Sigma Curse - 04 (6 page)

Maybe he mentioned it for a reason, Venn thought. Maybe he wanted you to ask about it.

“Do you have any idea why he was seeing the therapist?” asked Teller. “Did you suspect anything?”

Again she paused to consider. “His father, I suppose,” she murmured. “He always wanted his father back, and knew he couldn’t have him. And he always gave the sense of not belonging. That seems strange, doesn’t it? He joined the military in order to find a home, and I know that the Army or the marines or whatever it is, becomes your home. They actively foster a sense of family. But although he seemed to enjoy his career, he never really felt he fitted in there. That’s just my impression. We never discussed it.”

Venn said: “Was Dale ever hospitalized?”

“He broke his arm when he was a teenager -”

“I mean, for anything else,” Venn said. He saw the flicker of annoyance on the judge’s face, and realized she wasn’t accustomed to being interrupted. “For anything that might be linked to the reasons he was seeing the counselor.”

“No.” Her answer was swift and emphatic. “I told you, I don’t know much about what he was seeing the counselor for, what was going on inside him.”

That wasn’t the question, thought Venn. Interesting.

They talked a little more about what had happened to Dale Fincher. Judge Fincher had clearly been briefed fully on the circumstances of her son’s death. Venn wondered if she’d been told about the serial killer angle, or if she still thought her son’s murder was an isolated killing. She hadn’t asked about the involvement of the FBI in the case, but perhaps she assumed they were there because of her status as a Supreme Court judge.

She asked, “The mark on his forehead.”

Yes,” said Teller.

“What does it mean?”

Teller said, “We don’t know, yet. It may be gang related. We suspect not, but further than that, it’s impossible to say.” He eyed the judge. “Do you have any idea of its significance, Judge Fincher? Might it have any personal connotation for your son?”

She shook her head.

Her manner had, if anything, become more resolute, more detached, during the conversation. Venn had thought she’d break down, slowly, and show the normal human reaction of a mother who’s son has just been butchered. Eventually, when it became clear to her that the two cops had no further questions, she straightened in her armchair, put her hands together.

“If that’s all, gentlemen, then may I excuse myself? As you might imagine, I have a lot to arrange.”

They stood, shook hands once more. Judge Fincher gazed at each of them in turn.

“Agent Teller. Lieutenant Venn. I know I’ve come across to you as cold and aloof. And I know the picture I’ve given you of my relationship with my son suggests a dysfunctional, distant relationship. No, we weren’t close. No, I wasn’t a perfect mother. Not even a very good one. But I did love my son. More than I could ever express to you. More, God help me, than I was ever able to express to him. And now it’s too late.”

She held on to Venn’s hand longer than necessary, and although she looked from one man to the other, Venn got the impression she was mainly addressing him.

“Promise me you’ll find whoever did this,” she murmured, her voice low and intense. “Promise me you’ll do whatever you need to to get them. And don’t let them get away. Follow procedure to the letter, so they don’t walk on a technicality. But if that’s too difficult... just make sure you get them, however you can.”

“We will, Judge Fincher,” said Teller.

*

O
n the way back, neither of them spoke for a while, as they processed the encounter. Not just what Judge Fincher had said, but what she didn’t say.

Teller broke the silence. “A Supreme Court Justice just encouraged us to use illegal methods if necessary to catch a criminal.”

“Fair enough.” Teller drove for a while longer, musing. Then: “So what was it you noticed earlier? You said before we got there that there was something you’d been considering, but you preferred to talk to the Judge first. What was it?”

Venn said, “Did you notice anything else about the body? Other than the obvious, of course.”

“Such as?”

“Any other injuries?”

Teller seemed to be conjuring up the image of the man on the slab. At last he said, “No. You got me.”

“There were old, healed scars on the inside of the left wrist, and higher up the forearm. Only on the left. They were stitched up pretty expertly, so there were only faint lines. But they were there, all right. Several of them. Parallel, transverse scars.”

“Huh.” Teller frowned.

“My guess is Dale Fincher was a self-harmer,” said Venn. “He was right-handed, so he did it to his left wrist. Maybe with a razor blade. Those are the cuts you see on somebody who isn’t trying to kill themselves, but is cutting for one or more of a variety of reasons. To punish himself. To inflict pain in order to feel more alive, rather than numb.”

He’d seen the phenomenon among young people when he’d been a cop in Chicago, and had never been able to understand it. Later he’d discussed it with Beth, who said it was a generational thing, and had started to be seen more and more in hospital practice since around the 1980s. Often the person doing it was a troubled, alienated teenager, usually a girl, and sometimes with a history of sexual abuse. Other times, the patient’s problems were more pervasive. They might have a so-called borderline personality disorder.

“Could’ve happened lots of ways,” said Teller. “He was a soldier. Soldiers get hurt.”

“Not like that,” said Venn. “That’s a classic pattern. Fincher was cutting himself. Not recently, maybe, but in the past. It fits with the picture his mom painted, of a tormented, lonely man who always felt like a misfit.”

Teller thought about it some more. “You think there might be some fetishistic angle to the killing?” he asked. “Maybe Fincher was into weird, kinky stuff. S&M. Maybe that’s why there was no sign of a struggle. He allowed himself to be tied to the bed. He just wasn’t banking on getting killed.”

“It’s possible,” said Venn. “But it would be good to talk to the people who were closer to him than his mother. His Army buddies, his commanding officer.”

“We’re on our way there right now,” said Teller. “Fort Irvington.”

––––––––

F
ort Irvington was one of a handful of military bases in New York State. Located on the outer fringes of Queens, it sprawled over one thousand acres of land, providing housing for the families of servicemen as well as barracks, outdoor training facilities and a massive administrative complex.

Teller’s Lexus was waved through assorted gates and checkpoints and into a visitors’ parking lot. The two men were greeted by a quartet of uniformed soldiers who escorted them toward the admin block. Venn noted the crispness of everything: the lawns, the uniforms, the salutes. He felt a sudden longing for this kind of life, one he’d left behind him more than a decade earlier when he’d been discharged from the Marines. At the time he’d found it a little stifling, but compared with the chaos and noise and messiness of life as an urban cop, it now seemed idyllic.

Colonel Henry Masterson greeted them in the lobby. He too was in full uniform, a bear of a man with a trimmed mustache and a curt but not unfriendly manner. They shook hands in turn.

“This way, please,” he said, and marched them down a corridor and into his office. It was a little more cluttered than Venn had been expecting, but it was spacious and comfortable. The three men sat, Masterson behind his desk. He leaned forward with his hands placed flat on the desk top.

“We’re very sorry for your loss, Colonel,” said teller. Venn thought it sounded a little odd, addressed to the commanding officer of a man whose mother they had just offered similar condolences to. Masterson nodded once.

“We’re sorry, too,” he said. “Corporal Fincher was a fine man, and an asset to the Army.”

Teller launched straight in. “We know you’re a busy man, Colonel, so we’ll make this as succinct as possible. You’ll be aware of the facts. Dale Fincher was killed between approximately nine p.m and six a.m. The night before last, in a hotel in Chelsea. An object, possibly an icepick, was pushed through his brain as he lay secured to a bed, naked.”

Masterson said nothing. Venn thought Teller was being deliberately graphic in order to provoke the Colonel. He wondered how wise that approach was.

“The last time we know anyone saw Corporal Fincher was at seven p.m., when he left the bar he’d been visiting with some of his Army peers. He left with a woman. I hope we’ll get an opportunity to speak with the soldiers who were present, in order to get some idea of what this woman looked like.”

Masterson looked faintly irritated, as if Teller had said something obvious. “Of course. They’re all here, waiting for you.”

Venn spoke up. “We’re interested to know from you, Colonel, what Dale Fincher was like. As a soldier, and as a private individual.”

Masterson began to recite, as if rattling off a pre-prepared list: “Corporal Fincher was a bright, enthusiastic soldier who might one day have been a great one. But he was held back by a certain degree of self-doubt, an unwillingness to assert himself fully. It wasn’t courage he lacked. He demonstrated that again and again. He followed orders unquestioningly. Rather, he had difficulty trusting his own judgment. As such, he wasn’t really leadership material, not above a certain level. He’d been in the Army almost ten years. Most other soldiers of his intelligence and physical aptitude would have attained officer status by now. But, as I say, his diffidence held him back.”

Venn thought he detected a ruefulness in Masterson’s voice, a regret at wasted opportunities. He said: “Were there any disciplinary issues?”

“No. His record was exemplary.” Masterson sighed. “I probably shouldn’t say this, and it’s strictly off the record. But sometimes I think it would have been better if Corporal Fincher
had
been a troublemaker. At least occasionally. It would have revealed a spark of independence in him, and that’s something we could have nurtured. As it was...” He turned his palms upward.

“Was he a drinker?” asked Teller.

“Not remarkably. He’d hold his own with the boys, by all accounts. Then be sick as a dog the next day, so he couldn’t hold it. And before you ask, there was never any record of illicit substance use. I doubt he ever tried anything like that, even in private.”

Venn thought about his next question. “Did he talk about his parents at all?”

“His father, yes.” Masterson steepled his fingers. “Major Lawrence Fincher was a bright star in our firmament. Not quite a legend, though he was to his son. You’d think the boy had grown up with him, rather than having no personal recollection of him, given he was only four when the major died.”

“And his mother?”

Masterson shook his head. “Never mentioned her. Everybody knew who she was, of course, but he didn’t talk about her at all. It was as if she was the one who was dead, not his father. We figured it was because he was afraid of being accused of currying favour, of using his mother’s name and position as status symbols. So he deliberately avoided any mention of her. Whether or not that’s the reason, I don’t know.”

Venn: “Did he have a lot of friends?”

Masterson tilted his head, considering the question. “Yes and no. He hung out with a fairly large group of soldiers. As officers, you quickly pick up who are the popular ones, and who the misfits are. Dale Fincher was superficially popular. He blended well into the family culture here at Fort Irvington. But I always got the impression he never really belonged. Perhaps he felt that way innately, and ended up communicating it to those around him. Or maybe the others genuinely didn’t accept him as one of them, but tolerated him for whatever reason.”

It was a confusing picture, Venn thought. Normally, after talking to a few people who knew somebody, you got a fairly clear image of who they were. But Dale Fincher was elusive, slipping repeatedly out of focus in Venn’s mind.

He and Teller asked a few more routine questions. It was clear that Colonel Masterson was under pressure, and Venn thought he’d caught some flak for the killing. Fincher had been off-duty at the time, and out of uniform, but a dead soldier was a dead soldier, whether on the battlefield or back home. Venn knew there’d be an internal inquiry, and possibly scapegoats would be found.

They thanked Masterson for his time, and were shown by a female private into another room down a different corridor. This one was more like a conference room, with a large oval table in the center. They found themselves alone.

Teller raised his eyebrows. “Guy’s slippery as a catfish.”

“Fincher? Yeah. I know what you mean.” Venn paused, glancing round. It was highly unlikely the room was bugged. Why would it be? His natural suspiciousness was getting the better of him.

He said, “There’s the possibility, of course, that this is all political. That Fincher was killed because of his mother, for some reason.”

“Yes, I thought of that.” Teller turned to gaze out the window, where a group of what looked like very green recruits were being put through their paces on a lawn, under the direction of a snarling terrier of a sergeant. “Maybe revenge for somebody Judge Fincher put in prison. It doesn’t explain the other two killings, though.”

“Unless they’re a smokescreen,” said Venn. “Designed to make us think we’re looking for a serial killer, when in fact Fincher was the important one.”

Teller turned back. “It’s too elaborate. There are easier ways to kill a man. Plus, why dress it up in all this subterfuge? The whole point of killing Fincher in revenge would be to send a clear message to his mother. There’s no clear message here. None that I can see, anyhow.”

The door opened and three men filed in. They were aged between their late twenties and early thirties, and all wore uniforms with corporal’s stripes. Two of them were big and burly, a blond and a redhead. The other was shorter, African American, wiry. The kind of guy who sometimes ended up in Special Forces.

Once more, Teller and Venn shook hands. The men introduced themselves as Corporals Austin, Nilssen and Craddock. Teller indicated for them to sit, which they did in unison, along one side of the table. Venn and Teller took seats opposite them. It felt, Venn thought, like an interview panel.