I took the tape out of the stereo. Hawk sat in repose, stool tipped back, balanced lightly with his elbows against the edge of the counter.
I was pretty sure he didn't really need the counter.
Susan took her chin from her hand. "I too know it's him," she said.
"But there's nothing I can say in terms of courtroom-type evidence.
Because these crimes fit a man with his pathologies, it doesn't mean he committed them. I've had many men with similar pathologies that are able to master them."
"What makes the difference?" Hawk said.
"I don't know," Susan said. "Character, influences of other people in their lives, degree of Oedipal manipulation on the mother's part, intelligence of the patient, will to succeed in the therapy, blind chance." Susan smiled. "All of the above."
"How 'bout divine intervention," Hawk said.
"Wouldn't it be pretty," Susan said.
Hawk smiled at her with warmth that no one ever got.
"He's the one," I said.
"Yes," Hawk said.
"Yes," Susan said.
"And we can't prove it," I said.
"The voiceprint?" Susan said.
"Just proves that the same guy called me twice. Doesn't prove he's Red Rose. Doesn't prove the guy they've got for it isn't Red Rose. Even if you could identify the voice without equivocation, it wouldn't prove he was Red Rose."
"Equivocation," Hawk said.
"Keep hanging around with me," I said to Hawk. "Listen and learn."
"My appointment book will show that Felton was there the day that you chased him," Susan said.
"So were, what, seven other people?" I said.
She nodded.
"What about the murders?" Hawk said.
"The murders?" Susan said.
"Compare the dates of his therapy with the dates of the murders," I said.
"Why?"
"See what happen," Hawk said. "We know the fish in there, we casting around trying to find where."
"I'll get my book," Susan said.
She left us and went down to the office.
Hawk said, "We can't prove this guy did it, but we know he did. Sooner or later we got to do something."
"I know," I said.
Susan came back with her appointment book.
"What are the murder dates?" she said.
I knew them by heart and told her.
She wrote them down in her attractive and completely unreadable hand. It was graceful and composed of well integrated linear sweeps, which had great surface charm and no intelligibility. Susan's handwriting was so bad that often she couldn't read it herself when she went back to it later.
She leafed through her appointment book while Hawk and I cleared the counter and rinsed the cups and put them in the dishwasher. I capped the cherry preserves and put the top back on the cream cheese container and put them in the refrigerator. Hawk was washing his hands and face at the sink and drying them on a paper towel.
"Sonovabitch," Susan said.
Hawk and I turned and looked at her.
"Felton normally comes twice a week," Susan said. "The days vary, but the twice a week doesn't. All the murders except the first were on the day after an appointment."
"When did he start therapy?" I said.
"Two weeks after the first one," Susan said.
The room was quiet. The wet hum of the dishwasher was all there was to listen to.
"Something in the sessions must have set him off," Susan said.
I could feel the faint tremor in the floor as the dishwasher went about its business.
"Doesn't have to mean that," Hawk said.
"I know," Susan said. She was entirely Dr. Silverman now, thinking about human behavior. "But the coincidence is startling."
"What would have done it?" I said.
Susan shook her head. She walked to the window and stared down at Saturday morning on Linnaean Street. We were quiet. Hawk settled back onto his stool, I stood with my back to the sink, leaning against it.
Susan turned finally and looked at us.
"Me, I think."
"How so?" I said.
"I probably wasn't the right referral for him. An attractive older woman in a position of authority, it was easy for the transference of feelings from his mother onto me."
"That one of the things supposed to happen?" Hawk said.
"Yes, and I'm supposed to then lead him to master those feelings, because I'm not his mother and our interaction will not nurture his condition."
"But here?" I said.
"Here his passion for his mother was transferred to me and her un attainability existed as well in me, and, my God, it's a seminar in shrink school, but, too simply, his need for oblique and symbolic sex-slash-punishment was simply intensified by the transference plus the unfortunate accident of your relationship with both the case and me."
"Laius to your Jocasta?" I said.
Susan nodded.
Hawk said, "I just a poor simple minority pistolero. You intellectuals talking 'bout Oedipus?"
"I told you you'd learn stuff," I said.
"Grateful for the chance, bawse," Hawk said.
Susan was fully engaged with her topic and paid no attention to us.
"I should have given him a referral," she said. "I could feel the erotic tension in our first interview."
"But you figured you could handle it," I said.
"And help him master it," Susan said.
"And in time you probably could have," I said.
"And four women dead," she said. "We have no more time." . Her boyfriend had been to see Mimi. He'd lied about some kind of bonding check, but it was him. Big, tough looking guy, broken nose, just like the boyfriend. She'd been telling on him. She must know. He felt as if he would come off like an explosion. She knows. He felt like he did when he did the colored girls. Pull the trigger and feel the explosion… the bitch. She told. She fucking told. There was no one to trust. His mother, his wife ex-wife Her. They all fucked you up one way or another… He thought about bound black women. The fantasy always helped when he was upset. He thought about putting his stuff in the gym bag, the tape, the rope, the gun. He thought about the shrink with her black hair and dark eyes. Maybe I should do them all, he thought, maybe I should do them all together, all in the same room. He thought of his wife ex-wife helpless on the floor. He thought of Her.
He was standing above them. He went to the hidden place he'd made, removed the section of baseboard and took out the gun. A .38 caliber Smith n Wesson, nickel-plated, walnut grips, 4-inch barrel, unregistered. His registered gun was in the bedroom closet in his holster, hanging beside his uniform. He'd taken this one from his mother's house after his father's funeral. She never knew he took it.
He took his father's gun and put it in the gym bag. From his hiding place he took the roll of clothesline and the duct tape and put them in the bag. He didn't know what he was going to do yet, but he was getting ready. He felt strong and full to have his trouble bag ready. Maybe the boyfriend. Maybe if he weren't around he could take his time with Her.
The sense of fullness went away. His stomach felt hollow. He took the gun from the bag and hefted it. He turned toward the mirror on the far wall and went into a crouch, looking at himself over the gun sight. The handle of the gun was smooth and solid. The gun sight didn't waver. His stomach felt better. But it didn't feel good. He thought about the women some more and the full feeling came back. He turned sideways and watched himself in the mirror as he aimed one-handed, in profile, and then full face again. It had been a long time since the last one. The hell with them. He needed it. He looked at himself aiming into the mirror and thought about Dr. Silverman.
CHAPTER 25
Susan and I had one of the larger fights we'd had. It started when she said, "I cannot of course continue as his therapist." And I said,
"Absolutely not."
"He has an appointment Monday, and I'll have to tell him we cannot continue under the current circumstances," she said.
"Sure," I said. "When's his appointment?"
Susan had her book open on the counter.