We got on 1-95 North once we left the small, very well-run airport. We proceeded about ten miles, then headed east toward the ocean and Singer Island. The sun looked like a lemon drop melting in bright blue skies.
I'd had time on the flight to think about my theory of two Masterminds. The more I thought it through, the surer I became that we were on the right track finally. A vivid image kept flashing through my mind.
It was a photograph of a therapist named Dr. Bernard Francis. The photo had been stapled to Francis's personnel file. Two other photos had been hanging on the walls of Dr. Cioffi's office. I'd seen them there when I interviewed him. Bernard Francis was tall and balding, with a broad forehead and a hooked nose. He also had large ears, floppy ones. Like a car with both doors open.
Francis had been Frederic Szabo's therapist for nine weeks in '97, and then for five months last year. Toward the end of the year he had transferred to Florida, supposedly to work at the veterans hospital in north West Falm. Once I'd established a link to Francis, several other connections followed. According to the nursing notes, Dr. Francis had accompanied Szabo off the grounds on at least three occasions last year. The trips weren't unusual in themselves, but under the circumstances they were very interesting to me.
During the plane ride to Florida, I reread the actual notes Dr. Francis had made about Szabo in '97, and then last year.
One of the very insightful early notes posed the question, Did pt actually spend the past twenty-some years wandering the country performing odd jobs? Somehow, this doesn't ring true. Suspect pt has a very active fantasy life and may be withholding from us. What really precipitated pt's stay at Hazelwood this year?
Betsey and I knew the answer to that question, and we suspected Francis had found out, too. In February of '96, Frederic Szabo had been fired from his job as head of security at First Union. There had been a series of unsolved robberies at First Unions in Virginia and Maryland. Szabo had blamed himself for the lapse in security, and then, so had the bank. They finally fired him.
Soon after that he had a nervous breakdown and checked himself into Hazelwood, which was where the fun and mind games began.
Chapter One Hundred and Sixteen
We set up a round-the-clock surveillance post outside Dr. Francis's condominium on Singer Island. The place was a sprawling four-bedroom penthouse with a roof deck; it was right on the water. It seemed beyond the means of the average therapist at a veterans hospital. Of course, Dr. Francis didn't consider himself an average therapist.
Francis was spending the evening entertaining a blonde woman who looked to be about half his age. To give him his due, he was a slender man of forty-five and appeared to be in good shape. She was a stunning beauty, though; she wore a black string bikini with high-heeled black pumps. She was constantly rearranging her cleavage and pushing her long blonde hair out of her eyes.
"Very fetching," Betsey said and frowned. "Looks like she's caught herself a real killer date."
Betsey, two other agents, and I camped out in a Dodge van in a parking lot behind the condos. The lot was nearly full and the van blended in. It had a periscope that followed us to watch Francis and his guest as they barbecued steaks on his deck. The FBI had already identified the blonde woman as a dancer at an 'upscale topless steak house' in West Palm. She had previous arrests for soliciting and prostitution in Fort Lauderdale. Her name was Bianca Massie and she was twenty-three years old.
We watched the good doctor as he frequently hugged and fondled the blonde woman while cooking dinner. Then the two of them disappeared inside for about ten minutes. They came out again and, during the meal, they played footsie and stroked each other. They finished a second bottle of Stag's Leap Cabernet, then disappeared inside again.
"What can we see in there? "Betsey asked one of the agents," I need a picture."
"Our man on the other roof can see inside the condo through several of the southern-exposure windows," one of the agents reported.
"It's an easy-sleazy bachelor pad. Expensive furniture, lots of etchings. Bose sound system, free weights. The doc has a black Lab he probably uses to pick up more ladies on the beach."
"I don't think he picked her up," I said. "More likely, he leased her for the night."
"He and the young lady are intimately involved at the moment. The black Lab seems to have taught the doc a few things. He knows some doggy tricks. Our lookout says that his ears and nose are much larger than a certain other part of his anatomy."
That got a laugh from the group. It also eased the tension. We were a little fearful for the girl, but we were close enough to get inside in a hurry.
The lookout continued to report on what he saw. "Oops, the doc would appear to be a premature ejaculator. The young lady doesn't seem to mind. Awhh, she kissed him on the top of his head, poor baby."
"You get what you pay for," Betsey said.
Finally, the blonde woman left and the steamy movie was over for the night. Dr. Francis stayed out on the deck, sipping a snifter of brandy, watching the moon ride high over the Atlantic.
"Ahh, the good life," Betsey said. "Moon over Miami and all that neat stuff."
"He only had to kill about a dozen people to get his place in the sun," I said.
Francis's cell phone rang around midnight. We listened to the call from the surveillance van. The call definitely got our attention. Betsey and I exchanged glances.
The caller sounded nervous. "Bernie, they're all over this place again. They're looking at staff now. They '
Francis cut in," It's late. I'll call you in the morning. ," '," ," call you. Don't call me here. I've told you that. Please, don't do it again."
Dr. Francis hung up angrily. He drained the rest of his brandy.
Betsey elbowed me. She was smiling for the first time since we'd been watching Francis. "Alex, you recognize the voice on the other end?" she asked.
I sure did. "The lovely and talented Kathleen McGuigan. Nurse McGuigan is part of this. It's all starting to come together, isn't it?"
Chapter One Hundred and Seventeen
It was really easy to loathe Dr. Bernard Francis. He was human scum, the worst of the worst, a killer who liked to make his victims suffer. It made the late-night-surveillance job easier, almost bearable. So did the idea that Francis was the Mastermind, and that we were close to nailing him to the walls of his pink stucco, Mediterranean-style condo.
Kathleen McGuigan didn't try to call Francis back that night. And he didn't call her. Around one o'clock, he went inside to bed and turned on his alarm system.
"Sweet dreams, you bastard, "Betsey said as the house lights went off.
"We know where he lives. We know he did it if not exactly how. But we can't bring him down?" one of the agents complained once Francis had turned in for the night.
"Patience, patience,” I said. "We just got here. We'll get Dr. Francis. We just want to watch him a little longer. We need to be absolutely sure this time. And, we want the money he stole."
Betsey and I finally left the surveillance van around two in the morning. We took one of the Bureau's sedans. She drove off Singer Island. Everyone else was staying at a Holiday Inn in West Palm. We headed north on 1-95.