Chapter Twenty-Three

"Here," Fisk said. He dropped a bunch of paper on Jim's desk.

"What's this?" Jim reached out and felt a stack of files.

"Yours is the only clean desk, sorry, Jim," Fisk said. "These are the files from the warehouse. No prints, so we get to look through them now. Good luck."

"Yeah, but are they even related to our case?" Karen asked.

"Take a look."

Jim lifted a couple files and held them in Karen's direction. She took them and he heard her rifle through the papers.

"The names are kinda familiar… Winston Glad… Sherman Houston… Abigaile Little…"

"They're all names from that list Rob Mulhaney faxed us," Jim said. "I ran them all through the computer. Every single last one of them came up dead."

"As dead as Richard White?"

"You kids have fun," Fisk said, walking off.

"So there's a chance these people are still alive?" Marty asked. He scooted his chair back to the side of Jim's desk and lifted a couple files.

"Shit," Karen said. "Their movements over the past year are all mapped out. Every family member and friend they're in contact with… Every alias. I don't believe it."

"So you found the mother load," Jim said. "We'll be able to contact all these people."

"Yeah, but why were the files there? I don't buy the bit about Uncle Josiah just being human and making a mistake. He knows what he's doing."

"Maybe…" Jim shrugged. "Maybe it's to prove what sort of power Uncle Josiah has, able to make all these people disappear. And to prove how sick he is, keeping an eye on them."

"But what were they doing there?"

"Maybe Michael had pangs of conscience before the fight?"

"You think he's trying to set up Josiah? By planting evidence?"

"If he's killing people left and right and making people disappear, it's not that hard to bring him down. If you have the proof, it's easy to leave it lying around."

"Let's find these people and haul their asses up here," Tom said.

"I'm game," Jim said.

"I want to talk to Michael again," Karen said.

"Me, too."

"We'll run these files if you two want to go work him over a little," Tom said.

The phone rang and Karen picked it up. "Bettancourt," she said, then listened.

"I still don't trust a word he says," Marty said. "If he says he killed everyone, I won't believe him. And if he says Uncle Josiah killed everyone, I won't believe him."

"Great, Marty," Jim said. "You just discounted everything our only suspect has said."

"What, you believe him? You're pretty trusting."

"I'm not going to say he's a saint, but no one can lie about everything."

"Maybe he can. Maybe when he says Uncle Josiah killed Samantha, he means he killed her himself. And when he says he didn't know who Glenn Bartlett was, he did."

"You're twisting everything he said!"

"He's twisted enough on his own. I'm just saying—"

"Marty, you can't—"

"Guys!" Karen said, slamming down the phone. "Come on, Tom, couldn't you say something?"

"I'm not their baby-sitter," Tom said.

"Karen?" Jim asked, his hands clenched on the arms of his chair.

"The paternity test came back positive. Michael's the dad."

Jim stood up. "I'll let the boss know, then we'll head down."

"Jim…"

He stopped and waited, but didn't turn around.

"Marty… You guys, if Fisk catches you acting like this again, you're both going down the river, you know that, right?"

Jim squared his shoulders and opened Fisk's door. He told the boss what they'd found and asked if they could go visit Michael.

"Bring him up," Fisk said. "I want to see it, too."

"Feeling better?" Karen asked. She pulled out a chair at the table in the interview room.

"No. Should I be?" Michael asked sullenly.

"Last night you told us you didn't know what kind of poison Uncle Josiah was dealing with. Then you proceeded to pull some out."

"Maybe I thought that was really aspirin."

"Right."

"It was going to make all the pain go away, wasn't it?"

"Does it always look like aspirin?" Jim asked.

"Looks can be deceiving, don't you know that by now?"

"Just answer," Karen said.

"No. Some are liquid, some are put in chocolate—"

"Like for Samantha?" Karen interrupted.

Michael laughed sadly. "You should have seen her. "No, no, I can't eat that, I'm diabetic!"" he mimicked, then paused. "And I told her, "Honey, that's not gonna matter anymore.""

"Are you the one who gave her the poison?"

"No. I was just there for moral support."

Karen moved around the table, changing the subject by changing position. "Do you know what a paternity test is?"

"Yeah. That's where your kid does something so heinous you end up ripping out your hair and asking how you gave life to such a monster."

"You know you have a kid?"

"You're joking," Michael said blandly. He sounded like the night in jail had greatly depressed him.

"So how do you plead?" Karen asked.

"I plead virginity, detective."

"Why'd you try to kill yourself?" Jim asked.

"Because I wouldn't make a very good messiah. It's either me or him. And it's always him."

"That's not the way it works."

"What would you know?"

"The world doesn't—"

"This isn't the world! See, detective, you should have been a goner. At the church, I don't know how you managed as well as you did. Maybe Josiah took pity on you. But I wasn't going to. You started to leave. I stopped you."

"I remember bumping into someone," Jim said. He narrowed his eyes, thinking back.

"See, I'm not very good. If Josiah had bumped into you, you would have jumped off the nearest building."

It took all of Jim's strength to suppress the shudder. His stomach clenched, but he kept himself otherwise neutral, as if it didn't matter.

"Let's start at the beginning," Karen said finally. "How well did you know Samantha back in high school?"

"Barely," Michael said. "Pretty girl like that? So normal and voluptuous. What would she be doing with a criminal like me?"

"You were a criminal? In high school?"

"It's all predetermined. I was born with a criminal mind."

"You didn't have a choice?"

"God doesn't decide what you have for dinner every day. But that's about the only choice we get in this life."

"You're good at chemistry, right, Michael?" Jim asked.

"Yeah."

"So what's your part in all these drugs?"

"Assistant. I was still learning."

"And what all does Josiah deal in?"

"Mostly medications. The one poison, like you know."

"Any street drugs?"

"I wouldn't know."

"I'm just wondering why all his followers are so happy to have nothing."

"The power of the mind shouldn't be underestimated. You don't need a chemical boost in order to seem happy in the most dire circumstances."

"Do you like Josiah or not?" Jim asked.

"What's not to like?"

"You tell me."

"If you dislike a saint, you go straight to hell."

Jim turned to Karen. "Is that true?"

"I would doubt it," she said with a small laugh. "Not every saint was always… saintly."

Jim nodded and turned back to Michael. "In that case, you were good friends with him, right? Even if you didn't always agree with him. I'm just wondering what happened before you met up with me at the warehouse."

"What do you mean?"

"You've been planning something a long time. What is it, a hostile takeover? Why've you been dropping the name Pipsqueak? Obviously because you know it'll lead straight back to Uncle Josiah."

Michael grunted.

"And those files you planted? You had this all planned out, didn't you?"

"All it proves is he's not a nice guy," Michael said. "That's all I'm trying to prove."

Samantha screamed. She was crying as she yelled, "It's too late, too late," like she was getting attacked.

The tape was edited. She'd been talking to someone, but that person had been cut out of the tape.

She screamed again.

Then she laughed. "I knew it would be like this." She giggled. "Don't worry so much."

The message ended, then another one started. They'd called back repeatedly.

"Hi, Mom! Clem and I are doing great!" she said brightly.

Mrs. Whittleton said, "She was bi-polar. When she'd get depressed, it didn't matter what she said or who she hurt." She stood up and backed away from the tape recorder. "One day she'd love me to death, then later, she'd do anything in her power to hurt me for being such a bad mother." She sniffed. "So hearing her happy in one message, then angry, that's not a stretch."

The screaming started again and Mrs. Whittleton shuddered audibly.

Karen reached for the off button. "Do you have any enemies, Mrs. Whittleton? Besides your daughter?"

"What?"

"Maybe someone she would have conspired with? Because she didn't just make the tapes. Someone's still calling to play them. Who?"

"I assume it was someone Samantha knew."

"Why? Anyone she knew would know she was dead. They're not just covering for her; they're trying to hurt you."

"Do you know this kid?" Fisk asked, sliding a piece of paper across the table to Mrs. Whittleton.

There was a pause as she looked it over. "Yeah… He went to junior prom with Sam."

"His name's Michael?" Fisk said.

"Yeah."

Fisk made an affirmative grunt. "Do you know of any other contact besides junior prom?"

"He came around the house for a while, but my husband didn't like him. This was back when I was still married, before the affair. My husband threw him out—repeatedly."

"Why?" Fisk asked.

"Graham said Michael wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't that he was such a bad kid, but he wasn't good enough for our daughter. And sometimes he was just… obsessive."

"Do you think there's any chance he's using these phone calls to spite your husband for that?"

"His family moved away—what would he be doing with Samantha?"

"He's the father of your grandson… They got back together at some point."

He'd asked her because that's what every guy wanted to do. He'd married her because any guy would have, if she'd said yes. And she'd said yes. Maybe he'd half expected her to turn him down, but she said yes. What was he supposed to do, turn her down? Not likely. He'd chosen his wife and he was sticking to it. Any man would be proud of her.

She had her job and he had his. They lived their own lives, crossing paths when convenient. It suited them.

They fought sometimes. Every married couple fights. Jim wasn't an idiot, he'd known before he met her, the moment he first saw her, how little they would have in common. That was bound to create conflicts.

Somehow, married, he felt empty. Alone. More empty and alone than he'd ever felt as a bachelor. Maybe because he didn't have that option of picking out a new woman to learn about and taking her home at night if he chose. He just always went home. To the same woman. Who sometimes didn't seem to care whether or not he was there.

He'd found himself wanting more. Don't the rich always get greedy?

"Jim," Karen said.

Jim looked over at her, but she didn't say anything else. He couldn't believe how distracted he was. Usually he could keep his personal life completely separate and not even think about Christie at work. He needed that separation in order to do his job. But Christie's phone call that morning… "Damn it." He stood up. "Karen, I'm going out to lunch."

""Damn it, Karen," that's a nice answer," she said.

He set his jaw as he stopped with his coat half on. He wanted to say it again, but he finally just took Hank by the harness and walked away.

Christie's office was in an upscale, all-windows building. He'd been there a few times, but usually he asked her to meet him somewhere else. He had a hard enough time at parties, making small talk with those people; he didn't need to see them during the day.

Once inside, a secretary had asked if he needed help, calling over to him, then walking around something, probably a large desk, to get to him. He didn't remember where Christie's office was, so he stopped Hank and waited for the woman.

"I'm looking for the office of Christine Dunbar," he said.

The woman paused, probably looking him up and down. Jim was reminded of how they used to check him out before and wondered what was going through her narrow brain as she took in the dog and the cuts on his face, the bruise just under his eye. "Do you have an appointment?" she finally asked stiffly.

"If you don't show me her office, I'll find it myself," he replied.

"This way," she said.

Jim ordered Hank to follow. The sound of her high heels disappeared abruptly and Jim almost stopped walking, thinking she might have stopped even though Hank hadn't, but a step later his foot settled onto carpeting. He hadn't been prepared for how much the plush carpet would mute the sounds he'd been following. He forced the tension out of his shoulders and followed Hank, picking up a mild swishing sound from the way the woman walked.

She pushed open a door and he walked through. "He's here to see Mrs. Dunbar," she told someone, then walked away with a swish, back out the door that had just closed.

"Do you have an appointment?" a younger woman asked.

"No." He turned to face her, dropping Hank's harness and crossing his arms. He listened as she asked if Christie was busy because some man was there to see her.

"May I show you a seat?" she asked finally. He heard her hang up a phone.

"No thanks, I'll stand." He cracked his neck. "Tell her her husband's here to see her." He debated flashing his badge and muscling his way in, but instead he waited while she made the call.

"It'll be a few minutes. May I show you to a chair?"

"You don't want me standing over you?" he snapped. "If I want to sit, I'll find a chair. But I don't plan to be here long enough to make myself comfortable." He clenched his teeth, wondering what Christie was doing, who she was in there with, what they were talking about.

A door opened a minute later and he turned, hearing a couple people walk out and Christie's placating tones quietly apologizing.

"Jimmy?" Her hand was on his arm.

He took Hank by the harness. "Let's go in your office." He followed her without taking her arm.

"Jimmy, is everything okay?"

"I'm fine. You know I'm fine."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"I came to talk. Don't you want to talk?"

"You don't look like you just want to talk."

"No?" He dropped Hank's harness and stepped away from the dog, then froze. "Did you move anything in here?"

"No."

He nodded. He could have just stood there and made them both uncomfortable, but he had to move.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"You called me at work." He stopped at the floor-to-ceiling bookcase on the right wall of her office and ran a hand over one of the shelves. A set of tiny marble figurines lined the shelf in front of books.

"Isn't that allowed?"

"You called me. I was busy. I'm working a case; do you even know what I do all day?" He turned one of the figurines toward her, then walked away.

"Fine. You came down here. I was busy. I had a meeting."

He sighed. "I'm not going to just stay home for a few bruises, Christie. This is my job and it's important. To me. Do you understand?"

"I shouldn't have called," she said, her voice icy. "I was worried."

"Great!" He threw up his hands, turning away from her. "If you can't handle it—"

"Who said I can't?"

"You did!"

"Maybe I thought, since this case hasn't been going anywhere, that just this once you could call in sick and let yourself get better."

"I am better!" He took a deep breath. "Just tell me what's wrong."

"What do you think is wrong?" she asked. That was one of her favorite questions and he was sure she used it to drive him crazy and prove to him that he didn't know everything.

He slammed a hand down on her desk, knocking over a picture frame. "Don't pull that today, Christie. Just tell me."

She was quiet a minute, then her voice was low. "I miss you," she finally said.

He narrowed his eyes, wishing he could see her. If he squinted… but he reached out to take her hand across the desk, where it seemed she was hiding, taking refuge.

She wouldn't take his hand. He left it there a moment, then dropped it back to the desk, using it to guide himself around to her. "Damn it, Christie," he said. She didn't move away from him. "What the hell does that mean, you miss me?"

"I miss you, the Jimmy you were when we first met."

He took her by the shoulders. "What changed?"

"Everything. Sometimes it's like you don't love me anymore."

"You know I love you."

"No, I don't. Why else would you—"

"How many times do I have to apologize?"

"I was so worried last night and you said we'd talk in the morning! But you weren't there!"

"Christie, I can't do much to prove I'm a good husband now. As for my job, I've done nothing to disprove that I can do that."

"I know." She was shaking. He could tell she was near tears. "But when Marty told me yesterday that you'd been hurt—I just couldn't stop remembering how it was right after you got shot. What if that happens again? What am I going to do if I lose you?"

Jim bit his lip and leaned his forehead against hers. "I don't know. But it's a chance you have to take."

"You don't know what it was like."

"No."

"You can't imagine yourself doing anything else?" she whispered.

"I'm a cop," he said and closed his eyes, concentrating on her breathing. "You know that. I'm good at what I do, Christie, and I enjoy doing it."

"And if you died doing it?"

"I think I'd be happy. I never really thought of that." He pulled back, but she wouldn't relinquish one of his hands. She moved up behind him and wrapped her arms around his stomach. "If I'd died at the bank…" He gave a low laugh. "I'd have hated Terry for it. But if I'd gotten the gunman off the street beforehand, I would have been happy."

"Even though you and I were fighting? There's more to your life than just your job, you know."

Jim paused. "At that point, I thought you would have been better off without me anyway. We'd been talking about a divorce…"

"But not about you dying."

"You never know how you'll go. Or when. Christie, I don't want to think about this." He turned around in her arms.

"I don't want to let you go."

He smiled down at her. "I'll have a hard time doing my job if you don't."

"I mean it, Jimmy. I don't want to see you get hurt again."

"I'm careful."

She squeezed him tighter. "I don't want to see you hurt."

"I'm not giving up my job."

"Then I'll have to trust you, won't I? And that's so hard."

"If you can."

"You don't make it very easy."

"I know." He finally put his arms back around her. "I'm sorry." He held her close. "Christie," he whispered into her hair, "I know I've made a lot of mistakes, but I'm trying."

"I know," she said.

"And I'll be careful, I promise."

She sniffled. "There's more to your life than just your job," she emphasized.

He ran a hand through her hair. Her long dark hair, he'd always loved the way she wore it, no matter the style. He'd always loved the way it flowed, the way it caught the light, the seduction when she turned quickly and it floated away from her shoulders. "I remember, when I first got home from rehab, your hair was the only thing I wanted to touch. Not books of Braille, not a cane, just your hair." He breathed deeply, the smell of her shampoo and her perfume. He closed his eyes and just let her overwhelm him, his hands lost, his senses floating. He didn't need to see her.

"You never told me that."

He swallowed hard. "There's a lot I can't tell you." Her hair was the only that that felt the same way it looked, the only thing he'd thought he wasn't missing out on right after he lost his sight. He couldn't see her eyes or her smile or watch her walk into a room and he'd been afraid he'd lost her to the blindness.

"I have to get back to work," she whispered.

Jim untangled his fingers and stepped back. He slapped his thigh. "Me, too." Hank jumped up.

Jim left the building, thinking how, of all the things Christie had ever said to him, when she said he shouldn't be a cop anymore, that's the one that hurt the most. Yet he still loved her. Maybe even more, for her honesty. All he could do was let her come to her own conclusion, and hope she stayed. He couldn't force it, not this time.

He headed Hank toward the nearest subway station, shivering in the cold. It was almost noon, but the temperature must have dropped since that morning. He couldn't feel the sun.

Christie had always been there, he thought. Even if she was unpredictable, even if he could never say or do the right thing, she was always there for him. And now, when she disagreed with him most, she was still going to be there for him. Even though he couldn't understand how it scared her, how she'd been affected by the shooting and him losing his sight, even though it all culminated with his job, she was still going to be there. He shook his head in awe. Galloway was wrong, she wasn't weak.

Jim settled into a chair in the interview room.

"You remember junior prom?" Karen asked.

"Hard to forget it."

"You went with Samantha?"

"Prettiest girl I ever met. Not to say I haven't seen other girls prettier, they just would never give me the time of day. Samantha was different, though." Michael sounded wistful.

"You knew her?"

"Intimately."

"Why lie about it?"

"The girl's dead. I didn't kill her, but I'm not about to muddle your brains with useless facts." The smirk was coming back into his voice, meaning he must have been feeling better.

"Gee, thanks," Karen said.

Jim leaned closer. "Tell us about Samantha."

Michael squirmed a second, then relaxed and leaned back. "Fertile girl," he said. "She perpetrated my first visit to an abortion clinic. Then she told her dad… she always told the wrong things to the wrong people. Which is why Josiah shut her up first thing—good kid, but she had to be taught not to say anything of consequence, especially seeing as she was one of his girls. It wasn't like she couldn't think, when he was done with her; she just couldn't really talk."

"How?"

"How would I know? Like I said, I wouldn't make a very good messiah."

"You knew her parents?" Karen asked.

"Of course. They had to take pictures of the happy couple, didn't they?"

"Were you mad at her father, for not wanting you two to go out?"

"Who wouldn't be? Is he dead?"

"No."

"Too bad."

"You want revenge?"

"Revenge? That's really no such thing. You don't feel better; an eye for an eye. Because it doesn't take away what you've already lost. Why bother?"

"I bet you could come up with a good reason to bother," Jim said.

"I doubt it. I've never been much for reasoning," Michael said.

"Samantha told her mom she was going to Paris, did you know that?" Karen asked.

"Just what you told me."

"Do you know why she would?"

"Her mom always wanted her to travel. Samantha almost died once, she was comatose a week for unregulated blood sugar. Her mom always wanted her to travel before she died, would have made the family happy."

"So, conceivably, if Samantha knew she was about to die, she might lie to her mom and say she was traveling?" Karen was walking around the room, tapping her notebook against her fingers like she did when she was thinking of a new notion. Jim waited to see what else she'd come up with.

"Maybe," Michael agreed.

"Do you have any idea why she'd make tapes of messages instead of calling outright?"

"No idea."

"Like, maybe it was just a joke and she hadn't planned on the messages getting back to her folks?"

"I don't pretend to conceive what's in Samantha's head."

"Does Josiah let you just use the phone anytime you want?"

"Josiah doesn't care about your family. Samantha didn't care about hers, either. She had a new family. There's no reason to call home."

"Your phone calls aren't restricted or monitored in any way?"

"No."

"So the tapes…"

"I don't know about any tapes."

"Let's say Samantha made tapes, okay? Why would she leave a nasty message, like she was in trouble? Was there a problem between her and her parents?"

"No idea." Michael laughed. "She was a funny girl. And Uncle Josiah's a sick bastard. Put the two together…"

"And?" Karen leaned against the table.

"This is just a theory, mind you, but Samantha didn't want anything to do with her family, not after her parents divorced. Maybe Josiah was trying to help ease the transition. I'm sure her parents wouldn't just let her go. Maybe they were bugging her and she said she was leaving the country so they'd leave her alone."

"And the message where she was screaming bloody murder and yelling at her mom?"

"I'd guess it was her way of telling them to leave her be."

"I don't buy it."

"There's a lot of ways to cut ties with family and Josiah knows them all. Look at my family. I don't have to talk to them anymore," he said smugly.

"She's dead. You said he killed her. Why would he keep playing the messages?"

"For fun."

"Messiahs have fun?" Jim asked skeptically.

"They do when they're Messiah Josiah."