The Unforgivable Fix (28 page)

“What do you want me to do?”

Paul Bauer tucked Zach's flash drive into his pocket. “You have a copy, right?”

Lydia nodded.

“Then your job is to stay put. No interaction with this guy. We'll put a tail on Zach and his partner in crime. Let's see if we can get some photos of the two of them together to help cement this case.” He reached for his jacket. “Go home, Lydia. Get some rest. No offense, but you look like hell, Doc. I'll call you later.”

She walked him out, wanting to lock up behind him. They were both surprised to see Mort reaching for the knob at the precise moment she opened the door. He looked even more spent than when she'd left him with Allie the night before. Mort tensed when he saw the tall black man standing beside Lydia. Bauer instinctively placed a protective arm on Lydia's shoulder and maneuvered himself in front of her. Two heartbeats later, both men relaxed.

“Mort Grant, right?” Bauer extended his arm.

“That's me.” Mort shook the detective's hand. “Paul Bauer. It's been, what? Maybe three years?”

“Try closer to four. I think the last time I saw you was that state association thing in Yakima. That guy on your squad…Italian guy…the one with the dog…”

Mort's face lightened. “Jim De Villa. And the dog's Bruiser. That's right. Jimmy and Bruiser had gotten a commendation. We went out to celebrate and you came with. That was a good night.”

Bauer's laugh removed any intimidation a man his size might project. “Who knew a dog could get into so many places?”

“Well,” Mort said. “Jimmy's been practicing excuses for years. Bruiser's been everything from a sworn federal agent to a canine lie detector who can sniff imaginary chemicals off people telling fibs. He'll say anything to keep that pooch close.” Mort nodded toward Lydia. “Liddy told me you were investigating a case she was working. It's good to see you.”

Bauer turned playful green eyes her way. “Talking about me to your friends, huh?” He turned back to Mort. “I didn't know the two of you knew each other.”

Mort's casual warmth faltered. Lydia hoped Bauer didn't notice.

“Lydia and I crossed paths a few years ago. A homicide. We thought one of her patients might be involved.” Mort shrugged. “We were wrong. Now, if I happen to be in the area, I swing by to check up on her.” He tried to sound nonchalant. “Make sure she's staying out of trouble.”

Bauer nodded and glanced between the two of them. “Well, I have to be going. It was good to see you again, Mort. Say hi to Jim for me, will you? And his dog, too. Tell him I still get a laugh every time I think of beer cheese soup.”

Mort grimaced at the inside joke.

Paul Bauer leaned toward her. “Remember what I said. Stay put. I'll call you later…Liddy.”

Lydia stepped aside to let Mort in and Bauer out. “Where's Allie?” she asked once she closed the door.

“Beauty parlor.” Mort dragged himself into her office and fell onto her sofa. “I told her about Patrick. Not the details. She doesn't need to have that picture in her brain. But she knows he's dead.”

Because she arranged it, Mort. She tipped him off about your plans to arrest him. She set him up to die.
“How'd she take it?”

“Not well. Shock. Disbelief. Then the tears. Patrick Duncan was brutal in his dealings, from all I've heard. But I suppose she knew a side of him we'll never understand. Love makes us blind, I guess.”

Lydia considered his assessment. “So how did she end up at a salon?”

“Poor kid.” Mort leaned his head back against the sofa. “Like I said, she took it hard. I told her that at least she didn't need to worry about him looking for her. Then, of course, she wants to know what Duncan's death means for her as relates to the feds.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I tried to reassure her, but with Duncan gone, it could go either way. The DEA may just decide to refocus on whoever plans to take his place and leave Allie alone.”

You don't believe that any more than Allie does.
“And Allie decides that a facial is just what she needed to get over her grief?”

“Can you cut her any slack at all, Liddy? I get it. You don't like her. But look at what she's been through.”

All of her own design, Mort. A spider spinning her own web.

“I suggested we go out for lunch,” Mort continued. “You were gone by the time we got up. I figured maybe getting out of the house would help her mood. Allie starts in on how she's not presentable. She doesn't have any clothes…thanks for letting her borrow so many things, by the way. She says her hair needs cutting. Her nails are a mess. I remember how much she and Edie used to love to go get all primped up. So it was
my
suggestion that she call and see if she could get in somewhere. I told her to go for the works.”

Lydia could visualize the scene Allie created to manipulate her father into doing exactly what she wanted him to do.

“And you're confident she'll be okay alone?”

Mort nodded. “The beauty parlor is on the fifth floor. She's got no car keys and no money. It's raining and cold. And besides, Allie loves those places. She's like a different person the minute she steps foot inside. They told me she'd be ready for pickup in four hours. I thought I'd swing by here and see if you were hungry.”

Lydia wondered how such a kind man could produce an offspring so willing to prey on that very trait. But she would leave Mort's relationship with Allie to him. She had all she could handle managing her own détente with his daughter.

“I've been so busy here I haven't even thought of eating.”

Mort nodded to the stacks of paper and boxes on her desk. “What is all this stuff?”

“You really want to know?”

Mort's fatigue disappeared from his face. He leaned forward, on full alert; an alpha dog roused from his slumber and ready to attack anyone who dared to threaten a member of his pack. “This have something to do with why Bauer was here?”

Lydia leaned against her desk. “It started after you were nagging me about getting back to work.” She went on to explain the mess she currently found herself in with Zach. She explained the chronology of it all, as well as her theory. She connected the dots. She answered every question he had. Twenty minutes later, Mort agreed with her. There could be no other explanation.

“And he's trying to pin this on
you
?” Mort sounded bewildered. “How's that work?”

Lydia told him about the digitized recordings. The phony tapes Zach had his girlfriend make.

“Making you think Brianna's working on stomach problems, while all the time Zach's implanting those memories.”

“Correct. He had to have something to give me. Brianna was coming in twice a week. He knew I'd be leery if he couldn't provide me with something from each session. And I took him at his word.”

Mort shook his head. “You know, Liddy, I've been at this a long time. Every time I think I've seen the worst human nature can throw at me, something always comes along to prove me wrong. This is worse than murder. Those girls will have those memories forever. And if you're right about the motive it's…it's…I don't know what.”

“Unforgivable,” Lydia offered. “And I've got to find a way to fix it.”

“Bauer's on it, Liddy,” Mort warned. “Let him—”

Lydia's phone interrupted his lecture. Lydia looked at her cell and saw Sharon Luther was calling. A pull inside her urged her to take the call.

“What the hell's going on down there, Lydia?” Sharon didn't waste any time on pleasantries. “First Zach tells me you've bounced him out on his ear for no good reason. Now I get this message from him telling me where he left the keys to the lab. I get down there and sure enough, there's a twelve-page outline of everything the lab assistants need to do, along with a letter of resignation. He's moving away, he says. Just like that. No notice, no reason. He's dropping out of the program and he's gone.”

“When did you read the note?” Lydia's tone pulled Mort up from the sofa.

“I'm holding it now. What did you do to him, Lydia? What has him so upset he's willing to write off an entire career?”

“Did you see him? Was he there?”

“I'm alone in the lab.” Sharon's frustration rang through the phone. “The door scan shows he left here about an hour ago. What did you do?”

Lydia hung up without answering and turned to Mort. “Zach's making a run for it.” She called up Zach's contact information on her phone, scribbled Zach's home address, and shoved it in Mort's hand. “Call Bauer. Tell him what's happening. I'm heading over there.”

Mort reached for her arm but she was two steps ahead of him, heading for her car. “Wait! At least let me go with you…”

Lydia was too far ahead of him to hear what he was yelling next.

She headed south on Capitol Boulevard, following the directions her phone provided and driving faster on the rain-slicked streets than a local cop might like. She looked in her rearview mirror. No sign yet of a police car. Perhaps Bauer would come alone, in his private vehicle. When she took the curve onto Yelm Highway she saw Mort's Honda speeding up behind her.

“Your destination is on your left,”
the sultry voice on her phone told her.
“Turn left now
.
”

Lydia obeyed and entered a neighborhood of run-down houses that may have been showplaces back in the day, when owners kept their investments trim and gleaming. Now they were inhabited by renters too busy with extra jobs, day-care pickups, and community-college courses to take the time for household maintenance. She found Zach's address, parked in the street, and ran toward it.

The door should have been locked. Lydia looked up and down the residential side street and saw no movement through the chilling November rain. The porch was wet with footsteps that weren't hers. She pulled her Beretta out of her pocket, clicked off the safety, and pushed the door open.

She knew better. Never enter a situation without full control.

But she'd been in a hurry.

Lydia stepped into the small foyer. Wet footprints directed her right, into the living room. She held her gun to her side and stepped across an old Oriental rug. She stood in the middle of the space and listened. She was met with nothing but the low-level buzz of an empty house.

She entered the kitchen. The odors of bacon and coffee lingered in the air. She touched the half-filled carafe in the coffeemaker. Barely warm. Whoever made the pot hadn't touched it for at least an hour. The back door overlooked an empty driveway. She reached for the doorknob. Locked.

Lydia circled left, past an empty powder room and a cluttered office across from a polished wooden staircase. She glanced back down the hall toward the front door. She placed her left foot on the far side of the first stair and brought her right foot to the opposite end. Until she was sure the entire house was empty, she didn't want to reveal her presence with a creaky step to the center. She mounted the stairs without a sound, turned on the landing to begin the full climb to the second story, and saw the body. One leg protruded over the uppermost steps, the other was bent to the side.

I know those old-man shoes. I told him he was too young for wing tips.

Lydia scrambled up the stairs, not bothering to stifle her scream.

“Mort!”

She heard him barge into the house.

“Up here!” she called. Lydia rolled Zach Edwards's lifeless body over. A pool of blood soaked the dingy carpet beneath him. Ravaged skin and hair hung from the gunshot wound to his head.

Mort was there now, his gun drawn and looking past her.

“Freeze!” he yelled. “Drop your weapon.”

Lydia turned, immediately jumped up, and trained her own Beretta on Mort's target.

Kenton Walder slumped in a faded, overstuffed chair on the opposite side of the darkened room. “Thank God you're here. I thought he was going to kill me. It all happened so fast.” Walder's voice had the detached flatness of a person in shock. “He was going to kill me.”

“I said drop your weapon. Kick it over to me.” Mort kept his gun on Walder. “I won't ask again.”

Kenton Walder tossed his gun to his feet and kicked it without getting out of the chair. His unblinking eyes stared into space.

Lydia turned toward the sound of another set of footsteps coming up the stairs. Paul Bauer stopped at the sight of her holding an automatic pistol while standing over a dead body and drew his service revolver. His eyes communicated a status request.

“Come on up, Detective,” she said. “It appears to be over.”

Bauer held his gun in both hands as he climbed to meet her. This space might have been what a Realtor called a bonus room. The area was open and wide, with a wrought-iron railing to overlook the living room below. Zach must have used it as his technology cave. Boxes of cables and cords were stacked next to a desk fashioned from cinder blocks and an old door, laden with control boxes, servers, modems, and speakers. Bauer looked down at Zach Edwards's body.

“He's dead?”

“Yes,” Lydia said softly. “Bullet to the head.”

Bauer nodded to Mort, who kicked Kenton Walder's gun toward him. Bauer pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and used it to pick up the weapon. He brought it to his nose and sniffed. Lydia could smell the acrid gunpowder stench from where she stood.

“Mr. Walder, I'm Detective Paul Bauer of the Olympia Police Department. Can you tell me what happened here, sir?”

Walder sat, staring ahead and saying nothing.

“Mr. Walder, did you do this thing?” Bauer holstered his weapon and pulled out his phone. While Kenton Walder sat silently, Bauer called for a coroner, a forensic team, and a squad car. He told them to take their time. The situation was locked down.

Bauer turned to Lydia. “Is he in shock?”

Lydia had seen way too many siuations like this. Victims overcome by what their bodies did while disengaged from their own minds. Average folks pressed to act in total opposition to the social constructs buried so deep in their core that their behavior, though necessary for their own survival, forced their mind to shut down. She'd witnessed the crash following the rage of a battered and beaten person who'd finally had enough and struck back at her abuser with deadly force. She'd inhaled the stench of adrenaline and sweat mixed with lethal fear. She'd seen the ashen faces drained of all color as overwhelmed limbic systems pumped every spare ounce of blood into fists and legs.

“Can you hear me, Mr. Walder?” she asked.

Kenton Walder stared straight ahead, saying nothing.

“Tell me what you're doing here, Mr. Walder.” Bauer went on with his questioning in a neutral tone.

“Dr. Edwards called me.” Walder answered him this time. “He's been treating my daughter.”

“That's not quite true.” Lydia stepped toward him. “He did one assessment and was off the case.”

Walder turned an expressionless face toward her. “No, Dr. Corriger. Dr. Edwards was seeing Emma on a regular basis. My wife and I were terribly distraught when you refused to see Emma. You'd been so highly recommended. We tried to get you to change your mind, but you insisted you were too busy to take on our case. We knew Dr. Edwards worked with you. He'd done such a wonderful job on the assessment. Emma said she felt she could trust him. So we hired Dr. Edwards to treat Emma. He's been seeing her three times a week when Emma's with us. He comes to our home. Dr. Edwards told me you were supervising him every step of the way. It was like the next best thing to having you.”

Lydia clenched her jaw and looked back at the corpse of Zach Edwards. Of course. That would be the final piece in the puzzle.

“So you say Dr. Edwards called you,” Bauer prompted.

“Yes. He told me to come alone, that there'd been a frightful new development in Emma's case he wanted to discuss. Of course, I came right away. I'd do anything for my daughter.”

“How'd Dr. Edwards end up dead, Mr. Walder?” Bauer asked.

Kenton Walder retreated again into silence. His eyes lost their focus and he tilted his head, as if listening to a far-off orchestra.

The sound of the door banging open a floor below pulled Lydia's attention away. Mort and Paul Bauer stepped aside, making way for what Lydia assumed would be a small army of crime-scene processors. But only one set of footsteps approached the stairs.

“Sweetie? You up there?” It was Peggy Goines, Zach's girlfriend. The star of his many recordings. She shrieked when she saw Zach's body. Lydia heard a tumble of objects and assumed Peggy had dropped whatever it was she was holding as she hurried toward her dead lover.

Peggy's screaming doubled in its intensity when she saw the blood. Bauer stepped toward her and pulled her away.

“Who are you?” she wailed. “Is Zach dead?” Peggy turned toward Lydia. “Why are you here?” she screeched. “Did you do this?”

Bauer showed her his credentials. “This gentleman is Mort Grant, chief of detectives with the Seattle Police Department. You've met Dr. Corriger, and I assume you know this man.” Bauer pointed to Walder, still seated in the overstuffed chair.

“No.” Peggy's blotchy face was tearstained. “Who's he?”

Lydia stood and exchanged glances with Mort and Bauer. “This is Kenton Walder, Peggy. Mr. Walder says Zach invited him here today.”

Peggy nodded. She started to sway. Bauer wrapped an arm around her before she could fall.

“Do you know this to be a fact, Peggy?” Bauer asked.

Again, Peggy nodded. “Mr. Walder is investing in Zach's business. Zach's a psychologist. He's going to make training tapes for students.” She wiped a trail of snot and tears away with the sleeve of her sweater. “Zach and I had made some demonstration tapes. I played a patient named Brianna. The tapes were good. Zach said we were going to be rich.” She turned to Lydia. “But then you sent Zach away from your clinic. He was so upset. He stayed up all night working on new stuff. This time he didn't need my help.”

Lydia assumed it was the frame-up tape that had him burning the midnight oil.

“Zach said we had to move back to Oregon. He made a list of things we needed and sent me to go shopping while he and Mr. Walder discussed business. He said Mr. Walder was going to give us an advance on the investment money and we'd be set to go.”

All eyes focused on Kenton Walder, whose head swayed as he kept time to a concerto no one else could hear.

Paul Bauer turned to Lydia. “Has he had some sort of psychotic break?”

Just as Lydia had experience with the shock people can sink into when compelled to do the unspeakable, she'd also seen Walder's behavior dozens of times. The frightened innocence and disbelief. The shell-shocked expression, the murmurs of gratitude for being rescued. The retreat into what they hope will be explained away as traumatic withdrawal; fully expected when a good person is forced to commit heinous brutality.

It was all an act.

Her rage mounted as she recalled Zach's words.
He's going to get away with it.

Lydia shook her head. “He's trying something different.” Her tone telegraphed her weary disgust. “He's already tried ‘I don't know what happened,' followed quickly by ‘Thank God, you're here.' Don't worry. He's fine.” She saw a brief image of Will Sorens weeping helpless tears. She'd had enough.

“I know what you did, Walder.” Lydia walked toward the man sitting stunned in the chair. “You raped your stepdaughter. In fact, I'm betting you chose Darlene Sorens specifically to get to Emma. An attractive woman with a young daughter comes to work for you. You start flirting with her. She bites. You court her. A wedding follows. It looks to all the world as though you're the answer to every woman's prayer. But it wasn't Darlene or Dee or whatever it is she's calling herself you were after. You wanted her daughter. You start grooming her with presents and big adventures. Then you make your move. Subtle lingering touches at first. Just to see how she reacts. Then promises of how special she is…how much you love her…how it's her fault for being so wonderful you can't help yourself. Then maybe you offer to wash her back in the bubble bath. She's a little uncomfortable when you dry her off so slowly, but you assure her everything's fine. It isn't very long at all before you're raping the little girl who wanted nothing more than for her mommy to be happy.”

Kenton Walder, his eyes fixed on something far away, said nothing.

“But you hadn't counted on Emma's father. When she started cutting, trying so hard to make herself ugly enough you'd leave her alone, Will Sorens protected his daughter. He got the whole story out of her. Every disgusting detail of how you were brutalizing his little soccer star. Will went to the cops. And you got busy trying to save your sorry ass.”

Walder didn't move.

“The judge acted quickly. You had to be supervised any time you were with Emma. Since you couldn't get to her and manipulate her to change her story, you decided to discredit her in a whole other way.” Lydia knelt down beside Walder, staring at him while he focused somewhere else. “You and your family have been in Olympia for generations. You lived through what happened a quarter century ago. That hysteria with Paul Ingram. How poor questioning techniques and inept therapy led to Ingram and his daughters remembering things that never happened. And you experienced how the community reacted once it was discovered the girls' accusations—the Satan worshipping and all the sexual abuse that went with it—never happened. You were probably part of the chorus swearing such a thing would never happen in this town again.”

Lydia was close enough to see his hand twitch. Despite his continued pose of detached trauma, she was getting to him.

“It wouldn't have been difficult for you to find Zach,” she persisted. “He's well published in the area of implanted memories. It must have been easy to convince him. You could have played on his scientific ego. And then backed it up with money.” Lydia held her hands to indicate the room. “Look around you. Zach wasn't exactly living large. You hired him to play the role of bumbling therapist. Find a few patients, implant memories of sexual abuse, and let the accusations begin. You knew they would be proved false. Especially in Olympia, where folks have learned their lesson about believing without verifying. And you have him treat Emma. As the stories of the false memories emerge and the charges against those truly innocent folks fall apart, so would yours. Emma would be branded as just another poor victim made crazy by bad therapy. She'd be returned to your home and you'd have your perfect victim for the rest of her life. You could do absolutely anything you wanted to her and no one would believe any complaint she dared to lodge. Zach's reputation would suffer, of course, but you'd offer him enough money that he could retire comfortably at the ripe old age of twenty-six. A pretty damned perfect plan, I'd have to say.” She leaned in closer. “Whose idea was it to make it look like the entire scheme was my idea? I'm guessing it was Zach's. He needed some insurance to force me into submission on the off chance I figured things out. You wouldn't want anyone other than you and Zach involved. Because then, once you were cleared, all you had to do was kill Zach and make it look like a suicide. Who could blame him, after all? He'd ruined the lives of so many young women with his worthless attempts at therapy. The only one left who'd know what you'd done would be Emma…and soon she'd be so crazy no one would listen to her at all.”