“I think I’ve about had enough of your impertinence,” he replied with maddening calm. “I don’t respond well to threats, Lieutenant.”
“And I don’t respond well to someone jerking me around,” Marino retorted.
“Who is Frankie?” I tried again.
“I assure you I don’t know, offhand,” Dr. Masterson replied. “But if you’ll be so kind as to wait a few minutes, I’ll go see what we can pull up on our computer.”
“Thank you,” I said. “We’ll be right here.”
The psychiatrist had barely gotten out the door before Marino started in.
“What a dirt bag.”
“Marino,” I said wearily.
“It ain’t like this joint’s overrun with kids. I’m willing to bet seventy-five percent of the patients here’s over the age of sixty. You know, young people would stand out in your memory, right? He knows damn well who Frankie is, probably could tell us what size shoes the drone wears.”
“Perhaps.”
“There’s nothing perhaps about it. I’m telling you the guy’s jerking us around.”
“And he’ll continue to do so as long as you antagonize him, Marino.”
“Shit.”
He got up and went to the window behind Dr. Masterson’s desk. Parting the curtains, he stared out into the bleak late morning. “I hate like shit when someone lies to me. Swear to God I’ll pop ‘im if I have to, nail his ass. That’s the thing about shrinks that frosts me so bad. They can have Jack the Ripper for a patient and they don’t care. They’ll still lie to you, tuck the animal in bed and spoon-feed him chicken soup like he’s Mr. Apple Pie America.” He paused, mumbling inanely, “At least the snow’s stopped.”
Waiting until he sat back down, I said, “I think threatening to charge him with accessory to murder was a bit much.”
“Got his attention, didn’t I?”
“Give him a chance to save face, Marino.”
He stared sullenly at the curtained window as he smoked.
“I think by now he’s realizing it’s in his best interest to help us,” I said.
“Yeah, well, it’s not in my best interest to sit around playing cat and mouse with him. Even as we speak, Frank-ie Fruitcake’s on the street thinking his screwy thoughts, ticking away like a damn bomb about to go off.”
I thought of my quiet house in my quiet neighborhood, of Gary Harper’s necklace looped over the knob of my back door, and the whispery voice on my answering machine. Is your hair naturally blond, or do you bleach it…. How odd. I puzzled over the significance of that question. Why did it matter to him?
“If Frankie is our killer,” I said quietly, taking a deep breath, “I can’t imagine how there can be any connection between Sparacino and these homicides.”
“We’ll see,” he muttered, lighting up another cigarette and staring sourly at the empty doorway.
“What do you mean, ‘we’ll see’?”
“Never ceases to surprise me how one thing leads to another,” he replied cryptically.
“What? What things lead to other things, Marino?”
He glanced at his watch and cursed. “Where the hell is he, anyhow? He go out to lunch?”
“Hopefully he’s tracking down Frankie’s record.”
“Yeah. Hopefully.”
“What things lead to other things?” I asked him again. “What are you thinking about? You mind being a little more specific?”
“Let’s just put it this way,” Marino said. “I got a real strong feeling if it wasn’t for that damn book Beryl was writing, all three of ’em would still be alive. In fact, Hunt would probably still be alive, too.”
“I can’t say that with certainty.”
“Course you can’t. You’re always so goddamn objective. So I’m saying it, okay?”
He looked over at me and rubbed his tired eyes, his face flushed. “I got this feeling, all right? It’s telling me Sparacino, the book, is the connection. It’s what initially linked the killer to Beryl, and then one thing led to another. Next, the squirrel whacks Harper. After that Miss Harper takes enough pills to kill a damn horse so she don’t have to rattle around in that big crib of hers all alone while cancer eats her alive. Then Hunt’s swinging from the rafters in his fuckin’ undershorts.”