"How do we know she didn't write it herself?"
"I don't believe it."
"Well, believe it or not, our case is disappearing. Oh, and there's a new wrinkle. A Portland private investigator named Sam Oberburst was looking into the Hunter's Point murders about a month before the first Portland disappearance."
"whom did he represent?"
"He didn't say and he didn't tell anyone why he was asking about the case, but I'm going to ask him. I have his phone number and I'll get the address through the phone company."
"Have they had any luck with the files?"
"None at all."
Page closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of his chair.
"I'm going to look like a fool, Randy. We'll have to dismiss. I should have listened to you and Ross. We never had a case. It was all in my head."
"Don't fold yet, Al. This p.i. could know something."
Page shook his head. He had aged since his divorce.
His energy had deserted him. For a while this case had recharged him, but Darius was slipping away and he would soon be a laughingstock in the legal community.
"We're going to lose this one, Randy. I can feel it.
Gordon was all we had and now it looks like we never had her."
"Hi, Mom," Betsy said, putting down her suitcase and hugging Rita Cohen.
"How was your flight? Have you had anything to eat?"
"The flight was fine and I ate on the plane."
"That's not food. You want me to fix you something?"
"Thanks, but I'm not hungry," Betsy said as she hung up her coat. "How was Kathy?"
"So-so. Rick took her to the movies on Saturday."
"How is he?" Betsy asked, hoping she sounded disinterested.
"The louse wouldn't look me in the eye the whole time he was here. He couldn't wait to escape."
"You weren't rude to him?"
"I didn't give him the time of day," Rita answered, pointing her nose in the air. Then she shook her head.
"Poor kid. Kathy was all excited when she left with him, but she was down in the dumps as soon as he dropped her off She moped around, picked at her food at dinner."
"Did anything else happen while I was gone?" Betsy asked, hoping there had been some good news.
"Nora Sloane came by, Sunday evening," Rita said, smiling mischievously.
"I told all."
"What did she ask about?"
"Your childhood, your cases. She was very good with Kathy."
"She seems like a nice woman. I hope her article sells. She's certainly working hard enough on it."
"Oh, before I forget, when you go to school, talk to Mrs. Kramer. Kathy was in a fight with another little girl and she's been disruptive in class."
"I'll see her this afternoon, Betsy said. She sounded defeated. Kathy was usually an angel at school. You didn't have to be Sigmund Freud to see what was happening.
"Cheer up," Rita told her. "she's a good kid. She's just going through a rough time. Look, you've got an hour before school lets out. Have some coffee cake. I'll make you a cup of decaf and you can tell me about your trip."
Betsy glanced at her watch and decided to give in.
Eating cake was a surefire way of dealing with depression.
"Okay. I am hungry, I guess. You fix everything. I want to change."
"Now you're talking," Rita said with a smile. "And, for your information, Kathy won the fight. She told me."
Chapter Twenty-one
When Betsy Tannenbaum was a very little girl, she would not go to sleep until her mother showed her that there were no monsters in her closet or her bed. The stage passed quickly. Betsy stopped believing in monsters.
Then she met Martin Darius. What made Darius so terrifying was his dissimilarity to the slavering, fanged deformities that lurked in the shadows in her room. Give one hundred people the autopsy photographs and not one of them would believe that the elegantly-dressed gentleman standing in the doorway to Betsy's office was capable of cutting off Wendy Reiser's nipples or using a cattle prod to torture Victoria Miller. Even knowing what she knew, Betsy had to force herself to make the connection. But Betsy did know, and the shining winter sun could not keep her from feeling as frightened as the very little girl who used to listen for monsters in the dark.
"sit down Mr. Darius," Betsy said.
"We're back to Mr. Darius, are we? This must be serious."
Betsy did not smile. Darius looked at her quizzically, but took a seat without making any more remarks.
"I'm resigning as your attorney."
"I thought we agreed that you'd only do that if you believed I was guilty of murdering Farrar, Reiser and Miller."
"I firmly believe you killed them. I know everything about Hunter's Point."
"What's everything?"
"I spent the weekend in Washington, D.C., talking to Senator Colby."
Darius nodded appreciatively. "I'm impressed. You unraveled the whole Hunter's Point affair in no time at all."
"I don't give a damn for your flattery, Darius. You lied to me from day one. There are some lawyers who don't care whom they represent as long as the fee is large enough. I'm not one of them. Have your new attorney call me so I can get rid of your file. I don't want anything in my office that reminds me of you."
"My, aren't we self-righteous. You're sure you know everything, aren't you?"
"I know enough to distrust anything you tell me."
"I'm a little disappointed, Tannenbaum. You worked your way through this puzzle part of the way, then shut down that brilliant mind of yours just as you came to the part that needs solving."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about having faith in your client. I'm talking about not walking away from someone who desperately needs your help. I am not guilty of killing Reiser, Farrar and Miller. If you don't prove I'm innocent, the real killer is going to walk away, just the way I did in Hunter's Point."
"You admit you're guilty of those atrocities in Hunter's Point?"
Darius shrugged. "How can I deny it, now that you've talked to Colby?"
"How could you do it? Animals don't treat other animals like that."
Darius looked amused. "Do I fascinate you, Tannenbaum?"
"No, Mr. Darius, you disgust me."
"Then why ask me about Hunter's Point?"
"I want to know why you thought you had the right to walk into someone else's life and turn the rest of their days on Earth into Hell. I want to understand how you could destroy the lives of those poor women so casually."
Darius stopped smiling. "There was nothing casual about what I did."
"What I can't understand is how a mind like yours or Speck's or Bundy's works. What could possibly make you feel so badly about yourself that you can only keep going by dehumanizing women?"
"Don't compare me to Bundy or Speck. They were pathetic failures.
Thoroughly inadequate personalities.
I'm neither insane nor inadequate. I was a successful attorney in Hunter's Point and a successful businessman here."
"Then why did you do it?"
Darius hesitated. He seemed to be in a debate with himself "Am I still covered by the attorney-client privilege?" Betsy nodded.
"Anything between us is confidential. Betsy nodded again. "Because I'd like to tell you.
You have a superior mind and a female viewpoint. Your reactions would be informative."
Betsy knew she should throw Darius out of her office and her life, but her fascination with him paralyzed her intellect. When she remained silent, Darius settled back in his chair.
"I was conducting an experiment, Tannenbaum. I wanted to know what it felt like to be God. I don't remember the exact moment the idea for the experiment germinated. I do remember a trip Sandy and I took to Barbados. Lying on the beach, I thought about how perfect my life was.