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“Confidentiality holds in here?” Nautilus frowned down the long white hall toward the patient section of the Institute, separated by shining steel doors. Every fifty feet of wall held a button labeled Emergency. It wasn’t referring to fires.
“Not at the Institute,” Traynor said. “But doctor-patient privileges could have been involved if she was talking about a private client.”
Nautilus raised an eyebrow. “Why would a world-renowned specialist like Dr Prowse want to see folks with sibling rivalries, panic attacks …”
“The standard afflictions? She wouldn’t. For Dr Prowse to accept an individual patient, he or she would be very compelling in some way. Of interest.”
“I’d imagine she sees all kinds of ‘interesting’ in here,” Nautilus said. “Jeremy Ridgecliff, for example.”
Traynor nodded. “Patricide following years of childhood abuse, mental and physical. That wasn’t overly unusual, a child reaching the breaking point, taking revenge. What was unusual was the shifting of anger to a disconnected mother, or rather, surrogates. And the startling amount of physical violence inflicted on his victims. Unfortunately …” Traynor shrugged, shook his head.
“Unfortunately what, Doctor?”
“Dr Prowse never fully opened Ridgecliff up. She figured ways to keep him calm and fairly reality based – that in itself was a monumental success – but she never reached the primal judgment.”
“Primal judgment?”
“Sorry …a term the Doctor and I used for the underlying motivator in killings. Another staffer calls it ‘The Fire that lights all fires’.”
“I thought abuse was the underlying factor.”
“That’s the fact of the case. The primal judgment is how the patient transforms that fact into his own beliefs. How the fact is perceived, interpreted and, in Jeremy Ridgecliff’s case, turned into a murderous impulse against women.” Traynor raised a wispy eyebrow, a note of condescension in his voice. “The concept is perhaps a bit difficult for the layman. A drunken and abusive man beats three sons. One son reads it as a form of contact, a misshapen display of love, and manages to love his father back. The second interprets it as hatred, responds in kind. The third son …” Traynor paused, tapped his fingers to his chin, trying to come up with an example.
“The third son,” Nautilus said, “might do something wholly different, such as judging the pain to be a message from God or Allah or the Universal Oneness – a sign that he’s been chosen for something, and the suffering is necessary.”
Traynor stared at Nautilus as if seeing him for the first time.
“Exactly, Detective. But Dr Prowse never found Jeremy Ridgecliff’s primal judgment, probably because he knew she was looking for it. They danced around the subject, almost playfully at times.”
“Playfully?”
“Both knew it was serious business, but Jeremy Ridgecliff had his whole life to play the game, his form of hide-and-seek. He held tight to his secrets.”
“So the two, uh, toyed with one another. Is that the right word?”
“Ridgecliff could actually be puckish. And wholly charming, when he wished. Lovable, almost. If you didn’t know his history.”
Lovable. Nautilus tumbled the word in his mind. Dr Evangeline Prowse was a friend of his partner. If Carson had a blind spot, it was overlooking imperfections in those close to him. Nautilus narrowed an eye at the nervous Traynor and decided to push him a bit.
“Tell me about the phenomenon known as transference, Doctor.”
Traynor frowned. “There’s no way Dr Prowse would allow transference to occur.”
“Transference of romantic feelings from patient to therapist …all kinds of patients fall for their therapists. Sometimes those vices get versa’d, right? The docs fall for the patients?”
The psychiatrist’s forehead reddened with anger. “There’s no way Dr Prowse would ever have a relationship with a patient.”
“Then why did she go to such lengths to smuggle Ridgecliff out?”
“She didn’t smuggle him out. He made her do it.”
“It was Dr Prowse who changed guard schedules, falsified medical transfer papers, made up a half-dozen false scenarios over at least two weeks’ time. You yourself suspect she diverted you to a conference to get you out of the way. Maybe it was all her idea.”
“I just told you, that is impossible!”
“She did all this while he was locked up. No knife at her throat, gun at her back. It seems irrational. Which leaves emotion. Powerful emotion. What possible leverage could Ridgecliff hold over Dr Prowse except for an emotional one?”
Traynor stood abruptly, sending the chair toppling. “I don’t know, goddammit! I DON’T FUCKING KNOW!”
Nautilus glanced at the toppled chair, raised an eyebrow at Traynor. “And when this transference happens under everyone’s noses, there’s surprise and anger. That’s because of something called denial, right?”
The psychiatrist turned his head away.
Said, “Yes.”
NINE (#ulink_d04ef951-ed1e-5b8f-89f5-9cbaec3d6509)
I grabbed a pastrami sandwich upon our return from Newark and brought it back to Waltz’s office. I ate as Shelly nursed a can of something fished from his mini-fridge.
“Ms Anderson had a short tenure at Child Welfare,” he said. “Ridgecliff’s family never lived in Jersey, you’re sure about that?”
We never lived any further north than a brief stint in Knoxville when I was five. All I recall is my father ranting about mountains. He hated mountains, he hated plains, he hated whatever was in between.
“It’s in the records sent by the Alabama police, Shelly. The family never resided or even visited above the Mason-Dixon line.”
“Anderson worked with dysfunctional families. The Ridgecliffs were dysfunctional enough to register on the Richter scale. It’s an interesting coincidence. I wish I could dig up the other kid. Charles Ridgecliff. Maybe he could make some sense of this.”
I faked a yawn. “I doubt it, Shelly. He’s long gone.”
Waltz frowned. “You think Anderson was purely an opportunistic kill, right? Nothing in her background to tie her to Ridgecliff?”
“It’s possible she’d been nice to him at some point in the last few days. It’s one of his triggers.”
Shelly shot me the sad eyes. “I forgot there’s a switch in Ridgecliff’s head that only flicks when a woman reminds him of his mother.”
My mother. My pathetic, terrified, mousy mother who scampered off to her goddamn sewing room every time my father’s voice rose …
I said, “It’s key to Ridgecliff’s delusion that his mother allowed the father’s abuse to continue. That she was complicit in the horror.”
“I saw in the records the mother’s deceased.”
I nodded. “Cancer took her.”
Took her with pain so hot it melted her hands into permanent fists. With screams that burned away her voice box until all she could do wasrasp. She never took any medication or allowed me to do anything for her. She thought dying in hell might somehow help her gain entrance to heaven.
Waltz said, “Sorry. Off the track. You were talking about his target process?”
“Ms Anderson was medium build and blonde. At thirty-six she was squarely in an age range from early thirties to early forties. That describes every woman Ridgecliff has targeted because it basically describes his mother. He’d never kill a black or Oriental woman. Or an obese or very thin woman. They’re outside his mother image.”
“Dr Prowse didn’t fit the image.”
“He killed her to gain his freedom, Shelly. It also would have been personal.”
Waltz closed his eyes. He made a curious squeak and turned away. Coughed. Pounded his chest so hard I winced.
“You OK, Shelly?”
“Dry throat.” He took a pull from the can, followed it with a deep breath, regained his train of thought. “So Ridgecliff sees Anderson, his mind lights up with the word Mommy, and his juices start flowing. That how you think it went down?”
“Maybe they were on the street. He drops something, she picks it up. The action and her looks flick his switch. He can’t help following her. She walks to the realtor’s office. He manages to find out her name. From there it’s a simple deception to lure her to the property. He was probably laughing while he waited.”
“Folger’s got dicks and uniforms working for five blocks around, plus checking out Ms Anderson’s and her office on 26th, and her neighborhood in Brooklyn. They’re bracing people in the neighborhood, showing Ridgecliff’s pic.”
I thought for a moment. “Folger can pull the team from Brooklyn, Shelly. Ridgecliff’s in Manhattan.”
Waltz stared. “How the hell do you know that?”
“Uh, it’s more a hunch than anything.”
“I doubt Folger’s gonna pull a team on your hunch.” Waltz shook the can and glared like it was a personal irritant. I smelled chocolate and noticed a dark smudge over Waltz’s upper lip, like he’d borrowed Little Richard’s mustache.
“Are you drinking chocolate syrup?” I asked, happy to change the subject.
He held up the can. I saw the words Slim-EEZ Chocolate Fudge.
“It’s a diet drink,” he said, patting his gut. “The endless damn fight.”
“Chocolate fudge is diet?”
He sighed. “It’s one of those meal-in-a-can things. I remember when drinking your lunch meant three scotches. That was a lot more entertaining.”
“How’s the stuff taste?” I asked.
“Like pureed compost.”
He lobbed the can into the wastebasket. The intercom on Waltz’s phone buzzed, the desk sergeant. “Got a walk-in at the desk, Shelly. Guy wants to see the Southerner, Ryder.”
Waltz shot me puzzlement. Maybe two dozen people knew I was here, all officials of some stripe.
“A walk-in for Ryder? Who is it, Moose?”
“Ray Charles died, right? We’re sure about that?” The desk man chuckled and hung up. We hustled down the hall to the entrance. An older black guy sat on one of the benches, lanky as a pole vaulter, with ebony skin, tight pewter hair, wraparound shades. I put him in his mid-seventies, but he could have been a decade older. He wore a bright yellow blazer over a cream polo shirt. His pants were as white as the cane across his knees.
The desk sergeant saw us, grinned. “This is Mr Zebulon Parks. He wants to tell Ryder something.”
“Mr Ryder?” the blind man called out. “Mr Carson Ryder?”
“Right here, sir.”
The dark glasses turned to me. “You got a place we can sit? By ourselves?”
“You can talk here, Mr Parks. It’s fine.”
“I’m s’posed to tell you what I got in private.”
“There’s a room we can use.” I moved to him, held up my arm. “Would you care to hold on to my –”
“Just lead on,” he said. “Walk.”
I headed for a nearby conference room, Mr Parks’s cane tapping at my heels. Waltz shot me a conspiratorial eye and nodded down the hall. I winked assent and he tiptoed ahead and slipped into the room.
I entered with Parks behind me and closed the door. Waltz sat motionless in a far corner. Parks reached forward, finger-tapped the table, set his hat on it. His hand found a chair and angled it toward him, sitting straight as a rail. I watched his nostrils study the air.
“Now, Mr Parks, you said you had something to –”
“We alone?” Parks interrupted.
“That’s what you wanted,” I finessed.
He flicked his head at Waltz. “Then who that fat guy sitting down there?”
I leaned forward, looked into Parks’s obsidian-black lenses. I resisted the cliché of waving my hand before his eyes, but only barely.
“Can you see, Mr Parks?”
He nodded toward Waltz. “I heard his belly grumblin’.”
Waltz looked at his gut, then at me; neither of us had heard a thing. Waltz sighed. “My name is Sheldon Waltz, Mr Parks. I’m a detective. Sitting in was my idea, and I apologize. But in law enforcement another pair of ears is often helpful.”
“One pair works fine for me,” Parks said. “They heard your sneakin’ ass.”
“For which I again apologize. Could you please explain how you knew I am, uh, a bit heavier than preferable.”
“I smelled the air you walked through gettin’ here. Stinks of that fat people’s drink, Slim-Down or whatever. My sister drink a case of that stuff every week and the flo’ boards still squeal when she walk crost ‘em.”
Waltz grimaced. “You have very good senses, Mr Parks.”
“I hear birds light on branches, smell bacon cookin’ a mile away. I remember the ’zact taste of ever’ woman I been with.”
Waltz raised his eyebrows, started to ask a question, thought better of it. I leaned toward Parks. “You mentioned to the desk man that you had something to tell me?”
Parks canted his head toward the door. “That coffee out there smells real fresh. Like it’d be good with two sugars but just a touch of cream.”
“I’ll be right back,” Waltz said, returning seconds later with a Styrofoam cup of coffee. Parks sniffed from a foot away.
“Don’t drink no fake sugar.”
Waltz rolled his eyes, headed down the hall again. A minute later he set the coffee on the table. Parks sniffed the coffee and nodded approval.
