Habit (34 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX / FRIDAY, 8:18 AM

The clouds had gathered but the birds were still chirping in the tamarack trees as a nurse wheeled Brendan out of the hospital.

Once clear of the entrance, Brendan took his legs out of the stirrups and stood up. The nurse folded up the chair and wished him well. Colinas pulled up in Brendan’s Camry a moment later. He insisted that he drive, and Brendan acquiesced.

They cruised along for a while in silence. Colinas kept stealing looks at Brendan.

“It’s worse than it looks,” Brendan said.

He was covered in bruises, one in particular around his neck – thumb and finger marks were visible as yellow-purple hematomas. There was a gash along one side of his head. His hand was in a bandage and his arm rested on a support. This was both to elevate the hand, but also to reduce pressure on his ribs and clavicle, which were bruised from the bullet wounds. These wounds were on the opposite side from his damaged hip which he favored while he sat, leaning a little to the right.

“You’re a fucking train wreck,” Colinas said.

The men laughed. It was short lived – the rapid breathing was painful. Brendan took a shallow breath, held it, and looked out the window.

“I had a lot of time to think in there.”

“I bet. Nice little paid vacation. What were you thinking about?”

“I was thinking that you gave me your blood.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“Thank you.”

Colinas smiled and looked embarrassed.

Brendan shifted, wincing, and then continued. “We still don’t know why Rebecca was murdered. Not exactly. So, I was also thinking about Kevin Heilshorn.”

“Let me hear it.”

“If Alexander Heilshorn was truly running this sort of underground railroad for these illegitimate children, that’s a little bit different than the idea that the Company – Titan – was holding the children and using them to leverage the women into continued work, a kind of indentured servitude.”

“Maybe it’s both.”

“Maybe. Probably. The depravity here knows no bounds, I’ll give you that. But either way, the idea that Kevin Heilshorn came after me to stop the investigation from potentially putting these children in harm’s way – I just can’t swallow that. Not any more than I thought he was afraid of having his own guilt revealed.”

“With your extensive injuries, you shouldn’t be swallowing anything that big.” Colinas winked.

Brendan gave a wan smile. He really liked Colinas.

The State Detective continued by asking, “So what do you think motivated him?”

“Not what, but who. I think he was after Olivia Jane.”

“Interesting.”

“Here’s what we know. Olivia Jane meets Rebecca at Cornell when she answers an ad to be her roommate. They have several classes together. Olivia Jane is two years her senior. She graduates, and she doesn’t go far. She settles here, and sets up practice. Rebecca’s senior capstone project is under the guidance of our late psychotic professor Reggie Forrester. But – she doesn’t finish.”

Brendan thought about how near he’d come to completing his PhD himself. It was a lot to walk away that close to the end. But it was also easy, like sabotage.

“Rebecca spirals down from there. She gets mixed up in the wrong crowd – I just don’t think it’s by accident. We know Forrester was involved with XList. I bet he recruited her. She tries to scramble away several times. She marries a driver she meets while working. He tries to turn her to the Lord, and it’s her way out. She even starts seeing a therapist. Her old college roommate.”

Colinas glanced over. He didn’t question it. He turned in the direction of the Sheriff’s Department.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN / FRIDAY, 4:12 PM

It took most of the day to convince the judge and obtain the warrant.

In the late afternoon light, Colinas and two deputies from Oneida County entered the home of Olivia Jane. She was nowhere to be found. Deputies were dispatched to find her and bring her in for questioning.

Delaney followed the State Detective and attending deputies into her house, and observed.

The men went through the therapist’s kitchen drawers with rubber gloves on. They found, in all, fourteen different kitchen knives. Of these, Colinas selected four to be checked first, for the DNA of the victim, Rebecca Heilshorn. The full work-up of the victim’s DNA had been prepared by Clark and his team and they were ready to compare anything with it.

Delaney stood with his arms folded, watching the search. He felt a distant, uninvited tug of fear. He had known Olivia for many years. He knew that she’d had trouble with the Heilshorn girl. He speculated that the Heilshorn girl had made some vague threats toward Olivia. He’d sensed that there was some rivalry over a boyfriend the therapist kept in secret. Delaney had never pried into the matter, and Jane was totally tight-lipped as it was. She’d done a little pillow talking, that was all. She’d asked that Delaney look into the Heilshorn girl, said that Olivia thought she could be a danger to herself or others. But it needed to be kept off the record.

The Heilshorn girl was hardly ever home, and after Delaney had dispatched deputies for a week to drive by and check on things, nothing had come of it. Still, if Olivia was involved in the murder of Rebecca Heilshorn, he would be in deep shit. And it would even mean more trouble for the department.

This one was a mess. The whole thing could come down.

He had liked Colinas at first, but the young State Detective had shown a foolish loyalty to the rookie CI, Healy. Healy was OK in Delaney’s book at first, too, and had asserted himself, which Delaney generally approved of. But when his cocky downstate attitude had rubbed the senior investigator the wrong way, Delaney had revised his tacit endorsement of Healy. If Colinas was right, that Healy had at last found Rebecca’s killer, then that too would reflect poorly on Delaney.

Very poorly.

“I’ve got to find one other thing,” said Colinas, and disappeared into Olivia’s office in the back. Colinas spent some time looking through a file cabinet. Then he started fumbling around with a rolltop desk. He broke it open.

Delaney sighed. He chewed on his sunflower seeds and watched Colinas bag the evidentiary properties from the therapist’s office and kitchen. Delaney looked down at the seed casings stuck to his fingertips. They were messy, and not a good thing to bring along to a crime scene. He cut a glance at Colinas and considered if it would be worth just taking the guy out back and shooting him. Then he wiped the seed casings into the bag and wondered if it was time to retire instead.

* * *

Clark performed the DNA tests on the knives. Inanimate objects were easier to work with than tissues, which were a hodgepodge of other oils and chemicals. The results came back rather quickly. Rebecca Heilshorn’s DNA was on one of the knives in Olivia Jane’s kitchen.

Clark had heard about the video which showed Reginald Forrester having nonconsensual sex with the murder victim, and he felt, for a moment, professionally inadequate. There had been no physical evidence of rape, or serology to confirm a suspect. And a person with numerous sexual partners had traces of many of them, so DNA profiling was almost always a wash. Still, he felt like he had let the department down when he had examined Rebecca Heilshorn.

Now, though, he had another body on the slab to contend with. The rapist himself.

Reginald Forrester had been taken into custody nearly a week before. He had been thoroughly searched at that time, including all body cavities. If he had smuggled something in, some sort of weapon to inflict harm on himself, he’d hidden it in a place that only God had known about. But there was no forensic evidence of any kind to show he had punctured, stabbed, or slit himself in any way.

There were no other signs of trauma either. He had a fading bruise on his hip, from when he’d been kicked in the skirmish leading to his arrest, some contusions around his wrists from the troopers who had put the clamps on him and then jockeyed him into custody in a way that couldn’t quite be described as gentle. But there were no ligature marks around his neck, however. He would have had nothing to hang himself with as it was. He’d been in buttoned fatigues with Velcro shoes on his feet.

The peculiarities of Forrester’s condition, however, turned Clark towards other scenarios.

Forrester had lost some of his hair. He had begun to go bald during his week-long stint in the jail. He also appeared to have lost weight. An examination of his bowels showed that he’d eaten next to nothing in the days leading up to his death. Clark had also learned that the Deputy Corrections Officers had noted Forrester’s lack of appetite and generally distressed condition.

When Clark completed the toxicology report, it confirmed his mounting suspicions. Forrester had died of a slow poisoning. He would need to run a couple more tests for it to be conclusive, but it was looking like something called Thallium, which was a highly toxic compound that was odorless, colorless, and could be absorbed through the skin.

Usually, significant contact with Thallium, unless treated by Prussian blue, the antidote, would render its victim dead within three to five days. Absorption into the body, typically through potassium uptakes, wrought havoc on the cells. The drug laid siege to proteins like cysteine residue, and the body basically broke down. The peripheral nervous system was disarrayed and became unruly.

Clark had heard of victims of Thallium poisoning experiencing horrific hallucinations. The nerves in the feet making a person feel like they were walking over burning coals. The hands and arms might signal alarms as though they were being mangled by a machine. There were many possibilities.

If Reginald Forrester had committed suicide, Clark wondered if the man had known this road through hell. Maybe he hadn’t cared. Or maybe someone had killed him.

Usually, Clark effectively divorced himself from feeling anything about the bodies he examined – be they victims or suspects, and there were a lot of both. But he thought about this man, who the police were saying killed women, who kept children from their mothers, who reveled in perversion and torture, and wondered how he had experienced the effects of the Thallium, hoping it had been most unpleasant. Clark imagined Forrester had met his end while feeling that his lips, tongue, and the muscles of his face were being eaten alive by a swarm of insects.

* * *

Olivia Jane was picked up at the house in Boonville, the one owned by Reginald Forrester. Brendan had suggested she might be found there. He didn’t expect her to flee entirely, not yet, but he’d suspected she would put some distance between herself and the Sheriff’s Department. She had no idea that Brendan had learned about the house in Boonville, a place probably used as a halfway house for many of the girls on the circuit. She immediately requested legal counsel.

Healy leaned on a crutch and offered a debriefing to Taber and Skene. Delaney was not present. Colinas was allowed to observe.

They sat in the Sheriff’s office as the sun waned outside.

“She claims she is innocent, that she had no knowledge of Rebecca’s involvement with Forrester, or that Forrester had any kind of relationship with her.”

Skene was brusque. “We have the murder weapon in her house, but the defense is going to claim that it was planted there. Probably by Kevin Heilshorn on his way through the kitchen during the shooting incident. We need a confession out of her.”

“I think she’ll talk to me,” Brendan said.

Skene looked doubtful. The Sheriff seemed more hopeful. “Take Colinas with you,” he said.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT / FRIDAY, 7:37 PM

Olivia was being held in the smaller pod where women were housed. She was wearing orange inmate fatigues with “ONEIDA” on the back. A corrections officer was in the room with them, and her lawyer, a pugnacious-looking man named Carl Guth. They sat at a table with two empty chairs opposite them.

Colinas held the door open for Brendan. He walked through on his crutches. Colinas pulled the chairs out and helped him to sit down.

“Hi, Olivia.”

“Hello, Brendan.”

He tried to arrange himself comfortably in the chair, but it was a challenge.

“Look where this friendship has got us.” He smiled, but she didn’t appreciate his attempt at humor. “This was my first case,” he continued. And look at me. Should’ve stayed where I belong.”

She was impassive.

Brendan studied her face. Her mouth was set in a grim, determined line. Her eyes were gelid.

“I just wanted you to know that I think you killed Rebecca Heilshorn. I think that you came in the room after Forrester and put her to death. And I think that I saw you in the video.”

Olivia blinked. She seemed incredulous that Brendan was making these statements. Her lawyer, Guth, leaned over and spoke quietly in her ear.

Olivia said, “Aren’t you supposed to have an observer present when you question someone like this? I could have you written up.”

“This is not an interrogation. This is just a visit. I’m just sharing what I think. And I also think that Reginald Forrester’s relationship with Rebecca made you jealous.”

“This is absurd. I haven’t seen or heard from Reginald Forrester since he was my professor in college.”

“I still think you’re the killer.”

The lawyer leaned over again, but Olivia Jane pushed him away. She smiled, though her face was ashen and weary. “You’re trying to play a little psychological poker with me, Detective Healy. I’m a psychotherapist. You think I’m going to reveal something?”

“Have you got anything to reveal?”

“You’re a depressed alcoholic who is obsessive and anxiety-prone. Your neglect as a husband and parent led to the death of your spouse and child. Since then you have become delusional. You’re what we call in lay terms ‘a wreck.’ I’m a respected psychotherapist with an Ivy League background who has worked within this community for eight years. And I have worked with the police for three of those years. But you have the audacity to come in here with your unfounded ideas, and treat me like a piece of shit, questioning me.”

“I’m not questioning you. Just telling you what I think. The system protects that. Just like it protected your withholding, so it protects my espousing. So, listen. You said before that you wanted to help me. If I’m wrong about you, then show me why.”

She scowled.

Brendan held her gaze as he shifted in his seat, crossing his legs. Beside them, Colinas watched with rapt attention. Normally Colinas sat like a linebacker squatted – that was how his wife put it. But here he was in the presence of well-educated individuals and he was trying to affect an air of decorum.

“I think that Reginald Forrester used you,” said Brendan. “He exploited a deep psychological connection – something which formed when you were just a young woman.”

She looked at him flatly. But Colinas thought he saw some small crack of light in her mortar.

“He’s a monster, you know,” Brendan continued. “He’s not human.” Brendan could remember everything, with gruesome clarity, that had transpired when he had been in that building with Forrester. He was sure he’d carry it to his grave. “We’ve got him on video having sex with the victim. But, you knew that. Maybe you didn’t know that we’ve got his boot print. And with the CSI team back at the Bloomingdale house for another pass, I’m sure we’re going to turn up more. Maybe something under the plastic-wrapped mattress?”

Olivia looked away.

“You’re going to post bail. I’m sure your counsel has informed you of the charges of aiding and abetting. Very flimsy charges. But I’m about to open a new case on you, alleging that you’re the actual perpetrator of Rebecca’s murder, that it was you who stabbed her to death with your own knife. And I’m going to further allege that Kevin Heilshorn knew it was you – that when you met with him the morning of his sister’s murder, he knew who you were, and he discovered the truth for himself. He came to your house and opened fire on you, not me. So, if you have something else to tell me, something that would explain you had nothing to do with Rebecca’s death, no knowledge of Forrester’s intentions, you need to tell me now.”

He looked across the table at her. It was hard to imagine that it was the same woman he had sat with in her house – twice. The first time had erupted in the tragedy with Kevin Heilshorn, but their second encounter had actually been pleasant. Almost as if they were starting something together. As if, after eight long years, he was going to be truly able to start a new life. A new town, a new job; maybe even a new relationship.

He’d always had a problem being presumptuous.

The lawyer spoke up. “Okay, this is coming to an end.” He stood, expecting Olivia Jane to do the same.

But she remained seated. “Why don’t you ask Forrester about this yourself?”

“I can’t. He’s dead. There’s an internal investigation going on in my department. Alexander Heilshorn is being watched around the clock, with extra security. Everything is upside down. They found poison in Forrester’s body – that’s what killed him. Your life is in danger, too, and you know it, don’t you? Let me help you.”

Her face was drawn, growing paler by the second. She hadn’t known about Forrester’s death. He watched her absorb it, and then he continued.

“This is the story the prosecutor is going to spin: You came in after Forrester and you put a knife in Rebecca’s body. You stabbed her multiple times. The motive that will stick is that you were recruiting girls for the escort service, along with Forrester, and Rebecca was one of them. She had grown unruly. Too many children lost; too much pain. No matter how you threatened her, she was going to blow the lid eventually. Her father was involved, but compromised, not going to talk. But when she started meeting with her brother you began to worry. So you had Forrester show her who was boss, by making that video. Only when she didn’t respond the way you wanted, you killed her.”

“Enough,” said Guth. “Olivia, don’t say another word.”

Brendan leaned forward again, oblivious to the searing pain in his upper body. He was not on the full-strength painkillers, because they were addictive. Brendan had spent the last two weeks building up a tolerance for the piercing bolts of pain that coursed through him like jags of barbed wire tearing his flesh from the inside.

“Damaged women, coming to you from abusive families, violent husbands. Or maybe just foolish young girls wrapped up in the sexual hedonism of today. Maybe they’ve been captured by the rampant libido at work here in the existential vacuum.”

She opened her mouth, maybe to respond to his attempt at philosophizing, but Brendan barreled forward.

“The D.A. is going to put you at the scene. They’re going to put a murder weapon in your hands. I remember fretting over those forty seconds of silence on the 911 call. The forty seconds the killer lingered downstairs. Doesn’t take that long to come up the stairs, but it’s not enough time to do anything significant, like write poems on photographs. It’s just enough time, though, to let
you
in, to have a little conversation with you before going upstairs.”

He was close to her. He could smell the stale linen of the fatigues she was wearing. He could smell her fear beneath. Or maybe it wasn’t fear. Maybe it was something else.

“You know,” he said, “I marvel at you a little bit. You’re good. So by-the-book. Never willing to bend. Except in treating your former college roommate. That type of dual relationship is unethical. Which is how I explained to myself why you hid it. Maybe your heart got the better of you. But it just didn’t stay put in my mind, and I came to see how you were using the veneer of ethics to keep your real relationship with her concealed. You also used it to conceal your real connection to Kevin. I don’t think he knew who you were – not when he first saw you, but I think Rebecca had been telling him things. But you, I bet you came right out and told him exactly who you were. And that you would kill women and children if he said anything.”

Brendan took a deep breath. His ribs hurt, but he paid them no mind.

“And as your attorney here full well knows, all your confidentiality with Rebecca and Kevin is going to be countermanded by this investigation. There’s nowhere to hide any longer; we have an ironclad case.”

“Guard,” said the lawyer, Guth. “Let us out of here, now.”

The Deputy Corrections Officer, Robertson, glanced at Colinas and then at Healy. Taber had already called and spoken with him to insure full cooperation. No one was going anywhere without his say so. Carl Guth could sue the entire Department – it didn’t matter. They were going down, anyway.

Brendan remained leaning forward, very close to Olivia. His eyes searched her. “Who is Titan, Olivia?”

Her face had taken on an ashen cast. Her eyes were vapid. Her lower lip seemed to quiver, just a little.

“Alright,” said Guth. “Then let me out.”

Robertson promptly escorted the lawyer out of the room.

Finally, Brendan sat back. He tried to give her space. He was patient. After nearly a minute passed with her looking down at the table between them, Brendan grabbed the crutch propped beside him and Colinas rose and stood at the ready.

Then she spoke. She leaned forward, and she whispered in Brendan’s ear.

Then she sat back. Her face was an inscrutable mask.

Brendan suddenly felt hot. The room seemed too small. He needed air.

And then he got out of there.

* * *

Colinas was driving, but his mind seemed to be anywhere but on the road. They turned a corner and an angry driver shook his fist at Colinas for coming too close.

“Watch the road, Rudy.”

“What did she say?”

Colinas looked over at Brendan.

“Healy, Jesus. There’s something huge going on here. Something we can’t even touch. What did she say?”

Brendan continued to look out the window. He shook his head, as if trying to come to terms with something.

“She said, ‘Titan is the government.’”

Colinas turned his head. The car swerved. “What?”

Brendan glanced at him. Colinas resumed watching the road, and righted their course.

“She said,” Brendan amended, “‘Titan is so entwined with the government that you’ll never get it free.’ I distilled it.”

The men fell silent as Colinas absorbed what Brendan had told him. Then Colinas said, “It’s amazing you’re still alive.”

Brendan found himself remembering that Heilshorn had said the same thing.

He hoped Heilshorn was doing okay. Men his age didn’t fare well in lock-up. Brendan told himself he would do whatever he could to help Alexander get back on the right side of things again. He believed that whatever the man had done, he’d done for the best of reasons.

It was disconcerting, though, what had turned up from the little bit of digging Colinas had done while Brendan was recovering. Heilshorn’s accountant turned out to be an interesting person after all. A subpoena opened up Heilshorn’s accounts. Heilshorn had made substantial investments in a company which patented advanced medical technology. It was called Titan Med Tech. The records also showed that Heilshorn, a registered voter, had donated hundreds of thousands to a gubernatorial candidate not of his party. Money was flowing between Alexander Heilshorn and some very influential people.

“What – I mean what exactly does that mean? ‘Titan is the government?’”

“It means, for one, that Leah is probably the child of someone who would never want his paternity known. Probably Aldona, too.”

“No. We got a match for Kettering on the Aldona baby.”

Brendan’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah, I haven’t had time to tell you. Aldona is the baby Rebecca had with Kettering.”

Brendan took out a cigarette and lit it. It was a challenge with his bandaged hand, but he was going to give himself a little time with this relapse.

“This is huge,” Colinas breathed. “Is that why Forrester is dead? Because of Titan? Because they are – what, top brass? I mean, an escort service, prostitution, porn, all of this – and the government is supporting it? Protecting these black markets? Is that possible?”

Brendan looked off in the distance, in the direction of Albany. He thought of how the city had looked from the windows of the darkened Business School building. “I think that’s a very dangerous question.”

Colinas spun the wheel and they turned down a side street. He grew thoughtful for a moment.

“You know, you hear crazy shit.”

“Like what crazy shit?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Like Bin Laden. Like the attacks of 9/11 were meant to bankrupt the economy. And look at us.”

Out the window, Brendan observed the single-story homes with junk out on the front porches.