Murder Suicide (14 page)

A Spring Day, Nine Months Before

Everything seemed brand new.  The days were long, and the sun was bright, and the flowers in the Public Garden bloomed pink and blue and white at the edges of the pond where Swan Boats floated beneath whispering trees.

The windows of the suites were open, the drapes pulled back, the gauze curtains billowing as a warm wind streamed in.  Lying naked atop the bed, the breeze as their blanket, lost in white noise from distant traffic, Grace Baxter and John Snow could almost imagine they were outside together, lying in soft grass at the Park.

It was his turn at the game Grace had taught him, a game of intuition in which one of them imagined what the other wanted, divining where to kiss or touch by listening for the slightest change in breathing, watching for hairs to stand on end, for muscles to relax or tighten.  A sigh.  A shiver.

He had been no good at it the first or the second or the tenth time they had played it, and they had laughed together over that.  He could not sense her needs.  She had to put his hand where she wanted him to touch, pull him closer when she wanted him to hold her, whisper the secrets to her excitement in his ear.  But he was better at it now.  He was developing the kind of emotional, sexual radar Grace herself had.

He propped himself on one elbow beside her, transported by the sight of her auburn hair fanned across the white sheet, by the way her eyes turned emerald when sunlight found them, by her long, graceful neck, her perfect breasts, the rise and fall of her abdomen.

Three months of meetings — sometimes once, sometimes twice a week — had done nothing to lessen his desire for her.  More than a hundred hours on the phone had only left him thirsting to hear her voice again.  Being drawn to Grace had drawn him out of the isolation he had known most of his life, and the crumbling of the walls he had built around him was exhilarating.

He rested his hand on Baxter’s knee, felt her thigh press against his own.  He ran his hand a few inches up her leg.  Her knee slipped between his legs, her thigh pressed against his groin.  He leaned over and kissed her gently, leaving her mouth a little hungry, the way she liked it.  Seeing her tilt her head back slightly, he kissed the line of her jaw, then her neck.  Her breathing quickened, and she let out a sigh halfway between pain and pleasure.  He saw her shoulder blades fan wider and moved his hand over her breast.  She ran a foot halfway up his shin.  He knew what that meant, too.  He kissed his way down her abdomen.  She let her knees fall open.  And he kiss his way still lower.

Later, he lay with his head on her stomach, rising and falling with her breathing, a hypnotic rhythm.  And he remembered the question she had asked him the very first time they met at the hotel:  Why was he so focused on what could be seen and what could not be seen?  Why had perfecting radar, and designing ways to evade it, become his life’s work?  He hadn’t had the answer, until that very moment.  "It was easier," he said quietly.

"Hmm?" she purred.

"When we had dinner at Aujourd’hui, that first time we met here, you asked me why I was so interested in detecting what’s out there — in the sky, in space."

"I remember."

"I think I wanted to avoid looking inside myself."

"Why?"

"Because," he said, "I was never sure there was anything to see."

She ran her fingers into his hair.  "Of course there was.  You just lost sight of yourself somehow."

"Somehow."

A few seconds passed.  "How?" she asked.

He thought about that.  "As a child I fascinated people," he said.  "I fascinated myself.  What I could do with my brain."

"What was it you could do?"

"Calculations.  Problem solving.  Complicated scientific equations."

"A little genius," she said.

"That’s what people said."

"Your parents were proud?"

"Very," he said.

"So what you could do passed for who you were."

How was she able to see straight to the heart of things? Snow wondered.  And who was she able to summon the precise tone of voice that reassured him he was safe telling her his truth.  "Yes," he said.

"They loved your brain."

"When it worked," he said, with a short laugh, his smile quickly fading away.

She didn’t laugh at all.  "What if it hadn’t?" she asked.  "What if it had stopped working?  Would they have still loved you?"

Snow thought back to his first seizure at age ten.  He remembered how much he liked being in the hospital, how his father and mother had spent more time with him in that white-walled room than ever before.  They were there because his brain was sick, not because
he
was.  The thing they were proud of had short-circuited.  "I don’t know," he told Grace.  "I don’t know if they ever loved me."

"I’m sorry," she said, running her fingers through his hair.  "If you don’t know that for certain, it’s hard to be certain of anything, ever."

"It’s all right," he said.

"It is?  Why do you have to be so brave, John?  You could fall apart a little and still be okay."

Part of Snow wanted to tell Grace the rest of the story — how his brain had short-circuited again and again, who it took four medicines to keep it working reliably even now, decades later.  But he still wanted things to be perfect between them.  He wasn’t willing to be seen by her as weak.  Maybe that was because he didn’t believe she loved him, either.  Maybe she was right about everything she had said, even about the way he could finally answer the question of whether he was worthy of her love, or anyone’s, including his own — by falling apart a little, letting her know his imperfections, letting himself be human with her.  But he just couldn’t bring himself to take the risk.  He closed his eyes, let the motion of Grace’s abdomen rock the pain away.  "How about you," he asked.  "Have you been loved?"

"Another deep breath.  "No," she said.  "I don’t think I ever have."

"As a child?"

"You were a genius.  I was pretty."

"And that’s all anyone could see?"

"I was
very
pretty."  She laughed.

This time, it was Snow who refrained from laughing.  "Your parents had to know how intelligent you are.  You can see things — understand things — other people can’t."

"Maybe that was the problem."

"What do you mean?"

"I could see them."

"And what did you see?" he asked her.

"You’re getting good at this."

He was good enough at it to feel Grace’s reticence about saying more.

She ran a fingertip over his forehead, along the rim of his ear, down his cheek.  "Tell me about your wife," she said.

He propped himself on one elbow, again, looked up at her.  "Where did that come from?"

"I’m just wondering about her.  What is she like?  What is it like living with her?"

He didn’t answer immediately.

"You can tell me," she said.

He pulled himself up toward the headboard, laid beside her.  He had to think hard to come up with anything meaningful to say.  "She’s a better person than I am," he said.

"In what way?"

"She’s been there for my son and daughter in ways I haven’t."

"How could you?  You haven’t been there yourself.  Your brain has been too busy."

"That’s no excuse."

"Yes, it is," she said.  She leaned and kissed his cheek.  "Do you still make love with her?"

"I don’t think I ever did," he said.

This time she kissed him on the lips.

"How about your husband?" he asked.  "Do you still make love with him?"

"I’m not even in the room.  I go somewhere else in my mind.  A deserted beach.  A road through the mountains.  Somewhere I can be alone."

Snow kissed her gently on the forehead.  "Why don’t you come here."

She closed her eyes, rested her head on his shoulder.  "I could try," she said.  "If you will, too.  I mean, when you’re with her.  That way, they only bring us closer."

"I will."

"Good," she said.  "Now, lie down."  As he did, she propped herself on an elbow.  "My turn," she said.  She touched his knee with one fingertip, then slowly began moving her hand up his thigh.

Chapter 10

January 13, 2004

Clevenger landed at Reagan National just before 2:00
P.M.
   He checked his cell phone, saw he had two messages.  He listened to them on his way to the taxicab line.  The first was from Detective Coady, saying he had some interesting news from Grace Baxter’s autopsy.  The second was from J.T. Heller saying he had fast-tracked to that evening the surgery of the blind woman whose vision he hoped to restore.  She was experiencing new migraine headaches that made him worry her tumor was growing rapidly.  He wondered whether Billy might like to scrub in.

Clevenger dialed Heller’s office first, got his receptionist Sascha.  "It’s Frank Clevenger, returning Dr. Heller’s call," he said.

"He told me to put you right through," she said.  "But I wanted to thank you first."

"For...?"

"What you told me — about John Snow.  How sometimes you can’t save someone.  How letting them know you care about them might be the most you can do."

"And very few people do that."

"Are you coming in again?"

Clevenger heard real warmth in her voice.  And part of him would have liked to ask the next question — whether Sascha wanted to see him.  But he knew her answer wouldn’t tell him much.  He had offered her absolution from her guilt, and that was probably what she was hungry for.  The message, not the messenger.  "I’m sure I’ll be by at some point," he said.

"Well, then, I hope to see you," she said, more formally.  "Hold on."

"Frank," Heller boomed, seconds later.

He sounded like he’d downed about thirty cups of coffee.  "I got your message," Clevenger said.  "I think that would be great for Billy."

"Bring him by General, say, four o’clock?"

"Unfortunately, I’m out of town," Clevenger said.  "I’ll try to arrange for a friend to grab him from boxing practice and get him there — assuming he’s up for it.  He could probably take the ‘T.’"

"I can pick him up," Heller said.  "I’ve got nothing on my agenda until that case.  I could use the drive to unwind, anyhow.  I get pretty worked up when I’m about to go in.  I keep going over my moves, you know?"

"Your moves..."

"My strategy.  Every surgery is a war, brother.  And that tumor wrapping itself around my patient’s ophthalmic nerve wants to win every bit as much as I do.  It wants it all the way back to the progenitor cell that first broke free of the program God wrote for it and struck out on its own, planting itself where it had no right to be.  It’s trying with every bit of its protoplasm to take Nature’s design and reconfigure it according to its own warped, murderous plan.  But you know what?"

Clevenger wondered whether Heller might have crossed over from grandiosity into mania.  "What?"

"Today is Judgment Day."

"For the tumor."

"For the tumor.  For disorder.  For entropy.  Today, with God’s grace, I restore what He in his ultimate wisdom intended."  He laughed at himself.  "What do you think, Frank, a little Lithium for your new friend?"

At least Heller knew he sounded like he needed medication.  And maybe it wasn’t fair to question his stability at all.  Maybe opening a woman’s head and dissecting parts of her brain required the energy of a warrior, the conviction you were fighting against evil.  "Why would you think you only need a little?" Clevenger joked.

"Good point," Heller said.  "So, what do you say?  Shall I pick him up?  I just bought a Hummer.  Black on black.  He’ll get a kick out of it."

Clevenger felt the same discomfort he had when he found Billy and Heller chatting in his loft.  Was that because Heller was triggering a protective instinct in him?  Or was it because he was triggering his jealousy?  He had to admit it was probably more the latter.  After all, people routinely put their lives in Jet Heller’s hands.  And Billy could take care of himself, in any case.  "I’ll ask him if that would work for him," Clevenger said.

"If he’s game, I’ll shoot over to Somerville in about forty-five minutes."

Clevenger was taken aback that Heller knew to find Billy in Somerville.

Heller must have sensed his discomfort.  "He told me all about the Club," he said.  "Golden Gloves.  Pretty hot stuff.  You do worry about head trauma, though.  I have patients who boxed four or five years and can’t remember what they had for breakfast."

"I do worry about that," Clevenger said.  He had the feeling again that Heller was trying to out-father him.  "He wears head gear."  He knew he didn’t need to explain himself, but couldn’t stop.  Having had a father who was no father at all had left him wondering whether he could ever be any good at it himself.  "Billy’s gotten his share of concussions, but none in the ring."

"I’ve had seven, myself.  Lost consciousness three of the times.  All before my sixteenth birthday.  I know exactly what you’re dealing with.  I was right where Billy is.  On the edge.  Getting him into a boxing ring was a great idea."

How much could two people have in common?  And why did hearing about it bother him so much?  "I just hope everything turns out as well for him as it did for you."

"If you call opening heads for a living a good result," he said.  "When are you back in town, by the way?"

"With any luck, end of the day."

"I don’t think we’ll be out of surgery until about nine o’clock.  Maybe you and I could grab a beer when I drop Billy off."

Now driving Billy home was part of the plan, too.  "Sure."  He didn’t want to leave Heller assuming Billy would abandon boxing practice to bask in his shadow.  "I’ll let you know in the next hour whether he’s gonna take you up on your offer."

"You got it."

"Thanks."

"And, Frank?" Heller said.

"Yeah?"

"I hope you don’t think I’m being strange or pushy, offering to show Billy what I do.  I just see myself in him.  Probably like you do.  And I think he’s a good kid, underneath it all.  But if you’d rather I back off..."