Here we are, a long chapter in which our couples get to know each a little better. And Lisa does something unexpected…
The BMW headed east, moving at the speed of traffic. Professor Creed did not want to be stopped by a police officer. The gas tank was full, and neither of them particularly wanted to stop while on the road. All it would take would be some lucky cop noticing them. Both Creed and Susana were disguised quite well, but there was no sense in taking chances.
Now that they'd picked up a Mass Pike toll ticket, Professor Creed relaxed a bit and then tensed nervously.
"You've done quite a bit for me, Susana," he began. "I do have something for you, actually."
Susana Alvarez Lecter looked curiously at him from the passenger seat, finally beginning to relax herself now that they had gotten this far unmolested. The escape scene was in Vermont. They might be smart enough to look in New York. But now they were in Massachusetts.
Professor Creed reached into his suit pocket and extracted a small bundle wrapped in blue denim cloth. He handed it to Susana. She tilted her head curiously and unwrapped the bundle to reveal a ring. There was no stone. Instead, graven around the band were the words Gaol Dilseachd Cairdeas and a Celtic knot next to the third word. Susana's face lit up with pleasant surprise.
"We're both of Gaelic descent," Professor Creed explained. "You're Scotch-Irish through your mother, I believe. My mother's family hailed originally from the Orkney Isles. It's a Gaelic friendship ring, given as a sign of…regard."
"It's beautiful," Susana said. "Thank you. Where did you get it?" She slipped it on her finger.
Professor Creed took a deep breath. "I made it, actually," he said simply.
There are those things in life that are beautiful because they were created with the best raw materials and built by masters at their craft. There are others that come by their beauty for the sheer work and effort that have been put into it. The ring was one of the latter.
Professor Creed's world at the prison had been very dull and dark. Susana's letters and occasional small gifts had meant a great deal to him. Perhaps six months ago, the plumbing in his cell required work. They had locked him in another, empty cell for almost an entire day without a single thing to occupy his mind. When he'd returned, he had been surprised to find a brass plumbing valve left behind by the maintenance staff. It had about as fat as a cigar and as long as his thumb. It had been hexagonal and threaded on the inside. It was also rather bright and shiny, much more so than anything else in the dark and depressive world of death row.
In any prison, there is a certain amount of trading that occurs between the guards and the inmates, and the Unit for Condemned Persons was not an exception. One of the guards had a teenage son who had a paper coming up for a high-school philosophy class. The guard wanted his son to get good grades in order to get a scholarship. Professor Creed wanted some tools to work with. So the deal was struck. Professor Creed wrote the paper and got what he wanted: some rough sandpaper and a sanding block. These were contraband, of course, as if Professor Creed might sand his way through the wall of his cell and escape. But he got it and set to his task with some pleasure.
He'd known that eventually it would be discovered, and so he'd worked as quickly as he could. It took him a week to sand down one end of the valve into the ring he had seen in it. It had taken many hours. Once that had been done, Professor Creed had taken the lever off a broken set of fingernail clippers and etched the Gaelic words and knotwork into the brass. That had taken months. It was for her, and so he had been painstakingly careful in the work he did.
But he thought it apropos; Susana had brought some brightness into his dull and ugly world, and so he had given her this chance bit of brightness that he had come up with. He'd torn off a strip of his prison jumpsuit in order to have a polishing cloth. Eventually, a cell shakedown had turned up his sanding block and sandpaper and they'd taken that. It was annoying, but to be expected. The ring, however, remained in his possession until today, when he was able to give it to her. He'd been working on a handcuff key when they got it, and that had been aggravating. Fortunately, they merely took away his recreation for a month. He'd missed that, but the sacrifice had been well worth it.
It wasn't much. He was uncomfortably aware of that. But she seemed to like it and didn't care of its origins. That made him feel better.
"I did once make preparations in case I ever became a fugitive," Professor Creed said calmly. "I have money and identification hidden in the basement of my vacation home."
Susana pursed her lips. "I don't think it's a good idea," she said slowly. "They may have people posted there, just in case."
"The local police consists of six men," he said.
"There's more than that in the FBI," Susana explained. "Don't worry about the money, Thomas. I've got more than enough for both of us."
"I know," Professor Thomas Creed acknowledged, "but I do want to contribute what I have."
"Maybe later," Susana said. "Thomas, don't let it bother you. It certainly doesn't bother me. If I'd wanted a rich man I'd have gotten one. For now, let's just get to Boston."
Satisfied with that, the BMW sped on towards its destination.
…
Lisa Starling slept peacefully in her hotel room. She was warm and safe under the covers. It had been her first good night's sleep since this whole thing with the Bludgeon Man began. Her legs shifted under the covers as she slumbered peacefully.
Her sleep was interrupted by a loud banging on her door. Lisa grumbled and pulled the pillow over her head, hoping that whoever was there would go away. That hope proved to be in vain.
"Agent Staahling!" The voice was male, loud, and commanding. Lisa grunted and slid out of bed. She grabbed her robe from where it hung on the closet bar and pulled it on. Rubbing her eyes, she walked over to the door and peeked through the peephole.
She was rewarded with a fishy-eyed view of three people. Detective Lieutenant Jason Sullivan, Agent Krause from her own task force, and another blonde woman she did not recognize. She blinked curiously and opened the door halfway.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Securing the area," Sullivan answered. "Can you open the door? I'm sorry we hadda wake you up like this."
Lisa glanced at the clock. "It's OK…it's just a little early. What brings you here at six in the morning?"
He stepped inside and looked around. With the door open, Lisa could see a few uniformed Boston cops looking quite serious. A look of alarm crossed her face.
"So are you going to tell me what's going on?" she asked. "Professor Creed should be getting here in about an hour."
Agent Krause sighed.
"Chief Starling," she said quietly, as if her news might cause Lisa to freak out and become hysterical, "Professor Creed has escaped."
A finger of nausea tickled Lisa's stomach and the color fell from her cheeks.
"He…he what?"
"There was an accident just over the border in Vermont," Agent Krause explained. "They found the van overturned in a ditch. The marshals were found dead. Professor Creed was nowhere to be found. They're still looking."
Lisa Starling swallowed. "And you think he might be coming after me."
Silence reigned for a moment or two in the room. Lieutenant Sullivan interjected.
"We don't know that. Agent Krause told me about it. But it's better not to take chances."
Agent Krause took over. "Chief Kenton called me from Washington. He tried to reach you but your cell must've been off." She sighed. "There's more, though. The marshals were shot. The van was shot up. Somebody helped him, Chief Starling. Someone was waiting for them. He had help."
Lisa Starling's eyes widened and she forced herself to calm down.
"All right," she said. "Okay. They'll find him."
For a moment she reeled, unable to take it what had just happened. Someone had known Professor Creed was going to be in that van, driving along in the Vermont night. Any other night would have begun and ended with Professor Creed safely locked away in his maximum-security cell. And she, Lisa Starling, had put him in that van. Now two federal marshals were dead and a dangerous killer was free to roam the earth and claim new victims.
Someone had played her for a fool.
The name of her cousin flashed instantly across her brain. But no, that couldn't be. Susana was living quietly in France. She hadn't killed anyone in years. Had to be somebody else.
"What do we know?" she asked quietly.
"They found a dead state trooper in the woods," Krause said. "The cruiser was parked a few miles north. Right near the lake. Other than that…nothing."
"He won't come after me," Lisa said slowly. "I…I'm the furthest thing from his mind right now. No way."
"Well, let's let you get dressed," Jason Sullivan said, calling attention to the fact that she was in her bathrobe. "Then I got an armed escort downstairs to take you to work." He introduced the blonde woman standing beside him. "This is Detective Regan, she'll take your place in the hotel room after work. If Creed pops in he'll get a surprise. We'll have some boys waiting for him. I'm working on getting a place for you to crash."
The three stepped out, and Lisa jumped in the shower and threw on a suit as quickly as she could. She let them back in as she was buckling her holster on and checking her Glock. There was an unpleasant funereal air in the room.
"Okay," she said. "If you want to drive me to work, fine. Let me get a few things."
She gathered up the case files she had and put them in her briefcase. A small party of Boston officers followed her down to her rental car. Behind it was an idling Boston cruiser. Lisa gripped the wheel until her knuckles began to cramp.
Who had done this? Who would've wanted to set Creed free? There had to be some sort of explanation for this. There was a sick feeling of dread in her stomach. Creed was out. He was out. And she had helped him, however unwittingly.
Idly she wondered if he would show up, try and get his dinner at Legal Sea Foods or put his feet in the freaking Atlantic like he'd said he wanted to do. Probably not, not if the guy had an ounce of brains in his head. Smartest thing for him to do would be find a big city and lie low. And Professor Creed was frightfully smart.
I helped set him free. I helped set him free. The thought nagged at her. She kept waiting for the cruiser behind her to flare its lights and shove her in the back. Lisa Starling, you're under arrest as an accessory to felonious escape. Please come with me. No, they wouldn't do that; Lisa hadn't done anything illegal. She'd just been played like a chess piece.
The FBI's field office was guarded by Boston police officers when she arrived. Lisa found that made her feel nervous instead of safe. It was like the Boston field office was being taken over or something. But no, that was being silly; they were just trying to help.
Jason Sullivan extracted his frame from the cruiser that had followed her here. He pointed at the cops guarding the FBI's office door and grinned.
"You've done quite a job," Lisa said.
"Ah, I just made a couple of phone calls," he grinned. "We're all cops, we know the score, and we stick by our own."
"I'm FBI. We can take care of ourselves."
Jason Sullivan shook his head. "This is my city. Long as you're in it, making sure you're safe is our responsibility." His tone lost its jocularity. He seemed quite serious about it. "Besides, it's a lot easier to surround this place with Boston PD than it would be to truck in FBI from somewhere else. We're all on the same side here, Chief Starling."
"All right," Lisa said, vaguely flattered. "So what's this about finding somewhere for me to crash?"
"Working on it. I'd rather leave Detective Regan in your room, along with a few boys from our SWAT team. Safer that way."
Lisa got to the office the FBI field office had given her and sat down. For a moment she was quite nervous and afraid. But no, Professor Creed was likely hiding out somewhere. Frightened, cold, and figuring out his next move. He wasn't heading to Boston to off her, she knew that.
She picked up the phone and dialed the number for Chief Kenton, her boss at Behavioral Sciences. He picked up after a few rings.
"Kenton, it's Starling," she said. "What the hell is going on? I just got word that Creed escaped and now the field office here is crawling with Boston boys. It's like a coup or something."
Kenton sounded tired. "Yeah," he said. "I talked to the point man on Boston PD. Sullivan. You weren't answering your cell."
"It was charging," Lisa said.
"I'm not mad, Starling. Just taking every precaution quick as I could. I know you're beating yourself up on the Bludgeon Man investigation."
"So what have we heard?"
"Escape took place in some little hunk of nowhere up in Vermont. You can hit the reports we're getting in from East Alburg as soon as they come in, you're on the same network. It's in a folder called CREEDESCAPE." He sighed. "Basically, someone knew the van was coming. They carried this off with military precision. Those marshals were like a couple of turkeys in a turkey shoot. They never had a chance. High-powered rifle, back in the tree line, took out the van and the driver. The second guy was shot with a pistol at close range. The UNSUB must've forced him to get Creed out of the van. We've got footprints matching Creed's shoes and the leg irons right there. The marshal was shot while trying to shackle Creed. Probably took the shackles off to get him out."
Lisa's eyes narrowed. How had that happened? It didn't make sense. If the UNSUB had been right there, the marshal would've been defending himself, not trying to shackle Creed. Wait a minute…dead state trooper. The UNSUB had taken the uniform and put it on. The marshal thought he was dealing with an ally.
Now who do you know who's passed as a police officer before? a little voice asked, and she forced it away. She wasn't going to see her cousin behind every crime in the country. Nope, Susana was back in Paris, raising her kid and being a surgeon and eating croissants and stuff like that.
But dammit, it was there. Lisa had always divided her cousin's murders into two types: ends in themselves and means-to-an-end murders. Murders she committed as ends in themselves were usually as gory as any, and Susana shared her father's devilish imagination when it came to how horrible she could be. But when Susana was killing someone as a means to an end, she did so often with military precision, putting them down quick and dirty and going about her business. And a great deal of Susana's means-to-an-end murders had been law enforcement officers. The reason was perfectly understandable: law enforcement officers were a threat to Susana. And if she'd wanted to free Creed, the marshals would've been a threat to her. And Susana had passed as law enforcement before – passed as her before, in her war against Behavioral Sciences four years ago.
It's not Susana, she told herself. Susana's retired. She and I have an understanding. She stays retired and I let her stay free.
Even as she told herself that, she knew it wasn't true. Lisa could give up Susana's whereabouts anytime she wanted. But she knew perfectly well how Susana would respond. Lisa didn't let Susana stay free; Lisa was forced to let Susana stay free. She could only fool herself so long.
Plus, the peace between the two women had held for four years. There was no reason at all for Susana to break it now. Lisa didn't want her to break it. Life would be a lot more painful for both of them if it did. Surely Susana had to know what would happen if she was caught in the United States again. That had to be enough.
"I want to see the reports," she said. "I'll have a look and tell you what I think."
"Starling, look. I know you feel responsible. But your job is the Bludgeon Man. Not Creed. Look, someone took advantage of a weak point. We'll catch them. Creed and the UNSUB both."
"Any leads?"
"We're working on it, Starling. You catch the Bludgeon Man. No one holds you responsible for this. Including me."
It was nice to hear, but Lisa held herself responsible. Professor Creed was free, and free because she had pulled him out of his secure prison cell in order to testify. She had to do something.
The rest of the day went calmly. Lisa's task force still had their job to do, which was to catch the Bludgeon Man. So Lisa ran her meetings and reviewed the work of her agents. Several times during the day, she would find her mind turning to Susana or Professor Creed, and she had to force herself to pay attention to what was going on.
Good Lord, she found herself thinking. If the two of them got together there'd be a bloodbath.
Unaware that the two of them were indeed together and heading towards her, she tried to force her cousin and the murderous professor out of her mind. It wasn't Susana. Susana could have any man she wanted. She didn't need to rescue convicted killers out of the backs of prison vans. Susana was also no longer active as a killer. That was the understanding.
But she couldn't shake the idea that her cousin had done something to do with this.
Eventually, six o'clock came. Detective Regan, currently holed up in Lisa's hotel room along with several men from the Boston SWAT squad, had considerately packed up Lisa's things and had them sent to the FBI's field offices. All Lisa needed was someplace to stay the night. She hadn't expected to be kicked out of her own hotel room.
Jason Sullivan stuck his head in her office door as she was reviewing the depressingly familiar autopsy reports on Mary Morales. Just as the others, she'd been drugged and horribly tortured. According to the tox screen, the drugs had been enough to keep her from moving but hadn't blocked any of the pain. Mary Morales had felt everything, every last horror and atrocity, until she'd finally died.
Creed and Susana together would do a lot worse –
Stop it, Lisa. It isn't Susana. Nope, no way.
She smiled briefly at Sullivan. "Hi," she said. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant Sullivan?"
"Actually, it's what I can do for you, Chief Starling," he said, and grinned a toothy grin at her. "You remember we moved Detective Regan into your room. I have been making arrangements for you to have a place to crash."
"Okay,' Lisa said, grinning.
"I got two places for you. One is a woman cop, she's got a studio apartment. Little place but it's comfortable. The other, if you like, is my place."
Lisa Starling raised her eyebrows. Jason Sullivan smiled and displayed his palms.
"It's not like that," he said. "I'll take the couch, that's fine. It's just that I've got a fast Internet hookup. Thought you might be able to get some work done, if you wanted."
That was a tempting offer. She could get some work done, and maybe review the CREEDESCAPE folder too. Besides, she'd rather not share a one-room apartment with a total stranger.
"Your place sounds okay," she said, smiling.
"Great," he said. "I got my car waiting. You can just leave yours here, unless you need it. I'll drop you here in the morning."
"Quite a date," she riposted, grinning.
"Oh yeah. I roll out the red carpet for the FBI."
Jason Sullivan's car was a late-model Mustang with leather seats. Lisa was a car buff herself, and the Mustang pleased her: nice leather seats, plenty of power in the engine, and good lateral acceleration. He drove quickly, the way a man with effective immunity to traffic tickets will.
"Nice car," she said.
"Thanks," he grinned.
Some women might have been put off by the way he screeched around corners. Lisa Starling was not. Both of them liked to drive. Perhaps ten minutes later, they arrived at an apartment building. He pulled into a parking space and grabbed her bag to carry it upstairs.
Jason Sullivan's apartment was simple and neat. There were three numbers on the door representing his apartment number 317. The three drooped desultorily. But inside, the apartment was astringently neat. The couch was some years old, but clean and comfortable. In one corner, a large stereo loomed. In another, a PC with a large monitor sat waiting. Sullivan carried her bag into the bedroom.
"So," he said calmly, "You hungry? I got some boys coming by to stand guard. They'll pick up whatever you want."
Lisa gave him a slightly puzzled look. "Some boys?"
"Yep," he answered. "I told them that some loony had escaped, and now he was hunting you. I made a couple of phone calls. Got all the agents on the FBI task force out of the hotel. Some of them are staying with regular Boston FBI. Others I got put up with Boston cops. We got Boston cops in that whole block of hotel rooms now." He chuckled. "If your professor comes and pays a visit he'll get a hell of a surprise. Must be thirty cops hanging out there."
A knock came at the door and he went to check it, drawing his weapon and keeping it along his thigh. A bit nervous herself, Lisa reached over calmly for her own Glock holstered on her hip. She put her hand on the butt but didn't draw it. Carefully, he opened the door, leaving it on the chain. His face brightened as he saw who was outside.
"It's OK," he said. Entering the room was a swarthy Hispanic man in a jacket and tie. Detective Sullivan shook his hand and escorted him into the room.
"Vic, this is Chief Starling from the FBI's profiler unit. Chief Starling, this is Detective Victor Alvarez. He's one of the detectives under me. He's gonna stick around and keep guard."
"Hi," Detective Alvarez said in the same Bostonian accent.
Alvarez. I get to be guarded by an Alvarez. Why did it have to be Alvarez? Lisa thought. But then again, Susana's birth surname was quite common. Dr. Lecter had chosen it for its very ubiquity.
"Hi, Detective," Lisa smiled.
"Nice to meet you. So who's this guy anyways, capo?" The question was directed to Sullivan.
"That psycho killer who was in the news a couple years back. You know, the guy who killed his students. And had the skull on his desk."
"Skull on his desk? Sick puppy."
Lisa chuckled. "Actually, that's how they caught him," she added. "It was common a couple hundred years ago for educated men to keep a skull on their desk to remind them of their own mortality."
"Still sounds sick to me," Detective Alvarez observed. "I know plenty about that without needing to keep body parts on my desk."
Lisa shrugged. "He was a college professor, and so he was able to get away with a certain amount, more than if he'd been, say, an office worker. They just thought he was eccentric. He told them the skull was on his desk for the same reason. One of the victims had a gold tooth in the back of his mouth. An agent in the field interviewing him noticed the skull had a gold tooth in the same place. They got a warrant and ran the full dental records. There was one of our victims. With that, we got a search warrant for his home. That's where we found…well…the rest."
Sullivan looked over. "You mean you were on the team that caught Creed?"
Lisa smiled and nodded. "I wasn't running things then. But I was part of the team that caught him."
The two Boston detectives seemed interested. "Were you there?" asked Sullivan.
"Yes," Lisa said shortly. Professor Creed's home wasn't her favorite memory. Well, the living part of the house had been just fine. Books all over the place. It had been the room in his basement – the workroom, he'd called it – that was the worst. To change the subject, she asked, "So what did he call you? Coppo?"
Sullivan grinned.
"Capo," he said. "My nickname. Bit of a story."
Lisa shrugged, hoping to evade discussing Creed any more.
"Okay. It's from when I first started on the force." He grinned sheepishly. "See, my family's always been cops. Like fifth generation cops. I got uncles and cousins all over the force. So here I am, right? I'm like twenty-two, fresh out of the Academy, first day on the job. I'm raring to go. They put me in this squad car with this guy who's got like fifteen years in. He lets me drive. I pulled over this Cadillac for blowing a red light. Planning on lecturing the guy and letting him go. Anyways, guy smells like booze, so I field-test him. He fails the field tests. So I cuff the guy, tell him he's under arrest for DWI. He offers me fifty bucks to let him go. I say no way, put your cash away before I arrest you for attempted bribery. Bring the guy back and tell my partner what we're doing. His eyes go waaaay wide. So I put the guy in the back and bring him down to the station." He chuckled and shook his head.
"I run the guy's record and voooom, this list a mile long comes out of the computer. Guy was part of the Mob. High-ranking guy, capo of a local family. He's being all nice but doesn't get why I didn't take the money. So I take my arrested mobster and stick him in the holding cell. Everybody in the station is sort of staring. The sergeant grabs me, he says 'Hey, you know who you just arrested?' I says, 'Sure, his name's Gil Bilotti and I popped him for DWI.' Sarge says 'Yeah, they're gonna be watching you. First day and you bring in a mob capo.'" He chuckled, remembering. "My dad and my uncles, they're all like, 'You arrested Gil Bilotti?' So ever since then, they call me capo."
Lisa chuckled. "So how do I get online?" she asked. "I kind of wanted to see something on the FBI's network."
"Just open up Internet Explorer," Jason advised. "You want a drink? I make a mean margarita." He held a bottle of Jose Cuervo in his fist.
"Sounds good," Lisa decided. She opened up a browser and logged into the FBI's secure network. One username and password later, she was able to get access to the secure CREEDESCAPE folder on VICAP. Jason Sullivan walked over and looked at the screen over her shoulder. Lisa didn't mind. Another set of eyes couldn't hurt. Besides, he was cute. He handed Lisa a glass containing shockingly green liquid. Detective Alvarez, perhaps sensing that they wanted to be alone, moved over to the kitchen, where he busied himself with breaking down and cleaning his shotgun.
There were quite a few documents in the CREEDESCAPE folder. Lisa checked out a few of them. Reports from the scene. Nothing that didn't tell her anything she didn't already know. There was a subfolder called Clinton_Correctional, and Lisa checked that. Professor Creed's prison records were there, along with a few other files. One was called PHONECALL. Curious, Lisa opened it up.
It proved to be a standard interview form with one of the lieutenants on the block. Apparently, three days before his escape, Professor Creed had asked for a family phone call to his cousin. This was the first time since he had come to death row that he had asked for one. He gave his cousin's name as Elisa Chesoyo. Ms. Chesoyo had a phone number in Philadelphia. They hadn't followed up on the lead yet, as things were still pouring in from the escape site. It was marked for followup for the next day.
Hmmmm, Lisa Starling thought, and sipped her margarita.
"Think his cousin helped him out?" Sullivan asked.
"I want to find out what I can," she said.
Philadelphia directory assistance had no listing for an Elisa Chesoyo. Double-checking with the number available to police officers, which included unlisted numbers, confirmed that. Elisa Chesoyo had never gotten a Pennsylvania driver's license, or any other state for that matter. She had no criminal record. In fact, she'd never bothered to get a Social Security card either.
It took some tracking to find out where the number went. It was what Lisa had thought: the prepaid cell phones sold in 7-11's and convenience stores. Most cops hated these. The bad guys could buy them, register them in any name they wanted, and be up and running and hard to track in an hour. You could see some guy talking on one, but unless you had the ESN, you couldn't get a warrant.
It was pretty obvious: Elisa Chesoyo spelled A-L-I-A-S. The tangy taste of Lisa's margarita burned her tongue as she pondered that fact.
"Detective Alvarez?" Lisa's tone was inquisitive.
He stuck his head through the kitchen door. "Yeah?"
"Do you speak Spanish?"
His dark eyes popped open comically. "Why, however did you guess?"
Lisa chuckled. "I'm a profiler," she explained. "They pay me for stuff like that."
"Yeah, I do. Whatcha need?'
"Does the word chesoyo mean anything to you?"
He pondered for a moment. "No, not really," he said thoughtfully.
"You're hedging," Lisa said. "How about breaking it up? Doesn't soy yo mean I am?"
"Yo soy," he corrected. "Well, sometimes. Like if you're knocking at the door and someone asks who it is, in English you say 'It's me'. In Spanish you say 'soy yo.' But I don't know what che means."
Lisa Starling, who had studied Argentine Spanish in her attempts to bring her cousin to justice, did.
"Means 'hey' in Argentine Spanish," she said deliberately.
Elisa Chesoyo. Elisa Hey, it's me.
Hey Lisa, it's me.
Lisa swallowed.
"You think you know who the perp who sprang Creed is?" Jason Sullivan asked, interested.
Lisa took a shuddering breath. What would he think? He seemed to be a nice guy, but a good cop through and through. There was no way he would ever understand how she'd betrayed the FBI, how she'd helped a cop-killer evade justice.
She shook her head suddenly and felt a pang of guilt stab her through and through. In an Argentine prison cell, this had seemed to be so hard a decision to make. Now it seemed worse, and she hated herself. Hated herself for what she'd done, and for what she was about to say.
"No," she whispered. "Just an idea, that's all."
Doesn't mean it's Susana. Could just be a name they picked. Would've made perfect sense for a perp to have his girlfriend buy the phone. A great old red herring.
Professor Creed's call to his cousin had been taped, and there was a written copy of the conversation in the file. No tape yet. That probably took time to pull from the archives. But there it was. Professor Creed had told his ostensible cousin that he would be in court 7 AM today. Simply looking at a map would have told the perp where and when he would have been passing in that van.
Plus, she realized, his cousin. Professor Creed's file didn't indicate that he had a cousin or not. Susana wasn't his cousin. She was hers.
Doesn't prove anything, she told herself, but uneasiness wormed into her gut nonetheless.
"Wow, they've been busting their butt," Jason Sullivan said. "Prison records, everything, all online."
"Yeah," Lisa responded shortly, and pulled at her beer.
"So what do you think happened?" he asked.
Lisa shrugged. "I'm not sure," she said. "It's not something I'm supposed to be working. My job is the Bludgeon Man."
"Yeah, but you're curious, right?"
Lisa sighed and nodded. "I feel…I don't know, I feel responsible."
"Makes sense," Sullivan observed, "but it wasn't your fault. Hindsight's always twenty-twenty. If I'd have thought some guy in a New York prison knew who this sicko was I'd have sent a squad car there myself to get the guy. You didn't know. Pure and simple."
Kenton had largely said the same thing to her. But hearing it from him was better. He seemed to honestly mean it. From Kenton, she couldn't help but get the idea he was saying it just to buck her up. That he was sitting in the basement of Quantico thinking Lisa Starling screwed up. With Sullivan, she felt that he honestly didn't think she'd freed a killer.
Even though I have. And she did this. Then, right on the tails of that: Stop it, Lisa.
"How bout the Bludgeon Man?" Sullivan prompted. "Think Creed was lying to you about him?"
Lisa cleared her throat. "Creed didn't tell us much, really. He said that the Bludgeon Man was a man estranged from his nature. He said that someone had taken away something from the Bludgeon Man. Something that he wanted back more than anything. Whatever it was, losing it caused him so much rage and shame that he turned to killing." She stopped, her eyes upwards and focused on nothing as she tried to recall.
"Oh, wait," she said. "He's no longer able to do the sorts of things he wants to do. So he kills to get around that."
"You think he was lying?"
"It's so vague it doesn't mean much," she explained. "A lot of serial killers have a stressor that sets them off. Usually it's either relationship or job. They lose one and bam. Sometimes it's something else. Jeffrey Dahmer's mom called him, that's the only thing they've found that set him off."
Sullivan nodded.
"Still," he mused. "It's something."
"Rocked me more when Creed sat there and told me the Bludgeon Man was using drugs to paralyze his victims."
"Hmmm," he mused. "Could the Bludgeon Man be a doctor?"
Automatically, Lisa's profiler-trained mind called up a list. Killer doctors. H.H. Holmes. Thomas Neill Cream. Morris Bolber. Joseph Mengele. Frank Sweeney. Harold Shipman. Hannibal Lecter. Michael Swango. Teet Haerm and Allgen Lars Thomas. Susana Alvarez Lecter, who just happens to still be around, and who speaks Argentine Spanish, and so it would be perfectly normal for her to say "Lisa! Che, soy yo!"— ahhh, Lisa, quit it.
"I doubt it," she said. "Doctors have to see patients every day. They're out and about. Someone as angry as the Bludgeon Man is has some sort of mental problem. He wouldn't be able to appear as normal in a doctor-patient situation. Maybe a job where he has access to drugs. But that could be a lot. He could be a lab tech. He could be an orderly. Maybe even not a hospital angle. He could've been an orderly in the Army and have drugs from that, even. Or work for a pharmaceutical company."
"Maybe he's a surgeon," Jason Sullivan suggested. "Their patients are knocked out when they get to them."
Lisa blinked. Killer surgeons :Frank Sweeney. Susana Alvarez Lecter. Again, Susana. Had it been an external voice suggesting it, Lisa would've happily stuck her fingers in her ears and sang La la la until the voice stopped. But it wasn't: it was her own trained profiler's mind.
It is not Susana, she told herself firmly.
"Even so, they're out and being seen. Someone this angry is not going to be functional," she said. She found herself nervous that she was going to say something about Susana out loud. Jason Sullivan seemed like a nice guy and she liked him. And he had a cute butt. But if he knew she was so obsessed with her murderous cousin, he'd take that cute butt and march it away from poor crazy Lisa Starling.
"That's true," he said. "Just a thought. Wasn't your cousin a surgeon?"
Lisa bit her lip to avoid screaming.
"Well, yes, but she didn't kill any of her patients. Once we found out it was her – years later – we crawled over her records with a fine-tooth comb. She never so much as tried. She didn't mix work and play. She was a good surgeon." In fact, she's still a good surgeon right now, treating rich Europeans. She's probably treating some right now. She better be.
Jason seemed to sense her nerves and backed off the subject. "You think the Bludgeon Man mixes work and play? If he works in a hospital he might be noticeable. If he's messed up."
"It's possible. He's getting his drugs from somewhere."
Lisa forced herself to get out of the CREEDESCAPE folder and back into the BLUDGMAN investigation. She hit a few more things, reading them desultorily. It was hard. She wanted to go through the Creed folder, find out what the murderous professor had been up to. Where was he now?
In order to make herself stop thinking about it, she asked, "So what did you do with the rest of my people?"
"Like I told you," he said. "Got em into homes of local people – Boston cops and Boston FBI. Easier to protect 'em that way."
"Thanks," she said. "You didn't need to do that."
"No big deal," he said. "Part of the job. While you're here we keep you safe, just like anyone else. Part of being a cop."
Lisa smiled. She decided she liked Detective Lieutenant Jason Sullivan. A good cop, a nice guy, and good-looking.
Her glass was refilled more times than she'd imagined as the night went on. The free-floating anxiety about Professor Creed's escape was beginning to fade under a nice feeling of tequila-induced security. They talked about their respective careers in their respective agencies. He mentioned his family in passing but didn't talk overly much about it. He'd never been married; just a hardworking cop all his adult life.
They spoke for a bit about the Bludgeon Man, but dropped the subject in an unspoken truce. Both of them were sick to death of the Bludgeon Man. He occupied their working hours; this was a break, a chance to relax.
Finally, Jason Sullivan rose a bit shakily.
"Well," he said, "lemme show you where the bedroom is and then I'll crash on the couch. Make yourself at home." He led her down the hall to a simply furnished bedroom. It, too, was neat and orderly. A dresser, bed, and nightstand were all the furniture in the room. The bed was pretty big and made military-style. A quarter would bounce on those sheets. On the walls were a few posters of cars: Jason Sullivan was a fan of classic Mustangs.
"Here you are," Jason said. "I'll just go crash out on the couch." He straightened himself up as if to leave. Lisa didn't want him to. She liked him. And there was a fair amount of Jose Cuervo floating through her bloodstream, so she felt a little more comfortable giving in to her inner urges than she normally would.
Hell with it. I get some fun sometime, don't I?
"Nah, forget that," Lisa whispered and threw her arms around his neck. His lips were warm and surprised and tasted of margarita mix. After a moment's surprise, his arms were around her, strong and powerful but also gentle. There was a clumsy moment in which their pistols, strapped to each one's hips, ground into each other. After the guns were stowed on the nightstand, they returned to the business at hand.
Lisa Starling, a shocked, moral voice spoke up in her head, are you really about to do this? What about Susana? What about Creed? What about the Bludgeon Man?
Heck with 'em, she answered that voice, someone else can hunt 'em for now. Who says I have to be a Girl Scout all the time?
Then his hands were on her body, and hers on his, fingers seeking buttons greedily. Their mouths were warm on each other, and thoughts of serial killers completely vanished from Lisa Starling's mind for the first time in weeks.