Rizzoli suddenly realized she was clenching the letter in rage. She wanted to reach out and shake the stupid woman who had written those words. Wanted to force the woman to look at the autopsy photos of Hoyt’s victims, to read the M.E.‘s account of the agony they had suffered before death mercifully ended their ordeals. She had to make herself read the rest of the letter, a saccharine appeal to Hoyt’s humanity and the “goodness that’s inside us all.”
She reached for the next envelope. No kittens on this stationery, just a plain white envelope containing a letter written on lined paper. Once again, it was from a woman who had enclosed her photo, an overexposed snapshot of a squinting bleached blonde.
Dear Mr. Hoit,
Can I have you’re autograph? I have collect many signitures from people like you. I even have Jeffry Dahmer’s. If you like to keep writing to me, that would be cool. Your friend, Gloria.
Rizzoli stared at words she could not believe any sane human being would write. That would be cool. Your friend. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “These people are nuts.”
“It’s the lure of fame,” said Dean. “They have no lives of their own. They feel worthless, nameless. So they try to get close to someone who does have a name. They want the magic to rub off on them, too.”
“Magic?” She looked at Dean. “Is that what you call it?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t get any of it. I don’t get why women write to monsters. Are they looking for romance? A hot time with a guy who’d turn around and gut them? Is that supposed to bring excitement into their pathetic lives?” She shoved back her chair, stood up, and paced over to the wall of slit-shaped windows. There she stood with arms tightly crossed, staring out at a narrow strip of sunlight, a blue bar of sky. Any view, even this meager one, was preferable to gazing at Warren Hoyt’s fan mail. Surely Hoyt had enjoyed the attention. He would have considered each letter fresh proof that he still held power over women, that even here, locked away, he could twist minds, manipulate them. Turn them into his possessions.
“It’s a waste of time,” she said bitterly as she watched a bird flit past buildings where men were the ones in cages, where bars held monsters, not birdsong. “He isn’t stupid. He would have destroyed anything linking him to the Dominator. He’d protect his new partner. He certainly wouldn’t leave behind anything useful for us to track.”
“Maybe not useful,” said Dean, rustling papers behind her. “But definitely illuminating.”
“Oh yeah. Like I want to read what these nutty women have written to him? It makes me sick.”
“Could that be the point?”
She turned and looked at him. A bar of light through the slit window slashed down his face, illuminating one bright blue eye. She had always thought his features striking, but never more so than at that moment, facing him across the table. “What do you mean?”
“It upsets you, reading his fan mail.”
“It ticks me off. Isn’t that obvious?”
“To him, as well.” Dean nodded to the stack of letters. “He knew it would upset you.”
“You think this is all to screw around with my head? These letters?”
“It’s a mind game, Jane. He left these behind for you. This nice collection of mail from his most ardent admirers. He knew that eventually you’d be right here, where you are now, reading what they had to say to him. Maybe he wanted to show you that he does have admirers. That even though you despise him, there are women who don’t, women who are drawn to him. He’s like a spurned lover, trying to make you jealous. Trying to throw you off balance.”
“Don’t mind-fuck me.”
“And it’s working, isn’t it? Look at you. He’s got you wound up so tight you can’t even sit still. He knows how to manipulate you, how to mess around with your head.”
“You’re giving him too much credit.”
“Am I?”
She waved at the letters. “This is all supposed to be for my benefit? What, I’m the center of his universe?”
“Isn’t he the center of yours?” Dean said quietly.
She stared at him, unable to come up with a retort because what he had said struck her, at that instant, as the unassailable truth. Warren Hoyt was the center of her universe. He reigned as dark lord over her nightmares and dominated her waking hours as well, always poised to step out of his closet, back into her thoughts. In that cellar, she had been marked as his, the way every victim is marked by an assailant, and she could not obliterate his stamp of ownership. It was carved into her hands, seared into her soul.
She returned to the table and sat down. Steeled herself for the remainder of the task.
The next envelope had a typed return address: Dr. J. P. O’Donnell, 1634 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Near Harvard University, Brattle Street was a neighborhood of fine homes and the educated elite, where university professors and retired industrialists jogged the same sidewalks and waved to each other across marucured hedges. It was not the sort of neighborhood where one expected to find a monster’s acolyte.
She unfolded the letter inside. It was dated six weeks ago.
Dear Warren,
Thank you for your last letter, and for signing the two release forms. The details you’ve provided go a long way toward helping me understand the difficulties you’ve faced. I have so many other questions to ask you, and I’m glad you’re still willing to meet with me as planned. If you have no objections, I would like to videotape the interview. You know, of course, that your help is absolutely essential to my project.
Sincerely,
Dr. O’Donnell
“Who on earth is J. P. O’Donnell?” Rizzoli said.
Dean glanced up in surprise. “Joyce O’Donnell?”
“The envelope just says Dr. J. P. O’Donnell. Cambridge, Mass. She’s been interviewing Hoyt.”
He frowned at the envelope. “I didn’t know she’d moved to Boston.”
“You know her?”
“She’s a neuropsychiatrist. Let’s just say we met under hostile circumstances, across the aisle of a courtroom. Defense attorneys love her.”
“Don’t tell me. An expert witness. She goes to bat for the bad guys.”
He nodded. “No matter what your client’s done, how many people he’s killed, O’Donnell is happy to provide mitigating testimony.”
“I wonder why she’s writing to Hoyt.” She reread the letter. It had been written with the utmost respect, praising him for his cooperation. Already she disliked Dr. O’Donnell.
The next envelope in the stack was also from O’Donnell, but it did not contain a letter. Instead she pulled out three Polaroids-strictly amateurish snapshots. Two of them had been taken outdoors in daylight; the third was an indoor scene. For a moment she just stared, the hairs on the back of her neck standing straight up, her eyes registering what her brain refused to accept. She jerked back, and the photos dropped from her hands like hot coals.
“Jane? What is it?”
“It’s me,” she whispered.
“What?”
“She’s been following me. Taking photos of me. She sent them to him.”
Dean rose from his chair and circled to her side of the table to look over her shoulder. “I don’t see you here-”
“Look. Look.” She pointed to the photo of a dark-green Honda parked on the street. “It’s mine.”
“You can’t see the license number.”
“I can recognize my own car!”
Dean flipped over the Polaroid. On the back, someone had drawn an absurd smiley face and had written in blue felt-tip ink: My car.
Fear beat its drum in her chest. “Look at the next one,” she said.
He picked up the second photo. This one, too, had been taken in daylight, and it showed the facade of a building. He didn’t need to be told which building it was; last night he had been inside it. He turned over the photo and saw the words: My home. Beneath the words was another smiley face.