Caught (25 page)

"Ronald Tilfer?"

"Yes."

"My name is Wendy Tynes. I'm a reporter for NTC News. I'm trying to locate your brother, Kelvin."

He narrowed his gaze. "What for?"

"I'm doing a story about his graduating class at Princeton."

"I can't help you."

"I just need to talk to him for a few minutes."

"You can't."

"Why not?"

He started to move around her. Wendy slid to stay in front of him. "Let's just say Kelvin is unavailable."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He can't talk to you. He can't help you."

"Mr. Tilfer?"

"I really need to get back to work."

"No, you don't."

"Excuse me?"

"That's your last delivery today."

"How do you know that?"

Let him dangle, she thought. "Let's stop wasting time with the cryptic 'he's unavailable' or can't talk or whatever. It is hugely important I talk to him."

"About his graduating class at Princeton?"

"There's more to it. Someone is harming his old roommates."

"And you think it's Kelvin?"

"I didn't say that."

"It can't be him."

"You can help me prove that. Either way, lives are being ruined. Your brother may even be in danger."

"He's not."

"Then maybe he can help some old friends."

"Kelvin? He's in no position to help anyone."

Again with the cryptic. It was starting to piss her off. "You talk like he's dead."

"He may as well be."

"I don't want to sound melodramatic, Mr. Tilfer, but this really is about life and death. If you don't want to talk to me, I can bring the police in on it. I'm here alone but I can come back with a big news crew--cameras, sound, the works."

Ronald Tilfer let loose a deep sigh. Her threat was an empty one, of course, but he didn't have to know that. He gnawed on his lower lip. "You won't take my word he can't help you?"

"Sorry."

He shrugged. "Okay."

"Okay what?"

"I'll take you to see Kelvin."

WENDY LOOKED at Kelvin Tilfer through the thick, protective glass.

"How long has he been here?"

"This time?" Ronald Tilfer shrugged. "Maybe three weeks. They'll probably let him back out in a week."

"And then where does he go?"

"He lives on the street until he does something dangerous again. Then they bring him back in. The state doesn't believe in long-term mental hospitals anymore. So they release him."

Kelvin Tilfer was writing furiously in a notebook, his nose just inches from the page. Wendy could hear him shouting through the glass. Nothing that made sense. Kelvin looked a lot older than his classmates. His hair and beard were gray. Teeth were missing.

"He was the smart brother," Ronald said. "A freaking genius, especially in math. That's what that book is filled with. Math problems. He writes them all day. He could never turn his mind off. Our mom worked so hard to make him normal, you know? The school wanted him to skip grades. She wouldn't let him. She made him play sports--tried everything to keep him normal. But it was like we always knew he was heading in this direction. She tried to hold the crazy back. But it was like holding back an ocean with your bare hands."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's a raging schizophrenic. He has terrible psychotic episodes."

"But, I mean, what happened to him?"

"What do you mean, what happened? He's ill. There is no why." There is no why--the second time someone had said that to her today. "How does someone get cancer? It wasn't like Mommy beat him and he became like this. It's a chemical imbalance. Like I said, it was always there. Even as a kid, he never slept. He couldn't turn off his brain."

Wendy remembered what Phil had said. Weird. Math-genius weird. "Do meds help?"

"They quiet him, sure. The same way a tranquilizer gun quiets an elephant. He still doesn't know where he is or who he is. When he graduated from Princeton he got a job with a pharmaceutical company but he kept disappearing. They fired him. He took to the streets. For eight years we didn't know where he was. When we finally found him in a cardboard box filled with his own feces, Kelvin had broken bones that hadn't healed properly. He'd lost teeth. I can't even imagine how he survived, how he found food, what he must have gone through."

Kelvin started screaming again: "Himmler! Himmler likes tuna steaks!"

She turned to Ronald. "Himmler? The old Nazi?"

"You got me. He never makes any sense."

Kelvin went back to his notebook, writing even faster now.

"Can I talk to him?" she asked.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No."

"It won't help."

"And it won't hurt."

Ronald Tilfer looked through the window. "Most times, he doesn't know who I am anymore. He looks right through me. I wanted to bring him home, but I have a wife, a kid. . . ."

Wendy said nothing.

"I should do something to protect him, don't you think? I try to lock him up, he gets angry. So I let him go and worry about him. We'd go to Yankee games when we were kids. Kelvin knew every player's statistics. He could even tell you how they changed after an at-bat. My theory: Genius is a curse. That's how I look at it. Some think that the brilliant comprehend the universe in a way the rest of us can't. They see the world how it truly is--and that reality is so horrible they lose their minds. Clarity leads to insanity."

Wendy just stared straight ahead. "Did Kelvin ever talk about Princeton?"

"My mom was so proud of him. I mean, we all were. Kids from our neighborhood didn't go to Ivy League schools. We were worried he wouldn't fit in, but he made friends fast."

"Those friends are in trouble."

"Look at him, Ms. Tynes. You think he can help them?"

"I'd like to take a shot at it."

He shrugged. The hospital administrator made her sign some releases and suggested they keep their distance from him. A few minutes later they brought Wendy and Ronald into a glass-enclosed room. An orderly stood by the door. Kelvin sat at a desk and continued scribbling into his notebook. The table was wide, so that Wendy and Ronald were at a pretty good distance.

"Hey, Kelvin," Ronald said.

"Drones don't understand the essence."

Ronald looked at Wendy. He gestured for her to go ahead.

"You went to Princeton, didn't you, Kelvin?"

"I told you. Himmler likes tuna steaks."

He still had his eyes on his notebooks. "Kelvin?"

He didn't stop writing.

"Do you remember Dan Mercer?"

"White boy."

"Yes. And Phil Turnball?"

"Unleaded gas gives the benefactor headaches."

"Your friends from Princeton."

"Ivy Leagues, man. Some guy wore green shoes. I hate green shoes."

"Me too."

"The Ivy Leagues."

"That's right. Your friends from the Ivy League. Dan, Phil, Steve, and Farley. Do you remember them?"

Kelvin finally stopped scribbling. He looked up. His eyes were blank slates. He stared at Wendy but clearly didn't see her.

"Kelvin?"

"Himmler likes tuna steaks," he said, his voice an urgent whisper. "And the mayor? He could not care less."

Ronald slumped. Wendy tried to get him to look her in the eye.

"I want to talk to you about your college roommates."

Kelvin started laughing. "Roommates?"

"Yes."

"That's funny." He started cackling like, well, a madman. "Roommates. Like you mate with a room. Like you and a room have sex and you get it pregnant. Like you mate, get it?"

He laughed again. Well, Wendy figured, this was better than Himmler's fish preferences.

"Do you remember your old roommates?"

The laugh stopped as though someone had flicked an off switch.

"They're in trouble, Kelvin," she said. "Dan Mercer, Phil Turnball, Steve Miciano, Farley Parks. They're all in trouble."

"Trouble?"

"Yes." She said the four names again. Then again. Something started to happen to Kelvin's face. It crumbled before their eyes. "Oh God, oh no . . ."

Kelvin started crying.

Ronald was up. "Kelvin?"

Ronald reached for his brother, but Kelvin's scream stopped him. The scream was sudden and piercing. Wendy jumped back.

His eyes were wide now. "Scar face!"

"Kelvin?"

He stood quickly, knocking over his chair. The orderly started toward him. Kelvin screamed again and ran for the corner. The orderly called for backup.

"Scar face!" Kelvin screamed again. "Gonna get us all. Scar face!"

"Who's scar face?" Wendy shouted back at him.

Ronald said, "Leave him alone!"

"Scar face!" Kelvin squeezed his eyes shut. He put his hands on either side of his head, as though he were trying to stop his skull from splitting in two. "I told them! I warned them!"

"What's that mean, Kelvin?"

"Stop!" Ronald said.

Kelvin lost it then. His head rocked back and forth. Two orderlies came in. When Kelvin saw them, he screamed. "Stop the hunt! Stop the hunt!" He dropped to the ground and started scuttling across the floor on all fours. Ronald had tears in his eyes. He tried to calm his brother. Kelvin scrambled to his feet. The orderlies tackled Kelvin as if this were a football game. One hit him low, the other got him up top.

"Don't hurt him!" Ronald shouted. "Please!"

Kelvin was down on the ground. The orderlies were putting some kind of restraint on him. Ronald begged them not to hurt him. Wendy tried to get closer to Kelvin--tried to somehow reach him.

From the ground, Kelvin's eyes finally met hers. Wendy crawled closer to him as he struggled. One orderly shouted at her, "Get away from him!"

She ignored him. "What is it, Kelvin?"

"I told them," he whispered. "I warned them."

"What did you warn them, Kelvin?"

Kelvin started crying. Ronald grabbed at her shoulder, trying to pull her back. She shrugged him off.

"What did you warn them, Kelvin?"

A third orderly was in the room now. He had a hypodermic needle in his hand. He shot something into Kelvin's shoulder. Kelvin looked her straight in the eye now.

"Not to hunt," Kelvin said, his voice suddenly calm. "We shouldn't hunt no more."

"Hunt for what?"

But the drug was taking effect. "We should have never gone hunting," he said, his voice soft now. "Scar face could tell you. We should have never gone hunting."

CHAPTER 27

RONALD TILFER HAD no clue what "scar face" meant or what hunt his brother might have been talking about. "He's said that stuff before--about hunts and scar face. Like he does with Himmler. I don't think it means anything."

Wendy headed home, wondering what to do with this quasi-information, feeling more lost than when the day began. Charlie was watching television on the couch.

"Hi," she said.

"What's for dinner?"

"I'm fine, thanks. How about you?"

Charlie sighed. "Aren't we past fake niceties?"

"And general human courtesy, so it seems."

Charlie didn't move.

"You okay?" she asked him, her voice registering more concern than maybe she intended.

"Me? I'm fine, why?"

"Haley McWaid was a classmate."

"Yeah, but I didn't really know her."

"Lots of your classmates and friends were at the funeral."

"I know."

"I saw Clark and James there."

"I know."

"So why didn't you want to go?"

"Because I didn't know her."

"Clark and James did?"

"No," Charlie said. He sat up. "Look, I feel terrible. It's a tragedy. But people, even my good friends, get off on being involved, that's all. They didn't show up to pay their respects. They showed up because they thought it'd be cool. They wanted to be part of something. It's all about them, you know what I mean?"

Wendy nodded. "I do."

"Most of the time, that's fine," Charlie said. "But when it comes to a dead girl, sorry, I'm not into that." Charlie put his head back on the pillow and went back to watching television. She stared at him for a moment.

Without so much as glancing in her direction, he sighed again and said, "What?"

"You sounded like your father there."

He said nothing.

"I love you," Wendy said.

"Do I sound like my father when I ask yet again: What's for dinner?"

She laughed. "I'll check the fridge," she said, but she knew that there'd be nothing there and so she'd order. Japanese rolls tonight--brown rice so as to make them healthier. "Oh, one more thing. Do you know Kirby Sennett?"

"Not really. Just in passing."

"Is he a nice guy?"

"No, he's a total tool."

She smiled at that. "I hear he's a small-time drug dealer."

"He's a big-time douche bag." Charlie sat up. "What's with all the questions?"

"I'm just covering another angle on Haley McWaid. There's a rumor the two of them were an item."

"So?"

"Could you ask around?"

He just looked at her in horror. "You mean like I'm your undercover cub reporter?"

"Bad idea, huh?"

He didn't bother answering--and then Wendy was struck with another idea that on the face of it seemed like a pretty good one. She headed upstairs and signed on to the computer. She did a quick image search and found the perfect picture. The girl in the photograph looked about eighteen, Eurasian, librarian glasses, low-cut blouse, smoking body.