“I was confused, then angry. I told her I was nineteen, that I wasn’t a kid anymore, that I could play the piano and she couldn’t. She laughed at that, but it hurt her rib to laugh, so she stopped really fast. She told me to forget this, that it wasn’t important in the scheme of things. She told me to go away. I went to Napa Valley with some friends. I never saw Belinda again.”
“How did you know that Belinda had a miscarriage?” “I don’t remember. Someone must have told me. But no one seemed to know about it. It isn’t in the medical reports or the autopsy report. I just don’t remember.”
“But somehow you followed her through the warehouse, followed her to her death, saw everything she saw, felt her terror, felt her die.”
Dr. Bowers looked as if she wanted to leap on Savich, but he just shook his head. Lacey was stiff now, withdrawn from him, but he didn’t say anything more, just held her, rocking her slightly, back and forth.
“How could I have possibly been there? It doesn’t make any sense. I was in St. Helena when my father called me. I left San Francisco that very day I’d spoken to Belinda.”
“What did your father say when he called you?”
“He said that Belinda had been killed by the String Killer. He told me to come home. I went. There wasn’t anything more.”
“Did your father tell you about her miscarriage?”
“I don’t remember.”
“When did you have the first dream?”
“Six weeks later. He was stalking me, and I knew he was there, only there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t get away from him. I yelled at him, ‘Why are you here? What do you want?’ He didn’t say anything. He just kept coming closer and closer. I knew he would hit me on the head but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t get away from him. I felt helpless, and I was. He was right there, over me. The dream ended.”
“When did you come to realize that he picked women because they cursed and put down their husbands?”
“The dreams got longer, more detailed. Later, he told me, told me over and over. That began maybe three months later. He said in my ear just after he struck me, ‘You’re a filthy-mouthed little bitch, aren’t you? You curse and say all those bad things you shouldn’t be saying and you blame your husband and call him bad names. I’ve got to punish you.’
“I’ll never forget that, never. The dreams continued, got more and more involved until the one last night when I woke up just the instant before he killed me. I honestly don’t know how much effect the profiling papers influenced me and all my studies. There was a lot of gruesome stuff in the courses and I thought about him all the time, read all the big-city newspapers, studied other serial killers. But I don’t understand where this dream came from.”
“It’s there, Lacey. We’ll get it all out. It will just take a bit of time.”
“Dr. Bowers is right. It’s all there in that magnificent brain of yours, somewhere. We’ll unlock all of it, but no more today.” He kissed the top of her head, then said in that calm unhurried voice, “Do you remember if it was Marlin Jones speaking?”
He held his breath. She was perfectly silent, perfectly still. Finally, she said in a voice muffled by his shirt, “No, I can’t be certain.”
Or she couldn’t bear to remember. It was enough for now, more than enough. He said aloud, “I think we should pack it in for today. What do you say, Lauren? Has she had enough of the wringer?”
“I’d say so. Go watch the Redskins play ball. Eat popcorn. Forget it, at least for today. She’s still recovering. She needs rest. We’ll get at the rest of it in a couple of days.”
25
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR JIMMY Maitland chewed on an unlit cigar, wrote two words in his small black book, then looked back at Agent Sherlock, who was sitting on the edge of Savich’s sofa, looking pale as death. Savich was across from her in his favorite leather chair, his legs crossed at the ankles. He was, as far as Maitland could tell, looking at Sherlock’s hands. He hadn’t said a word. Jimmy Maitland, who’d known Savich since he’d become a special agent eight years before, said, “I don’t like any of this, Savich. I got a call from Crammer’s section supervisor, telling me that Sherlock here had been attacked and that Crammer had stayed outside her hospital room. I’d like to know why you didn’t bother to tell me about this.”