“So instead you humiliated him by dragging him down to Saint Mary’s.”
“That was for you,” Major Shields said. “We wanted you to understand how serious this is. And we wanted you to know the investigation is, for all intents and purposes, over.”
“They never found a body.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong.”
“Excuse me?”
“Several men about the right age have surfaced in the bay since Charlie Chisholm disappeared, including two John Does. Remember, Charlie Chisholm wouldn’t come up as Charlie Chisholm, because the real one is alive. We’re looking at these drowning victims. We’re sure one of them is our guy.”
“But if Charlie had surfaced, wouldn’t someone have brought Mary Ann Melcher in to make the ID? After all, the DNR police knew he had gone missing because of the float report.”
“These bodies were found in such an advanced state of decay that visual ID was-to put it nicely-no longer feasible. But the medical examiner had dental records on file that Mary Ann thought belonged to her boyfriend. She found them in the apartment after he disappeared. Here’s the odd thing: The dental records matched the real Charlie Chisholm, the one in the VA hospital.”
“How did he get those?”
“Believe me, we’re trying to find out. But it explains why they didn’t match up to a John Doe.”
“But what if Carl is right? What if the killer just faked his suicide and he’s still out there? What if he’s moved to another state?”
“We’ve been all over that, Tess. We cannot find a single unsolved homicide that matches. The guy’s either dead or he’s Houdini. Do you believe in criminal masterminds? Do you honestly think that serial killers are geniuses, toying with law enforcement officials? In many cases, they’re the lowest of the low, with barely functional IQs.”
“Still-”
“Go home, Tess.” His voice was not unkind. “Let Carl be an example to you of what can happen when you get obsessed with something.”
“And what if Carl is right?”
The question caught her off guard, but only because it was strange to hear Dr. Armistead say what was inside her head. He had a way of sneaking into her thoughts when she least expected it.
She hated it when he did that.
“I don’t think he is,” she said. “And even if he is-it’s up to the police. I don’t investigate homicides.”
“But you were investigating homicides. Or so you insisted when I made the same point two weeks ago.”
“I was hired to examine the police work on five-well, four-open homicides. I did that. Game over.”
“You think of it as a game?”
“That’s just an expression. From video games, you know? You play for ten or fifteen minutes-or, in my case, more like ninety seconds- and then that’s what it says on the screen: GAME OVER.”
“Are you angry at Carl?”
She sighed. “That word’s never far from us, is it?”
“It’s the reason we’re here.”
“No, I’m not angry, although he undermined me when he didn’t tell me everything he knew. I feel sorry for him. He did the best he could. He had his reasons. They were the reasons of a damaged man, who can’t think things through very well, but they were reasons. I’m sad about Carl. I liked him. I liked working with him. I didn’t want him to be a nut.”
“So someone who spends a few weeks in a mental hospital as the result of a situational trauma is a nut? Or is it the fact of Carl’s obsession that makes him-again, I’ll use your term-a nut?”
“Sorry.” Except she wasn’t. She liked mocking his work, liked being politically incorrect about mental illness.
“Whether he is right or wrong, Carl believes the killer is still at large. What if he’s right?”
“He’s not.”
“But imagine if he were. In his mind, he was in a position to try and prevent another woman’s death. How do you think you’d feel if another woman died now?”
“No one’s going to die. The killer’s dead. Are you saying Carl was right?”
“I’m not saying who’s right or who’s wrong. I’m asking you to show some empathy for this man you claim to like so much. Even if the supposition is false-or even somewhat self-aggrandizing-how would you feel if you thought there was even a chance you could have saved someone’s life if you had done something differently?”
Dr. Armistead’s deep, rumbling voice was extremely mild. He was learning, Tess realized, that she was quick to take offense if he was too sharp, too pointed. Tyner Gray hadn’t mastered that trick, despite knowing her for almost a decade.
“I would feel awful,” she said, “but I would get over it.”
“The same way you got over the death of your boyfriend, Jonathan Ross?”
“How do you know about that?”
“You mentioned it, at one point.”
Had she? She couldn’t remember. She thought she had kept Jonathan to herself, even here.
“I wasn’t at fault in Jonathan’s death. I didn’t cause it, I couldn’t stop it.”
“Did that keep you from feeling guilty?”
“No.”
“So imagine if you were at fault. How would you feel? That’s all I’m asking, Tess. Imagine how you would feel if you believed someone’s death was on your hands, as we used to say.”
“There are no deaths after Lucy Fancher’s. So Carl doesn’t have to feel guilty about anything.”
“Then maybe he feels incomplete.”
“If you use the word closure I’m going to get up and walk out.”
“You can’t walk out,” Dr. Armistead said serenely. “You’re here under court orders. You’re mine for five more months. Do you realize today marks our first-month anniversary?”
The syntax bothered her. It bothered her quite a bit. You’re mine for five more months.
“I’m not yours,” Tess said. “I’m not anyone’s.”
“My apologies. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. All I’m trying to do is get you to be more empathetic. You say you liked this man, Carl Dewitt. Why can’t you see he may have had reasons to do what he did? Why can’t you try and understand him?”
“You’re saying that, even if he’s wrong, his conviction that the killer is still at large would explain why he did what he did.”
“Something like that. I don’t know anything about Carl other than what you’ve told me. But it seems to me that a man who couldn’t solve one woman’s murder might feel better about himself if he could at least bring the man to justice. He’s been denied that. And imagine how he would feel-how you would feel-if someone else were to die now?”
The various minute hands of the various clocks made their way back to twelve and Tess went on her way, her stamped card a reminder this was, in fact, probation, a punishment. Five more months. She’d make it. She was sure of that much.
She was also sure she had no use for the doctor’s theoretical questions. How would you feel if someone else were to die now? It was just the usual psychoanalytic, hypothetical, hyperbolic crap, she told herself.
And so it was, and so it remained-for the next twenty-four hours.
Things are not going according to plan. He is not used to that. Everything always goes according to his plans. He has been so thorough, so careful, ever since-well, since he had to be. And now, to be undone by a single man, a stupid man. He knows it must be that stupid Barney Fife’s fault. How did this happen? He’s not sure, he can’t be sure, he can’t get close enough to be sure.
But the fact remains, she is no longer going to Pikesville every day. She is barely leaving the house, as best as he can tell. And yet there has been nothing in the papers, no announcement of any discoveries. He wonders if the men are cutting her out. Yes, of course. He has once again underestimated the perfidy of his own sex. He has been spending so much time with women-thinking about women, listening to women, catering to women-that he has forgotten how men operate. Their methods are clumsy, barbarous, even-but effective. He wishes he could teach those state cops a thing or two. But he has to hold himself in check, stay in control. It’s all about control. Ego must be held in check.