"Not by me." He grinned.
He could see she didn't know how to react to that, didn't know whether she should grin back or scowl. In the end she tried to preserve her dignity. "Perhaps we should cut this short," she said.
"As you like," Janek said. "But I think you'll be interested to hear what I have to say." She gazed at him. "I'm waiting." "You're a very composed woman." "I suppose I try to be."
"Your poise impresses me. Even the first time I came here, I was impressed. Even when you tried to make me think I had sexual fantasies about my goddaughter." He erased the half-smile from his lips; he wanted her to understand he was serious. "Jess was afraid of you. She left a message on my answering machine. She said she was deathly afraid." He paused. "If I hadn't been abroad at the time, I might have saved her life. But I was away, so she was killed. I hold you responsible for that."
Beverly Archer sat straight up in her chair, her features contorted by fury. "Oh, you're really impossible! That's just absurd!"
"I don't think so."
"Now you listen to me, Detective. Before you emote any more garbage, you should know how impossibly stupid you sound. Jessica was not frightened of me. She had no reason to be. We were getting along very well. I was helping her. She told me I was.
My only regret, and I can understand if you hold me responsible for this, is that I had no knowledge of what was going on between her and Diana. If I'd had any inkling, I assure you I would have taken steps."
She sat back, her lips still trembling. She didn't bother to disguise her anger. Even though he'd broken through her veneer, Janek was impressed. She came across as utterly authentic. Perhaps she really didn't know, he thought.
When she spoke again, her tone was more constrained.
"For me the tragedy is having to live with my blindness to what was happening between two beloved patients. Neither girl said a word to me, not a solitary word about the other, except for occasional casual remarks. I had no idea they were involved on such an intense level.
I wish I'd known. I think I could have done something if I had."
She was, he realized, apologizing to him the only way she knew. Not outright, without equivocation, as would have been appropriate, but tentatively, defensively. She wasn't capable of more.
"Perhaps you didn't know," he said. "Perhaps now you really are suffering over that. But it's hard for me to feel compassion when you speak about a 'tragedy,' and then it turns out what you mean is having to live with your personal failure as a therapist. Both girls are dead. As are seventeen other people. And you're responsible for all of them. I told you Jess was afraid of you. She had good reason to be. Diana told her a tale of being sent to various parts of the country to kill people who had offended you in the past. It was all for Mother, Diana told Jess-Mother, being, of course, your mother, the lady in the picture upstairs. An insane fantasy? Jess wasn't sure. She was just terribly, terribly scared.
Well, I've had a lot of time to think about it, Beverly. Brushing close to death tends to focus your thinking. And I've decided that what Diana told Jess wasn't an insane fantasy at all. I think it was true. I think you were behind every murder Diana Proctor committed, except maybe Jess. And because you weren't behind that one killing, you're able to work up sufficient emotion about it to convince people you had nothing to do with the rest."
He paused for effect. Her eyes were riveted to his. She hated him, of course; her eyes told him that. But no matter her hatred, she could not look away. He held her spellbound with his words.
"I came today to tell you to your face I'm not convinced at all. I see straight through your phony story and your transparent pack of lies.
Now I promise you this: When I'm done with you, the whole world will see through them, too." He leaned forward. "You're a mind fucker, Beverly.. You mind-fucked Diana. You designated the people she killed. You sent her out to do your dirty work because you didn't have the guts to do your killing for yourself. 'Mind murders' my chief calls them. 'How're you going to prove your case?' I'm not sure.
I've got some ideas. We'll see how they turn out. You're sick.
You're perverted. I think you're evil." He rose. "That's it.
That's why I came, to tell you that, and to let you know I'll be working now full-time to put you away. The game's over, Beverly. No Diana around to protect you anymore. The real fight's about to start.
It's just you and me, babe. And I don't intend to lose."
With that he turned on his heel and headed for the door. He opened it, didn't bother to shut it, just kept walking straight through her waiting room, past an attractive college-age girl who gazed after him with fascinated eyes, straight out the front door of her house and onto the street. He maintained his pace as he walked down to Second Avenue, never once turning around. When at last he was certain he was completely out of view, he stumbled against the brick wall of an apartment building and then, arms extended, leaned against it and gasped. His head reeled; his forehead was dripping.
God help me, he thought. I just titrett, tize gauntlet down.
10
Broken
Dreams When he phoned Monika and told her what he'd done, she was startled and also a little angry. "Why did you do that, Frank?" "to unnerve her."
"I understand. But look what happened. You also unnerved yourself." "Yeah, well, I think it was worth it."
"Listen to me." Her voice was urgent. "She's a dangerous woman. What if she comes after you?"
"With an ice pick and a pot of glue? Don't worry about that. She's the most contemptible type of criminal, a coward. There's nothing she can do to me now. Without her hatchet woman, she's impotent."
There was a pause at the other end. "I wonder if you aren't too close to this." "Spare me, please, Monika. You sound like Kit."
"Maybe Kit's right. You despise Beverly Archer, don't you?"
"Let's say I don't like her very much." He paused. "Okay, I despise her," he admitted.
"Is that a healthy way to relate to someone you're trying to prove committed a crime?" "I don't know whether it's healthy, Monika. But I assure you I'm under control. Anyway, there's no law that says I can't have feelings about my work."
"No one objects to your feelings, Frank," she said quietly. "I just don't want to see you hurt yourself over this."
On New Year's Day Aaron called from Cleveland: "Time for you to come out here, Frank."
The next morning, the first workday of the new year, Janek flew to the Midwest. Gray skies, a vast frozen lake, plumes of industrial smoke, a furious late-winter storm. His plane circled Hopkins Airport for three-quarters of an hour. Concerned stewardesses with glossy brows and frozen smiles paced nervously. After numerous unctuous announcements from the captain, the plane started down through impenetrable sleet, an endless descent, it seemed to Janek, until finally, unexpectedly, it landed hard. When it jerked to a stop, the relieved passengers applauded and shook their heads. The captain, face red, collar tight, stood nodding at the door. The collected crew wished everyone a happy New Year, a safe continuing journey, and, in the event Cleveland was the final destination, a most pleasant stay.
Aaron was waiting for him by the gate. He hustled Janek into his rental car, then drove into the city on an elevated highway.
"What kind of town is this?" Janek asked, looking down at gas stations, commercial strips, snow-crusted parking lots, endless blocks of drab gray buildings. Aaron pondered the question. Then he looked up. "Mind if I wax poetic, Frank?" Janek laughed. "Be my guest."
"Cleveland," Aaron intoned sonorously, "is a Rust Belt town of broken dreams." I Janek nodded; he liked that. And staring out the window, he also decided he liked the town. Perhaps because of the deliberate lack of any appliqu6 of glamour, he found it oddly glamorous.