"How'd it happen?" Conklin asked.
"Bashed his head against the wall of his cell…"
"Wasn't he medicated? And under a suicide watch?"
Jacobi shrugged. "Dunno. Anyway, the doc usually comes to the cell block, but this doc named Carter insists that the prisoner be brought to his office. Under guard. In the minimum-security wing."
"Oh, no," I said, seeing it happen without being told. "The guard had a gun."
Jacobi explained to Conklin, "The guards wear their guns only when moving prisoners from one wing to another. So the doc says Brinkley has to be unshackled so he can give him the neuro test."
Jacobi went on to say that Brinkley had grabbed a scalpel, disarmed the guard, snatched the gun. That he'd put on the doctor's clothes, used the guard's keys to get out, and took the doctor's car.
"It happened two hours ago," said Jacobi. "There's an APB out on Dr. Carter's blue Subaru Outback. L.L.Bean edition."
"Probably dumped the car by now," Conklin said.
"Yeah," said Jacobi. "I don't know what this is worth," he added, "but according to the warden, Brinkley was all cranked up about this serial killer he read about, Edmund Kemper."
Conklin nodded. "Killed about six young women, lived with his mother."
"That's the guy," said Jacobi. "One night he comes home from a date, and his mother says something like, 'Now I suppose you're going to bore me with what you've been doing all night.' "
"His mother knew about the killings?" I asked.
"No, Boxer, she did not," Jacobi said. "She was just a ballbreaker. Look, I was on the way to the can when the call came in, so may I finish the story, please?"
I grinned at him. "Carry on, boss."
"So anyway, Mother Kemper says, 'You're going to bore me, right?' So Edmund Kemper waits until she goes to bed and then cuts off her head and puts it on the fireplace mantel. And then he tells his mother's head all about his night out. The long version, I'm sure."
"That psycho turned himself in, I seem to remember," Conklin said. He cracked his knuckles, which is what Rich does when he's agitated.
I was rattled, too, at the idea of Brinkley at large, armed and seriously psychotic. I remembered the look on Brinkley's face when he'd stared Yuki down after his trial. He'd leered at her and said, "Someone's got to pay."
"Yeah, Kemper turned himself in. Thing is, when he confessed to the cops, he said that he'd actually killed those girls instead of his mother. Get it?" Jacobi was talking to me now. "He'd finally killed the right person."
"And the warden said that Kemper meant something to Alfred Brinkley?"
"Right," Jacobi said, standing, hoisting up his pants by the belt, making his way around Conklin's long legs toward the door. "Brinkley was obsessed with Edmund Kemper."
Chapter 130
FRED BRINKLEY WALKED ALONG Scott Street, looking straight ahead under the brim of Dr. Carter's baseball cap. He was watching the small peaks of sails in the marina at the end of the street, smelling the air coming off the bay.
His head still hurt, but the meds had quieted the voices so that he could think. He felt strong and ka-pow-pow powerful. The way he'd felt when he and Bucky had wasted those pitiful assholes on the ferry.
As he walked, he replayed the scene in Dr. Carter's office, how he'd exploded into action when the cuffs came off like he was some kind of superhero.
Touch your nose.
Touch your toes.
Grab the scalpel.
Put it to the doctor's jugular and ask the guard for his gun. Fred was laughing now, thinking about that stupid guard snarling at him as he taped the guard and the doctor naked together, shoved gauze into their mouths, and locked them inside the closet.
"You'll be back, freak."
Fred touched the gun inside the doctor's jacket pocket, thinking, I'll be back, all right.
I'm planning on it.
But not just yet.
The small stucco houses on Scott Street were set back twenty feet from the road, butted up close to one another like dairy cows at the trough. The house Fred was looking for was tan with dark-brown shutters and a one-car garage under the second-floor living space.
And there it was, with its crisp lawn and lemon tree, looking just like he remembered. The car was in the garage, and the garage door was open.
This was excellent. Perfect timing, too.
Fred Brinkley walked the twenty feet of asphalt driveway, then slipped inside the garage. He edged alongside the baby-blue '95 BMW convertible and took the cordless nail gun off the tool bench. He slammed in a cartridge, fired into the wall to make sure the tool was working. Tha-wack.
Then he walked up the short flight of stairs, turned the doorknob, and stepped onto the hardwood floor of the living room. He stood for a moment in front of the shrine.
Then he took the leather-bound photo albums off the highboy, grabbed the watercolor from the easel, and carried the load of stuff to the kitchen.
She was at the table, paying the bills. A small under-the-cabinet TV was on – Trial Heat.
The dark-haired woman turned her head as he entered the kitchen, her eyes going huge as she tried to comprehend.
"Hola, Mamacita," he said cheerfully. "It's me. And it's time for the Fred and Elena Brinkley Show."
Chapter 131
"YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE, ALFRED," his mother said.
Fred put the nail gun down on the counter, locked the kitchen door behind him. Then he flipped through the photo albums, showed his mother the pictures of Lily in her baby carriage, Lily with Mommy. Lily in her tiny bathing suit.
Fred watched Elena's eyes widen as he took the watercolor portrait of Lily, broke the glass against the counter.
"No!"
"Yes, Mama. Yes, sirree. These are dirty pictures. Filthy dirty."
He opened the dishwasher and stacked the albums on the lower rack, put the watercolor in the top rack. Slammed the dishwasher door on the complete photographic collection of his sainted sister and dialed the timer to five minutes.
Heard the machine begin to tick.
"Alfred," said his mother, starting to stand, "this isn't funny."
Fred pushed her back down in her seat.
"The water isn't going to come on for five minutes. All I want is your undivided attention for four, and then I'll set your precious picture albums free."
Fred pulled out a chair and sat down right next to his mother. She gave him her "you're revolting" look, showing him the disdain that had made him hate her for his entire life.
"I didn't finish what I was telling you that day in court," he said.
"That day when you lied, you mean?" she said, twisting her head toward the ticking dishwasher, shooting a look to the bolted kitchen door.
Fred removed the guard's Beretta from his jacket pocket. Took off the safety.
"I want to talk to you, Mama."
"That's not loaded."
Fred smiled, then put a shot through the floor. His mother's face went gray.
"Put your arms on the table. Do it, Mom. You want those pictures back, right?"
Fred wrenched one of his mother's arms away from her side, put it on the table, put the head of the nail gun to her sleeve, and pulled the trigger.
Tha-wack. Nailed the other side of the cuff. Tha-wack, tha-wack.
"See? What did you think, Mama? That I was going to hurt you? I'm not a madman, you know."
After he secured the first sleeve, he nailed down the second one, his mother flinching with each thwack, looking like she was going to cry.