The Apprentice (28 page)

Rizzoli said nothing, silenced by the truth of O’Donnell’s words.

“Society thinks of violent acts as manifestations of evil or immorality. We’re told we have ultimate control over our own behavior, that each and every one of us has the free will to choose
not
to hurt another human being. But it’s not just morality that guides us. Biology does as well. Our frontal lobes help us integrate thoughts and actions. They help us weigh the consequences of those actions. Without such control, we’d give in to every wild impulse. That’s what happened to this man. He lost the ability to control his behavior. He had sexual feelings toward his daughter, so he molested her. His wife made him angry, so he beat her to death. From time to time, we all have disturbing or inappropriate thoughts, however fleeting. We see an attractive stranger, and sex flashes into our heads. That’s all it is—just a brief thought. But what if we gave in to the impulse? What if we couldn’t stop ourselves? That sexual impulse could lead to rape. Or worse.”

“And that was his defense? ‘My brain made me do it’?”

Annoyance sparked in O’Donnell’s eyes. “Frontal disinhibition syndrome is an accepted diagnosis among neurologists.”

“Yeah, but did it work in court?”

A cold pause. “Our legal system is still working with a nineteenth-century definition of insanity. Is it any wonder the courts are ignorant of neurology as well? This man is now on death row in Oklahoma.” Grimly O’Donnell jerked the films from the light box and slid them into the envelope.

“What does this have to do with Warren Hoyt?”

O’Donnell crossed to her desk, picked up another X-ray envelope and withdrew a new pair of films, which she clipped onto the light box. It was another set of skull films, a frontal and lateral view, but smaller. A child’s skull.

“This boy fell while climbing a fence,” said O’Donnell. “He landed facedown, hitting his head on pavement. Look here, on this frontal view. You can see a tiny crack, running upward about the level of his left eyebrow. A fracture.”

“I see it,” said Rizzoli.

“Look at the patient’s name.”

Rizzoli focused on the small square at the edge of the film, containing identifying data. What she saw made her go very still.

“He was ten years old at the time of the injury,” said O’Donnell. “A normal, active boy growing up in a wealthy Houston suburb. At least, that’s what his pediatric records indicate, and what his elementary school reported. A healthy child, above-average intelligence. Played well with others.”

“Until he grew up and started killing them.”

“Yes, but
why
did Warren start killing?” O’Donnell pointed to the films. “This injury could be a factor.”

“Hey, I fell off a jungle gym when I was seven. Whacked my head against one of the bars. I’m not out there slicing people.”

“Yet you do hunt humans. Just as he does. You are, in fact, a professional hunter.”

Rage blasted Rizzoli’s face with heat. “How can you compare me to him?”

“I’m not, Detective. But consider what you’re feeling right now. You’d probably like to slap me, wouldn’t you? So what’s stopping you? What is it that holds you back? Is it morality? Good manners? Or is it just cool logic, informing you that there’ll be consequences? The certainty that you’ll be arrested? All these considerations together keep you from assaulting me. And it’s in your frontal lobes where this mental processing takes place. Thanks to those intact neurons, you’re able to control your destructive impulses.” O’Donnell paused. And added with a knowing look, “Most of the time.”

Those last words, aimed like a spear, found their mark. It was a tender point of vulnerability. Only a year ago, during the Surgeon investigation, Rizzoli had made a terrible mistake that would forever shame her. In the heat of a chase, she had shot and killed an unarmed man. She stared back at O’Donnell and saw the glint of satisfaction in the other woman’s eyes.

Dean broke the silence. “You told us Hoyt was the one who contacted you. What was he hoping to gain by all this? Attention? Sympathy?”

“How about plain human understanding?” said O’Donnell.

“Is that all he asked from you?”

“Warren is struggling for answers. He doesn’t know what drives him to kill. He does know he’s different. And he wants to know why.”

“He actually told you this?”

O’Donnell went to her desk and picked up a file folder. “I have his letters here. And the videotape of our interview.”

“You went to Souza-Baranowski?”

“Yes.”

“At whose suggestion?”

O’Donnell hesitated. “We both thought it would be helpful.”

“But who actually brought up the idea of a meeting?”

It was Rizzoli who answered the question for O’Donnell. “He did. Didn’t he? Hoyt asked for the meeting.”

“It may have been his suggestion. But we both wanted to do it.”

“You don’t have the faintest idea why he really asked you there,” said Rizzoli. “Do you?”

“We had to meet. I can’t evaluate a patient without seeing him face-to-face.”

“And while you were sitting there, face-to-face, what do you suppose he was thinking?”

O’Donnell’s expression was dismissive. “You would know?”

“Oh yeah. I know exactly what goes on in the Surgeon’s head.” Rizzoli had found her voice again, and the words came out cold and relentless. “He asked you to come because he wanted to scope you out. He does that with women. Smiles at us, talks nicely to us. It’s in his school records, isn’t it? ‘Polite young man,’ the teachers said. I bet he was polite when you met him, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was—”

“Just an ordinary, cooperative guy.”

“Detective, I’m not so naive as to think he’s a normal man. But he was cooperative. And he was troubled by his actions. He wants to understand the reasons for his behavior.”

“So you told him it was because of that bonk on the head.”

“I told him the head injury was a contributing factor.”

“He must have been happy to hear that. To have an excuse for what he did.”

“I gave him my honest opinion.”

“You know what else made him happy?”

“What?”

“Being in the same room with you. You did sit in the same room, didn’t you?”

“We met in the interview room. There was continuous video surveillance.”

“But there was no barrier between you. No protective window. No Plexiglas.”

“He never threatened me.”

“He could lean right up to you. Study your hair, smell your skin. He particularly likes to smell a woman’s scent. It turns him on. What really arouses him is the smell of fear. Dogs can smell fear, did you know that? When we get scared, we release hormones that animals can detect. Warren Hoyt can smell it, too. He’s like any other creature who hunts. He picks up the scent of fear, of vulnerability. It feeds his fantasies. And I can imagine what his fantasies were when he sat in that room with you. I’ve seen what those fantasies lead to.”

O’Donnell tried to laugh but couldn’t quite pull it off. “If you’re trying to scare me—”

“You have a long neck, Dr. O’Donnell. I guess some would call it a swan neck. He would have noticed that. Didn’t you catch him, just once, staring at your throat?”

“Oh,
please
.”

“Didn’t his eyes sort of glance down, every so often? Maybe you thought he was looking at your breasts, the way other men do. But not Warren. He doesn’t seem to care much about breasts. It’s throats he’s attracted to. He thinks of a woman’s throat as dessert. The part he can’t wait to slice into. After he finishes with another part of her anatomy.”

Flushing, O’Donnell turned to Dean. “Your partner’s way out of line here.”

“No,” said Dean quietly. “I think Detective Rizzoli’s right on target.”

“This is sheer intimidation.”

Rizzoli laughed. “You were in a room with Warren Hoyt. And you didn’t feel intimidated then?”

O’Donnell fixed her with a cold stare. “It was a clinical interview.”

“You thought it was. But he considered it something else.” Rizzoli moved toward her, a move of quiet aggression that was not lost on O’Donnell. Though O’Donnell was taller and more imposing in both stature and status, she could not match Rizzoli’s unrelenting fierceness, and she flushed even deeper as Rizzoli’s words continued to pummel her.

“He was polite, you said. Cooperative. Well, of course. He had exactly what he wanted: a woman in the room with him. A woman sitting close enough to get him excited. He hides it, though; he’s good at that. Good at holding a perfectly normal conversation, even as he’s thinking about cutting your throat.”

“You are out of control,” said O’Donnell.

“You think I’m just trying to scare you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Here’s something that should really scare the shit out of you. Warren Hoyt got a good whiff of you. He’s been turned on by you. Now he’s out, and he’s hunting again. And guess what? He never forgets a woman’s scent.”

O’Donnell stared back, fear at last registering in her eyes. Rizzoli could not help but derive some satisfaction from seeing that fear. She wanted O’Donnell to have a taste of what she herself had suffered this past year.

“Get used to being afraid,” said Rizzoli. “Because you need to be.”

“I’ve worked with men like him,” said O’Donnell. “I know when to be afraid.”

“Hoyt is different from anyone you’ve ever met.”

O’Donnell gave a laugh. Her bravado had returned, braced by pride. “They’re all different. All unique. And I never turn my back on any of them.”

My dear Dr. O’Donnell,

You asked about my earliest childhood memories. I have
heard that few people retain memories of their lives from before the age of
three, because the immature brain has not acquired the ability to process
language, and we need language to interpret the sights and sounds we experience
during infancy. Whatever the explanation for childhood amnesia may be, it does
not apply to me, as I remember certain details of my childhood quite well. I
can call to mind distinct images which, I believe, date back to when I was about
eleven months old. No doubt you’ll dismiss these as fabricated memories,
built on stories I must have heard from my parents. I assure you, these memories
are quite real, and if my parents were alive, they would tell you that my recollections
are accurate and could not have been based on any stories I might have heard.
By the very nature of the images, these were not events my family was likely
to talk about.

I remember my crib, wooden slats painted white, the
rail dimpled with gnaw marks from my teething. A blue blanket that had some
sort of tiny creatures printed on it. Birds or bees or maybe little bears. And
over the crib, a soaring contraption which I now know was a mobile, but at the
time struck me as something quite magical. Glittering, always moving. Stars
and moons and planets, my father later told me, just the sort of thing he would
hang over his son’s crib. He was an aerospace engineer, and he believed
that you could turn any child into a genius if you just stimulated the
growing brain, whether it be with mobiles or flash cards or tapes with his father’s
voice reciting the multiplication tables.

I have always been good at math.

But these are memories I doubt you have much interest
in. No, you are searching for the darker themes, not my memories of white cribs
and pretty mobiles. You want to know why I am the way I am.

So I suppose I should tell you about Mairead Donohue.

I learned her name years later, when I told an aunt
about my early recollections, and she said, “Oh, my God. You actually
remember Mairead?” Yes indeed, I remember her. When I call to mind the
images from my nursery, it is not my mother’s face but the face of Mairead
that stares down at me over the railing of my crib. White skin, marred by a
single mole which perches like a black fly on her cheek. Green eyes that are
both beautiful and cold. And her smile
—
even a child as young
as I was could see what adults are blind to: there is hatred in that smile.
She hates the household where she works. She hates the stink of diapers.
She hates my hungry cries which interrupt her sleep. She hates the circumstances
which have brought her to this hot Texas city, so different from her native
Ireland
.

Most of all, she hates me.

I know this, because she demonstrates it in a dozen
quiet and subtle ways. She does not leave any evidence of her abuse; oh no,
she is too clever for that. Instead her hatred takes the form of angry whispers,
soft as a snake’s hiss, as she leans over my crib. I cannot understand
the words, but I hear their venom, and I see the rage in her narrowed eyes.
She does not neglect my physical needs; my diaper is always fresh and my milk
bottle warmed. But always, there are the secret pinches, the twisting of my
skin, the sting of alcohol dabbed straight on my urethra. Naturally I scream,
but there are never any scars or bruises. I am simply a colicky baby, she tells
my parents, born with a nervous disposition. And poor, hardworking Mairead!
She is the one who must cope with the screaming brat, while my mother tends
to her social obligations. My mother, who smells of perfume and mink.

So this is what I remember. The startling bursts of
pain. The sound of my own screaming. And above me, the white skin of Mairead’s
throat as she cranes forward into my crib to deliver a pinch or a jab
to my tender skin.

I don’t know if it’s possible for a child
as young as I was to hate. I think it’s more likely we are merely bewildered
by such punishment. Without the capacity to reason, the best we can manage is
to link cause and effect. And I must have understood, even then, that
the source of my torment was a woman with cold eyes and a milk-white throat.

Rizzoli sat at her desk and stared at Warren Hoyt’s meticulous handwriting, both margins neatly lined up, the small, tight words marching in a straight line across the page. Although he had written the letter in ink, there were no corrections or crossed-out words. Every sentence was already organized before his pen touched paper. She thought of him bent over this page, slender fingers poised around the ballpoint pen, his skin sliding across the paper, and suddenly she felt the almost desperate need to wash her hands.