Except for Aerosmith.
That was the only clue she ever had as to who Tony was. He was always playing heavy metal when she arrived, and they usually spent the first few minutes of their hour together talking about music and bands. Sometimes Mötley Crüe. Sometimes Guns N' Roses. Mostly Aerosmith. She knew it was a way to relax her enough to share the wolves that were in her brain. Today, he was playing their last big single, "Jaded," and something about the song felt nostalgic to her, as if Tony were taking a rare walk down memory lane. It was about yesterday's child. Things that were lost and not coming back.
He clicked the song off as she sat down on the sofa, and the silence felt loud. It was night, and the wall of glass overlooking the wilderness behind him was a dark mirror. The office looked like the end of the world, and where the carpet ended at the windows, you could step off and fall into the sucking gravity of a black hole.
Maggie squirmed to get comfortable. Her feet dangled above the floor, making her feel like a teenager. Tony didn't look up. He never looked up until she spoke. He just sat there, sipping his coffee, sometimes stirring it up in his mug as if there might be grounds resting on the bottom that could float around and flavor it.
"Long time," Maggie said.
Tony put the black mug to his lips and took a quiet sip. "Yes."
He deigned to look at her then, with the mug in front of his face like a muzzle.
"You heard about everything that's happened?" she asked.
He nodded, and the overhead light danced on the smooth, high scalp of his forehead. "How is Serena?"
"She'll be okay, but she'll need help."
"Of course."
He didn't push her, didn't ask questions. How are you. What are you feeling. What's on your mind. Sometimes they spent a long time not saying anything at all. He just studied her from behind his coffee mug, and she felt like a lab rat.
"I should have come to you after I was raped," Maggie said.
"Why didn't you?" Tony asked.
"I thought if I didn't tell anyone, I could make it go away. Block it out. I'm good at that."
"But not good enough."
"No," she admitted. "No one's that good."
"You caught the rapist, I hear."
"Yeah."
"Does that help?" he asked.
"I thought it would, but to be honest, it doesn't. Not really. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the shithead is out of circulation. But it's like having your house burn down and then putting out the fire."
"I understand. So what are you going to do about that?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you can't change what happened. It's already done."
"I was hoping I could mope around and feel sorry for myself for a while," Maggie said. "Eat Doritos. Watch the soaps."
Tony didn't smile.
"Actually, I'm thinking of adopting a kid," she admitted. She wondered why she was telling him that. Old habits died hard.
"Ah."
"What, ah?"
"Nothing. Go on."
"You think it's too soon?"
"What do you think?" Tony asked.
"I think it would be nice to get an answer once and a while for all the money I'm paying."
"How did you come to this decision?" he asked.
"It's not a decision. It's something I'm thinking about. I feel like that's what I'm missing in my life. Being a mother. All the bad things began to happen after the miscarriages. That's when the universe went out of whack."
"So if you become a mother, the stars will be aligned again."
"Something like that."
"You sound like you're looking for approval or disapproval."
"I am."
"From me?" Tony asked.
"No, not from you," she said. Too quickly. "I guess I'm looking for approval from myself."
"And?"
"I'm not ready to give it yet."
"Why is that?"
"I still haven't found my way out."
Tony raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
Maggie sighed. "Have you ever watched a spider on a screen? He gets in through a crack in the mesh, and then he's trapped inside, and he walks around and around and around and around trying to find that same little seam where he can get out. He can do it for days. The question is, can he find it before he starves to death?"
"So what's your crack in the screen, Maggie?"
"Isn't it obvious? Eric was murdered."
Tony stopped twirling his pen and froze with his coffee mug halfway to his face. Their eyes met. "Of course."
"I need to find out who did it. I can't go on until I do."
"I thought this rapist, this escaped prisoner, was the murderer."
Maggie shook her head. "He has an alibi."
"Surely no one still thinks you did it."
"A lot of people do. They can't prove it, but it will always be out there. You can't be a cop suspected of murder."
Tony's upper lip disappeared under his mustache. "We both know that murders don't always get solved, and it's no one's fault. You can't take them all on."
"No, but this one is my river, Tony. I cross this one, or I'm stuck where I am forever. I get past it, and I can get on with my life. Anything else is like drowning."
"You seem to think I can help you."
"You were the last person to see Eric that night," she told him.
"I've already told you everything I know."
"Humor me," Maggie said. "Tell me again."
Tony drank from his black coffee mug and studied her face. "Eric told me you had been raped. He thought he knew who did it. He wanted advice from me on how to figure out if he was right. He wanted to know what kinds of questions to ask to determine if someone could be a sexual predator."
"But he didn't give you a name."
"No, I don't know who he suspected," Tony said.
"Eric didn't talk to Blue Dog," Maggie said. "That means he thought someone else assaulted me, and he was wrong. The trouble is, I still think whoever he suspected was the one who killed him. Crazy, huh?"
Tony frowned. "If Eric was wrong, why would anyone have a reason to kill him?"
"Maybe because that person had something else to hide."
The words floated like dead leaves blown in the air and never touching ground.
"We've known each other a long time, Tony," Maggie said softly. "Ever since the Enger Park case."
"Yes, that's right."
She remembered how young they all were back then. They spent hours together-Stride, Tony, and Maggie-going over evidence, looking for a pattern, building a picture of the killer. Tony was the profiler. You're dealing with a serial killer, he had told them. He's going to do this again. He's a male, probably married, probably in his forties. He has a teenage daughter, and he either abuses her or fantasizes about abusing her. I don't think cutting off the head and hands is about obscuring the victim's identity. It's about the killer's anger and guilt. He needs to erase this girl.
The profile made perfect sense, and it got them nowhere.
"The Enger Park case is back in the news," she added.
"I know."
"What's your gut say, Tony? Could we be looking at the same perp?"
"After ten years? That's a long time between crimes."
"But it does happen. I mean, serial killers sometimes wait that long."
Tony shrugged. "Yes, it depends on whether they can find some other way to resolve their pathology. Something that provides a similar sense of power or release."
"How would a rapist and murderer resolve his pathology?" she asked. "I've always wondered about that."