a folder in front of her.

Clevenger saw the pages on top were the ones he had filled out when he had first applied to adopt Billy.

"Let me give you a clear sense of our concerns," Diario said.

"Please do," Clevenger said, glancing at O’Connor, who came up with a half-smile for him.

"We’re in receipt of a report from one of our clinicians in the field identifying Billy Bishop as a ‘child in need of services,’" Diario said.

That was code for a child at risk.  It triggered an official DSS investigation.  "What sort of services do you mean, in this case?" Clevenger asked.

Diario sidestepped the question.  "We’re concerned about Billy’s safety," she said.  "He’s obviously been using drugs."

"Like a lot of kids his age," Clevenger said.  "Including plenty who’ve been through a lot less than him."

"Using them at home," O’Connor said flatly, like the prosecutor he still was at heart.

Clevenger stayed silent.  He was starting to think he might want Sarah Ricciardelli in the room, after all.

Diario touched the adoption form.  Clevenger noticed that her fingernails had been chewed to the nail beds, a sign of pent-up aggression.  "We’re concerned whether you were completely candid when you adopted Billy."  She flipped several pages, stopped on a grid where Clevenger had recorded his medical and psychiatric history.  "When you filled out this form, you entered one word —
no
— where it asked about drug dependency."

"I wasn’t dependent on any substance at that time, nor am I now," Clevenger said.

"I think it’s clear the question means to address your entire medical history — past and present," Diario said, handing O’Connor the form.

"I don’t think that’s clear at all," Clevenger said.

O’Connor shook his head.  "The spirit of the question is obvious," he said.  "A comprehensive answer is clearly called for."

"Look," Clevenger said, "I would have been happy to tell you I’d gotten sober.  I’m proud of it."  He figured he’d cut to the chase.  "I published my drug history in the
New York Times
, for God’s sake."

"Well, exactly," Diario said.  "That’s where I was headed.  We had no knowledge you had a... problem with alcohol, let alone cocaine.  If we had, we would have integrated those facts into our decision on whether you were an appropriate custodian for Billy Bishop."

"And decided I wasn’t?" Clevenger said.

"That’s not the point," Diario said.  "I’m speaking to whether you were truthful with us.  We ventured forward with you despite our concerns about you being a single parent and our misgivings about you having met Billy while investigating his sister’s murder.  We gave you the benefit of the doubt on more than one count, Doctor."

Clevenger could feel Diario laying the groundwork for a formal review of his custody of Billy.  "I didn’t know I’d been charged with anything," he said, glancing at O’Connor.

"But now it turns out you had a serious drug problem," Diario said.  "Would that be fair to say?"

"I certainly didn’t take it lightly," Clevenger said.

"Nor can we," Diario said.  "Not when Billy is having a serious problem while you are... otherwise distracted."

"You mean by the Highway Killer investigation," Clevenger said.

"By that," Diario said.  "And, apparently, by a new relationship — at least according to the
Times
."

"You believe everything you read?"

"I suppose the better question is whether Billy believes it," Diario said.  "And how he feels about it."

"He did tell a clinician he’s working with you on the investigation," O’Connor said.  "I’m no psychiatrist, but maybe he feels he needs to, in order to compete for your time."

"He’s not involved in the investigation," Clevenger said.

"He’s followed the case closely, given you advice from time to time," O’Connor said.

"He ran away from home," Diario added.  "He’s been using drugs."

"You don’t see any connection?" O’Connor asked.

Clevenger knew he should call Sarah Ricciardelli, knew he was shooting from the hip, but he couldn’t stop himself.  "I think Billy’s a very complicated young man," he said.  "I think he wants to be closer to me, which is something I want, too.  And I also think he has some dark parts of his psyche that he’s inclined to harness and channel toward helping people — people who are victims, like him.  That’s something else we have in common.  And I don’t see anything wrong with it."

"You see yourself in him," Diario said.

Clevenger knew that question was actually an indictment.  Diario was implying he was projecting his identity on the boy, raising him in his image, including his trouble with drugs and his deep psychological connection with violent crime.  "I think we have things in common and things that separate us," Clevenger said.

"But I won’t dodge your question.  The answer is yes. I do see parts of myself in Billy."

Diario nodded to herself, took a deep breath, and let it out.  The odor of last night’s tuna dinner wafted out of her.  "Will you submit to random drug testing?" she asked Clevenger.

"Will I
what?
"

O’Connor leaned forward.  "Are you willing," he asked, "to submit to random drug screens to make sure you are not currently abusing any substance?"

Clevenger didn’t miss the irony that DSS was asking him for the same tests he had required of Billy.  "Would that satisfy you?" he asked.  "Clean drug screens, and that’s the end of it?"

Diario and O’Connor exchanged glances.

"As soon as the Highway Killer investigation is over," Diario said.  "Until then, we’d like to get back to home plate — a clean slate, so to speak."

Clevenger sat back, tilted his head to get a little perspective on the two people across the table from him.  "You would try to suspend my parental rights until after the Highway Killer is apprehended?  That might not be this month or next.  It might not be this year."

"Not ‘suspend,’" O’Connor said.  "It would be an open-ended probationary period that would, quite frankly, allow for the indefinite suspension of your rights should Billy’s condition worsen due to any involvement on his part in the Highway Killer case."

Clevenger knew that translated to DSS living, eating, and breathing Billy and him.  They’d have the right to check on them day and night, drag Billy in for endless meetings with social workers and psychologists.  "No chance," he said.

"We think it’s a reasonable solution to a complex problem," Diario said.

"I don’t," Clevenger said.  "If you want permission to run our lives, try to get it from a judge."

"We may have to," Diario said.

"We have a proper role in ensuring the safety of minors in this state," O’Connor said, "no matter how famous their parents might be."

O’Connor had shown his cards, and they had come up envy and payback.  "You do have that role," Clevenger said.  "I have one, too.  I’m Billy Bishop’s father."  He stood up.  "See you in court."  He walked out of the office.

His anger helped him keep his game face as he walked to his car on fifth floor of the Government Center parking garage.  He opened the door, slid into the driver’s seat, shut the door.  And then his face fell, and he hung his head and fought back the tears that wanted to come.

He knew Diario and O’Connor had no good reason to pry into his life with Billy.  He knew he was doing the best job he could to raise him under circumstances that were anything but ideal.  He knew he would take a bullet for him without a second thought.  But he also knew DSS was capricious — and powerful.  He knew Juvenile Court was highly political:  he could draw a judge who liked him a whole lot or one who disliked him a whole lot.  He knew there was a chance — not a great chance, but a real chance — that he could lose his son.

t w e l v e

Whitney McCormick landed at the Rock Springs–Sweetwater County Airport at 4:20
P.M.
, Central Time.  She picked up the pistol she had checked through at Reagan National, rented a car, and drove the thirty-eight miles to the Bitter Creek Diner.  Her resignation still hadn’t been officially accepted by Jake Hanley, and she still had her badge, which seemed like plenty of ID for the Wyoming state cop guarding the crime scene.

She sat in the booth just behind the one Jonah happened to have sat in, looking toward the counter as he had.  She imagined him sipping coffee, glancing out the window at the empty parking lot.  Maybe he had dropped a quarter in the silver jukebox mounted on the wall beside the table, listened to a little Sinatra or Bennett as he watched Sally Pierce restocking the glass cabinets with donuts and muffins for the morning crowd.  Maybe Pierce reminded him of home, of his mother.  And maybe that had started his adrenaline flowing, his fists clenching, his mouth salivating for blood.

McCormick could almost feel him beside her right now, a painful hunger mingling with his excitement.  She felt a rush of adrenaline course through her system, a transfusion from the killer that made her heart race and her breathing deepen and the delicate blonde hairs on her arms stand straight up.

Crazy as it might be, she had a gut feeling she was going to nail this guy, see him get the death penalty he so justly deserved, show Kane Warner and Jake Hanley and the Highway Killer and her father and — much more important —
herself
that she had what it took, that she didn’t need any favors from anyone to open the door to her own office at the FBI.

It was easy for Clevenger to say she didn’t need to prove anything.  People might disagree with his tactics, might resent his getting rich when they were getting by, might shun him because the press couldn’t get enough of him, but nobody thought he was irrelevant, nobody was saying he wasn’t one of the best at what he did.

If she got the Highway Killer, nobody would ever say that about her either.

She looked straight ahead at the entrance, then turned and looked behind her at the emergency exit, noting that the Highway Killer wouldn’t have had to strain to get a view of the whole length of the place, to make certain he was the only customer being served.  But even craning her neck and rising a bit out of her seat, she couldn’t quite see into the kitchen, set off from the dining room by a swinging door with a diamond-shaped window.

She stood up, walked to the counter, and stared through that window, but still got only a limited view of the space beyond it.  One whole side of the kitchen was blocked.  She glanced to her left and noticed how most of the parking lot was now obscured by the far wall.  She had to step back four feet to get a decent angle on it.

There was no way the Highway Killer could have had any confidence there would be no eyewitness to Pierce’s murder, whether someone pulling into the lot or walking into the dining area from the kitchen.

McCormick stepped behind the counter, pushed the swinging door open, and saw a three-foot-wide pool of dried blood about seven feet away on the linoleum floor.  She walked over and knelt beside it.  She pictured the killer crouched atop Pierce, struggling to keep her down, butchering her without troubling himself to watch his back.

So maybe Clevenger was right; the killer might be falling apart, striking out without planning to, maybe without even being fully conscious of what he was doing.  But maybe Kane Warner was right, too:  at some level the killer
wanted
to be caught.  And if he did, then Sally Pierce’s body might be more than evidence of his explosiveness, his deepening insanity.  It might be a final cry for help, a plea for someone to stop him right here, right now.  His travels state-to-state might be over.  He might even have come home.

It was remotely possible he might even have known Sally Pierce.

She walked back out through the swinging door, pulled a map of Wyoming from her jacket pocket, and unfolded it on the counter.  She found Bitter Creek, then traced her finger east along Route 80 to Creston, where the Highway Killer had left his last letter in the Federal Express drop box.  She reasoned that if she were the killer, the momentum of fleeing the scene of the crime would have driven her further from home, not closer.  So she traced Route 80 West, past the towns of Table Rock and Point of Rocks, to the larger town of Rock Springs, then beyond it to Quealy.  Between Rock Springs and Quealy sat the Three Patches Recreational Area, near Pine Mountain and the Salt Wells Creek.  That struck a cord; she and Clevenger had wondered whether the Highway Killer might be an isolationist, drawn to solitary pursuits like camping, hiking, and mountain climbing.  She kept moving her finger west, came to the town of Green River near the Flaming Gorge National Park.