‘Great,’ I muttered.
‘Oh yeah. We’re talking a goddamn nightmare. The fire marshal’s gonna call you before the day’s out. Better get packed because the whirlybird’s picking us up before dawn. Timing’s bad, just like it always is. I guess you can kiss your vacation goodbye.’
Benton and I were supposed to drive to Hilton Head tonight to spend a week at the ocean. We had not had time alone so far this year and were burned out and barely getting along. I did not want to face him when I hung up the phone.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to him. ‘I’m sure you’ve already figured out there’s a major disaster.’
I hesitated, watching him, and he would not give me his eyes as he continued to decipher Carrie’s letter.
‘I’ve got to go. First thing in the morning. Maybe I can join you in the middle of the week,’ I went on.
He was not listening because he did not want to hear any of it.
‘Please understand,’ I said to him.
He did not seem to hear me, and I knew he was terribly disappointed.
‘You’ve been working those torso cases,’ he said as he read. ‘The dismemberments from Ireland and here. Sawed-up bone. And she fantasizes about Lucy, and masturbates. Reaching orgasm multiple times a night under the covers. Allegedly.’
His eyes ran down the letter as he seemed to talk to himself.
‘She’s saying they still have a relationship, Carrie and Lucy,’ he continued. ‘The we stuff is her attempt to make a case for disassociation. She’s not present when she commits her crimes. Some other party doing them. Multiple personalities. A predictable and pedestrian insanity plea. I would have thought she’d be a little more original.’
‘She is perfectly competent to stand trial,’ I answered with a wave of fresh anger.
‘You and I know that.’ He drank from a plastic bottle of Evian. ‘Where did Lucy Boo come from?’
A drop of water dribbled down his chin and he wiped it with the back of his hand.
I stumbled at first. ‘A pet name I had for her until she was in kindergarten. Then she didn’t want to be called that anymore. Sometimes I still slip.’ I paused again as I imagined her back then. ‘So I guess she told Carrie the nickname.’
‘Well, we know that at one time, Lucy confided in Carrie quite a lot,’ Wesley stated the obvious. ‘Lucy’s first lover. And we all know you never forget your first, no matter how lousy it was.’
‘Most people don’t choose a psychopath for their first,’ I said, and I still could not believe that Lucy, my niece, had.
‘Psychopaths are us, Kay,’ he said as if I had never heard the lecture. ‘The attractive, intelligent person sitting next to you on a plane, standing behind you in line, meeting you backstage, hooking up with you on the Internet. Brothers, sisters, classmates, sons, daughters, lovers. Look like you and me. Lucy didn’t have a chance. She was no match for Carrie Grethen.’
The grass in my backyard had too much clover, but spring had been unnaturally cool and perfect for my roses. They bent and shivered in gusting air and pale petals fell to the ground. Wesley, the retired chief of the FBI’s profiling unit, went on.
‘Carrie wants photos of Gault. Scene photos, autopsy photos. You bring them to her, and in exchange she’ll tell you investigative details, forensic jewels you’ve supposedly missed. Ones that might help the prosecution when the case goes to court next month. Her taunt. That you might have missed something. That it might in some way be connected with Lucy.’
His reading glasses were folded by his place mat, and he thought to slip them on.
‘Carrie wants you to come see her. At Kirby.’
His face was tight as he peered at me.
‘It’s her.’
He pointed at the letter.
‘She’s surfacing. I knew she would.’ He spoke from a spirit that was tired.
‘What’s the dark light?’ I asked, getting up because I could not sit a moment longer.
‘Blood.’ He seemed sure. ‘When you stabbed Gault in the thigh, severing his femoral artery, and he bled to death. Or would have had the train not finished the job. Temple Gault.’