Blind Spot (10 page)

It was Kenneth Pendergast. “Sorry to call so early,” he apologized. “But I’ve got a couple of pieces of news I thought you’d want to hear—one’s good and the other not so good.”

Suki sat down hard on the bed.

“The good news is that they’re finished with your car,” Kenneth said before Suki could tell him which news she wanted to hear first. “If you can give me a ride back to the station, I can run it over for you now. That’ll save you having to get someone to drive you down here.”

Suki was surprised and relieved that they were returning the car so quickly; she couldn’t afford the rental she thought she was going to need when her father went home. “That would be great,” she said. “Really thoughtful.” She took a deep breath. “What did they find?”

“Don’t know,” he said quickly. “The report should be out this afternoon.”

Suki had the feeling he knew all too well, but she didn’t press him. “There was something else?”

“Yesterday we got statements from two girls who claim they heard Alexa say she wanted to kill Jonah.”

“Two girls …” Suki repeated. “What girls?”

“It doesn’t matter much who they are,” Kenneth said. “They know Alexa from school and claim that a couple of weeks ago, in the girls’ room, Alexa was fuming mad. Talking about wishing Jonah was dead.”

“But that doesn’t mean anything,” Suki argued. “Alexa says the same thing about me. She says it about her brother all the time.”

“It’s the context that makes it tough, Suki.”

“But it’s just a figure of speech. Kids are always—”

“The DA’s hot to make a move. He’s getting pressure from above. And from the media.”

“Why don’t you guys go after Ellery and the boys? Try to get them to change their story? Has anyone talked to Finlay again, the custodian? Has anyone asked Ellery where his gun is?”

Kenneth was silent for a long moment. “People here aren’t putting a lot of effort into those avenues, Suki,” he said carefully.

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m not trying to say anything. I’m just telling you that with these girls’ statements, the boys’ alibi and the prediction thing … Well, it’s just starting to look bad.”

“The ‘prediction thing,’ as you call it, was just a coincidence,” Suki said. “Or maybe a nightmare because Alexa knew Devin was out to get Jonah. Whatever. They can’t make anything out of this. It’s too far-fetched. They just can’t.”

“I’m real sorry, Suki,” Kenneth replied. “But unless you can come up with some other explanation for how Alexa knew Jonah was going to be killed—as well as exactly how and where—I think we’re looking at an arrest here. Maybe soon.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

S
uki shared an office with three other psychologists in a rambling farmhouse on the edge of Hayden Park. When Clara Hayden, the last of
the
Haydens, died in 1985, she left the family farm to the town of Witton, but stipulated that the land must remain undeveloped. The wording of her will was very specific, indicating which pond could be used for ice skating, how many tennis courts could be built in the east pasture, and that the park be named for her grandfather. Her lawyer had not been quite as clear about the buildings, and the town discovered a loophole that allowed it to convert the century-old wood-frame house into a dozen office suites, providing Witton with a continuous stream of badly needed revenue.

It was perfect for Suki and her partners: private, isolated and very quiet. It was also beautiful, giving both therapist and patient a sense of connection with the outdoors, with the land, with the past. Suki wished she had more access to the farmhouse, so she could work here more often, but as the four doctors rotated through the two offices in the suite, she couldn’t use her office whenever she pleased. Like today. On her way out to Watkins, Suki had stopped at the farmhouse to get the Kern files Mike had messengered over, but as Jen was with a patient, Suki had to sit at the receptionist’s desk—a desk that was always available, as they had no receptionist, just an answering machine.

Suki skimmed the results of Lindsey’s EEG and MRI, and although both tests were inconclusive, her heart quickened. “
Slight abnormal slowing in nonfocal area of brain.” “Increased tissue density in right temporal lobe.” “Mild atrophy in drainage areas
.” Nothing that one could say conclusively indicated the presence of neurological disease, and yet …

She searched through the stack for possible explanations of Lindsey’s behavior. The sheer volume of paper was daunting: police reports on Richard Stoddard’s death, transcripts of Lindsey’s first trial, Lindsey’s medical and psychiatric records, Mike’s interview notes, miscellaneous letters and scribbles. Suki focused on the medical and psychiatric.

As she had guessed, no indications of childhood sexual abuse or symptoms related to posttraumatic stress disorder. There didn’t appear to be any history of migraine headaches or abuse of either alcohol or drugs—although Lindsey
had
told her at their last visit that she tried both LSD and mescaline in college. But these neurological reports … Lindsey reported olfactory hallucinations, and the test results were consistent with temporal lobe epilepsy.

TLE could be very good news for Mike—and for Suki, as she was under tremendous pressure to formulate her opinion as soon as possible. Beyond reading and synthesizing the materials before her, Suki had interviews to conduct, tests to administer and research materials to examine and digest. But, more importantly, Mike had agreed to pay her in increments: a portion of her fee for each section of the evaluation.

If she could get the first section—which included a complete summary of Lindsey’s personal, medical, psychiatric and legal histories—finished by the end of the week, she could add that check to the small down payment she had given Mike against the hours he had already put in on Alexa’s case. The whole thing felt vaguely incestuous, even though they had decided to keep their professional services separate rather than having a barter arrangement. Barter might not have worked anyway, for, unless they got this mess with Alexa straightened out very soon, Mike’s services to her were going to far exceed hers to him. But despite Kenneth’s warning about the imminence of Alexa’s arrest, Suki couldn’t believe it was going to come to that.

She glanced at her watch and turned back to the files, hoping to lose herself within the complexities of the Kern case. But the words swam meaninglessly across the pages, and she found herself wondering how so much could have changed in the five short days since she had first met Lindsey Kern. If someone had told her last Thursday that Jonah Ward would be dead and Alexa the prime suspect in his murder, she would have denied the possibility. Simply impossible, she would have said. And yet, now, simply so.

The door behind Suki opened and Jen’s patient, a painfully handsome boy around sixteen, walked out. He looked at Suki, blushed, then rushed from the office.

“Be out of here in a flash.” Jen poked her head through the open doorway, then retreated back into the office. “How’s it going?” she called.

“Good,” Suki said automatically.

“For real?” Jen yelled. Suki wished Jen would lower her voice, but no one had ever accused Jen of being soft-spoken. “Are the police finally coming to their senses?” Jen demanded, throwing her tall, lean body through the door and into the waiting room. The woman was a study in frenetic angles: elbows, knees, knuckles, chin, everything pointed and everything in constant motion.

“No,” Suki said with a weak smile. “I was just being polite.”

Jen’s whole body sagged under the weight of her disappointment, and she rested her hip against the edge of the desk. “I hate polite,” she said. “Except for Miss Manners—she does polite with an attitude.”

Suki didn’t say anything.

“It’s just Ellery McKinna hatching his nasty plans over a bad poker hand.” Jen also lived in Witton. “Don’t listen to what those gossip mongers are saying—it’s a bunch of bunk.” Jen was always saying things like “a bunch of bunk,” but somehow she could get away with it.

“What’s a bunch of bunk?” Suki demanded.

It was clear from Jen’s startled expression that she realized a beat too late that she had said more than she should have—a rather common event in Jen’s daily life. “They’ve got nothing solid on Alexa,” she said, recovering quickly. “And McKinna’s not going to be able to keep the police away from Devin forever.”

“Do you know something I don’t?”

Jen shook her head furiously, too furiously, Suki thought. “All I know is Devin McKinna’s a bad seed—and that everyone in Witton knows it, too.”

Suki sighed. “I wish I could be so sure. Ellery and Charlie Gasperini are a powerful team. They can twist a lot of arms—and a lot of minds.”

Jen leaned over and wrapped herself around Suki; she gave a hard squeeze. “Look at the bright side,” she said, sitting up. “If McKinna and Gasperini drive the whole town nuts, it’ll create a lot more business for us!”

“That kind of business I don’t need,” Suki muttered.

Jen’s eyes narrowed in concern. “You want to talk?”

Suki didn’t want to tell Jen what Kenneth had said; repeating his words would give them more power, maybe even make them true—and anyway, it appeared quite likely Jen already knew. “Can’t,” Suki said crisply, flipping open a file. “I’ve got to get through all this paper and then get my butt over to Watkins. Mike Dannow’s time is mounting up, and I’ve got hours to bill.”

“You sure?”

Suki pulled out Mike’s letter of authorization and waved it at Jen. “Maybe some other time,” she said, knowing that at the moment, work was the only thing standing between herself and a major meltdown. “I’m really jammed.”

Jen looked skeptical, but she nodded. Jen might be out there, but the woman’s antenna was always right on. She gave Suki another quick hug, jammed a wide-brimmed hat down on her head and walked out the door. “You’ve got my number,” she called over her shoulder. “No charge for the first hour.”

Suki turned to Mike’s letter. The first time through, it made little sense, but she forced herself to concentrate and read it again. Not guilty by reason of insanity. Even Mike Dannow was going to have a tough time pulling off an NGRI. Lindsey was highly functional, highly intelligent and had no history of serious mental illness—and Suki’s clinical observations of Lindsey’s present cognitive functioning only contributed to this picture of mental health. The trial transcripts appeared even more damning to Mike’s case: a cut-and-dried murder, complete with motive (Lindsey and Richard were apparently in the middle of a screaming match moments before he fell), opportunity (Lindsey was standing at the top of the stairs, right next to him) and a credible eyewitness (Edgar Price was a well-respected literary critic who claimed he heard and saw it all).

But these neurological results could be the evidence Mike was seeking. Right before Richard’s death Lindsey had been screened for temporal lobe epilepsy, a not uncommon neurological disorder characterized by hallucinations—one of the few diseases that produced olfactory ones—and occasionally, outbursts of violence. The timing was right; unfortunately, the test results alone would probably not be strong enough to convince a jury.

But if Suki could get some specifics from Lindsey on her history and symptoms and get corroboration from the neurologist who had conducted the tests, she might be on her way. She could administer a personality assessment to rule out mental illness; although paper-and-pencil tests were never as good an indicator as spending time with a patient, time was something Suki just didn’t have, and juries loved objective data. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the MMPI, would work; it was the most commonly used test and therefore the easiest to defend under cross-examination. If Lindsey underwent another battery of neurological screens that came out similarly to the ones she had ten years ago, it would bolster the argument for organic disease.

Suki flipped back through the thick file. A psychiatrist Lindsey had seen as a child had speculated on the possibility of TLE as early as 1960. If Lindsey was found to have TLE, the presence of the disease could be used to explain both the ghost hallucination and the violent behavior. If she and Mike were very, very clever, it just might get Lindsey an NGRI.

As Suki waited for Lindsey in the now-familiar interrogation room, she read the graffiti scarred table.
ASSHOLE. FUCK YOU. GIVE IT UP, CUNT.
It was always the same witty scribbles. She stood and walked over to the grimy window, her power to lose herself in her work suddenly gone.

Unless you can come up with some other explanation for how Alexa knew Jonah was going to be killed … we’re looking at an arrest here.…
Kenneth Pendergast couldn’t be silenced.
We’re looking at an arrest.…

Across the narrow alley, a row of barred windows stared back at her. The bars were so close she could see patterns in the rust streaking their sides: elongated Arabic letters, a pair of legs, tears. She turned away. Maybe the issue wasn’t how Alexa had known Jonah would be killed, but how to prove she hadn’t killed him. If, as Kenneth had also said, the police weren’t going to question Ellery McKinna’s story—not the chief’s good pal—then it was upon her to expose the lies. To go to the rec center and question Ellery and the janitor, Finlay Thompson, and the secretary, whatever her name was. To insist that—

The door knob turned and Suki put on her “doctor face,” but when she saw Lindsey, Suki’s professional smile disappeared. Lindsey’s right cheek was streaked with green and yellow bruises, her beautiful eye hidden by a swollen mass of discolored skin.

Suki stepped closer. “What happened?”

Lindsey’s smile was lopsided and obviously painful. “People get mad when they’re confronted with facts that contradict what they’re so sure they know,” she said with a shrug.

“Were they punished?”

Lindsey shrugged again and slid into her chair.

The corrections officer, a black woman whose huge bosom strained against the buttons of her uniform, clucked her tongue. “I’ll be right outside if you need me,” she told Suki. Then she patted Lindsey’s shoulder and walked into the hallway, closing the door behind her. Suki got the impression the officer was speaking to Lindsey, not to her.