“Really? Wow. That’s crazy.”
“That was the insight I needed. He had already admitted this ‘hunt’ was more than just that: it was an exorcism of his experience here. When he spared my life, I knew that Ozmian was exorcising a far bigger demon than even he himself was aware of. Something terrible had happened to him here, far worse than sessions with a psychiatrist, drugs, and restraints.”
D’Agosta, as usual, was uncertain as to where Pendergast was going, or even what he was talking about.
“So how’d you get him?”
“If I may be allowed self-congratulation, I’m rather proud of my final stratagem, which was to expend all the rounds in my weapon, thus fostering a false sense of security in my opponent, encouraging him to rush headlong into my final setup.”
“So where is he?”
“In the basement of Building Ninety-Three, in a room he once knew very well. A room where the doctors made him into the man he is today.”
D’Agosta’s feet were finally freed and he stood up. He was freezing. Ozmian had tossed his clothes on a chair, and now he went to retrieve them. “Made him into the man he is today? What does that mean?”
“When he was twelve, our man was the guinea pig in a course of brutal and experimental electroconvulsive shock treatments here. The treatments wiped out his short-term memory, as is usual with those treatments. But memories, even the most deeply buried, are never quite extinguished, and I managed to nudge his back — to spectacular effect.”
“Shock treatments?” D’Agosta pulled on his coat.
“Yes. As you may recall, he claimed not to have received them at King’s Park. When he released me, I knew differently. I knew he’d gotten them but didn’t remember. I found in the basement archives an investigator’s file outlining the experimental treatments — and in it was the actual script, every word written out, of how the doctors would calm the poor boy down and persuade him to sit in a forbidding-looking shock chair. It turns out Ozmian got a particularly robust course of treatment. The normal dosage is four hundred fifty volts at zero point nine amp for half a second. Our fellow got the same voltage, but at triple the amperage for no less than ten seconds. In addition, the electrodes fired in sequence from front to back and side to side of the cranium. He was immediately sent into extreme convulsions during the process and for many minutes after it ceased. I would speculate the treatments did considerable damage to the right supramarginal gyrus.”
“What’s that?”
“The part of the brain that is responsible for empathy and compassion. That brain damage might perhaps explain how a man could murder and decapitate his own daughter, as well as take pleasure in the hunting and killing of human beings. And now, Vincent, there is your radio: please call for backup from your people, and I will do the same with the Bureau. We have the brutal murder of a decorated federal agent to report, as well as the perpetrator under restraint, who has, unfortunately, now descended fully into madness and will need to be handled with great care.”
He turned and gathered his own clothes and equipment, which had been piled in a corner. Pausing, D’Agosta watched as Pendergast gazed at Longstreet’s remains, making a slow, sorrowful gesture, almost a bow. He then turned back to D’Agosta. “My dear friend, I almost failed you.”
“No way, Pendergast. Ditch the modesty. I knew that bastard didn’t stand a chance against you.”
Pendergast turned away, to hide from D’Agosta the expression on his face.
65
Bryce Harriman threaded his way through the vast, busy newsroom of the Post and stopped at the far end, before Petowski’s door. This was the second unscheduled meeting to which he’d been summoned in as many weeks. It was not only unusual — it was unheard of. And when he’d gotten the message — summons, actually — all the relief he’d felt at being suddenly, unexpectedly released from jail had evaporated.
This couldn’t be good.
He took a deep breath, knocked.
“Come,” came the voice of Petowski.
This time, Petowski was the only person in the room. He was sitting behind the desk, swinging his chair from side to side and fiddling with a pencil. He glanced up at Harriman for a minute, then glanced back down at the pencil. He didn’t offer the reporter a chair.
“Did you read about the news conference the NYPD gave this morning?” he asked, still swinging back and forth.
“Yes.”
“The killer — the Decapitator, as you branded him — turned out to be the father of the first victim. Anton Ozmian.”
Harriman swallowed again, more painfully. “So I understand.”
“You understand. I’m so glad that you do…finally.” Petowski looked back up, fixing Harriman with his stare. “Anton Ozmian. Would you call him a religious fanatic?”
“No.”
“Would you say that he was killing as a way of, quote, ‘preaching to the city’?”
Harriman cringed inwardly as he heard his own words being flung back at him. “No, I would not.”
“Ozmian.” Petowski snapped the pencil in two and threw the pieces into a garbage can with disgust. “So much for your theory.”
“Mr. Petowski, I—” Harriman began, but the editor held up a single finger for silence.
“It turns out Ozmian wasn’t trying to send a message to New York. He wasn’t singling out corrupt, depraved people as a kind of warning to the masses. He wasn’t making a statement to our divided nation that the ninety-nine percent wouldn’t take anymore from the one percenters. In fact, he was one of them!” Petowski snorted. “And now we all here at the Post look like damned fools, thanks to you.”
“But the police also—”
A choppy gesture silenced him. Petowski scowled for a moment. Then he went on. “Okay. I’m listening. Now’s your chance to explain away the pieces you wrote.” He stopped swiveling, sat back in his chair, and folded one arm over the other.
Harriman thought frantically, but nothing came to mind. He’d already been over it, again and again, since he’d first heard the news. But there had simply been too many shocks thrown at him recently — getting arrested; being absolved and released; learning that the Decapitator theory was wrong — leaving his brain a dazed blank.
“I don’t have any excuse, Mr. Petowski,” he said at last. “I came up with a theory that appeared to fit all the facts, which the police also embraced. But I was wrong.”
“A theory that caused an outlandish disturbance in Central Park, for which the cops are also blaming us.”
Harriman hung his head.
After another silence, Petowski fetched a deep sigh. “Well, that’s an honest answer, anyway,” he said. He sat up briskly. “All right, Harriman. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to put that imaginative brain of yours to work, and you’re going to recast your theory so that it fits Ozmian — and what he was actually doing.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“It’s called spin. You’re going to massage, pummel, and knead the facts. You’re going to push your original theory in a new direction, speculate on some of Ozmian’s motives that the cops might not have spoken of at today’s presser, add some stuff about that riot in Central Park, and roll it all into a piece of reportage that will make it look like we had our finger on the pulse all along. We’re still the City of Endless Night, with the boot of the billionaire class still on the neck of our town. Okay? And Ozmian’s the very embodiment of the greed, entitlement, selfishness, and contempt the billionaire class has for the working people of this city, just like we’ve been writing all along. That’s the spin. Got it?”