“What are you talking about?”
Blackburn sighed. “You hungry?”
“Not particularly.”
“Well, I shouldn’t be either, but I am, and there’s something I gotta show you. Let’s go get lunch.”
They got trays in the hospital cafeteria, Blackburn filling his plate with slop that looked barely edible. But he was used to barely edible, so he happily scooped it on and looked forward to hammering it down.
Carmody stuck to fresh greens. No dressing.
Typical.
He could see that she was about ready to burst. Agitated by his delaying tactics. To her credit, however, she kept her impatience in check for once, giving Blackburn some slack.
He knew it wouldn’t last long. But he’d needed a few moments to think about how he was going to frame this. Tell her what he now suspected.
“So here’s the thing,” he said, once they’d settled at a table. “Ever since I brought Psycho Bitch here, I—”
“Who?”
He eyed her patiently. “The witness.”
Carmody gave him that look she was so good at. The one that said he was a politically incorrect, misogynistic idiot. “Psycho Bitch?”
He shrugged. “I call ’em like I see ’em.”
She shook her head, stabbed a bite of salad. “You’re a sad man, Frank. Got the sensitivity of a snail.”
“Yeah? You didn’t seem to mind so much when I spent the night at your apartment.”
Her expression froze. “Don’t even go there.”
Blackburn was about to do just that, and then some, but caught himself. It seemed that whenever he got around Carmody for any extended length of time, he let himself get sucked into some weird vortex where he actually gave a shit what she thought of him. Like he was some pimply-faced teenager trying to get the prom queen to take notice.
He looked at her a moment, noting that she was wearing less makeup these days, and that she still wore those tiny ruby earrings her father had given her when she was fifteen. Her birthstone. He wasn’t sure why he remembered that particular tidbit about her life, but it made him uncomfortable to know that he did.
He cleared his throat. “Right. Back to Tolan.”
“I’m losing my patience.”
As if she ever had any.
“The thing is,” Blackburn said, “once I get hold of something, it’s hard for me to let go. You know that. And I can’t stop thinking about what Psycho — Jane Doe keeps saying.”
“Which is?”
“Two times four is a lie.”
Carmody blinked at him. “What?”
“Two times four is a lie. She says it over and over. At first I thought it was just a buncha nut-case nonsense, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Okay,” Carmody said. “I’m curious. Tell me why I should care.”
“Think about it. Two times four. Four multiplied by two. What does that equal?”
“Eight.”
“Exactly. And how many victims have we attributed to Vincent?”
Carmody hesitated. “Eight,” she said.
“Right again. But now the circus is in town based solely on the strength of a couple of phone calls. Phone calls accusing Tolan of being a copycat. Of murdering his wife. Which, if true, would mean that Vincent’s victim count is only seven.”
“If true?”
“Two times four is a lie.”
He waited for Carmody to process this, but wasn’t surprised when she balked. “You expect me to believe that this woman somehow knows how many people Vincent has really killed?”
“No, but maybe she knows that Tolan’s wife wasn’t one of them.”
Carmody stared at him. “You think Tolan killed his wife.”
“Just like Vincent said.”
She clearly wasn’t buying. Seemed amused, in fact. “That’s pretty wild, Frank. Tell me another one.”
“Don’t be so quick to dismiss me, okay?”
“There’s a flaw in your logic. If Tolan killed his wife, why would he bother telling us about Vincent’s phone calls in the first place? Wouldn’t he want to keep that to himself?”
Blackburn waited a moment, then said, “What if I told you those phone calls are complete bullshit? That he made it all up?”
“That’s ludicrous. Why would he do that?”
Blackburn shrugged. “Why else? Guilt.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Frank, if you brought me here to spew this nonsense—”
“Just let me finish, okay?”
Carmody glared at him. “This had better be good.”
They said nothing for a moment, launching into an impromptu staring contest, Blackburn trying to decide if he wanted to put a fist in her face or simply lean across the table and plant a kiss on her lips.
That would certainly catch her off guard.
“How many times,” he said, breaking away from the stare, “have you gotten a perp in the interrogation room, he’s denying and denying — didn’t know the girl, wasn’t near the place — but you get the sense he’s holding back. And you know he wants to tell you about it, keeps steering the conversation in a direction that makes you think he might want to confess.”
“And you think that’s Tolan?”
“Like I said, what if the phone calls from Vincent weren’t real? What if that web page he showed us was a fake? What would that tell you?”
“That he has some very serious mental health issues. But you’re making an assumption that isn’t backed up by the facts.”
“Isn’t it?” Blackburn dipped his hand into his coat pocket and brought out the list of cell phone calls. “Right after Tolan pulled his disappearing act, I got a call from De Mello. He faxed me this.”
He unfolded it and laid it on the table in front of her.
“Tolan says Vincent called him around three this morning, then again about an hour before we got here. Notice anything missing?”
Carmody scanned the sheet. “Here’s one right here. A little after three A.M.”
“Yeah, that’s me, calling about Jane.” He pointed to the next entry. “And this one is Tolan calling me, right before I went into the meeting with Escalante.” He paused. “There’s no activity in between.”
Carmody frowned. “What about his home and office lines?”
“We don’t have the records yet, but he specifically said Vincent called him on his cell phone, remember?”
She remembered, all right. Blackburn could see it in her face.
“I don’t believe this. He lied to us.”
“That he did,” Blackburn said, leaning back in his chair. “Right to our fucking faces.”
31
Lisa had been to the parking lot three times in the last half hour and still no sign of him. His parking space was empty.
She took her cell phone out, dialed his number. It rang several times, then his voice mail answered. Beeped.
“Michael,” she said, “it’s me again. Where are you? We were supposed to have lunch, remember? Call me when you get this.”
She hung up, feeling hurt and angry.
Wanted to wring his neck.
She knew these crank phone calls, or whatever they were, had rattled him. But she suspected the patient in SR-3 was the real reason for his behavior. Had known it the moment she saw her curled up on the bed — that same petite, fragile frame as Abby’s. The same wild dark hair.
Lisa hadn’t been able to see the patient’s face, but wouldn’t be surprised if there was a resemblance there, too. Enough to get to Michael.
And the timing couldn’t be worse.
Why did she have to show up today of all days?
Lisa had seen Michael in a lot of different moods over the last year, but he’d never been so distant, so reluctant to communicate as he was today. And she hated it when he kept things from her. Hated the wondering and the worrying.