Habit (32 page)

“No. She needs to eat.”

“She’ll be fine. Set her back down on the bed.”

Rebecca did as she was told. Her face told a story of internal horrors.

A second later, the camera whipped away. The unseen Forrester started moving in the other direction. He headed to the bathroom. “Be right back,” said his disembodied voice.

The bathroom door was opened by a hand which appeared in the video. Then Forrester closed himself in.

Brendan’s heart pounded. The bathroom on screen was the same recently refurbished room he had stood in just weeks ago. The fixtures were new. The mirror over the sink was unblemished, without those toothpaste spittle spots that collected on the rest of the world’s bathroom mirrors. If only Forrester would . . .

And a second later, he did. The camera tilted up and Forrester, holding it with one hand, looked at his reflection in the mirror. Or, more accurately, he looked into the camera at his reflection in the mirror.

He didn’t grin. He didn’t say a word.

Brendan looked into the face of the killer on screen. Then the churning thoughts in his mind settled abruptly. He was struck with a truth that resonated in the deep recesses of his being.

Forrester was drunk.

From his chair, with the real Reginald Forrester standing behind him, holding his shoulders, Brendan looked at the screen as the inebriated Forrester documented his presence in Rebecca Heilshorn’s home, his eyes glassy and emotionless. Then the camera tilted down and away from the mirror and the sink and continued recording as the killer undid his belt and pants with his free hand.

“I don’t want to see this anymore,” Brendan said. He was surprised to hear his own voice. He thought he was going to be sick. If he vomited, it would be blood that came up. He could taste the bitter copper of it in the back of his throat.

“Shhh,” Forrester soothed.

On the flat screen, Forrester took out his flaccid penis and began to fondle it. He was breathing heavily. The sound of his exhalations filled the small room. Brendan hoped the baby, the one here, now, was asleep. He also wondered what was going through Brown’s mind. If he was as demented as the killer. To serve someone so mentally sick – what was Brown’s game? Was it really just double-dipping for the money? If he had betrayed Heilshorn, how much false information was he feeding him? Heilshorn had provided the intel which had led Brendan here, so disinformation didn’t seem to be part of Brown’s M.O.

And that idea tripped something in the back of Brendan’s mind. Some connection tethering Brown to Reginald Forrester, but then that too was gone. What was filling his vision was too much to keep many other thoughts intact. The cameraman was masturbating himself. And just when Brendan thought the vomit was sure to come, the video changed focus. The camera flicked to the right, showing the toilet. Next to it was a chrome device, set in a holder on the wall, connected to the toilet basin by a tube. It was the diaper sprayer.

The image held there for a moment, with Forrester panting as he held the camera in one hand, his penis in the other.

Then he quickly banged out the bathroom door and back into the bedroom.

The baby was still on the bed. Not crying now, but fussy, whimpering. Rebecca lay beside her.

Why are you still there?
Brendan screamed at her in his mind. Why hadn’t she run?

And as Forrester crossed the room to the bed, Brendan thought he had an answer. He glimpsed someone else standing in the doorway to the bedroom. For less than a second, as Forrester moved quickly towards Rebecca, Brendan had seen someone. Was it Brown? That brief sight of the second person looked nothing like the grizzled P.I. That flash had suggested a more slender, perhaps younger, person.

A flag waved far back in his mind, planted there during a time when he had briefly considered the possibility of two aggressors in the Rebecca Heilshorn case.

But there was no time to speculate further on that now. The killer had given the camera to the other person and was now undressing Rebecca. She was like a doll, passive and unresponsive, but it didn’t seem to deter Forrester. He took her pants off as she lay next to the whimpering child. She turned her head away from the camera, now held by this unknown second person.

“When did you put that new bathroom fixture in?”

“Yesterday,” came a muffled voice.

“You put it in yourself?”

“Yes.”

“You can barely pump gas, and now you’re a plumber?”

Forrester was stroking himself as he spoke. Now he threw Rebecca’s legs open and moved closer.

“I said I don’t want to see anymore.” Brendan’s voice was close to a shout. “Turn it off.”

On screen, the man mounted Rebecca and began crude intercourse with her, with the child on the bed next to her. Brendan’s words caught in his throat as Forrester spoke into his ear, hot and breathy. Meanwhile, the Forrester on-screen drove himself into the rag doll Rebecca Heilshorn had become.

“‘I was born under the black smoke of September,’” Forrester declaimed. “I was trapped beneath all of that weight. I was reborn in that darkness.”

The version on screen thrust and penetrated. Brendan’s stomach wrenched with jagged anguish. His head and heart pounded in tympanic unison.

“‘I was born to you, and your infinite forms.’ I was reborn to you, detective, in you, and everyone like you.”

Brendan looked at the helpless child on the bed next to them. The person holding the camera was unsteady, as if shaking a little. He was reminded of the girl on the couch in the fake interview on XList, but other than that, the comparison faltered. This was not pornography. This was sadism, rape, humiliation, the corruption of a child. And, Brendan was sure, a prelude to Rebecca’s murder.

“And so now I have come for you.” The breathy words hissed right next to Brendan’s head as the demon on screen huffed and gyrated. It was as if the voice was in stereo inside of his head.

“I’ve come to steal your children.”

“Stop,” Brendan said weakly. The authority in his voice had crumbled. The word was an impotent plea.

The video-version of Forrester pulled away a moment later. It was tough to be exactly sure, but he appeared to ejaculate on the bed off to the side. The bed, Brendan recalled, that was sometime later covered with plastic, as if brand new, fooling investigators into not checking the mattress below for forensic evidence.

Forrester retreated from the lifeless, prone Rebecca quickly. The baby was once again crying next to her. Forrester snapped and zipped himself back up and then turned to the camera. “Shut it off,” he barked.

A second later, and the screen went dark.

“Now let’s take a walk.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO / MONDAY, 9:36 PM

Brendan was marched out into the hallway beyond the lecture hall. Brown had the barrel of his .45 pressed between Brendan’s shoulder blades. They headed to the end of the hallway where the stairwell was. They passed by two window casings which contained no glass, and were only covered with clear tarpaulins which flapped gently in the breeze. Brendan felt the air. Outside, the night was damp.

The campus out there was quiet. For one, it was Columbus weekend. For another, this entire side seemed to be shut down for the construction of the new Business building. The nearest building was over a hundred yards away, dark and still.

They passed out of the hallway, entered the stairwell, and began their way down. Forrester carried the child in the bassinet. From a faraway part of his mind, Brendan remembered that people called them Moses baskets. It had been so long since his little girl had lain in one herself.

So long since she had been inside that tiny casket, in the end.

Brendan’s pains seemed to vanish at the thought of his own little girl. Another little girl’s life was at stake here. His mind grew still. Their footfalls echoed in the stairwell as they descended, turning with each flight. Forrester’s head bobbed below. He had taken a flashlight from his office and was lighting the way for them.

At first Brendan had wondered why the killer would show him such damning evidence. The video didn’t depict a murder, but it was enough for any D.A. to build a solid case around. There was Forrester’s ownership of the house in Boonville to consider as well. And chances were that his shoe size would match the boot print on Rebecca’s door. There were a half a dozen other puzzle pieces which would form a picture of this man’s guilt, but the video of Rebecca’s rape – right in front of the child – that was enough to send Forrester away for life. Maybe even to kill him.

As they came to the bottom floor, Brendan figured that he would never leave this building again. It was the only way he could explain being shown the video. Forrester and Brown meant to kill him down here.

* * *

The basement floor was where the gymnasium was located. Brendan remembered the map from the lobby, and thinking that the building contained enough amenities for a person to hardly ever need to leave. They passed two sets of double doors looking in on a brand new gymnasium lit by emergency lights, reflecting in the shiny floor. So there were lights down here, Brendan thought. Forrester had the place wired, for sure – this was where he wanted to be able to see. Why?

Brendan’s stomach flipped as he thought of the answer. A moment later and they reached the racquet ball courts. Forrester paused in front of one of the solid white doors. He set the bassinet down and then pulled keys from his pocket.

Brendan felt numb. His blood moved sluggishly through his body. His guts slowly churned with bile.

Forrester glanced over his shoulder at Brendan.

You’re going to wish you never came here
, he’d said.

The killer pushed the door open. Brendan looked over Forrester’s shoulder at what was in the room. The court had shiny floors like the gym. The walls were smooth and white. The emergency bulbs in the corner cast a sterile glow.

Brendan suddenly imagined a dozen children huddled together in the center of the room, shivering in the cold light.

Then he blinked, and the children disappeared. A sober question passed through him simultaneously – where do you hide illegitimate children? Where do you put babies born of illicit relations between prostitutes and government officials, or God knew who else?

Sitting there in the room was the answer. Alexander Heilshorn sat in a solitary chair, his hands tied behind his back, his mouth gagged.

“You two have met,” said Forrester in an unemotional tone.

A second later, Brown urged Brendan into the room by pressing the barrel hard into his back. Brendan winced and stumbled forward.

“Get over there,” said Brown.

Brendan walked over to Alexander Heilshorn, who looked up at the detective with sad eyes. And Brendan saw in those eyes the answers to so many questions.

Years before, when his daughter had first come to the old doctor with an illegitimate child in her belly, Heilshorn had performed the delivery. But it wouldn’t be the last child he brought into the world under those circumstances, Brendan concluded. Rebecca must have confessed everything to her father. And she had Stemp’s phone call to the wealthy doctor to corroborate everything she’d said – Stemp had very likely been a bodyguard to some high-ranking official, some politico with a taste for brunettes on Thursday nights. He’d probably met Rebecca while driving her to the brownstone building which housed a greedy congressman or businessman. Heilshorn, a man who had already disclosed to Brendan his disapproval of abortion, had then taken it upon himself to assist these other, distressed young women. Chances were he even used his money and influence to secretly shepherd the women to safety. Maybe even help get their babies adopted. And perhaps somewhere, Alexander Heilshorn was even stowing escaped escorts and their incriminating children.

It was circumstantial, mere conjecture, really, but it felt right. Looking into Heilshorn’s haunted eyes, it felt terribly right. Heilshorn had played a highly dangerous game with these people.

But now Titan sought to close this loophole. Rebecca’s murder had set into motion a chain of events which had led here. Brendan was the investigator who was in-the-know. And Heilshorn knew everything, too. Perhaps Titan had let things go for a time – or maybe for a time they hadn’t known the identity of Alexander Heilshorn. Now, though, they had him – his own private investigator had betrayed him and handed him over to Forrester, the raving enforcer in the lurid affair. The ex-professor turned pimp, drawn into darkness after the worst attack on America had left him pinned beneath its immense weight, forging him into this inhuman creature. One who raped a woman in front of her own child. Who kept the fathers of his murder victims locked in the bowels of a dark building.

Brendan stood next to the old man in the chair and looked back at Forrester. The killer stood just inside the doorway, Brown on his one side, the baby in the bassinet set down on his other side.

Then Forrester closed the door behind them.

He looked both men over, and then with macabre show, he recited the last lines of his dark, obscure poem.

“‘There I once was cradled in that autumn wind, a human as unsympathetic as the winter which follows, with its starving creatures, coming in low through the howling cold.’”

Brown cocked the .45 and aimed it at Brendan’s head. Brendan closed his eyes. In the distance, he heard the sound of thunder. The humidity had portended a storm, and now the skies were about to open up.

* * *

But the rolling thunder continued. It did not let up.

Brendan heard a door slam out in the hallway beyond the racquetball room. They all did. Forrester jerked and looked around. The noise was followed by swiftly approaching footfalls.

Both Forrester and Brown reacted in a similar fashion. Each man tensed and turned towards the door, backing away. Heilshorn’s haunted expression tightened into a mask of fear.

Then all of them looked at Brendan.

Forrester suddenly lunged across the room, his arms out, his hands hooked into claws. His face was contorted with hate and anger. He tackled Brendan and the two men fell to the floor with a tremendous thump.

Forrester wrapped his hands around Brendan’s throat and started to squeeze. Brendan’s windpipe was choked by the killer’s iron grip. The world began to show spots. Brendan gagged and his tongue flopped.

The footsteps thudding down the hallway subsided and were replaced by murmuring voices. Men were gathering just on the other side of the office door. Brendan flailed and struck Forrester about the body and head. He was getting in some good shots, but Forrester was like some kind of beast who could feel no pain. The killer’s face snarled with rage. Spit flew from his lips as he hissed. He squeezed, and squeezed. Brendan began to black out.

“New York State Police. We know you’re in there. Open up or we will break down this door.”

Brendan struggled and twisted futilely beneath the killer’s weight. He lost sight of anything for a moment, his vision filled with black ink, and then the nightmare reeled back into view.

Suddenly Heilshorn was leaning over Forrester and Brendan. His hands were still tied behind his back, but he had gotten free of the chair. The old man grunted and kicked out with his foot, catching Forrester in the ribs. The killer may have been invulnerable to Brendan’s blows, but the kick caught him right, and he rolled off to the side, wheezing and grabbing at his chest.

Brendan took an explosive breath. He tried to cry out, but his voice was sandpaper, and all that he could issue was a worthless rasp. He took a whooping breath, looking over at Brown. He saw that Brown’s weapon was trained on the door. The baby was only a few feet away, crying now from the bassinet. If there was a shootout, it would be gruesome.

Finally, Brendan found his voice. His throat was ragged, but Brendan summoned everything he had and shouted at last.

“This is Investigator Healy from Oneida County.” This caused him to cough and gag. He rolled over and spat. Blood splattered onto hard, shining floor.

The men paused outside as Brendan drew another painful breath. His entire torso felt as though it were wrapped in barbed wire. He strained his hoarse voice to be as loud as he could manage. “There is a baby in here with us. Stand down. Repeat, stand down.”

There was silence from the other side of the door, and perhaps some shuffling of feet, followed by murmuring voices. Then, “Okay, Healy. Can you get them to come out?”

There was no time. Forrester was already recovering, and getting to his feet.

Get up, NOW.

Brendan pushed off with his palms and managed to stand up. His legs were rubbery and weak – his hip injury pulsating, his neck lashed with a pain that seemed to burrow into his skin. Forrester turned, and the two men locked eyes.

Everything hung suspended for a moment in time. Heilshorn stood, his face wearing the same fearful, resigned look as his daughter Rebecca had shown in the video. Brown took a step towards the door. Forrester reached into the black bag which Brown had brought down and took out Brendan’s own service weapon.

At last it was clear. Forrester had planned this. He had allowed Heilshorn to provide the information which had led Brendan here. He meant for the two men to meet like this, and to stage a murder that would place Heilshorn as the man responsible for his daughter’s own death. It would look like Brendan had tracked the old man here, they had fought, and Brendan had killed Heilshorn before succumbing to his own massive trauma.

But now Forrester reached down and picked up the wailing child. The twisted plan had come unraveled, and he was improvising with devilish intent. He held her tiny body against his chest with one arm, and aimed the .38 at the door with the other. Now both men were standing, one with an innocent child in his arms, ready to open fire on the first cop who came through that door.

“Come and get me,” Forrester said.

To him, Brendan thought as he took a struggling, tearing breath, the world was full of Neros. They idled away the time, oblivious as Rome burned around them. No life was sacred; nothing mattered in this world of utter nihilism. Not even an infant child.

Detective Healy’s world dipped and yawed. He was falling into unconsciousness. He was about to topple over.

He reached out. It was a blind gesture. He just reached out, lurching toward Forrester and the baby.

Brown fired. The sound was deafening in the room. It sounded like war, echoing and rebounding in the court with shattering force. There came one ear-splitting report after another as Brown unleashed on the door, the powerful slugs from the .45 tearing through and leaving huge holes.

Brown emptied the clip. The world was muted and rank with the smell of cordite. The baby’s cries were like a mosquito in the distance. They transported Brendan back to Eddie Stemp’s yard, where he had sat talking with the man and slapping at bugs. Time became jumbled. Where was he? Then things came to a halt for a moment, and the world was suspended.

A second later and the door flew open, breaking the spell of timelessness and throwing everything into high speed chaos. From behind Brown, Forrester started firing into the hallway.

There were shouts then, and a male screaming. Brendan watched as one side of Brown’s face was sheared away as a round of return fire tore into his flesh. Brendan felt the splattering of Brown’s hot blood across his own face and neck. A second later, Brown started to collapse, and Forrester jumped away.

Brendan continued to move, on automatic. He crossed the room with three paces so that he was now behind where Brown had been standing, directly in the line of fire.

He was between the cops in the hallway and the baby in Forrester’s arms.

His hands were up, but it didn’t matter. Having been fired upon, the half dozen or so Troopers standing in the hallway were like an angry swarm of wasps. They stung back, firing into the room as soon as Brendan appeared in the doorway. He realized that none of them had any clue what he looked like anyway.