The Dead Room (14 page)

“It would seem you’ve had a long day,” Nash said in a quiet voice, even though they were alone.

Teddy gave him a look. “You know, don’t you. You know about the second body.”

“We were listening to the radio on the drive over. I expected you might make a return visit in the morning.”

“There’s a chance he’s innocent,” Teddy said.

Nash sipped his wine without saying anything. But Teddy could tell that he’d struck a nerve and the man’s wheels were turning.

“You know that, too, don’t you?” Teddy said. “That’s the real reason why you told me the story behind Derek Campos’s arrest and execution. That’s why you refused to help. In spite of the evidence, you knew there was a chance that Holmes might be innocent, too.”

“You’re reading meaning into things where it was never intended. I didn’t have Holmes in mind when I told you that story. I was thinking about your father. He was innocent, wasn’t he?”

Nash was staring at him now. From the look on the man’s face, it seemed as if he’d spent the afternoon in his library reading up on the subject. But Teddy wasn’t ready for the question. He reached into his pocket for his cigarettes and lit one. He’d never spoken about what happened to his father with anyone and was surprised when he heard himself say yes.

“It was the accountant,” Nash said. “He’s the one who murdered your father’s partner. The three of them had been friends.”

The skyline view fell away, and Teddy found himself staring into the abyss and nodding at it. “They were working on a project,” he whispered. “A lot of money was involved. My father’s partner caught their accountant embezzling money and confronted him.”

“The accountant murdered your father’s partner and made it look like something else.”

Teddy drew on the cigarette. “It was a small police department in the suburbs. They lacked experience and made a lot of mistakes. After my father died in prison, the accountant had a nervous breakdown and came forward. A week later, he tried to deny his confession, but it was too late. He knew things only the murderer could’ve known. They had him.”

“You were just a boy at the time. How did you feel when the police took your father away?”

Teddy shook his head at the memory. “Why do we have to talk about this?”

“Because it’s important. How did you feel?”

“I wanted to kill them,” he whispered.

“As time passed, did the rage go away?”

“Not really.”

Nash paused a moment to take it in. “When you got involved in the Darlene Lewis murder case, did new memories of your father surface?”

Teddy nodded. “In living color.”

“It got worse?”

“Yes.”

“When you first saw her corpse, what were you thinking?”

“That I might be sick. Then all I could think about was the man who did it.”

“And when you first met Holmes, could you still see her corpse? Could you still see Darlene Lewis’s mangled body lying before your eyes?”

“I couldn’t get it out of my head.”

“It made you angry,” Nash said.

“After the shock it did.”

“When you spoke to Holmes, when you were alone with him in the same room, did he seem like a killer? Did he look like one? Did he act the part?”

Teddy nodded, unable to speak and keenly aware that he’d almost repeated what had been done to his father. The idea had been haunting him since the little girl from across the hall entered Holmes’s art studio.

He picked up his glass and finished it off in two quick gulps. The barrage of questions didn’t feel like an interrogation. Instead, there was some degree of kindness in Nash’s voice. Even understanding and compassion as he pushed Teddy on. Nash was peeling back the layers and pointing out his prejudices. Tossing a line into the black hole of his past, and giving Teddy his first glimpse at the way out. When Nash asked how the second body was found, Teddy filled him in on the events of this afternoon. Nash seemed particularly intrigued by the call from Dawn Bingle, agreeing with Teddy that he’d been led to the boathouse.

“The call could be innocent, but it’s not likely,” Nash said. “There’s the possibility that she found the body and didn’t want to get involved with the police, but I don’t think so. In the end, we don’t have enough information to even make a guess.”

Nash turned back to the view, his cobalt-blue eyes taking in the lights thoughtfully. Several moments passed before he broke the silence, his voice remaining quiet even though they were still alone.

“So now there’s a second body,” Nash said. “A second murder. But I’m guessing you haven’t told me what caused the change in your point of view.”

“Valerie Kram was kidnapped in October but only murdered a few weeks ago. I’ve just come from Holmes’s apartment. It wouldn’t have been possible to keep her there. Holmes has a life. He’s got friends. Neighbors. A schedule and a full-time job. If the murders are related, then there’s the chance that Holmes is innocent. The chance the district attorney and everybody else are looking at the physical evidence, and for some inexplicable reason, they’re wrong.”

Nash took another sip of wine. “It seems odd, doesn’t it.”

Teddy remained quiet, watching Nash think out loud.

“If Holmes has killed before,” Nash was saying. “If Darlene Lewis wasn’t his first. How many times have you heard of a killer like that fleeing a crime scene in broad daylight wearing bloody clothes? They’re usually more subtle about it, their indiscretions better planned.”

It hung there. Both of them staring at it. The one sign left behind at the crime scene that pointed away from Holmes.

“Then you agree that it’s possible,” Teddy said.

Nash turned and gave him a long look. “What’s significant is that you do. But none of this means Holmes didn’t do it, Teddy. We’re just talking over a glass of good wine.”

Teddy looked into the dining room and saw Nash’s friend returning to the table. Nash followed his gaze and turned back.

“He didn’t take Darlene Lewis,” Teddy said.

“No, he didn’t.”

“He didn’t do the same things to her.”

Nash lowered his glass. “Tell me what you think the next step is,” he said.

“They need time to process the evidence. The autopsy’s scheduled for tomorrow. While they’re at it, I need to find out if there’s any connection between Holmes and Valerie Kram.”

“It’s important that you attend the autopsy as well. Bring the murder book over in the morning so I can take a closer look. And you better call Barnett tonight and let him know that I’m in.”

He was
in
. Teddy felt a sense of relief hearing Nash say it. But so was Teddy now. He remembered that personal injury case he’d been working on yesterday, even this afternoon. It seemed so important then. Now it was meaningless. A million miles away.

“I’ll give him a call on the way home,” he said. “But I fucked up tonight. They think Holmes told me where the body was. They think that’s how I found it.”

Nash let out a faint smile. “If I’d been in their shoes, Teddy, I’m not sure I would’ve believed your story either. Let them think anything they want for now. We’re just getting started.”

Nash opened the door and they walked back into the dining room. When Nash offered Teddy another glass of wine, he declined. He wanted to keep his mind clear. The night had been filled with the back and forth of the past and present. It had been a strain to keep up with, and he was glad he’d pocketed that bottle of aspirin in the afternoon. Still, he felt more at ease about things and even nodded at the little man behind the front desk on his way out.

As he got into his car and pulled away from the curb, he tried reaching Barnett but hit his voice mail again. Guessing that Barnett had heard the news about the second murder and was consoling Holmes’s family, Teddy left a long message, filling him in on what happened and letting him know that it had taken all day, but William S. Nash was finally on board. Teddy hated long messages, but he didn’t want Barnett to be left hanging. He wanted to give him some degree of hope. Everything had changed. They wouldn’t be walking Holmes through the system so that he could spend the rest of his life in an institution for the criminally insane. They wouldn’t be trying to make a quick deal with Alan Andrews. Not yet anyway.

He made a right at 30th Street Station and started down the ramp to the expressway. The fog had tapered off some and he could make out the string of lights outlining the buildings on the other side of the river along Boathouse Row. Checking his rearview mirror, he saw the city in the clouds and let his mind drift. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep tonight. If Holmes wasn’t the murderer, if he’d walked in on the crime and interrupted it, then that meant the real killer was still out there. Somewhere in one of the buildings all lit up behind him in the smoky mist.

SIXTEEN

Eddie Trisco stood in the middle of the room at Benny’s Café Blue sipping his second caffe latte for the night and knowing he looked like an idiot. He could hear the giggles in the background as he just stood there. The people laughing at him as he tried to blend. Even worse, the high dosage of caffeine had brought the voices back, and he could hear them over all the others as they crept into his head.

He didn’t care. Not tonight.

Besides, everyone was always watching him, and he’d prepared himself for the painful ordeal before he even walked out of his house. Appearing in public went with the job, the life, the edge. He needed to get used to it. Everyone about to become famous did.

He had his eyes on the two students seated at the corner table by the window. College students, holding hands and talking the way kids do who live trouble-free lives. He found their naiveté striking. They’d finished their drinks fifteen minutes ago, yet they remained at the table without any consideration for him or anyone else in the café who wanted to sit down. They were soft and round, the victims of the information age. They were of little interest to him. All he wanted was their table.

Eddie checked his watch. It was almost nine-thirty. The sports club across the street would be closing in another half hour. He needed a seat at that table and he needed it now.

He looked back at the students and could tell they knew he was staring at them. He crossed the room, watching them avert their eyes as he approached them. Then he stopped, standing over the table and looking straight down. At first they giggled like he was crazy. But after a few moments, the giggling stopped and they finally decided to leave. He heard the boy mutter the word
weird
as they collected their backpacks and walked toward the door in slow motion.

Eddie didn’t care. He finally had command of the table and sat down facing the window. The seat remained warm and this bothered him a little. It felt like contact, and he tried to ignore it. Glancing at the table, he noted the empty cups left behind, sugar strewn across the Formica, droplets of cappuccino splashed here and there. He would ignore this, too, he decided. He wouldn’t touch the table. He’d only sit before it so that he could gaze out the window.

She was working out on the Stair Master.

He could see her in the sports club across the street from his seat at the window. Up and down, up and down she strode. Proud, perhaps strong willed, perfect in every detail.

He’d first noticed her two months ago, but had been saving her for an evening just like this one. She worked out three nights a week and looked like she took good care of herself. Her blond hair was tied back at the moment, but he’d seen it down and knew it to be the right length. Her breasts were a little big, but she was only twenty and he guessed it would be a few more years before they broke loose from their moorings and swayed toward the ground. Still, it was her face, of course, that singled her out from all the rest. Her mouth and cheek bones. The way her eyes were set beside her nose—not too narrow and not too far apart. Perfect in every detail, he repeated inside his head. He didn’t know her name yet, but he would.

She got off the Stair Master and appeared to be panting. He watched as she wiped the sweat away from her skin with a towel. Then she stepped away from the machine, heading toward the locker rooms.

Eddie sipped his caffe latte and waited. He’d been keeping an eye on her long enough to know she usually took about twenty minutes to shower and change. After her workout, nine times out of ten she crossed the street and ordered a caffe mocha on ice at Benny’s Café Blue.

He switched seats so that he had a view of the entrance. Then he checked his watch and started counting. Twenty minutes could last forever when you were having this much fun. To pass the time, he played tonight’s scenario in his head. Every detail, every beat. He’d been over it before and didn’t really need any more practice. But he did it anyway, again and again, until he looked up and saw her walking through the door.

He glanced about the room and noticed the men looking at her. All of them, even the one behind the counter with that stupid grin on his face. She smiled back at the man, ordering her drink while trying to manage her purse and gym bag. She had her hands full. But that was part of the plan as well. One of the details. One of the beats.