Touched by Fire (12 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Several days had passed since Merrick left Lilah standing at the elevator. She spent them settling into her new office and tentatively opening her mail. Each piece had stickers proclaiming
INSPECTED, X-RAYED, OK TO DELIVER
. As instructed, she called him to “work something out” for the hockey game. Though he hadn’t called back, she briefed Serena on her idea to genotype the Kings players, and asked her to contact the team doctor. With luck they might have results in time for the GRASP conference. In the interim, Schaefer called, and they “worked something out” on the prison study.

Early the next morning, they caught a flight to Sacramento, then rented a car and drove to Vacaville State Prison, a drab edifice west of the capital. As in most prisons, sex offenders were isolated from other inmates, who, despite their own hideous offenses, could become righteously indignant over sex crimes.

Lilah sat at a table in an interrogation room, her head filled with the odor of sweat and testosterone that comes from locking hot, angry men in cages. There was an empty chair next to her and another opposite at the focal point of spotlights, video cameras, and a one-way mirror through which prison guards and members of the psychiatric staff
were observing. A side table held vacutainer kits, inmate files, and Schaefer’s voice-activated recorder. Schaefer stood off to one side so that, on entering the room, each inmate would have the impression he was alone with a woman.

And Lilah
was
terribly alone when the first one appeared. His hard-packed body filled the doorway as he ducked his shaved head and turned his shoulders to avoid the jambs. He sat glaring at Lilah through lidded eyes that gave him a chilling malevolence. Indeed, if he was intimidated on finding a woman waiting for him, it was news to her. Esoteric theory had become hard core reality, and it wasn’t anxiety in her eyes, imploring Schaefer to come forward, but sheer terror. He took a deep breath, then crossed the room and sat next to her. “This is Dr. Graham, I’m Dr. Schaefer,” he said nervously. “We appreciate your taking part in this study. May I ask why you volunteered?”

“Get my ass out of the cage,” the inmate growled with disdain. “Why the fuck else?”

“I see. But you do know what the study is about.”

The inmate nodded sullenly. “Jeans. They said somethin’ about jeans. I get mine at the Gap.”

Looks darted between Schaefer and Lilah. Was he ignorant or incredibly quick-witted? “Can you roll up your sleeve for me?” she finally asked.

The inmate grunted and rolled up a cuff, revealing a powerfully muscled arm crisscrossed with bulging veins. There’d be no need for a tourniquet, Lilah decided, as she opened a vacutainer kit and uncapped the needle.

The inmate’s eyes darted to the gleaming steel.

“According to your file,” Schaefer said, scanning the pages of data, “you were convicted of sexually abusing your daughter. Is that right?”

“It’s a bad rap. I never done nothin’ to her.”

“Never?”

“That’s whut I said, asshole.”

“Okay . . .” Schaefer conceded evenly, signaling Lilah with a veiled glance.

She took the inmate’s arm, aligning the needle with a purple knot inside his elbow. “Make a fist, please?”

“For the sake of discussion,” Schaefer went on as the inmate complied, “let’s assume you did abuse her.”

Lilah stabbed the needle hard into the man’s flesh. He concealed his reaction to the pain, then grasped her wrist tightly with his free hand. Lilah had no doubt he could snap it with a flick of his own. Her adrenaline surged. Her pulse rate soared. Her eyes blinked to avoid his threatening stare. “You can open your fist now,” she said as calmly as possible. “
Both of them
.”
A tension-filled moment passed before he released her.

“Did that hurt?” Schaefer wondered, pretending to be unaffected by the confrontation. “You think it hurt as much as what you did to your daughter?”

“How the fuck should I know!” the inmate bellowed.

“How old is she?”

“Shit, man, I don’t know . . . ten, maybe eleven.”

Schaefer toyed with his glasses. “I have an eleven-year-old too,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “They tend to be full of themselves at that age, don’t they?”

“Damn right. The sassy bitch was always dissin’ me when I come by to be with her mama. I tol’ her I’d shut her up, and that’s whut I did.”

“By forcing your penis into her mouth . . .”

“You got a better way?”

Lilah shuddered. She felt paralyzed, like in one of those dreams where you can’t move no matter how hard you try;
but she recovered and managed to take his blood. When finished. she went about determining if the men in his family were candidates for a genetic linkage study. “You have two sisters, don’t you?” she asked softly.

The inmate nodded.

“Do you know if your father treated his daughters the way you treated yours?”

“No idea who the dude was,” he replied with a scornful snort. “Betcha them bitches don’t either.”

Lilah nodded with clinical detachment and scanned his file. “Let’s talk about your brother. Does
he
treat his daughter the way you treated yours?”

“Can’t say, but I remember askin’ him if I could bust her cherry when she was ready. You know, keep the prime pussy in the family? You know whut the little shit went and done? Punched me out, that’s whut.”

“So, the answer to my question is no,” Lilah said, smiling at Schaefer, who signaled her with a slight nod. “Were you sexually abused as a child?” she asked.

“Was I whut?” he challenged, his eyes flaring.

“Sexually abused, molested. Did someone in your family or, perhaps, someone in a position of—”

“Whut the fuck is this?” He leaped up in an angry rage and threw his chair across the room. Lilah and Schaefer ducked as it smashed into the wall behind them. They were both thinking they’d be next when three guards charged through the door and gang tackled the inmate, cuffing his hands before wrestling him out of the room.

Schaefer and Lilah sat in stunned silence. “Wow!” she finally exclaimed. “That was something else.”

“Wow?” Schaefer echoed, his heart pounding. “He damn near beheaded us and you’re getting off on it?”

“Nobody’s going to fault
this
study for being light on
behavioral data,” Lilah replied spiritedly. They spent the remainder of the morning interviewing inmates. Some responded. Others refused to be engaged: unmoved by Lilah’s presence, Schaefer’s preamble, or the pain of being rudely stuck with a needle.

After a break for lunch—during which Lilah left another message for Merrick—a pale youth with wispy blond hair entered the room. His sleeveless shirt revealed three tattoos: a rose that said
MOM
, a heart that read
MOTHER
, and a broken heart that proclaimed
MOTHER
FUCKER
. He slouched in the chair, studying Lilah out of the comer of his eye.

“You were convicted of rape?” Schaefer prompted, moving in from his position next to the door.

The young inmate grinned smugly and nodded.

“It says here you bound your victims’ wrists with guitar strings, then painted their faces with white makeup and bright red lipstick. Can you tell us why?”

“ ’Cause I’m addicted to love,” he replied in a drawl that made him sound like Texas senator Phil Gramm.

“Love?”
Schaefer echoed with contempt. “Rape has nothing to do with love. Rape is an act of violence.”

The inmate guffawed in disbelief. “Y’ all ain’t ever seen it, have you?” he challenged, his voice rising with each successive query. “The music video? Robert Palmer? ‘Addicted to Love’? Been on MTV for years!”

“Oh, yes, MTV, of course,” Schaefer bluffed unconvincingly. “I believe I did catch it once.”

The kid eyed him skeptically. “‘Addicted to Love,’ man. Check out the backup band. We’re talking some serious pussy. All tens. Totally fuckable.”

“Oh? What makes them so . . .so desirable?”

“Fuckable!” the inmate corrected, his eyes turning to
predatory slits, his lips curling to reveal his incisors. “Like, they all have these skintight dresses cut right up to their beavers like my mom’s? And they ain’t wearing no panties either.”

A little look passed between Lilah and Schaefer. “Your mother dressed provocatively?” she prompted gently

“You want to tell us about her?”

“N-n-nothin’ to tell.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothin’. I split when I was thirteen.”

“Thirteen . . . How come?”

“ ’Cause’ a C-c-cattus. That’s my old man. He—he—he used to—to—to do s-s-s-stuff to me.”

“He was sexually abusing you?”

The inmate bit a lip, nodding in shame. “Smacked us around too. I was always catchin’ it ’cause’ a her.”

Lilah winced. “Because of your mother?”

“Bitch was a slut. A punch board for any redneck with a hard-on.” He made a fist and jerked it back and forth rapidly. “Turn ’em upside down, they’re all sisters, right? I mean, we’re talking fucking quintuplets.”

“Quintuplets?” Schaefer prompted, confused.

“The pussies in the video, stupid. They got these white faces and huge red lips, and these great cheekbones.” His eyes took on a crazed sparkle as he touched Lilah’s face with a fingertip. “Kinda like hers.”

Lilah held her ground until he removed it, then began peeling the wrapper from a vacutainer holder.

“And they just stand there,” the inmate went on, “you know, grinding to the music—with this fuck-me-if-you-can attitude.” He snorted and made the jabbing motion with his fist. “So, I did! Punched ’em right in the honey pot. Punched me dozens of ’em.”

“Thirty-nine of them.” Lilah said sharply as she grasped the vacutainer holder and uncapped the needle.

“And soon’s I get out, I’m punchin’ me thirty-nine more. I mean—” His eyes darted to the needle in terror, then they rolled up into his head as he passed out and slumped forward onto the table.

Moments later, when he came to, Lilah had already drawn his blood, and two guards were waiting to escort him from the room. “That slut ain’t wearing no panties, man. I want to eat that slut’s pussy,” the inmate said, making a slurping sound that made Lilah’s skin crawl. Rather than give him the satisfaction, she forced a smile and held up the needle. The young inmate recoiled like a vampire confronted with a silver cross. It was almost comedic, and she and Schaefer stifled nervous laughter as the guards hustled him from the room.

They went through several more inmates before a gray-haired man in his mid-sixties appeared. He had a healthy vigor that reminded Lilah of her father before he became ill; but there was a refined aura about him in contrast to Doug Graham’s earthy persona. “Welcome to Vacaville,” the inmate said with an amiable smile. He had just taken his seat when Schaefer came forward and launched into his preamble.

“Oh yes,” the old fellow replied brightly when asked if he’d been briefed on the study. “Actually, I know quite a lot about the subject.”

“Really?” Lilah prompted.

The inmate nodded. “I found several articles on genes and antisocial behavior in the library. We have an excellent one here, thank God.”

“Ah, yes,” Lilah exclaimed, indicating his file. “You were an English teacher, weren’t you?”

“Yes, at a Catholic elementary school.”

“A boarding school for girls, wasn’t it?”

The old fellow nodded glumly; then brightened and began rolling up a sleeve. “I’m hoping those articles turn out to be right.”

“Why?” Lilah asked. “Because you wouldn’t have to accept responsibility for what you did?”

“Oh, I accept it, fully; but even after all these years of therapy, I’d go right back to my old habits. If I have a genetic defect—if my biological soul has been stained by some sort of original sin—it might be accepted as proof that I can’t be rehabilitated, and I wouldn’t have to worry about being paroled.”

Lilah nodded, almost unable to believe that this articulate and apparently decent fellow was a chronic pedophile who’d molested untold numbers of schoolgirls.

“Do you have any idea why?” Schaefer asked.

“Oh, yes, I recall being taken by their purity. It was as if a sense of mission would suddenly come over me . . . a calling to carry out God’s will.”

A look passed between Lilah and Schaefer. “God wanted you to molest these children?” Lilah asked.

“Of course not. You see, I’ve always despised the way men use women and discard them like trash. It’s the sort of behavior responsible for our lovely language being marred by all those horrible D words: deviant, degenerate, demented, despicable, disgusting—yes,
disgusting
. . . that’s the one that troubled me most.” He let it trail off, and then, with dramatic eloquence, recited: “ ‘A first experience of loving or being loved may be enchanting, desolating, embarrassing or even boring, but it should not be disgusting.’ You know who wrote that?”

They both shrugged.

“Quentin Bell.”

“Yes, of course,” Schaefer intoned professorially. “Virginia Woolf’s biographer, wasn’t he?”

“The best of several. He was also her nephew.”

“So, you were going to save these innocent girls from a horrible experience,” Schaefer concluded.

“Someone had to,” the old fellow replied with frightening sincerity. “It tortured me to think that one of these animals would sexually brutalize them.”

“So you beat them to it,” Schaefer taunted.

“I beg to differ,” he said, keeping his composure. “I taught them that, like the Blessed Virgin, their sexuality was sanctified.”

“You’re a devout Catholic, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’ve attended mass daily since I was a child. I receive Communion as well.”

“Did you ever confess any of this to a priest?”

“Weekly. Like Augustine, there was a part of me that knew my mission was unholy.”

“And you expected them to treat what you told them as a privileged communication.”

“Of course. As I recall, they always seemed so mortified—save for this one fellow who wanted to know: Which girls? Where did I touch them? Did they derive pleasure from it? Well, I never went back to
his
confessional again.”