“We should ask Wheaton that,” says Kaiser.
“What about Leon Gaines?” I ask. “I’ll bet there was some abuse there.”
“Undoubtedly,” says Lenz. “He spent time in a juvenile reformatory, which is a high-percentage indicator for abuse. But the kind of radical psychological break I’m talking about has its roots much earlier in a child’s life.”
I look at Baxter. “Didn’t you say his father did time for carnal knowledge of a minor? A fourteen-year-old girl?”
Baxter nods. “That’s right. We’d better dig deeper on the father.”
“Frank Smith,” says Kaiser. “What do we know about his childhood?”
“Wealthy family,” says Lenz. “Not the kind where abuse would be reported. I’ll try to contact the family doctor.”
As we ponder this angle in silence, the SAC’s phone rings. Bowles goes to his desk, then motions Baxter to the phone. Baxter identifies himself, asks some questions I can’t quite hear, then hangs up and returns to us, a tight smile on his lips.
“What is it?” asks Kaiser.
“Frank Smith’s Salvadoran butler just told NOPD detectives that Roger Wheaton has visited Frank several times for extended periods at night. He’s stayed over twice.”
Kaiser whistles. “No kidding.”
Baxter nods. “And get this. On those nights, he’s heard them screaming at each other. Heard it through the walls.”
This image is hard for me to reconcile with what I’ve seen of both men, but Dr. Lenz looks more excited than I’ve seen him to date.
“We’ve got to see both of them again,” he says.
“No doubt,” agrees Baxter. “How should we approach them?”
Lenz purses his lips but says nothing.
“I think I should talk to Frank Smith,” I say firmly.
They all look at me. “Alone?” asks Baxter.
“He invited me back, didn’t he? That’s your best shot of finding out about those visits.”
“She got Laveau to trust her,” Kaiser reminds them. “I say let her do it.”
Baxter looks uncomfortable, and turns to Lenz for an opinion.
The psychiatrist shrugs. “I know you’d prefer some other way, but Smith really responded to her. We have to go with the best odds.”
Baxter sighs. “Okay. Jordan will talk to Smith.”
“Arthur and I can see Wheaton,” Kaiser says. “We should have the phone company fault their lines. We don’t want any more warnings passing between them.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Baxter concludes. “How much of this do we give the task force?”
“All of it,” says Kaiser. “They’ve proved trustworthy so far. If we hold out without reason, we’re only screwing ourselves.”
“The multiple-personality theory as well?” asks Lenz.
“No,” says Baxter. “That’s the kind of exotic speculation they rib us about, so let’s play it down unless we have some reason to think it’s the right track.” He glances at me. “Something other than the Sherlock Holmes theory, at least.”
A belated smile tells me he said this in fun.
“Any last questions?”
Kaiser flicks up his hand like a schoolkid. “This morning you said you had that Argus computer program chewing on digital photos of the abstract Sleeping Women. Has it turned up any recognizable faces?”
“They’re looking more human,” says Baxter. “But none matches any murder victim or missing person in the New Orleans area over the past three years.”
“Who’s making those comparisons?”
“Couple of agents I borrowed from Counterintelligence,” answers the SAC. “Good men. Twenty years in, between them.”
“I’d like to see whatever Argus spits out,” says Kaiser. “I’ve studied a lot of victims’ faces in the past few months.”
“Will you see to that, Patrick?” says Baxter.
Bowles nods. “We’ll get you copies of every image e-mailed from Washington, as we decrypt them. I hope you’ve got a lot of time on your hands.”
Baxter looks at his watch. “We need to go.” Turning to me, he says, “Jordan, more than ever, we need you to stay isolated from any friends from your former life here.”
“No problem. I’m beat. I’m going back to my hotel, ordering room service, and racking out.”
“Do you trust your brother-in-law to keep quiet?”
“No problems there.”
His eyes linger on mine. “I’ve already gotten Wendy a room next door to yours. Just yell out if you need help.”
I nod, preferring Wendy Travis to a stranger, though I sense potential complications from her presence.
Baxter slaps his thighs and stands, and the other men follow suit like football players rising from a huddle.
“Let’s go talk to the boys in blue,” says Baxter.
“Black and blue,” says Kaiser. “The NOPD wears black and blue.”
Baxter leads the way to the door, headed for the Emergency Operations Center, which I have yet to see. Bowles follows, and Lenz falls into line behind him. Only Kaiser hangs back, contriving to walk beside me as I move toward the door.
“So, you’re going to bed early?” he says softly.
“Yes.” I pause at the door and watch the others move down the hall. “But maybe not to sleep. Call me from the lobby.”
Looking up the hallway, he touches my hand and squeezes slightly, then without a word follows Dr. Lenz. I give him a few seconds, then go around the corner to the elevators, where I find Wendy waiting for me.
18
I’VE BEEN ASLEEP for a while when the phone rings beside my bed. The TV is still on, set to HBO, but the sound is muted. I shut my eyes against its harsh light and pick up the phone.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. I’m downstairs.”
John Kaiser’s face appears in my mind. “What time is it?”
“Well after midnight.”
“God. The meeting went on that long?”
“The police questioned each suspect for hours, and we had to hear it all.”
I rub my cheeks to get the blood moving. “Is it still raining?”
“It finally stopped. You were sleeping, weren’t you?”
“Half sleeping.”
“If you’re too tired, that’s all right.”
Part of me wants to tell him I’m too tired, but a little tingle between my neck and my knees stops me. “No, come on up. You know the room number?”
“Yes.”
“Will you get me a Coke or something on the way up? I need some caffeine.”
“Regular Coke or Diet?”
“What would you guess?”
“Regular.”
“Good guess.”
“On the way.”
I hang up and stumble into the bathroom, the fuzzy heaviness of fatigue telling me the last few days have been more stressful than I thought. Leaving the bathroom light off, I brush my teeth and wash my face. For a moment I wonder if I should put on some makeup, but it’s not worth the trouble. If he doesn’t like me as is, it wasn’t meant to happen.
I am going to have to do something about the baby-doll nightgown, though. The short pink horror looks like something a 1950s sorority girl would have worn. When I first saw it, I wondered if the FBI agent who bought it for me was playing a joke on me, but she probably has one just like it in her closet at home. I slip off the gown and replace it with a white cotton T-shirt and the jeans I wore yesterday.
Kaiser knocks softly to keep from alerting Wendy next door. I check the peephole to make sure it’s him, then quickly open the door. He steps inside, then smiles and sets two sweating Coke cans on the desk. He opens one and hands it to me.
“Thanks.” I take a long sip that stings the back of my throat. “You tired?”
“Pretty tired.”
“How do you feel about the case?”
He shrugs. “Not great.”
“Do you think Wheaton and Frank Smith are lovers?”<
br />
“I don’t know what else those visits would be.”
“They could be anything. Discussions about art.”
“That’s not what my gut tells me.”
“Mine either. What’s the deal with Lenz? He doesn’t want to say much in front of you, does he?”
“Since leaving the Bureau, he’s found out how quickly you can be forgotten. He’d like to show that what Quantico has now is the second string.”
“He wasn’t surprised when I asked if one of the suspects could be killing people without knowing it.”
“He didn’t seem to be.” Kaiser gives me a knowing look.
“Do you like that theory?”
“No. It’s hard for me to picture someone that messed up pulling off eleven abductions and possibly painting like Rembrandt as well. But I’m going to research it anyway. Try to find out if any of the three males suffered sexual abuse.” He opens his Coke and takes a sip. “Are we going to talk business all night?”
“I hope not.”
I go to the far wall and open the sleep curtains, exposing a huge window that overlooks Lake Pontchartrain from fourteen floors up, a slightly different version of the view from the FBI field office to the east. The lake is a black sea now, but for the line of fluorescent lights marking the causeway as it recedes northward into the mist. I walk back and sit on the foot of the bed. Kaiser takes off his jacket and drapes it on the chair back, then sits opposite me, about two feet away, his gun still on his belt.
“What should we talk about?” he asks.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”
A hint of a smile. “You are.”
“Why do you think that is?”
He shakes his head. “I wish I knew. You know how sometimes when you lose something, it’s only when you’re not looking for it anymore that you find it?”
“Yes. But sometimes by then you don’t need whatever it was.”
“This is something everybody needs.”
“I think you’re right.” I feel warm inside, but a deeper hesitation keeps me from giving in completely to the moment. I take another sip of Coke. “I told you about some of my problems with men. With dating. Guys thinking they want me but finding they don’t want the reality of my life.”
“I remember.”
“I want to know about you. You’re no quitter. What really drove you and your wife apart?”
He sighs and sets down his drink can as though it has grown too heavy to hold up. “It wasn’t that I let my work take over my life—though I certainly did that. If I’d been a doctor or an engineer, she wouldn’t have minded. It was that the things I saw every day simply couldn’t be communicated to someone normal. ‘Con ventional’ is probably a better word. It got to where we had no common frame of reference. I’d come home after eighteen hours of looking at murdered children and she’d be upset that the new drapes for the living room didn’t quite match the carpet. I tried more than once to explain it to her, but when I told the unvarnished truth, she didn’t want to know. Who would, if they didn’t have to? She had to shut all that out, and I got shut out with it.”
“Do you blame her for that?”
“No. It showed she had good survival instincts. It’s a lot healthier not to let those things into your head, because once they’re in, you can’t ever get them out. You know. You’ve probably seen more hell than I have.”
“I don’t think you can quantify hell. But I know what you mean about communicating it. I’ve spent my whole career trying to do it, and I sometimes wonder if I’ve succeeded even once. The pictures I’ve put on film don’t convey a fraction of the horror of the pictures in my head.”
Kaiser’s eyes hold an empathy I haven’t seen in a very long time. “So here we sit,” he says. “Damaged goods.”
What I feel for this man is not infatuation, or some neurochemical attraction that compels me to sleep with him. It’s a simple intimacy that I’ve felt from the hour we first rode together in the rented Mustang. He has an easiness—and also a wariness—that draws me to him. John Kaiser has looked into the deep dark and is still basically all right, which is a rare thing. I don’t look to men for protection, but I know I would feel as safe with this man as it is possible to feel.
“So, you want kids,” he says, picking up last night’s conversation from the Camellia Grill. I think of my niece and nephew, and curse their father for screwing up my time with them.
“Yes, I do.”
“You’re what, forty now?”
“Yep. Have to start pretty soon.”
“You thinking about the Jodie Foster solution? Finding a donor you like?”
“Not my style. Do you want kids?”
He looks back at me, his eyes twinkling. He’s clearly enjoying himself. “Yes.”
“How many?”
“One a year for five or six years.”
My stomach flips over. “I guess that lets me out of the race.”
“I’m kidding. Two would be nice, though.”
“I might be able to handle two.”
After a few silent moments, he says, “What the hell are we talking about?”
“The stress, maybe. We’re both under a lot of pressure. I’ve seen that start relationships before. They don’t usually end well. You think that’s what’s happening here?”
“No. I’ve been under worse pressure than this without reaching for the nearest woman.”
“That’s good to know.” I look him in the eye, hoping to read his instinctive response to what I’m about to say. “Maybe we should spend the night in this bed together. If we’re still happy in the morning, you can pop the question.”
He barks a laugh. “Jesus! Were you always like this?”
“No, but I’m getting too old to waste time.” An absurd image of Agent Wendy Travis comes into my mind: she’s crouching on her bed next door, her ear pressed to a drinking glass that she’s pressed against my bedroom wall. “If you’re just up here to get laid, I think you’ll have better luck next door.”
His smile vanishes. “I like this room just fine.”
I prop my elbows on my knees and set my chin in my hands, which puts my eyes inches from his. “Are we nuts?”
“No. Sometimes you just know.”
“I think so too.” I let my right hand fall forward and touch his lower lip. “So, what are you thinking about?”
“What your hair smells like.” He reaches out and touches my hair at the shoulder, and I suddenly wish it were longer for him. “What your mouth tastes like.”
“I suspect you’re wondering more than that.”
“Yes. But it’s hard to think about the conversation we just had as foreplay.”
“We’re both in strange businesses. You know what they say.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
“Embrace the weirdness.”
“Who says that?”
“I don’t know. Hunter Thompson, maybe. Just lean over here and kiss me.”
Instead, he takes hold of my wrists and pulls me to my feet, which brings my face to the level of his chest. Then he slips his arms around my waist and looks down at me but does not kiss me. He peers into my eyes and pulls my waist to his, which leaves me in no doubt about his need for me. My skin feels hot and tight, itches for the flow of cool air or the touch of his skin. I’m thinking of taking his hand and placing it over my breast when it finds its way there on its own, as though moved by the impulse in my mind. He gives me a gentle squeeze, as if to say, Here we are. We are real in this space, and aren’t we lucky to be here? Then he lowers his face and touches his lips to mine. My heart thumps against my sternum, as I knew it would, but it’s nice to have my instinct confirmed.
“How long do we have?” I ask.
“All night.”
“That’s the right answer.” I kiss him again, opening my mouth to his. Then I pull back. “Maybe I should start using your first name now.”
His eyes shine with delight. “Whatever you
want.”
“We’ll make the first occasion momentous. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Make love to me, John.”
He smiles, then lifts me into his arms the way they do in old cowboy movies, and I sense the strength in his body. I expect to be lowered onto the bed, but instead he carries me into the bathroom.
“It’s been a long day. You’d like me better after a shower.”
“Or maybe during one,” I reply, laughing.
He laughs and sets me on the counter, then turns the shower taps. Steam begins to fill the room as he takes off his shoes.
“Jesus, I forgot this.”
There’s a rip of Velcro, and then he’s holding a small revolver in a ballistic nylon holster. The sight of the gun makes something inside me go cold.
“This is for you,” he says. “It’s a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight-caliber featherweight. You know how to use it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll put it out on the desk.”
When he returns, I try to shake off the weight of dark memories. “You know what I like about American hotels?” I ask.
“What?” he asks, putting his hands on my knees.
“The unlimited supply of hot water. You can take a two-hour shower if you want to.”
“Ever done it?”
“You better believe it. When I land in the U.S. after coming in from the Middle East or Africa, I open a cool bottle of white wine and just sit on the floor of the shower until I wrinkle into a prune.”
“Well, then. I’d better take a quick look before you hit the prune stage.” He takes the hem of my T-shirt in his hands and waits for me to lift my arms. I smile and oblige, and he slips off the shirt, then unbuttons his own and pulls my chest to his. This time I initiate the kiss, and he breaks it only to say, “I think the water’s ready.”
I wriggle out of my jeans, pleased by the fact that I feel no shyness in front of him, and step toward the curtain. As he slips off his trousers, his eyes take me in from head to toe.
“You’re beautiful, Jordan.”
The truth of his belief is plain in his face. “I feel beautiful right now.”
He takes my hand, then pulls back the curtain and helps me into the tub. Even though I showered only hours ago, the shock of the hot water is wonderful, and having him under it with me even better. He soaps my back, and I soap his. Then we soap fronts, which is much more interesting. I put my arms around his waist and pull him against me, which requires some adjustment on his part.