Trace of Doubt (11 page)

Chapter 18

A
couple of days passed. Ben Sato called me a few times to see how my DNA tests were going, and I told him that as soon as I had the results he would be the first to know. I tried to busy myself. At night I played Scrabble with David or read voraciously. One evening David and I went to Quinn’s to play darts.

I tried to keep my mind off my attacker, but it was hard not to feel as if his eyes were on me every time I left my apartment. I willed the DNA tests to be completed faster, but nothing about this was in my control. Science is like a cold-hearted lover. It will leave you brokenhearted. It’s not like a jury, swayed by emotion. Eyewitnesses don’t matter—they’re unreliable anyway. DNA is the genetic code. Unbreakable.

Lewis approached me on a Friday. The same day the weather broke. Actually, the weather did more than break. It poured. The rain seemed like the proverbial Great Flood, and weathermen and radio DJs were regularly making jokes about building an ark. That morning, Tommy Salami and I decided he should stay home. No need to have us both drowning like wet rats. Of course, he gave me his usual, “Don’t tell your father,” like the two of us were truant grade-schoolers. David walked me down to my car, holding a big golf umbrella over my head. I climbed in my car, shook off the cold droplets of water and drove to the lab.

I walked into the lab around six-forty-five, shaking my hair, and opting for a ponytail to contain my wet mop head. I actually felt chilly for the first time in ages and went in search of a brewing coffee pot. Lewis found me as I was stirring my mug.

“Got the DNA results on some of your samples.”

“And?”

“Come to my office.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. When we got there, I shut the door behind me, my knees actually feeling weak, and collapsed into one of the velour chairs facing his desk.

“First off, your paternity test.” He slid a file folder across the desk. I leaned forward and read the results.

I was a hundred percent Quinn. My father’s daughter.

“Oh, Lewis,” I smiled through tears. I shut the folder and clutched it to my chest and actually gave it a hug.

“Yes, you are absolutely related to that motley crew—genetically and, quite frankly, with that attitude of yours.” He grinned at me. “I’m honestly pleased, Billie. Wouldn’t seem right after all these years for you to find out Frank isn’t your dad.”

“Thanks, Lewis.”

“More information.” He slid another file folder across the desk.

I opened the folder. The flecks of dried blood on the lock of hair left for me on my car that night were
also
a match for me. It was my mother’s hair. Without any doubt, this wasn’t a hoax. My mother’s killer had resurfaced for sure.

“Seems like that bit of news matches the weather. Downright gloomy,” he drawled. “You know, every time I see rain like this it reminds me of New Orleans drowning. I swear I almost put a shot of bourbon in my coffee today.”

I kept staring at the results. “Lewis, all this time, I had some vague hope she hadn’t suffered. I pictured a bloodless death. Quick. No torture. Every time my mind would go that way, I would stop it in its tracks. Especially with this place. You can go nuts thinking about how people died.”

“I know. It’s easier when it’s all test tubes, and you don’t think much beyond X and Y chromosomes to how and why someone was murdered.”

“Exactly. But the blood on that lock of hair, it means she suffered, Lewis. And I’ve known it. I’ve known it all along, but it still, well, it makes me want to stick a shot of bourbon in my coffee today, too.”

“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

“Nah.” I shook my head. “I have that new guy starting—Antoine Purcell. He’s just a kid. Smart as hell, though. His transcripts—perfect 4.0.”

“Another scholar. Excellent.”

“You should see his handwriting, though.” I laughed. “He should have been a doctor. Unreadable. Writes like a sixth-grader.”

And then it hit me.

“Oh, God, Lewis…”

“What?”

I stood up. “I have to run home. I’ll be back before nine—maybe a few minutes later with traffic.”

“What? You’re disturbing me.”

“You’re already disturbed. I just have to get something.”

I didn’t have time to explain. I grabbed my commuter mug from his desk and hurried from his office and then the lab. I raced to my car.

A clue had been there in front of me the whole time. The cards from the box my father gave me.

Of course.

Andrew…was a child.

Chapter 19

B
ack at my apartment, I kissed David as he rolled over in bed and stretched.

“Didn’t I walk you downstairs at like five-thirty?”

I nodded. “I forgot something.”

“And you drove all the way back here? I could have brought it to you, honey.”

“No. I needed to come home. By the way, the DNA tests? I’m all Quinn.”

“That’s great news.” He leaned up on one elbow. “You look gorgeous today.”

I stared at him. “I’m soaking wet.”

“I like the wet T-shirt look.” His smile was playful yet seductive.

“Well, no time for a quickie today. I’ve got to get back to the lab.” I pulled the box of my mother’s things down from the closet and pulled out the cards from Andrew.

Opening one, I looked at the handwriting again. I showed it to David.

“What does this say to you…? The handwriting.”

“Looks like my handwriting when I was in junior high.”

“I’m not wrong, then.” I didn’t need a hand writing expert to tell me what was right there. “Thanks, sweetie.” I leaned down and kissed him passionately on the mouth. Then I hurried to the kitchen and pulled out a gallon Ziploc bag. I didn’t want to risk my evidence getting wet. With the cards secure, I pulled a sweater off of the brass coatrack next to the apartment door. I put it on under my raincoat and then bolted, calling out, “Bye, David,” as I slammed the door.

Safely in my Cadillac, I pulled out into morning rush hour feeling optimistic. I drove back to the lab and hurried in to see Lewis. Just as I had with David, I opened a card and showed it to him.

“What does this say to you?”

“Some little high school boy has a major crush on you.”

“Not me. Look at the name.”

“Claire. Your mother.”

I nodded. “When Ben and I interviewed Daniel, he said something about her being a little…unnerved—I don’t think he used that word—but something he couldn’t put his finger on, by someone with a crush on her. I think Andrew—whoever he is—is the killer. And I think she was his first victim. But not his last. So all we have to do is figure out who he is, and then track him through time. And we solve the case.”

“How were the cards stored?”

“In a box with other stuff my mom saved. And these cards were all separate—saved with her most prized possessions—cards from me and Mikey and my dad. She was worried about these cards, Lewis. Keeping them to show my dad or the police. I just feel it.”

“The box was kept dry all these years?”

“In Dad’s closet.”

“Then maybe we have his saliva. We can try to get a sample from here, where he licked it. It’s a long shot—a lot of years have passed. But,” he lifted the envelope to his nose. “I don’t smell mildew or dampness. Let’s try it.”

“Great. And if we get a DNA sample, then we can try to match it against the scrap of pant leg and blood that Bo managed to get. I also want to try something else.”

“What?”

“Hypnosis.”

“Here, follow this pen with your eyes. You are getting sleepy…very sleepy. When I count to ten, you will give Lewis LeBarge all your money. In cash.”

“Don’t be such an idiot. Look, I’m a witness. And maybe somewhere in my brain is the answer.”

“Billie, you have been over that night in so much detail, I think you’ve literally relived every breath you took then.”

I shook my head. “I want to try. You’re a scientist. You know the brain stores far more than we ever access.”

“I had a friend who was at the forefront of studies involving MDMA before the government shut him down.”

MDMA was a drug some thought helped a person recall suppressed memories, or memories in greater detail.

“And?”

“And he used it himself a few times. He was ten years older than I was. A product of the late sixties. Timothy Leary. Dropping acid. He said he was able to recall the exact angle of the pile carpeting in his child mind when he would lie on the floor watching television. He could recall specific dust bunnies. It’s all in the brain, but we process things so we don’t overload. The brain decides what’s necessary to recall and what can be tucked away in some dusty old file.”

“Exactly. Maybe I’ve been trying so hard that my brain just shut down. Locked away a secret.”

“What does Ben think?”

“I don’t know. Why does it matter what he thinks?”

“I know you love David. I know you adore him.” He twirled a pencil in his hand. “But you have some kind of connection with Ben.”

“We barely know each other.”

“Don’t get defensive. I didn’t say you would act on it. It’s just there. Something. A deep and quiet passion for what you do. Maybe in some Jungian sense, he’s your other half. The warrior and the scientific mind, both doing battle against evil. I don’t know.”

“You’re definitely drinking too much while pondering Greek mythology.”

“I’m just saying. Ben will know whether it’s a good idea or not. You know, Tommy Two Trees said to me that Ben Sato was the man he respected most in law enforcement. As he put it, it was as if he was born to instinctively do this.”

“Maybe… You win. We’ll ask him what he thinks.”

“Good. Don’t want to do anything to screw up that brain of yours. I need it too much around here.”

When I had a quiet moment later on, I called Ben’s cell phone and explained what I wanted to do.

“Have you ever been hypnotized before?”

“No.”

“You might not be suggestible. A lot of people aren’t. Academic types especially.”

“Because they resist. Lord knows I’ve never done drugs in my life precisely because my brain was always going a million miles an hour and I didn’t want to mess with it. It’s a control thing. But I
want
to be hypnotized. Don’t you think it’s at least worth a try given some of these new clues?” I had told him about the DNA, about my gut feeling.

“I’ll arrange it. The department’s psychologist can do it.”

“Fine. The sooner the better.”

“You are very brave.”

“Why? Because some guy is going to hypnotize me?”

“Because only a warrior would go back to that night.”

“Thanks,” I said quietly.

I hung up the phone and thought about it. I would go back to that night if it meant catching her killer. In truth, I’d been going back to that night again and again for twenty years.

Chapter 20

I
was lying on a comfortable leather couch, my head resting on the arm. The lights were dim. A Lucite clock rested on the bookshelves in front of me, and I focused for the moment on its tick, tick, tock.

Ben Sato was out of my line of sight. Lewis was in the waiting room with Tommy Salami, because I decided it was more likely I’d laugh or make a wisecrack with Lewis there than let go. Really let go. And fall backward into time.

The psychologist’s name was George Guinness. He reminded me of the original father of psychology himself, Sigmund Freud, with a trimmed, clipped grayish beard. Or maybe Santa Claus was a better description, for though George wasn’t fat, he was jovial, with reddish cheeks. He was a stereotype right down to his tweed sport coat, and I could smell ever so subtly the faint scent of pipe tobacco.

Ben and I had explained to him what happened to my mother, and how we were hoping we could maybe unearth something I’d repressed in my subconscious mind, forgotten or pushed away as too painful.

After my mother was murdered, I had told police with certainty that a man had been in the house—a man I never actually saw. My mother had called out to him that she would be just a moment. She had seemed unnerved. But with suspicion falling on my father, and Mikey asleep at the time and unable to recall anything, the police considered my story the unreliable testimony of a little girl who didn’t want to believe her mother could have abandoned her children.

Before I even got there Ben had met with George to map out some of the questions to ask. If Ben was anything like me, he was just as anxious to see what, if anything, my little-girl brain could recall.

George Guinness started by asking me to shut my eyes. I tried not to feel self-conscious. He turned on a faint white-noise machine to block out any sounds but his voice. Ben reached out his hand and patted my shoulder, then I could hear him lean back against his leather chair, and I concentrated on George’s voice.

Unlike movies or television, the process of hypnosis isn’t instantaneous. No one holds up a pocket watch for you to look at going back and forth, back and forth. In fact, the person being hypnotized does a lot of the work. George instructed me to breathe deeply, concentrating on my breath, in and out, belly breathing like in yoga. With each breath, I was supposed to relax into the couch, my body becoming heavy. Then he had me relax each muscle group in isolation.

At all times his voice was calming, soothing, monotone yet not negative. “Tighten all the muscles in your left calf. Tighten, tighten, as I count to five. One, two, three, four, five. Now release. Release and relax. Your leg feels heavier as it sinks into the couch in a pleasant state of deep relaxation. With each breath you are going deeper, deeper, deeper into relaxation.

“Excellent. Now you will tighten the muscles of your left thigh. Breathe deeper as I count to five. Tighten, one, two, three, four, five…”

At some point, I drifted off. It felt like sleep—and yet not. And George told me in this place, this relaxed state, I would answer his questions.

I could hear him, as if he were far off down a tunnel. In the distance. I heard him and I heard myself. My voice was foreign, not my own. It was breathy, sleepy, quiet, as if I might doze off at any moment. Relaxed. Peaceful. George reminded me I was safe. He was there. Ben was there. Nothing bad could happen to me. Nothing could harm me.

First George had me describe the house. My room. My doll. I could see details as if the colors were fresher. I was
there.

My mother came into the room. I smelled her perfume. I was aware of myself talking to George, but the words fell from my mouth uncensored, without thinking, as if releasing gentle butterflies that fluttered away. I was conscious of them but they flitted around me, and I forgot them as soon as I spoke them. I didn’t worry, because George told me not to. And because I knew he was taping me.

She leaned down to kiss me, stroking my hair, my face. I saw a tear in her eye. Her voice quivering ever so slightly.

Then I came to the part when my mother said she had to leave. I tossed my head from side to side. So George said he was going to take me still deeper into my trance.

And then the world went black.

I heard my voice—what I knew to be my voice, only I wouldn’t have recognized it—speaking on tape.

“This is creepy,” I whispered. Lewis nodded. Ben was staring at the tape recorder on the table as if it were alive. George just kept nodding.

“You were an excellent subject. Went very deep, Billie.”

GEORGE: And what is your mother saying to you, Billie?

BILLIE: Don’t be afraid, Billie. Mama loves you. Whatever you hear, you stay up here. Don’t come down. No matter what. No matter what, Billie, I don’t want you to come out of the room. Oh…she’s afraid.

GEORGE: Your mother?

BILLIE: There’s a shadow. A man is in the hallway. She’s talking to him.
“Just one minute, Andrew. Please.”

GEORGE: Can you see Andrew?

BILLIE: No. I see his shadow. But Mama…she leaves with him. I hear her.
“Don’t hurt them and I will go with you.”

I burst into tears, as Lewis handed me a tissue. I couldn’t even speak. Lewis stood and walked around the table to my chair and wrapped me in a hug. After a minute or two, I calmed down a bit, though I was trembling.

Ben pressed Stop. “You
did
recall his name. You never did that before?”

I shook my head. “I affected her voice. Did you hear that? I almost sound like her.”

“So now what?” Lewis looked at Ben.

“Now we go back to the original interviews again. We go back to every neighbor, every person who could have possibly crossed paths with Billie’s mother. We look for an adolescent boy, or a young man, named Andrew.”

I looked resolutely at Lewis, my voice more certain. “We’re going to get him.”

“Yes.” Lewis stared back at me. “But let’s do it quickly before he gets you in the bargain.”