Silent Victim (9 page)

“It’s possible,” Lee said, “but even if there was, it’s also possible that her death was totally unrelated.”

“Oh, man, I’d never forgive myself if it turned out her crazy fantasy was true. I just thought it was another one of Dr. Perkins’s latest weirdo theories—and he had plenty of them, let me tell you.”

“Like what?” Butts asked.

“Oh, man, you name it. He had this whole thing about past lives, and all kinds of mystical crap.” He snorted in disgust. “I left that shit when I left California, man. I can’t believe

I ran back into it on the East Coast. There’s irony for you, huh?”

“Yeah, real ironic,” Butts replied. “Do you happen to have this guy’s contact number?”

“Yeah, it’s in my office. Just give me a second, okay?”

They followed him to the front of the building and waited in the foyer while he went into his office, emerging shortly with the number written on the back of an old menu.

“Here you go—he’s in Stockton, just the other side of the river in Jersey.”

“I know it,” Lee said, taking the number, which was scribbled in between the tenderloin of pork with sage dressing and the salmon mousse with dill sauce. “Thanks a lot.” He glanced at Butts. It was time to end this interview—they had what they came for.

“I—I guess I should talk to someone about a funeral,” Santiago said, gazing off toward the river. A hazy mist had settled over the sluggishly flowing water. “She had no family, you know. A lot of friends, but … I guess we were her family.”

“I think that would be a good idea, when you’re up to it,” Lee said.

They thanked Santiago and expressed their condolences again, leaving him a business card in case he remembered anything else. He followed them outside like a puppy, as if they were the last link to Ana and he was sorry to see them go. The last image Lee had in the rearview mirror was Santiago standing in front of the Black Bass, shielding his eyes from the sun with an upraised arm, looking after their car as it drove away.

Butts’s stomach couldn’t take any more fasting, so Lee drove to Dilly’s Corner, a hamburger and ice cream stand along the River Road where it met Coldspring Road. It had been a favorite of his and Laura’s when they were children, and was open all year round. It was very popular with tourists in the summer season, but also served as an after-school hangout for the local kids. As a boy Lee always thought it was cool being able to buy ice cream on a little country road in the middle of nowhere—the stand was several miles away from the nearest town.

As they sat at the wooden picnic table eating cheeseburgers and fries, Butts said, “You know, this place ain’t half bad—this is actually a decent cheeseburger.”

Butts happily stuffed a handful of fries in his mouth, picked up his chocolate milkshake, put the straw to his lips, and sucked deeply on it, his eyes half closed with pleasure. Lee shuddered and looked away. He had never understood chocolate milkshakes with cheeseburgers—it struck him as excessive and rather revolting. He glanced at his watch. It was half past three—they would be driving back to the city during rush hour. At least they would be going against the traffic, though that didn’t always work out, as the middle lanes on both the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels would be switched over for the outbound commuters.

“Well,” he said, tossing his sandwich wrapper into the metal trash can, “shall we pay Dr. Perkins a house call?”

Butts gave his milkshake a final mighty slurp and wiped his mouth with a satisfied flourish. “Now
that
was worth waitin’ for!” he declared, and shuffled behind Lee to the car. As they arrived at the green Saturn, Lee caught a movement out of the side of his eye, over in the woods next to Dilly’s Corner. Probably a deer, he thought—they were in abundance this time of year. In fact, they were hazardous to motorists, especially after dark—it was easy to hit one as it leapt out of the woods into the glare of headlights. He had a number of friends at school who had totaled their parents’ cars that way.

“Whatchya lookin’ at?” said Butts, noticing Lee peering into the thick green canopy of leaves.

“I saw something—probably just a deer,” Lee said, climbing into the car.

“You sure?” Butts remarked sarcastically as he climbed into the Saturn. “You sure it wasn’t an alien or something?”

“Very funny. We should remember to tell Dr. Perkins about it.”

“Yeah. Maybe we’ll get abducted if we’re lucky.” Butts stretched his seat belt across his body and patted his bulging belly. “Jeez, I shouldn’t ‘a had that second order of fries.” He sighed. “I just know the wife is gonna put me on a diet this month—I can see it in her eyes. She’s got that look, you know? Ah well, I might as well live it up while I can. It’s broccoli and black beans from now on.”

Lee smiled and started up the engine. Dr. Martin Perkins had an office in downtown Stockton—not that there was much of a downtown to speak of. It consisted of little more than a liquor store, a grocery store called Errico’s Market, a gas station, and a couple of restaurants. One of the restaurants was the historic Stockton Inn, which contained the wishing well made famous in the Rodgers and Hart song “There’s a Small Hotel.” Lee’s mother never tired of pointing this out to visitors. Lee had a job there one summer as a busboy when he was a teenager, riding his bike the mile and a half from his mother’s house to get there.

Driving down the tiny main street pulled at his already raw emotions—it held so many memories of him and Laura. He thought about all the times they walked across the footbridge to Pennsylvania, or strolled along the canal towpath toward New Hope, or dipped into the Delaware for a quick swim. They loved doing errands for their mother, picking up groceries at Errico’s, racing their bikes back along the towpath and up the hill to the stone house with its sweeping lawn and weeping willow trees.

Dr. Perkins’s office was across from the gas station on the main street, next to the row of shops housing both the liquor store and the grocery store. It was a handsome turn-of-the-century Victorian, not too fussy. He had walked by it a hundred times as a boy, but in those days it was just a private home, with no business of any kind that he could remember.

Lee parked on the street in front of the building, and he and Butts walked up the steps to the spacious front porch. The sign underneath the buzzer read
DR. MARTIN PERKINS, L.C.S.W.—BY APPOINTMENT
and listed a phone number with a 609 area code. L.C.S.W. stood for licensed clinical social worker, which meant that even if Perkins was a crank, he was at least certified by the state. Lee knew from his own experience how much study and training was involved—enough so that anyone receiving certification had to at least do all the required reading and pass the courses. You had to have at least a master’s degree to qualify. He wondered, though, what the “Dr.” was for, and whether it was a degree in psychiatry.

He rang the bell next to the double French doors, and a single chime sounded deep inside the building. He and Butts both agreed it would be better to surprise the good doctor, to gauge his unprepared reactions and prevent him from concocting a story, should he prove to be involved in Ana’s death.

There was a long pause, and they were about to turn and leave when they heard the sound of footsteps and a man’s voice calling from within the house.

“Coming—just a moment!”

The long white lace curtains on the French doors fluttered. There was the sound of a lock being unlatched, and the door was flung open. On the other side of it stood a man of singular appearance. He was tall and thin, about fifty, Lee guessed, with slicked-back, jet-black hair and a goatee to match. He wore a black three-piece suit with tiny gray pinstripes so old fashioned that it looked like a costume from a Victorian-era drama. Dangling from his vest was a gold watch fob. His immaculate shoes were soft black leather and of a style and cut similar to shoes Lee had seen in period movies—they, too, appeared to be heirlooms. Everything about his appearance was so theatrical that his arrival at the door was like the entrance of a character in a stage play.

He greeted them with a cordial but formal smile.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Perkins. And who might you be?”

The voice was British, self-consciously posh, but with a suggestion of a regionalism—West Country, perhaps? Lee’s knowledge of English dialects was fair—because of his Scottish ancestry he had traveled in the U.K. a fair amount.

“I’m Lee Campbell, and this is Detective Leonard Butts, NYPD.”

“Detective,
is it? Oh dear me, to what do I owe this honor?”

Perkins looked rather pleased, and his voice held a note of suppressed excitement. Lee waited a moment before responding, half-expecting Perkins to apologize for his odd attire and give some explanation about being an actor in a local production or something. But when no explanation was forthcoming, Lee said, “Could we have a few minutes of your time? It’s about Ana Watkins.”

“Is something the matter?” Perkins’s face immediately assumed an expression of concern—so quickly that Lee didn’t trust it.

“Can we come in?” Butts said, looking over his shoulder—or rather trying to, as he was at least half a foot shorter than Dr. Perkins.

“Oh, yes, yes—of course!” Perkins said, sweeping them into a spacious and graciously furnished drawing room. A grand piano covered with a cream-colored antimacassar, upon which sat a heavy blue vase filled with white tea roses, presided over the room. He motioned them to a pair of blue and white wing chairs in front of a marble fireplace. Butts complied slowly, taking in the room with some astonishment, judging by the expression on his face. Lee guessed that as a homicide detective in the Bronx, he seldom did interviews in dwellings like this one.

“Please, sit down,” said Perkins.

“This is a very nice place you have here,” Butts said, lowering his bulk into one of the armchairs carefully, as if afraid he might crush it.

“Thank you, but I really can’t take any credit for it—it’s all my sister’s doing, you see,” Perkins replied with a flip of an immaculately manicured hand. “She’s the one with the artistic eye. I just live here.” He pulled up a straight-backed chair in between the armchairs and settled himself in it.

Even his movements were theatrical. He looked not so much like a man at home in his drawing room as an actor playing the part of a man at home in his drawing room.

“Now then,” he said, straightening his starched white cuffs, “what’s this about Ana?”

“We understand Miss Watkins was a patient of yours,” said Butts. It was a common interrogative technique to get as much information out of subjects as you could before giving them anything in return.

“You said she ‘was’ a patient,” Perkins observed. “Has something happened?”

“Was there anything in the course of her treatment that might lead you to believe she was suicidal?” Butts continued, ignoring the question. This too was standard operating procedure—never give away information to a potential suspect unless you find it necessary.

Perkins leaned back and crossed his arms. “I’m afraid that comes under doctor–patient confidentiality,” he said primly. “In fact, I can’t even confirm that Miss Watkins was—
is
my patient until you tell me what this is about.”

Butts glanced at Lee, who said gently, “Dr. Perkins, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Ana Watkins was found dead yesterday.”

Perkins sprang from his chair as though it were suddenly electrified. “Oh, dear me!” he cried, wringing his hands. “Oh, dear me—poor girl! What happened?”

“She was drowned,” Butts replied bluntly.

Perkins stared at him, took one enormous gulp of air like a stranded fish, then paced in front of the fireplace, wringing his hands and muttering, “Dear me, oh dear me!” Once again, Lee was struck by the theatricality of his gestures. It was like watching an actor in a performance rather than a real human being in distress.

“Dr. Perkins,” Butts said, “if you wouldn’t mind, we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Of course,” Perkins said. “I’ll do whatever I can to help—anything, I assure you.”

“Right,” Butts said, making a notation in the little notebook he always carried with him. Lee knew that sometimes the detective scribbled in it just to intimidate a suspect—often there was nothing on it but doodles. “Hey, is this an oil lamp?” Butts said, pointing to an old-fashioned-looking lantern in the foyer.

“Yes, it is,” Perkins answered irritably. “And in answer to your question about whether she displayed suicidal ideation—no, not at all. In fact, I have rarely had a patient who was more
connected
to life. She had everything to live for, and was in fact making rapid improvement when she—” He stopped, but not out of grief so much as embarrassment, Lee thought. “How did she—I mean, do you think she took her own—?”

“She was found in the Harlem River yesterday morning,” Butts replied. “There was evidence of foul play.”

Perkins stopped pacing and looked at them in alarm. “Surely you don’t think I—”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” Butts reassured him. “We’re just talking to people she came in contact with to try and piece together enough about her to, you know, try and figure out what happened.”

“Dear me,” said Perkins, looking frightened. If he had an idea who killed Ana, Lee thought, he might be worried that person would come after him.

“Miss Watkins had expressed the fear that she was being followed,” Butts continued. “Do you have any idea who might have been following her?”

Perkins put an elegant finger to his mouth and chewed on it. “I suppose it can’t do any harm, since she’s dead. I may as well tell you that she had recently had a breakthrough in her therapy, and had come to realize that she was the victim of childhood abuse.”

“Yeah?” Butts said, in a voice that said,
So tell me what else is new.

“Yes,” Perkins went on, completely missing Butts’s sarcasm. “She had been struggling with demons in her past, until finally, under hypnosis, she recovered long-buried memories of sexual assault when she was a child.”

Butts exchanged a glance with Lee, who kept his face impassive. He didn’t want to spook Perkins. They were just closing in on the truth—assuming he would tell them the truth, of course. But Lee suspected that Perkins was as easy to read as a mediocre actor would be. If he was lying, he was sure to telegraph that to his audience.

“And who committed this sexual assault?” Butts asked him. Lee could tell he was doing his best to keep his voice even.

Perkins twisted the signet ring on his pinky finger. “Alas, I wish I could say, but we hadn’t yet reached the point in therapy where she could make out the face of her assailant.”

“Let me get this straight, Doc,” Butts said, disdain leaking into his voice. “Under hypnosis, she gets a memory of being—assaulted—as a child, but somehow she can’t see who’s doing it?”

“Well, yes,” Perkins said, his tone prickly. “These things are very complex, Detective. Sometimes the memories don’t come all at once, and sometimes they don’t ever come. We were just beginning to make progress, and I have no doubt that, after a few more sessions, poor Ana would have unlocked the door to her past and truly had a breakthrough in her therapeutic process.”

“Ah, her ‘therapeutic process'—I see,” Butts said. Lee decided it was time to rescue this interview before Butts pushed Perkins into being totally uncooperative.

“So you don’t have any idea who she thought might be following her?” he asked quickly.

Perkins raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I wish to God I did, truly I do. But she never actually saw anyone following her.”

“Did you think it might be connected to this ‘therapeutic breakthrough'?” Butts asked.

“Again, I can’t say,” Perkins replied. “Ana thought it was, but I think that just indicated her general level of paranoia, which was always quite high.”

“What about your other patients?” Lee said. “Do you think any one of them might be violent?”

“I’m afraid that’s confidential,” Perkins said. “Though if I did think one of my patients was an imminent danger to himself or others, it would of course be my duty to report that to the proper authorities.”