The Prodigy Part 22

"Sure ... Bad things happen to people in here, Barrett," he said.

"They do," she replied, convinced now that Anton was deliberately concealing stuff. But why?

As they got up to leave, her beeper chirped.

"I'll be right back," she walked across to a phone and dialed the number on the display.

"Barrett?" Hobbs' voice felt like a balm on her jangled nerves.

"What's up?"

"I thought you'd want to know, the results came back on Kravitz's insulin."

"And?"

"It's insulin all right, but the concentration is ten times higher than it should be. Kravitz was murdered. We've pulled Sheila Kravitz in for questioning ... Where are you right now?"

"Croton," she said, "I've been going through Martin's records."

"Find anything?"

"I can't talk here," she glanced over at Anton who was waiting with briefcase in hand by the elevator. "I don't think Sheila killed her husband."

"That makes two of us, but the only fingerprints on the bottle belong to her and her husband."

"Are you going to be around later?" she asked.

"Sure."

"I'll call you. Too many things aren't adding up."

"And I bet our boy is in the middle of it."

"Yes."

"He wants something from you, Barrett. And it's not duets."

"Don't be jealous," she tried to tease, but her anxiety was too high to carry it off.

"I don't want to see you get hurt," his tone deadpan.

"I can handle myself."

"I know. But sometimes the best strategy is to pull back until you know what you're facing."

"I can't run, Ed. Even if I wanted to, and right now there's a part of me that's scared s.h.i.+tless ... It's not an option."

"You say that, Barrett. But you've got to be smarter than that. What am I missing?"

Barrett knew exactly why she couldn't run. She could hear her father's drunken rage, her mother screaming for Barrett to go to her room, the bruises on her face. The long drive. The paralyzing fear when he'd tracked them down. Sophie's words to her mother, "There's a time to run, and a time to stay and fight." If Jimmy killed Ralph-and G.o.d knows who else-leaving town wouldn't help. Erotomaniacs weren't so easily dissuaded. Once she started to run, she'd never be able to stop.

There was a pause. "Maybe someday you'll tell me," Hobbs said softly.

"Maybe."

EIGHTEEN.

Later that night, holed up in her cave-like Manhattan office, Barrett tried to work. The phone rang. "h.e.l.lo?" Who'd be calling this late? It was after eight, and aside from the guard in the lobby and the cleaning crew, she was the only one left. She'd stayed, ostensibly to edit a chapter in her book. But the truth was, she didn't want to go home.

"Dr. Conyors," a woman's m.u.f.fled and frightened voice spoke.

"Yes."

"If you want to get Jimmy Martin, find Gordon Mayfield."

"Who is this?" A sliver of fear shot up her spine.

"Gordon Mayfield," she repeated and then hung up.

Still holding the phone, Barrett muttered, "What the h.e.l.l?" She focused on the woman's voice; it could have been anyone, even a man pretending to be a woman-even Jimmy for that matter. But why call so late? Either this person was expecting to get put into her voice mail, or knew she was here; not a comforting thought. She glanced around and considered calling the security desk to make certain that no one else had entered the building. She opened the door and peered down the dark hallway. As she did, the motion detectors turned on the lights; she was alone. She went back into her office, locked the door and jiggled the handle.

Standing in the middle of the room, she strained to hear the noises of the building, the gurgle of hot water through the radiators, a soft and distant buzzing from a dying florescent bulb. "Gordon Mayfield ... why do I know that name?" She opened her bottom drawer and pulled out the growing stack that she'd collected on Jimmy. She'd given Marla the task of cajoling the Croton librarian into printing out several hundred pages of Jimmy's records and faxing them over. It had taken the better part of the day, but finally Barrett could spend the time she needed to hunt through Jimmy's history and find the pieces that had been overlooked. The thing that made him tick.

She ran through her notes from the visit to Croton, wondering if Mayfield's name was there; it wasn't. Still, it was familiar, on the tip of her tongue. "Mayfield," she repeated aloud as she flipped through records.

She tapped her mouse, the computer emitted an electronic tw.a.n.g and the screen blinked on. She ran the cursor down, called up the database for the center, and typed in Mayfield, Gordon.

What came back was not what she'd expected. The screen filled with a full page of patient names, all of them connected to Gordon Mayfield-MD. And then she remembered; Gordon Mayfield had been a psychiatrist here, but before her time. She'd even worked with clients who'd been treated by him. But that wasn't what people mentioned on those rare occasions when his name came up; he was the psychiatrist who'd killed himself. Sad, but not earth-shattering. Why Mayfield would occasionally surface had to do with the how, the why, and the where of his death.

The story had it that he'd been caught sleeping with a patient. Scheduled for a disciplinary hearing, he was most likely about to lose his job and possibly his license. The day before the hearing, he went up to the roof-a twelve-story structure-and jumped.

But what, she wondered, did he have to do with Jimmy?

Scrolling down the patient list, she looked for a line that connected Mayfield to James C. Martin IV; there was nothing. As she got to the last name she realized that the database only went back eleven years. Jimmy would have been at Croton. She glanced over the stack of Jimmy's records on her desk, it was over a foot thick and it was only a fraction of what existed.

Trilling her fingers on the edge of the desk , what about? She logged onto the Croton library's web site. She typed in her pa.s.sword and gained access to the on-line literature search. She put in Mayfield's name; seven references materialized. Apparently, he'd written a series of articles on the a.s.sessment of s.e.xual deviants, published in the Journal of Criminal Psychiatry. She printed out the page and placed it beside the monitor.

"Okay," she muttered, "that's something, but what else?" With her tongue clicking against the roof of her mouth, she switched from the library to her favorite on-line search engine. She again typed in "Gordon Mayfield" and waited to see what, if anything, appeared from the interlaced strands of the electronic web. There were forty-seven hits with Mayfield's name. As she scrolled through she discarded most of them, but halfway through she came upon a hyperlink for a web site called s.e.x Killer Klub.

"You've got to be kidding." Feeling repulsed, she double-clicked on the blue hyperlink and headed into a sick corner of the Internet. She had a millisecond's hesitation, knowing that all the clinic's computers were routinely audited to determine where the employees had traveled on the Web. It was a standing joke that Barrett's was always filled with p.o.r.nographic and fetish-based web sites-a part of her research. She'd often interview anonymous individuals in chat rooms, where they seemed eager and willing to discuss their most secret and potent fantasies.

She read through the options and clicked a box t.i.tled Rogues Gallery. As she went down the list of high-profile killers, Mayfield's name was nowhere. Returning to the home page, she hunted for the sc.r.a.p of data that connected her original search to the web page. She found a single phrase that was a different color that said-reference materials-and clicked. And there they were-Mayfield's articles. She pressed print.

As her state-issue Hewlett Packard hummed to life, spitting out twelve pages per minute, she rolled back and stared at the screen, a cartoon image of a man with an erect p.e.n.i.s holding an ax above his head chased a woman across the monitor-someone's idea of a joke. But what the h.e.l.l did this have to do with Jimmy?

She pulled the warm pages off of the tray and focused on the small print. Mayfield's style was dry and academic. The first article was t.i.tled "Childhood Antecedents of s.e.xual Sadism." As she read through the introduction, what caught her attention was the promise of "several case studies will be presented to ill.u.s.trate common patterns of deviant upbringing." Immediately, she thought of her last session with Jimmy. She'd pushed him hard and he'd begun to give her something useful about his parents. She'd been the first person he'd ever told, he'd said, but maybe, just maybe ... She rifled through the pages, looking for the small indented paragraphs that contained the case studies. The first was about a man convicted of serial rape and murder. About a rural upbringing that involved frequent beatings and repeated s.e.xual abuse. The next gave the story of a man who spent much of his childhood in the care of p.o.r.nographers who'd used him as a "model" in their magazines. None of this was news to Barrett. Children who'd been abused, raped, and tortured were much more likely to go on and do the same to others. The third report was about a famous serial killer where there was no history of abuse, but from an early age the subject had engaged in s.a.d.i.s.tic activities with animals that culminated in his setting his grandmother's bed on fire-with her in it. He was subsequently sent off to a residential school for delinquent children and then released upon the general public at eighteen. In the paragraphs that followed, Mayfield discussed the cla.s.sic triad of cruelty to animals, bedwetting, and fire setting that were once thought to be the hallmarks of early sociopathic behavior. The s.e.xual behavior, he hypothesized, started with the development of masturbatory fantasies during p.u.b.erty, where aggressive impulses that had been previously played out with weaker children on the playground and in the neighborhood, now focused on erotic themes.

Barrett rubbed her temples as she read through the rest of the case studies. None were Jimmy's.

The second article, "Co-conspiracy among s.e.xual Deviants," was a study of cases that involved gangs and partners in crime. Again Mayfield ill.u.s.trated his points with detailed case studies. Barrett scanned the unbound pages, homing in on the clinical reports.

"No s.h.i.+t!" she blinked and stared down at a longer case study that spilled onto two pages. "It couldn't be." She read it carefully: Case 3: Patient is a 24-year-old Caucasian male currently incarcerated in a high-security forensic hospital for his involvement in the abduction, rape, torture, and murder of a 21-year-old woman and her 24-year-old boyfriend. Despite multiple clinical a.s.sessments, the nature of his relations.h.i.+p with the convicted murderer has never been elucidated. For the purposes of this study the patient consented to a series of three Amytal hypnotic interviews. As such, the clinical information must be viewed in that context. This writer was unable to corroborate much of the material as the actual murderer committed suicide by hanging. Similarly, no member of the patient's family was willing to be interviewed.

The patient described his early childhood as being one of extreme wealth, s.e.xual victimization, and emotional deprivation. He reported that from an early age he was repeatedly sodomized by his father and witnessed infidelities with both of his parents. His only source of succor came in the form of a close bond with his twin sister. He stated that beginning around the age of twelve he m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed, using rescue fantasies that often involved fairy-tale-like plot lines, with damsels in distress, sleeping princesses, etc. The fantasies are voyeuristic in that he becomes aroused from watching the object of his desire and repulsed from thoughts of actual physical contact.

Patient, who is an accomplished artist, attended a high school for gifted children. There he encountered, and developed an erotomanic fixation on, a young instructor. He believed that she was in love with him, and his records indicate that he stalked her for at least the three years prior to her murder. He stated that they were to be married, and that she was carrying his child. When confronted about her intentions to wed another man, he stated that she was "testing" him.

The crimes, for which the patient was arrested, occurred over a three-day period where this woman and her fiance were tortured and eventually killed by a second individual with a history of severe s.e.xual sadism. The subject became markedly agitated and disorganized during this portion of the interview. At times he appeared to be dissociating and repeatedly begged his sister to, "make him stop."

At the time of his arrest he was discovered by the police in the closet of the murdered woman. Much of this interview is corroborated by circ.u.mstances of the arrest, which verify the patient's story. He persistently stated that he never physically harmed either murder victim. An interesting and unresolved footnote from this crime is that, according to the autopsy of the female victim, she was indeed pregnant, although the father of the fetus was undetermined.

Barrett's heart raced; this was Jimmy, it couldn't be anyone else. It was also the type of article that would no longer be allowed into a journal, for the simple fact that anyone who knew the patients would be able to identify them from reading it. It also explained why Ellen, years ago, hadn't wanted Barrett to interview her brother; Mayfield had crossed the line. At that moment, Barrett could have cared less; this was new information-at least to her.

She looked at the date on the article and subtracted back. About halfway through Jimmy's time at Croton, his parents had still been alive.

She glanced at the clock, it was after midnight. "You need to go home," she whispered, but her thoughts were buzzing.

"Let's see ... you get a crazy phone call. Interesting, and a little freaky. But, who was it? They know Jimmy, and also Mayfield."

The printer stopped and a blinking orange light flickered. A message appeared on the monitor letting Barrett know that the paper had run out. As she slit open a fresh ream, she envisioned the scenes described in the case study. A lot was hidden in Mayfield's prose. She shuddered at the thought of what Nicole Foster and Steve Guthrie had endured during those three days. And if Jimmy were to be believed, it made no sense. If he believed that Nicole had loved him, why would he have let her be killed? The fiance kind of made sense, get him out of the way ... but it didn't add up. And what if he hadn't been dissociating when he pleaded with Ellen to make Mason Carter stop; what if she'd actually been there?

She thought about the method that Mayfield had used to get the information-Amytal, a drug notorious for encouraging a mixture of fantasy and reality. On the plus side, it showed that Jimmy was a good hypnotic subject; not surprising considering his history of repeated childhood trauma. It was well doc.u.mented that children who'd been severely abused often developed the ability to hypnotize themselves as a way to block out the pain. As adults, that ability often persisted, and was thought to be the underpinning behind a variety of personality disorders-including Dissociative Ident.i.ty Disorder, a.k.a. Multiple Personality Disorder.

The printer hummed and spat out the last pages. She gathered them up and dropped them into her briefcase. She reached in and retrieved the one that contained Jimmy's case study; she stared at the t.i.tle. Mayfield's hypothesis on Co-conspirators was that an individual deviant might not act alone, but in the company of a like-minded other, all bets were off. From Mayfield's perspective Jimmy and Mason Carter had a symbiotic relations.h.i.+p, and it was no coincidence that Jimmy was in that apartment.

There were answers here, but the article raised new questions, such as, how would a rich kid like Jimmy hook up with a low-life jailbird like Carter? And if Jimmy and his sister were so close, why didn't she intervene before things got out of hand? And if Jimmy's s.e.xual fantasies were about rescuing damsels in distress, what went wrong? And more ominously, if this was a pattern-working with a partner-had there been other Mason Carters? Was there one now? "Oh, G.o.d," she cradled her head in her hands. "How could they have let him out?" And then in a whisper, "And how the h.e.l.l are you going to get him back?"

Barrett scribbled down names. She started with Nicole Foster and her fiance, and then added the Croton patients and the guard, who'd been involved with Jimmy and subsequently died, then came Morris Kravitz, and the phlebotomist who'd had her pelvis shattered while transporting Jimmy's blood to the lab. And what about Mayfield-it was a suicide, right? Jimmy would have been locked away ... but maybe that was the point; Jimmy didn't work alone. He never did.

Barrett shuddered. Over the years she'd worked with hundreds of murderers; poking around in the psyche of s.e.xual deviants was nothing new. So why was she so frightened? Everything about this case was wrong, starting with the simple fact that Jimmy Martin should never have been released. He was not in the category of those who can be rehabilitated. Erotomanic delusions don't go away, and they don't respond to therapy or drugs. She couldn't fathom what would have led the board to let him out.

"They didn't know," she told herself, logging off the computer. And now he was all hers.

She grabbed her briefcase and headed out. Her thoughts focused on a single theme-how to get him locked up.

She strode quickly through the night-lit Manhattan streets, racking her brain for something concrete to get him sent back. She replayed the mystery phone call in her head; she was missing something. The caller had tried to disguise her voice. Why bother ... unless ... unless it was someone whose voice Barrett might normally recognize. "Huh," she said aloud, pulling the attention of a man she pa.s.sed on the sidewalk.

It had to be someone she knew and someone who knew Jimmy, or at least knew of him. She thought of Sheila Kravitz, who kept referring to Jimmy as the Croton patient.

Last night over dinner in Little Italy, she'd asked Hobbs about what had happened when they'd brought her in for questioning.

He'd seemed convinced that she had nothing to do with her husband's death, a view that Barrett shared. He'd also expressed concern at the coldness of the trail. Too much changes at a crime scene over the course of a couple weeks; vital evidence gets inadvertently destroyed.

He'd also obtained copies of monitoring logs on Jimmy. As expected, they showed that he rarely left his home, and whenever he did, there was always notation of a corresponding phone conversation where he'd asked for, and received, permission to go beyond his geographic boundaries.

But what was now clear, and she berated herself for not catching it earlier, was that Jimmy didn't need to go out. In fact, it all came back to the tag line he'd used over and over at the time of his arrest, "I never touched her."

Barrett crossed the street and glanced back. She had the creepy feeling of being watched. She angled across the intersection, keeping a sideways glance at the street, trying to judge whether any of the pedestrians altered their paths. There were couples out walking, probably heading back from dinner or a show. Lone men and women darted in and out of the all-night convenience stores. She stopped on the corner of 5th and 27th Street. For a split second she made eye contact with a dark-haired man in an expensive black leather coat as he rounded the opposite corner and then headed uptown.

"How did you miss this?" she mumbled, trying to calm herself with the sound of her voice. Jimmy had a pattern; he needed an accomplice. Barrett scanned the streets, her eyes in the wide-focus mode she used when sparring. Everything seemed like just another night in Chelsea. But someone was out there doing Jimmy's bidding. Money would be no object, and finding someone in Manhattan willing to do anything for the right price was wholly possible.

The part she hated thinking about was that she figured into Jimmy's delusions. The evidence was piling up; it had been no accident that he'd asked for her. And if she followed that thought, it was no accident that Kravitz was killed ... or Ralph.

She thought about Hobbs and how he'd pleaded with her to drop the case, to give it to someone else. He was right, she should have no contact with Jimmy. But in her gut she knew it was more complicated. If Jimmy was an erotomaniac, and she was the object of his delusions, there'd be no stopping him. In his mind he believed that she loved him, and if Mayfield was right, his every action, in some twisted way, was an attempt to prove his worth. It was starting to make sense. Ralph's death was just a hurdle, as was Kravitz's. "Oh s.h.i.+t!" She thought of Hobbs and whipped out her cell. As the phone rang her mind raced over all the people in her life. This can't be happening, she thought, and as Hobbs picked up, she blurted, "Ed, we've got to talk, and it's worse than I thought. I'm so f.u.c.king frightened."

NINETEEN.

"What do you know about Gordon Mayfield?" Barrett asked Anton over eggs and bacon at the Athena Diner three doors down from the clinic. She kept her eyes averted, not wanting him to see how frazzled she'd become.

"Before my time," he answered in a lowered voice. "Although he's something of a legend."

"Because he jumped?"

"The whole thing was pretty sordid. And after a few years the story gets twisted and the truth is hard to separate from the ... speculative additions. What brings him up?"

Barrett hesitated; in the past she'd considered Anton a friend. The fact that this was their first breakfast together in over two months-something they used to do once or twice a week-was a clear indication that things had changed. "I got a weird call last night," she finally said.

"The guard mentioned you were here pretty late. In fact, you don't look like you slept at all."

"Couldn't sleep," she admitted, not comfortable with the fact that he'd plainly been checking on her, and wis.h.i.+ng that she'd bothered to at least put on some lipstick.

"Losing your husband can't be easy," he commented. "You really should take time off," he looked at her and then shook his head. "So what did your call have to do with the unfortunate Dr. Mayfield?"

"It was odd, a woman's voice, but like she was talking through a towel."

"What did she want?"

Barrett considered telling him about the connection with Jimmy Martin; in the past she wouldn't have thought twice. "She didn't say much, just some stuff about Gordon Mayfield-rambled for thirty seconds and then hung up."

Anton dipped a toast point into a swirl of ketchup and egg yolk. "That's it?"

"Pretty much," Barrett lied.