The detectives let Langley say her piece. Half the fun was in her fireworks. She was a fantastic cop who knew her stuff when it came to fieldwork. They knew she’d deliver on the killer. They needed her to. Captain Woodside was going to be calling them in any minute, and they’d better have some answers or things were not going to be good.
“She’s fiery,” commented Alex, who’d refused to miss a minute of the action.
Langley shot him a deathly look. “You better be grateful you’re handsome, pretty boy, or I’d cut you a new one right here and now.”
“Don’t mind him,” Kim said. “He likes being pushed around by strong women.”
Alex winked at her lasciviously. “As long as it’s in bed, who wouldn’t, Detective?”
Kim rolled her eyes. “All right, Langley, we’re sorry. Really. But I think you know our asses are seriously on the line here. Did you get anything off the killer?”
“You better believe I did.” Maria plunked down in her chair and started scrolling through her files. “Ran his fingerprints and didn’t take a minute before I had some very juicy reading indeed.” The detectives leaned in eagerly. Maria clicked on a file and brought up a dossier complete with the killer’s photo, fingerprints, and a detailed record.
“Our killer’s name is Oliver Fulton, and he has a very interesting history. He’s been in the system for a while, in fact. Arrested when he was nothing but a teenager. Fifteen years old. Placed in a youth psychiatric institution. Denied release and transferred to an adult institution. Wasn’t released until about a year ago, in fact. Which means he was locked up for the best part of 30 years.”
The detectives, Phillips, and Kane exchanged puzzled looks. “I know this may be an obvious question, but what’d they get him for? In the first place, I mean,” said Craig.
Langley pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. “Looks like this chavo was a real head case. Biology teacher noticed he had a real passion for dissection. Loved it so much he asked for extra credit. Teach thought he was just a keen student at first, but became creeped out by his intensity. She found him after hours one day, working on a street cat. He’d tortured the poor thing before ripping out its heart. She reported him to authorities. Cops swept his house. Turns out his parents had been covering for him. They found evidence that he’d been doing the same thing in the basement to other animals. Guess he decided to off the cat in the lab because he wanted the proper tools.”
Langley shivered. “They also found other disturbing things – hit lists of students, graphic short stories about torture and mutilation. He was taken to a psychiatrist and diagnosed as having a personality disorder, which I guess is a nice way of saying he’s a psychopath. Court decided he’d be better under supervision. He stayed that way for 30 years. I still don’t understand why they released him.”
Kim looked at Jacob. “He’s a smart son of a bitch. I’m sure he eventually found a way to beat the system.”
Langley squinted at the screen. “He was being closely supervised by a psychiatrist at his institution, the Central New York Psychiatric Center up in Marcy. There isn’t a heck of a lot more on here. You’d better pay the good doctor a visit. I bet he’s going to have an interesting thing or two to say about this nutjob.”
Kim sighed. “Visiting psychiatrists isn’t my favorite thing anymore. Let’s hope he’s more sane than Sampson.”
Langley closed her computer program and swiveled around to face them. She looked concerned.
“You guys all right?” she asked. “Crime scene last night made my blood run cold. Couldn’t have picked a creepier place, that guy. And with the music, sword, that stupid mask…” She stopped when she saw Alex and Kim’s faces. “Sorry, guys. Not like you don’t know.”
“We’re all right,” Alex butted in. “We had each other’s backs. That’s what counts.”
Langley raised an eyebrow. “Well, try having each other’s backs on getting your paperwork in, not playing moonlight poker with sword-carrying freaks. Woodside is going to have quite the field day with you all, and I’m not sticking around to see it.”
**
Kim’s Impala slowly chugged toward the grim brick buildings set within tall chain link fences rimmed in razor wire. The officers were restless from the nearly four-hour drive upstate and eager to get down to business. Alex, who’d been denied stops at Waffle House and Dunkin’ Donuts, was pouting in the backseat.
“What good is a road trip without junk food,” he was muttering.
Kim threw him an exasperated look. “I thought you lived on caviar and champagne,” she said dryly. “Plus you already got two breakfast sandwiches this morning. I think your arteries will give up and die if you add a chocolate donut to the mix.”
Jacob looked over at her. “I am going to deduce from your breakfast comment that you spent last night at Mr. Kane’s house.” Phillips whistled from the backseat.
Kim flushed hotly. “For once you’re wrong, Newport. I picked up Kane this morning because I wanted to make sure he wasn’t still curled up in the fetal position. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Jacob still looked puzzled. “I’m fairly certain you’ve never picked me up. Or brought me breakfast sandwiches.”
“That’s because you went to the police academy and don’t need checking in on,” Kim snapped. “Though if you find you do, you know my number. Yeesh.”
They pulled into the checkpoint. Their credentials were cleared with a stern officer, and they rolled into the parking lot.
Alex looked around apprehensively as they went through security. This was his first time in a maximum security inpatient facility, or any prison in general. Just the thought that he was in a building shared by hundreds of psychiatric patients and recovering sex offenders sent chills down his spine.
“This place gives me serious heebie-jeebies,” he said. “You know those urban explorers? The ones who go into abandoned psychiatric hospitals and take photos or whatever? Never understood that kind of hobby. I prefer dinner and a movie myself.”
“And I don’t understand actors who want to play at being detectives,” said Kim.
“It’s called method acting,” Alex sniffed. “And I have three Emmys to prove it works, thank you very much.”
The officers and actor were ushered into a plain office decorated only with framed certificates. A set of windows looked onto the brown, denuded lawn. Behind a heavy wooden desk was a short, gaunt man with heavy glasses who looked up behind a pile of paperwork. He looked tired, as if he’d experienced far more in his lifetime than anyone should. Still, he generously pointed them toward plastic folding chairs and offered them coffee from a carafe. Once they were seated, he folded his hands and regarded them seriously.
“I was most intrigued when I received your call, Detective,” he began in a gravelly voice. “Oliver Fulton was one of my most fascinating and troubled patients. I treated him for the majority of his time here at Central. He eventually got out about a year ago on a technicality. I tried to overrule it, but I suspect he paid off or intimidated someone on the inside to push his case through. I worked to keep track of him once he was released, but he quickly slipped through my fingers. A very cunning man, was Mr. Fulton.”
“As I explained to you over the phone, Dr. Stewart, we are investigating him in connection to the murder of a young woman, Virginia Winters,” said Jacob. “Our field officer managed to pull some information based on his prints – mostly details from his case file about his early arrest. However, we’re still grappling with certain details of our case. We’re hoping your insight can shed some light.”
The doctor cleared his throat. “Yes, Detectives, your court order for his files just came through. Which I understand means that Mr. Fulton has passed on. Perhaps it’s not professional of me to say so, but I greeted the news with relief. He was one of my most difficult patients. His antisocial behavior and total lack of empathy and inhibition made for a very dangerous personality indeed. What’s more, these traits were deeply entrenched, and remained so despite my best efforts to treat them. Unfortunately, your case makes a lot of sense to me, Detectives. I could have almost predicted this outcome.”
Kim leaned in eagerly. “Why’s that?”
The doctor sighed heavily. “Mr. Fulton was consumed by delusions of grandeur. To feed this fantasy, he tried to wrest control from every situation he met. That was a difficult thing in a psychiatric institution. He certainly enjoyed toying with me. He was obsessed with programming and making computers submit to his demands. He also became a skilled poker player while incarcerated. By consistently beating the other patients, some of whom were almost as intelligent as he, he could maintain his ideas of superiority. He became obsessed with winning and seeing others suffer as a result. I suspected this was because he couldn’t act out his compulsion to dissect and mutilate.”