Guilt (30 page)

“Must've taken him quite a while to write all this down,” MacRae said.

Phrases popped out at Peter. “Legalistkill Juggernaut,” “Highway robbers in suits,” sneered forward-slanting, sloppy cursive writing. “I am a true Seeker,” “I cleave to no system”—these phrases were written in a hand as upright and restrained as the words themselves. Elsewhere, in careful printing, it said, “We must take control,” and “The Consumer must be persuaded to stop.”

Three handwritings, three different tones of voice. Peter realized what he was looking at. This was an extended, semiarticulate dialogue among the Maw, the Philosopher King, and the Marshal, the three characters Blankstein had referred to in his email. There was no coherent narrative flow, but the thoughts seemed loosely connected.

In one place, the printed words “Law must be neutral” were followed by the barely legible “But the nail that sticks up gets smashed down.” Then came the carefully written response: “We thank you for the reality check.”

Though he searched and searched, there was nothing in the scrawling hand of the Maw, or the aseptic printing of the Marshal, or the perfect penmanship of the Philosopher King about the bombings. Nothing about law schools or cathedrals, court buildings or law offices. No hint of what the next target would be.

Did Blankstein work the way the average person would, from top to bottom, left to right? Near the floor on the right-hand wall was written: “No apologies. We are nothing more than a grotesque mirror image of a Society bent on self-destruction. We wish to remove from our present prison to another more amenable address to complete the Work at hand.”

All that was missing was
THE END
. Peter could imagine Blankstein sitting cross-legged on the bit of carpeting, unrepentant, writing these final lines before papering over the interior of the closet, his overnight bag packed. He'd run out of walls on which to write. A prison cell would give him three big empty ones, blank slates on which to start anew.

*   *   *

Annie lay in the hospital bed after Peter left. She was still trying to wrap her head around what Peter had been telling her. She remembered working in her office that morning; then Luke arrived. She remembered trying on the dress. The doorbell rang. Then what? Peter said there'd been a bomb. Luke was hurt. She'd been hurt, too.

She reached up and touched the gauze. Thinking made her head ache. She could feel one kind of pain in her scalp on top of her head, a tightness, probably stitches. Had they shaved off some of her hair? She didn't want to know. But the worse pain was a throbbing in her right temple, and also in her arm, where the slightest movement caused arcs of pain to radiate from her wrist.

She groped under her pillow. No, she didn't need her cell phone. She needed the nurse call button. She found it hanging on the side of the bed and pressed. Minutes later, she heard squishy footsteps.

“Anne?” The nurse, a tall, lanky woman with long dark hair, wore flowered scrubs, almost like comfortable pajamas, and sneakers.

“Annie,” Annie said. “I hurt. My head, my arm.” She was embarrassed to find tears pricking out of her eyes. Anger surged through her. She wanted to rip out the IV. How long were they going to leave these damned tubes in her nose? She felt raw and chafed all over, shivery with cold.

The nurse checked the chart. “I'll see if I can get you something.” She covered Annie with an extra blanket and hurried off.

Annie stared at the ceiling.
Breathe,
she told herself.
Relax
. Getting tense and upset only made pain worse.
One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight
. On each count she inhaled, then exhaled, emptying her lungs.

“Annie?” It was Abby. She looked pale, wrung out. The powder-blue suit she had on looked as if she'd slept in it. She perched on the edge of the chair. “Peter told me you woke up, but when I came in earlier, it looked like you were out again. You doing okay?” She touched the bandage on Annie's head. “You're not, are you?”

“I will be. How's Luke?”

“He's cut up, and bruised. Cracked a couple of ribs. Collapsed lung.”

“Hang on to him. That one's a keeper, no joke intended.”

“I'm trying to,” Abby said, tears streaming down her face. “I'm so glad you like him.”

“I do.”

Abby left when the nurse returned. She injected the contents of a hypodermic syringe into the IV line. Afterward, the nurse poured water from a plastic pitcher into the glass on the bedside table. Then she gently pressed Annie's wrist and took her pulse. Already Annie felt warmer.

The nurse stood over her, smiling. “It's working, isn't it?”

Annie nodded. She imagined the pain, like some disgusting yellow discharge, draining from her head and out her ears. Jackie would have been proud of her. The power of positive thinking, she'd have said—never mind that it was backed up by the power of Demerol, or codeine, or whatever wonderful elixir the nurse had sent flowing into her.

She closed her eyes and let herself float. She didn't doubt it had happened, but still she had no memory of a bomb, or of anything unpleasant except that lime-green satin dress. That she remembered. It was something a Muppet would wear. Pumps in her size dyed that color? She tried not to laugh.

She remembered Luke holding a big bouquet of red roses.
Who's Petey?
he'd asked, picking up the card off the floor. The delivery man had wanted to leave the flowers on the landing, the delivery man who'd arrived in a black Chevy wagon.

Amazing that there were still cars like her father's old tank still on the road. The world was full of doppelgangers like that. Flowers at home, flowers at work. The nurse who reminded her of Jackie Klevinski, a long, solemn face, hair tied back at the nape of the neck. And Jackie reminded her of Charlotte Florence. And Charlotte's father reminded her of Joe Klevinski.

Her mind looped, and looped back, returning to the black Chevy wagon. A car like that had been parked behind hers when she staked out the Brighton post office. And somewhere she'd seen a car like that not long ago. Where…? But the thought slipped away. She felt herself drifting, and for some reason she smelled pot roast. She wasn't hungry, really, but the smell was comforting.

31

A
S
A
NNIE
said, there was no choice. Still, Peter had to force himself to follow MacRae to the massive police headquarters in Roxbury. As he walked to the rear entrance from the parking lot, he saw himself reflected in the glass exterior. His suit jacket was rumpled and his face was gray with stubble. He groped in his pocket for his tie, then abandoned the effort. Putting on a tie would be like sticking a Band-Aid on a concussion. At least he didn't have to run the media gauntlet at the main entrance.

MacRae shepherded him through security and upstairs to an office. Neddleman was waiting.

“Thanks for coming,” Neddleman said, standing when Peter entered. He didn't bat an eye at Peter's appearance. “Coffee?”

God, he could use a cup. Maybe that would make the world snap into focus. “Please.”

Neddleman poured a cup from the pot in the corner. “Milk? Sugar?”

Peter shook his head. Straight caffeine, that was all he needed. Neddleman handed him the cup.

“I know this is difficult.” The guy oozed sympathy. Probably kept his emotions in a jar along with his hair gel. “It'll be just the two of you. No wires. No hidden cameras. No one-way glass. That's how he wants it. We have enough evidence to hang him, so all you need to do is find out if and where he's got more bombs.”

If this was so simple, then why couldn't they do it without him? Peter took another gulp of coffee. It was good and strong. He felt his head clear.

Neddleman's gaze went back and forth from Peter to MacRae. “You okay with this?”

Peter drained the cup and handed it back to Neddleman. “Can we just get it over with so I can get the hell out of here?”

Peter followed MacRae down the hall and up a flight of stairs. MacRae pressed a buzzer in the wall, and a door swung open. MacRae led the way past a guard desk and down an antiseptic corridor. He stopped in front of a door with a small window in it.

“He's in there.”

Peter peered through the glass. All he could see was a table and two chairs. He pulled the door open. He heard Blankstein humming before he saw him, sitting cross-legged under the table. He had his eyes closed. As he breathed out, he made a sound like the wheezy bellows in Peter's dream.

So this pathetic excuse for a man was responsible for so much anguish, so much terror, so many deaths. Mary Alice Boudreaux, Rudy Ravitch's buddy Leon Gauss, the other victims whom Peter knew only as statistics. Annie and Luke had almost been added to the list. And there would be more if Peter couldn't get him to tell where he'd hidden the next bomb. How much easier it would be to just insert a cattle prod into this man's ass and see if the information didn't miraculously pop out of his mouth. Not to mention how much more satisfying the whole process would be. It was a very narrow chasm, barely a crack, really, between humanity and depravity.

Peter steeled himself. He sat in a chair and pushed back from the table so he could see Blankstein.

“Hello, Richard.”

Blankstein's eyes snapped open. “Hello, Peter.”

“You know I have to tell the authorities everything you tell me,” Peter said, issuing the obligatory Lamb warning, “and it can be used against you in court. You'd be better off talking to your own attorney.”

“Scum. Blow the buggers up.”

“Isn't that why you're here?”

Blankstein laced his fingers, closed his eyes, and resumed humming.

“You like small spaces, don't you? I saw your closet.”

The humming stopped.

“You going to do that in prison? Talk to the walls?”

A smile spread over Blankstein's face. “They have a wonderful library, did you know that? Books, magazines. And a network where you can order—”

Peter brought his fist down on the top of the table. “Why'd you try to kill Annie? You just want to add more notches to your belt?”

Blankstein covered his head with his arms and cowered. “Who's Annie?”

“That's the way you do it, isn't it? Don't give a fuck who gets hurt.”

“I thought you understood.”

“Well, I don't. I'll never understand. Doesn't it bother you that—”

“It never bothered them, why should it bother me?”

“You—” Peter took a breath.
Easy does it,
he told himself. No point in indulging blind anger. “Them?”

“The police. The lawyers. The judges.”

Peter tried to muster a sympathetic tone. “They didn't help you?”

“They don't help anyone but themselves.”

“You asked them for help?”

Blankstein resumed rocking and humming.

“Is that why you're blowing them up, because no one listened to you?”

“No one listened.”

“You called them.”

The humming was louder now.

“Why did you call them?”

“The closet was safe.”

Peter stopped himself from asking why. He wasn't here to understand, or unburden. He wasn't here to assess sanity, though he hadn't the slightest doubt that Blankstein was insane, in every sense of the word. He was here to get information, pure and simple.

“So you started, what, planting bombs to destroy the people who wouldn't help you?”

“They deserve to die. Society is corrupt. Depraved. Buying, spending. Raping the environment. Pillaging our legacy. It has to stop.”

“You taught yourself how to make bombs?”

“Just read the book. Find the recipe.” He made a sound like a bomb exploding and grinned.

“But there's more to come, isn't there? You're very clever. They'll never know what you've planned.”

Blankstein held completely still. “That's why you're here, isn't it? It's not because I wanted to talk to you. It's because they want you to find out where I left it.”

“It?”

“The bomb.”

“Just one?”

Blankstein giggled. “Maybe.”

“Where?”

“Why should I tell you? I'm going to plead guilty anyway, so what's the difference? One more bomb to finish the work. One more bomb and the Maw is forever quieted.”

He had a point. Guilt was guilt. Except that Richard Blankstein felt nothing that the rest of humanity would have recognized as guilt. Lives didn't matter to this man, not even his own. And from a legal perspective, whether he killed nine or nine hundred, so what? Even if he got the death penalty, he'd only get zapped once. With a decent defense attorney and an expert psychological evaluation, he could get a life sentence, get his three square a day, and lose himself in the prison library. Prisoners even earned law degrees from their jail cells. They had rights, though Ashcroft had made sure that not everyone who was incarcerated did. Foreign terrorists … That gave Peter an idea.

“I shouldn't tell you this, but they're going to charge you with terrorism. Send you to Guantanamo.” The lie rolled out without even a second thought. Richard Blankstein was not his patient, not his client. He was a pseudointellectual schizophrenic without a conscience to govern his ideals. “They'll lock you up in a little cage out in the sun. Just bars. No walls to scribble on. No books. I hear the guard comes by every four hours or so with water, just to be sure you don't fry out there.”

Blankstein stopped rocking. “They can't do that. I'm an American citizen.”

Peter choked back a laugh. “Were. They're taking that away from you, too, because you've committed terrorist acts. That's what your lawyer would be telling you right now. They're capable of anything.

“And here's what else your lawyer would be telling you. You're holding the cards, because you know where the bomb is planted. All you have to do is tell me. That's it. Tell me, and like magic, I promise you that you won't be getting a one-way ticket to Cuba. Then you can go ahead, plead guilty, enjoy yourself. I hear they serve burritos on Thursdays at Walpole.”