BLUE MERCY (12 page)

“I don’t believe I have to divulge that, Detective.”

“No, you’re right. But why the hell wouldn’t you unless you’re hiding something?”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“No?” This time when Finn closed in, Arsenault took a step back. “Oh, come on, Scotty. You don’t feel threatened by me, do you? Cuz that sure as hell isn’t my intention. Trust me, you’d
know
if I was threatening you.”

“Right. I’d end up looking like Bernard Eales did after you guys arrested him.”

Finn ignored the comment. “Where are you getting your information?” he asked again.

“I already told you. The media.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you already told us that everything on your website is public domain. But that’s where you’re wrong, Scotty. See, the thing is, you got shit posted on your site that
no
one knows about. Well, no one except us and Eales. But wait, how can Eales know about it, since your site says he
didn’t
kill those women?”

Finn was on a roll. He stopped Arsenault before he could interject.

“Man, Scotty, do you see where I’m confused here? If Eales didn’t kill those women, like your bullshit site implies, then he couldn’t know some of the details that you’ve got on your site about those murders. Which means …well, you see where I’m going with this? I just gotta wonder where you’re getting your information.”

Arsenault looked to Kay then, a kind of pleading in his eyes, as though they were suddenly longtime friends and she could bail him out.

“So when you refuse to reveal your source,” Finn went on, “then I’m left figuring you don’t really
have
one, see?
And I gotta say, Detective Delaney and I, we’re jumping to some pretty quick conclusions here, Scotty.”

But it was too heavy-handed. Kay saw Arsenault square his shoulders, confident again. “It’s time for you to leave, Detective.”

One final hard stare passed between the two men. “Then I guess we’ll have to talk to Patricia Hagen, won’t we?”

Kay couldn’t be sure of the change she saw flicker in Arsenault’s face then, but there had been something.

“I have nothing else to say,” he said to Finn. And then to Kay: “It was a pleasure meeting you, Detective Delaney. I hope we’ll see each other again sometime. Perhaps under less hostile circumstances.”

As Finn watched Arsenault’s smile, Kay could see the irritation in Finn’s eyes. It simmered there long after they left the suite and took the elevator to the polished lobby. Only when they reached the car did Finn finally speak.

“If that son of a bitch didn’t get the information from Hagen, we’re going to have to hit him again,” he said, “only next time with a grand jury subpoena.”

Kay didn’t disagree.

“What do you make of that mope?” Finn asked her as he unlocked the Lumina.

Kay shook her head and looked up at the high-rise, imagining Scott Arsenault at his window looking down on them. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “But I do find one thing curious.”

“What’s that?”

“He never asked
whose
murder we’re investigating.”

ALONG THE SOUTH SIDE
of the asphalted yard, Bernard tapped out the last Camel from the pack the bitch had given him.

Delaney. He hadn’t known her name until after his arrest. Today he couldn’t get it out of his head.

At the other end of the pen, Dante Gallant and his “road dogs” beat a track along the west fence. Bernard eyed the automatic cigarette lighter mounted on the wall behind the big black man. Dante eye-fucked him, and Bernard tucked the Camel away. Cigarette wasn’t worth going through that bunch of spooks.

Delaney
. He hadn’t recognized her right away yesterday. That night on his porch, the crystal meth and booze had blurred things. He remembered the banging at the door, then standing on the porch looking down at the bitch’s gun. The rest wasn’t clear, but he’d been ten feet tall and bulletproof, and some bitch with a badge wasn’t about to fuck with his high.

But she had. And now she was fucking with him again. She’d go see Patsy, and he worried what the bitch’d tell his girlfriend.

Bernard leaned into the chain-link and closed his eyes, as sweat crawled down his body under the damp jumpsuit. His head was clearer these days without the booze and the drugs. A year ago that wasn’t the case. Him and Roach getting high together, driving around till they scored. Then back to the house to chase the dragon’s tail. The heroin burning in a piece of foil.

He remembered Annie Harris, greedily sucking back the curling smoke. He’d had to shove her away a couple
times, worried they’d run out. Taking her fill, then not even letting him fuck her.

He’d tried to kiss her. On the couch, feeling up her big, soft tits, fumbling with her zipper. Then his own. Next thing he knew, she was standing over him, pointing at his limp, heroin-numbed cock. Laughing. Her dull brown hair tossed over one shoulder as she howled and choked on her own spit. “And what the hell you gonna do with
that,
Bernie?”

He’d never hit a woman before. Not that hard. She’d reeled back and gone down. And he’d left her there on the floor.

He wasn’t sure about much after that. Wasn’t till the early-morning hours that he found her. Freaked the shit out of him. He’d figured she’d up and left after he’d passed out on the couch. But then he’d gone to take a leak, caught her reflection in the mirror, and ended up pissing down his own leg.

He knew she was dead. He’d seen enough stiffs at the funeral home. Her skin gray-white. Her eyes dried open. Then he’d seen her mangled wrists and the blood.

The water in the tub had drained through the brittle stopper, leaving pale red rings around the porcelain sides. At first he figured she’d fucking killed herself, and damned if he’d have a bunch of cops poking through his place. So he’d started cleaning, mopping up what blood hadn’t gone down the drain, gathering the skank’s clothes and purse, its contents scattering across the linoleum floor. He’d been on his hands and knees, fishing for her lipstick behind the toilet, when Roach had come in.

Roach had pointed out the box cutter on the ledge of the sink clear across the room. No way she’d killed herself.

But Bernard didn’t remember doing it. He kept telling Roach, over and over, he couldn’t remember. Roach had
called it an alcoholic blackout. And Bernard had tried like fuck to remember.

Roach had stayed to help him clean. Through the rubber gloves, Bernard had felt her cooling flesh as he’d lifted her out of the tub. And as he held her body against him, carrying her downstairs to the tarpaulin Roach had spread out in the hall, Bernard had finally gotten a hard-on.

Out in the alley, Roach had popped the Strat’s trunk and Bernard had argued that they should use Roach’s car, not the vintage StratoChief. But Roach refused.

He’d double-checked the tarp when he shoved her in and prayed nothing leaked out. He couldn’t get rid of her fast enough. Roach kept him calm, though, kept him from speeding. They drove west, to Harlem Park, where a midnight walk constituted suicide. Bernard didn’t care. He wanted the skank out of his Strat. And as he hauled her from the trunk and through the busted-down back door of the empty row house, Bernard swore he’d never lose it again.

But he had …

“I SHOULD BE OVER
this shit now, shouldn’t I?”

“Why do you think that?”

“It’s been fourteen months.”

“And that’s too long?”

“It is when it still feels like it happened last week.”

“You’ve always known it would take time, Kay.”

Kay wanted to light up. It was during these sessions with her therapist that she craved cigarettes the most.

“Everyone’s healing processes are different.” Constance
O’Donnell’s voice was its usual soft, level calm. That voice pissed Kay off some days. Today it only made her want a smoke all the more.

Kay left the leather sofa and crossed to the window. Through the half-louvered blinds the courtyard of the Towson Medical Center baked under a relentless afternoon sun. Behind her, in the quiet cool of the therapy room, Constance was silent. Kay hated when the therapist used silence as a tool. It was a classic interview technique, one Kay had used herself countless times. Silence made people feel obligated to fill it.

But it didn’t work on Kay. In the year she’d been driving up to Towson for her weekly sessions, she’d let long silences settle between her and Constance. It was a game. One that Kay relished winning.

“So how have the nightmares been?” Constance asked. “You haven’t mentioned them in a while.”

“They’re getting better.”

“They’re not as frequent?”

“No. I’m still having them. They’re just better.”

“How do you mean?”

“Now
I’m
the one shooting Eales. I’m guessing that’s good.”

More silence. A glance over her shoulder and Kay saw Constance jot a note. She often wished the shrink would say more, especially when Kay was fishing.

“Well,
I
think it’s better,” Kay said eventually, and returned to the sofa. “I saw him, you know. Yesterday.”

“Who?”

“Eales. I interviewed him at the prison.”

If Constance was surprised, she hid it well. “Why? Do you suspect he’s connected to this new case you told me about?”

“Let’s just say I’m not a strong believer in coincidence.”

“And seeing him isn’t a conflict of interest?”

“Technically, perhaps. It’s a gray area.”

Another pause. She watched Constance reach for her cup of tea. Several months ago Kay had decided she liked the therapist, in her flowing Chanel pantsuits and her Fendi shoes. Of course, in the beginning, when a pysch profile was required to deem her fit to resume work, Kay hadn’t cared for the entire process,
or
Constance. She’d hated the drive, the wasted time, but mostly she hated the therapist’s probing.

Now Kay came because she wanted to. She paid for the sessions herself, in cash, so it didn’t show up on her benefits, so the Department wouldn’t know. Constance O’Donnell had become her refuge. Her weekly dose of reality, where she could mentally check her shield and her gun at the door and be herself. It was the one place, other than sitting in the dark of the symphony hall, where Kay could shed the job and feel hope.

“So how was it? Seeing Eales?”

“Fine.” Translation:
a subject not open for discussion.
Constance took the cue. “What does Finn think about you having seen him?”

“He’d rather I hadn’t. He wanted to be there.”

“Why?”

“So he could protect me.”

“Sounds natural.”

Constance scratched another note in her book. Kay hated the note-taking too. It reminded her of the notes she made in her police pad, documenting evidence and pieces of the case. Only here
she
was the case, and every word Constance recorded was evidence against Kay’s state of mind.

Countless times Kay had had to remind herself that her evaluation was over. Constance had—by some stroke of
luck—given Kay a clean bill of mental health months ago, otherwise she’d still be on desk duty.

These sessions were for her. None of those careful notes would ever go to the Department. Unless she really did go postal one day.

“So how are you feeling about Finn? About working with him?”

“He’s a good partner,” Kay said. She’d actually enjoyed watching him play Arsenault earlier today, liked the way she and Finn could read each other.

“And on a personal level?”

“Well, the jury’s still out on that one.” Kay picked at a cuticle, wondering why the topic was so difficult today, when in the past she’d been an open book to Constance regarding Finn.

Beyond Constance’s shoulder, Kay looked to the clock, watching the last few seconds slip away. When the timer buzzed softly, she thanked Constance, gathered her jacket, and verified next week’s appointment before leaving out the back exit.

She’d parked in the shade, but the Lumina was still an oven. Kay turned over the engine and cranked the AC. She sat in the cooling unmarked for a while, breathing in the stale air. Her decompression time.

She thought about things Constance had said. And she thought about Finn. She remembered Scott Arsenault’s flattering smile and his pristine bathroom. And she pictured Valley’s body, the warehouse, and Eales, the images sparking like rapid fire.

And as Kay finally steered the Lumina south into the city, she considered the irony of its taking a murder investigation to make her feel alive again.

PATRICIA HAGEN
asked to see their ID a second time.

When Finn had pulled to the curb across from the compact stone house in the quiet neighborhood of Mt. Washington, Kay figured he’d written down the wrong address. The century-old residence, tucked behind two sycamores, was tidy, with manicured flower beds and lush window baskets.

Through the iron grate of the heavy wood door, Hagen inspected their shields. “How do I know you’re police?”

Kay pushed her ID up to the bars, irritation grinding at her nerves. The woman was dating a goddamned serial killer and she doubted police would be knocking at her door?

“I’m sure Scott Arsenault has called you by now,” Kay said, her photo ID still pressed to the open grate.

Finally, they heard the dead bolts.

Cool air greeted them, wafting around Hagen as she stood in the open door. She looked midthirties, with a simple but pleasant face, marred only by heavy glasses. The stylish frames did little to conceal that the prescription lenses were only one level shy of Coke bottles. Behind them the pale hazel eyes looked too large for her head.