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“I agree. What do you do, Amelia?”
There were those dimples again. “I’m an artist.” There was no reason for her to lie.
He sat back, sipped his ale from the bottle. “That’s impressive. What medium?”
“I’m a painter, primarily. But I also find beautiful things and transform them into things that are more beautiful.”
“You any good?” He was joking. She liked that. It showed confidence.
She stared at him with just a hint of amusement in her smile. “Very.”
“I’ll bet. You know, my cousin used to find old pieces of driftwood on the beach and whittle them into all kinds of things. He was pretty good at it too. You do stuff like that?”
“I have done, though it’s been ages since I’ve been to the beach. Anyway, enough about me. What do you do?”
“I’m an architect. I live in a suit and build things that will last a thousand years, barring nuclear Armageddon.”
Amelia’s eyes wandered just for a second to the other tables. Everyone looked like they were having fun, getting into the groove of things. At the next table sat a balding man in his forties who kept adjusting his blazer cuffs to make sure his Rolex showed. Amelia could tell the watch wasn’t working on the woman across from him. But she forced a smile, nodded a lot, and sipped her Manhattan. It was clear she’d done this before. When the bell rang, marking the five minutes, Mr. Rolex would be Amelia’s problem, and five minutes would feel like forever.
“I’d consider that interesting. Without architects, we’d all be living in caves, right?”
He lifted his bottle. “And without painters, we’d be deprived of beauty. Renoir, Matisse, Vermeer, you. Can you imagine a world without beauty?”
She could, but this was not the time or place to discuss it. There was a timer sitting between them, the tick of seconds winding down. Their five minutes had dwindled down to less than two. Five minutes was just enough to meet, just enough to pique an interest, not long enough for a true connection. It was just long enough to begin to feel trapped if things weren’t going well but still short enough so that the agony had an end point. She glanced over at Mr. Rolex talking a mile a minute, blowing hot air around.
“Not many people could,” she said. “A world without art or creativity or beauty isn’t a world I could live in.”
“Okay, speed round,” Jason said, rubbing his hands together. “Favorite color.”
“Green,” Amelia said as she looked into his clear green eyes. It wasn’t the truth.
She leaned her elbows on the table, getting into the rhythm of the thing. Just for kicks. Just to see. “Your dream city?”
“Easy. Florence.”
She chuckled. “I assume not Missouri?”
He laughed. “Definitely Italy. Vanilla or chocolate?”
Her eyes danced. “Are we talking ice cream or . . .”
The timer sounded. She shrugged playfully. “Time’s up.”
Jason stood, held out a hand. “It was nice meeting you, Amelia the artist.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mr. Rolex get up, grab his glass, and wait to sit across from her. Amelia rose and squeezed Jason’s hand, telegraphing a message. Soft skin. A megawatt smile impossible to resist. “Would you like to see my studio?”
His brows lifted in surprise. “Will you paint me?”
“If you’d like.”
He leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Then I’d love to see your studio, Amelia.”
She took her hand back. “Then let’s get out of here.” She followed behind him, admiring the view. She could hear Mr. Rolex behind them complaining about the disruption in the order, but his frustration wasn’t her problem. He’d just have to flash his watch at someone else.
As she and Jason passed the long table where they had placed their calling cards, Amelia stopped. There were rows and rows of cards with names and professions written on them, no numbers, no addresses. If you found a match, those were details you could relay yourself. She quickly found hers, plucked it up, and slid it into her bag. Poof. Like she’d never been here, except for Jason.
“Ready, Mr. Builder of Buildings?” she asked when they stepped outside onto busy Rush Street.
“This is a first,” he said, “a woman inviting me up to look at her sketches.”
She gave him a long look. She didn’t choose just anyone. “If you live long enough, Jason, you see everything at least once.”
CHAPTER 43
What a mess, Silva thought as she pushed her way through the crowd holding up the sidewalk the next morning. Barely 10:00 a.m. and there were at least a hundred people standing around, pushing, jockeying for position in front of the District One police station.
This was her next move. The police had a problem, three dead women, and they were about to learn that Dr. Mariana Silva was their solution. She was bringing them a prime suspect, a threat to himself and to public safety. That fell within her bounds, her responsibility, as a mental health clinician, or so she would argue. Extraordinary measures had to be taken when lives were at stake. Her proof that Bodie Morgan was a real and present danger? Her instinct and experience. Hadn’t the first victim been found just a few short hours after Bodie Morgan walked out of Westhaven? She didn’t have all the details of the case, of course, but Bodie had twenty-four hours to roam the city on that day pass. And Silva didn’t believe in coincidences.
The crowd pushed forward, banners and protesters, reporters and cameras, pedestrians stopping to watch the chaos. The entire thing felt apocalyptic, end-of-world-ish, as though a deadly pathogen had wormed its way into the population and there wasn’t enough lifesaving vaccine for everyone. They needed to put a face to the maniac prowling their streets. They needed order restored, and it didn’t look to Silva like they cared much how they got it. A woman with a large sign shouted for a total city lockdown, another for an 8:00 p.m. curfew and a callout to the National Guard. SAVE OUR CHILDREN, one sign read. DOWN WITH CLUELESS COPS, read another. They had no idea the dour, humorless woman with the sharp dark eyes studying them held the key to everything.
It took Silva longer than it should have to convince the sergeant at the desk that she wasn’t some attention-seeking crackpot and that she had information vital to the murder investigation. She was forced to show her Westhaven credentials, meaningless to her and embarrassing to present but official enough to get the sergeant’s attention.
“I’m Dr. Mariana Silva,” she finally had to say in an authoritative tone that had heads turning at the front desk. “Do you want to stop these murders or not? I need to see Detective Harriet Foster.”
Quickly deposited into a small, stuffy, smelly interview room with no windows, she waited for Foster to come in, knowing discussions about her were going on outside the closed door, feeling that eyes were on her, maybe, through the two-way mirror. They would look her up to see if she was who she claimed to be, but they wouldn’t find everything. This made her smile. Pride. She had a lot of it.
The door opened, and she watched two women enter. Foster and a lean Asian woman, their badges clipped to their belts, stern looks on their faces. All business. No time for grandstanding. They pulled out chairs across the table and sat facing her. It was Foster she wanted to see, up close, and here she was, as straight as a ship’s mast. But she was meeting only the cop, the job, not the woman underneath. That woman, she could clearly see, had been stowed away. How fascinating, Silva thought. She stared into Foster’s sharp eyes, searching for private truths as she always did whenever she encountered anyone, only this time the eyes probed back, searching for Silva’s secrets as intensely as Silva was searching for hers.
“I’m Detective Foster. This is Detective Li. You say you have something for us?”
All business. Task at hand. “I do,” Silva said, pleased with herself.
A beat passed. Li was impatient. Three bodies on the ME’s slab. There was zero time for a meandering conversation with a strange walk-in. “Well, then?”
“You were partnered with a man before,” Silva said, addressing Foster. “I saw your pictures in the paper.” She gave Li half a smile. “But I like this pairing better. I’ve found that women are far more intuitive than men.”
“You’re a psychiatrist.” Foster consulted her notes. “At Westhaven Psychiatric Hospital. And you’re here because . . .”
Silva flinched at the mention of Westhaven. God, she hated the place. But she knew Foster and Li weren’t going to give her much time. “I specialize in antisocial personality disorders. To the layman, sociopaths, psychopaths, though we eschew the terms. That’s what you’re dealing with. The papers weren’t explicit, but were the murders unusually violent? Were the victims found naked? Was there something distinctive left behind, like a mark or a symbol?”
Neither Foster nor Li said a thing, but Silva could tell she’d just become more interesting to them both. She decided to make good use of the moment. “Young women of a certain type. Concealed, especially their faces.”
“Who is he?” Foster asked.
Li added, “And where can we find him?”
Satisfied she’d broken through, moved from quack to serious contender, Silva took a moment to collect her thoughts and choose her words carefully. “He’s a former patient, a man I believe to be very unstable. His name is Bodie Morgan, and I believe he is a danger to himself and others.”
“You’re turning in your patient?” Foster said.
Silva’s eyes held hers. “I’d like to think I’m helping him. That’s how strongly I take this. Mr. Morgan had been arrested for stalking two young women several months ago. That much he told me, though, of course, he maintained it was all a misunderstanding. Apparently, Morgan’s lawyer suggested Westhaven, and he resented having to take the suggestion. He isn’t the first person to flee to a psychiatric facility to avoid jail time or demonstrate good faith to a judge. Thirty days. I listened to him tell me about himself. He wasn’t truthful.”
“Go on,” Foster said.
“I couldn’t break through,” Silva said. “The sessions ended in stalemate. I can help him. There’s a course of therapy. But he has to be willing. And though I suspect him, believe him to be dangerous, I have no proof that he killed anyone.”
“You come forward now? After three deaths,” Foster said. “Why not after the first or the second?”
“You’re angry at the loss of life. You also feel some personal responsibility for the victims, for not catching him in time to save them.” Silva wasn’t talking to Foster directly, just running through ideas aloud, confident she’d read Foster correctly.
“Can we skip the parlor tricks?” Foster asked. “Tell us more about this Bodie Morgan.”
“He’s deeply damaged. Trauma literally oozes out of him. I’ve spent my entire career working to understand the mentally ill.”
Silva folded her hands on the table, enjoying being the center of attention, maybe a little too much. She was in no hurry to wind it all out for them. “He’s suffering from a disconnect. A short circuit in the wiring. I would say brought on by childhood distress, maybe even abuse. There’s active abuse, you see—slaps, beatings, kicks—and passive: emotional manipulation, neglect, the use of fear or persuasion. Bodie Morgan has experienced some or all of this and is likely acting it out with the women to which he’s drawn.”
“Not all abused children become murderers,” Foster said.
“True. But you’d be hard pressed to find a murderer who hasn’t been abused in some way. If I had to guess, and I rarely do, I would say whatever happened to Bodie changed him in profound ways. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you more. I can only bring him to your attention. I would be willing to be of assistance if you decide to look at him further. He might feel more comfortable speaking with someone familiar.” Silva slid her business card across the table. “I’m available day or night.”
“His address?” Li asked.
Silva recited it, then sat back and waited. “I’ve been completely truthful here.”
Li flicked Foster a look, got up, and left the room.
“More checking?” Silva asked.
“Yes,” Foster said.
Silva had expected an easier time and a lot more deference. She got neither. “You don’t trust me,” she said.
Foster paged through her notebook, waiting on Li. “I’m not in the trust business.”
“No, I can see that.”
Li returned. Silva tracked her as she sat down and slid a file toward her partner. Everyone waited in silence until Foster read the contents.
“The officers who arrested Bodie Morgan found him on the roof of his building ready to jump,” Foster said. “So he’s suicidal on top of being a psychopathic killer?”
Silva shook her head. “He wasn’t going to jump.”
“You sound sure of that,” Li said.
“I am. If he was found on the edge of that roof, it was for some other reason.”
The room grew so quiet that Silva could hear warm air blowing out of the vents. Foster closed the file and stood up. Li stood too. “Thanks for coming in, Dr. Silva.”
The meeting was over. She was being dismissed. Would they consult her when they spoke to Bodie? She needed the guarantee. “He’ll shut down,” Silva said. “I should be here when you talk to him. In fact, I believe, given the choice between talking to me and talking to you, he’ll choose me.”
Foster smiled, but there was something in it that Silva couldn’t quite make out. “We won’t give him that choice. An officer will see you out.”
Silva was guided to the exit. As the police escort walked her down the hall, she could feel Foster and Li watching her, judging her. She grew angrier with every step she took. What right did they have to question her motives? They were going to freeze her out; she knew it. She pushed through the front doors, leaving her escort behind.
“Damn them,” she said under her breath.
CHAPTER 44
At her desk, Foster pored over the record of Bodie Morgan’s stalking arrest. She looked up at Li sitting across from her, pulling up ID records on the women who’d pressed charges against him. “He does seem to have some serious issues,” she said.
Li stared at her monitor. “Listen to this—the two women who reported Morgan for stalking them say he really freaked them out. It wasn’t just him showing up at the same places, a bar, coffee shop, whatever.” She shoved a copy of a driver’s license across the desks. “This one, Katherine Wright, filed her complaint first. Morgan wouldn’t let up. I really hate a creepy guy.”
“She met him where?”
“Both complainants say they remember meeting him in a bar. Not the same bar. But both bars aren’t far from Morgan’s apartment or theirs. And meet him, apparently, is all they did. He approached, tried to pick them up, and I guess they smelled the weird on him and froze him out.”
“But he kept coming back?”
Li nodded. “Nearly every time they walked into a bar, he’d be there. Again, different bars, different nights, he’s there and starts up again. What’d they both do? They complain to the owners. He gets tossed.”
“And they choose different bars the next time,” Foster said.
“Right. Logical. Only he shows up there too. He gets tossed again, and for a while it’s all good, and then, bam, he’s back. Then the second victim swears she sees Morgan in her backyard, just standing there looking up at her windows. That would have done it for me.”
“There was a chase,” Foster said, referring to the report in front of her. “A Detective Tynan caught him?”
Li leaned back, smiled. “Oh, this is rich. The second victim’s Reese Tynan, whose brother, Detective Ciaran Tynan, just happens to work out of the Sixteenth District. Reese tells Ciaran all about the bar creep; bro cop moves into her place, staking it out. Morgan shows up doing his creepy loser thing, and Ciaran comes barreling out the door to grab him, only Morgan runs off. The chase ends on the roof of Morgan’s place. Tynan put in the report later that it looked like Morgan was getting ready to jump when he finally cornered him, but he snatched him back before he could. Morgan’s sporting a fat lip and a shiner in his mug shot. Tynan swears Morgan tripped on the stairs on the way down. I say he had the trip coming. Silva was right. It being his first offense, he got probation instead of time. His walking voluntarily into Westhaven, I guess, was his attempt at proving he wasn’t a complete scumbag?”
“Both women don’t live far from Morgan,” Foster said. “He didn’t go far.”
“And he doesn’t live that far from Birch’s campus either,” Li said.
“If it’s Morgan,” Foster said, “maybe Tynan caught him just as he was about to graduate from stalking to murder.” Li slid the copy of Reese Tynan’s driver’s license across to her. The copies were in black and white, but her eyes went right to the information she wanted to confirm.
“They’re both redheads,” Foster said.
Li nodded. “Like Silva told us. He has a type.”
CHAPTER 45
There was a knock at his door at the ungodly hour of 10:45 a.m. If it was Dr. Silva again, she was going to regret it. Bodie squinted through the peephole, certain that he would see her standing there like a harbinger of doom, a vulture waiting to pick his bones clean. But it wasn’t her. Instead, he gazed upon two serious-looking women. Police.
He knew they were police by the tight set of their jaws, the way they stood, the way they checked the hallway and braced for the opening of the door, ready for anything. Instantly his mood darkened. He wasn’t frightened or intimidated, just annoyed. He wanted to be left alone to figure things out. How could he do that if there were cops at his door? Even the knock sounded authoritative, demanding. Like they had a right. Why was it always women sweating him, pushing him, ignoring him, running him?
