An Ill Wind
Chapter Twelve
Checking In
OOO
Parking Lot
St. Vincent's Hospital, Manhattan
11:05 A.M., November 21, 2005
"Kath, we need to go to the station before we go home," Elliot said as his wife buckled his seatbelt for him in the hospital parking lot. "I need to sign my statement."
"You've got to be kidding me," she said, looking over at him in disbelief as she put the key in the ignition.
He shook his head. "It really needs to be done now," he insisted.
The hourly news was just coming on the radio when she started the engine, and she made a face and switched to the CD player. It was one of Elliot's Tool CDs and she made another face and turned the volume down.
"Why?"
"There are a lot of reasons," he told her vaguely, hoping it would be enough.
She would have none of it. "Like what?" she demanded.
"If I wait 'til after the surgery, the defense can question it," he explained. "How do I know I remembered it rightly? Is it possible the anesthetic has affected my memory? Why did I wait so long to make a statement?"
"You made your statement the night it happened," Kathy said.
"But it doesn't become official until I sign it," he pointed out. "And, I know the odds are slim, but God forbid, if I shouldn't wake up from the anesthesia . . . "
"Elliot!"
"I'm not looking for it to happen any more than you are, Kathy!" he snapped, suddenly angry for no good reason. "But if I don't sign it, they can't use it in court. After what Muriel went through, and I couldn't help her. I was right there, Kath, and I couldn't help her! I need to know I have done everything in my power to get justice for her, and signing that statement so it can be used in court is the only thing in the world I have left that I can do for her. Please, Kath, take me to the station."
"What about yourself, El?" she asked quietly.
"What about me?"
"Don't you deserve justice, too?"
She watched his jaw twitch for a few seconds as he considered his answer. Finally he said, "I have the rest of my life to deal with what happened to me, but Casey Novak gets just one chance to put DeVane in jail for Muriel's murder. I want to make sure that she has everything she needs to nail the son of a bitch, and my statement is the only thing I have to give her."
Part of her wanted to remind him of the pictures and samples from his rape exam, of the physical evidence of his struggle that he must have left at the victim's house, but she didn't, because she knew it didn't matter. Elliot realized his statement wasn't the only thing Casey would have on DeVane, but he felt a responsibility to the victim. She had called on him for help, and he felt he had let her down. This was the only way he had of making it up to her a little; he wouldn't be able to rest until he'd done it.
"Ok," Kathy conceded, putting the car into gear. She took her cell phone from her bag and handed it to him. "Call and make sure it's been written up. There's no sense in going in if it isn't ready for you to sign."
Elliot looked at her gratefully and pressed the numbers to dial his boss and tell him what was going on.
16th Precinct
Special Victims Unit
11:15 A.M., November 21, 2005
George jumped slightly as the door slammed behind Olivia, then he sighed in relief. Giving Annie a tentative smile, he said, "I'm sorry about that. Detective Benson had to work awfully hard to get where she is now, and she resents being forced to collaborate with the men in her own squad. Then to bring me in from the FBI, well, no cop likes that, but I think the fact that I'm a man makes it even worse in her mind."
"Perhaps if I filed a complaint that would make a difference," Annie suggested.
Huang nodded and spoke in a low, nervous voice as if, for all the disdain she had showed for his work, Olivia might be listening anyway and would take exception to their discussing her behavior. "You could do that, but I'd be afraid she meant what she said about exposing your relationship with DeVane. She's . . . ruthless."
Annie's eyes went wide and she shivered slightly. Acting genuinely afraid now, she wrapped her arms protectively around herself and asked defeatedly, "So, what can I do?"
An Ill Wind
The car had stopped in the precinct parking lot, and Kathy was waiting for Elliot to make a move to get out. He, on the other hand, was holding his breath, sitting ramrod straight in his seat, and clutching the seatbelt with his good hand as if holding on for dear life.
"I can't go in there," he gasped. "Some of them must know what happened, and the others will ask. They'll all want to know how I'm doing, and I just can't talk about it."
He turned to look at his wife and repeated, "I can't go in there, Kath. I can't."
Kathy saw the panic rising in his eyes and knew she had to do something. Putting a hand on his shoulder, she locked her gaze on his and said firmly but gently, "Elliot, stop it."
"But Kath . . . "
"Just stop," she repeated, and when he fell silent, she told him, "Take a breath."
When he obeyed, she commanded, "And another . . . and another . . . Are you ok?"
Elliot nodded. He was still obviously tense, but not panicking.
"All right. Now that you're here, does it matter if you sign your statement inside the station or here in the car?"
"I . . . I suppose not, but in the station they would take me to an interview room where I could read it in private . . . " He looked at her pleadingly, and she knew what he was trying not to ask.
"I'll go for a walk," she said, "there's a coffee shop just down the street, ok?"
"Kathy, I . . . "
"It's fine Elliot," she assured him gently. "You'll tell me what you want me to know when you're ready. Until then, I just want to make sure you're doing all right."
He nodded and gave her a weak smile as she dialed the cell phone. "Thanks, Kath."
She winked back.
An Ill Wind
"These notes mentioned that you had a friend who was sexually molested," Huang said. "What was her name?"
Annie frowned. "Daisy Lane," she said shortly. "What does she have to do with Roger DeVane?"
George shrugged. "Probably nothing," he admitted, "but guys like this, if they develop an obsession, they may stalk a potential victim for years before they get the nerve to do anything. He might have known you long before you knew him."
"Are you saying you think he followed me here from DeKalb Junction?" Annie gasped in shock. "You think I brought him here to attack those girls?"
"There's no way to tell," George said in his most soothing psychiatrist's voice, "but you are our best connection to him right now. The more we know about you, the better our chances of finding him. Now, what happened to your friend when she was attacked?"
An Ill Wind
"Hey, Cap," Elliot greeted his supervisor as Don Cragen exchanged places with Kathy taking her seat in the car while she took a stroll down the street for a cup of coffee.
"Elliot, how's it going?" Cragen asked, not sure whether his detective needed him to be sympathetic or businesslike and hoping he could find a happy medium between the two.
Taking his cue from the captain, Elliot replied, "I'm hanging in there. We saw an orthopedic surgeon this morning about my hand. I'm checking into the hospital tonight and she's gonna operate early in the morning. That's why I wanted to come by and sign my statement today. Is that it?"
He indicated a manila folder in Cragen's hand, and when Don handed it over, Elliot opened it reluctantly. Cragen sat staring out the window for several minutes while Elliot read silently. He could tell from Elliot's breathing when he got to the difficult part, but he said nothing because he knew his detective wouldn't know how to respond. Stabler may have been the one injured, but this brutal attack had hurt everyone who cared about him, too.
Finally, Elliot sniffed a bit, cleared his throat, and in a froggy voice said, "Yeah, that's about right. Ya got a pen?"
Cragen handed him the engraved ballpoint he carried in his pocket. It had been a gift from his wife years ago when he'd made detective. Keeping it on him made him feel close to her even though she'd been gone for years now.
"Any additions or corrections?"
"Nah, everything's here," Elliot answered as he placed the folder on the dashboard and signed it. "Any luck finding him?"
"Olivia's interviewing one of his ex-girlfriends right now," Don said.
"Olivia!" Elliot snapped angrily. "I said I didn't want her working my case, Cap!"
"She isn't, not really," Cragen explained. "She's just doing background research on your old case file on DeVane."
"There's not a hell of a lot of to research there," Elliot grumbled. "I didn't so much catch DeVane as trip over him."
Cragen grinned. "I know, Liv and I called Alphonse in Florida, and after chewing me out for waking him up at nine in the morning, he told us the whole story."
Elliot grinned. "Let me guess, he made it sound a whole lot more heroic than just running like hell, didn't he?"
"Well, you know how Alphonse loves to tell a story." Don chose not to point out that he thought it was pretty damned heroic, too. He knew Elliot was in a fragile state and given the circumstances, complimenting his efforts could upset him as much as criticizing them might.
Elliot chuckled slightly and groaned softly as his ribs complained. "Yeah, I do. So, what did Liv find in the file?"
"A friend of DeVane's who put us on to an ex-girlfriend you never had a chance to find out about and a pattern among the victims," Don answered, grateful that Elliot was taking an interest in police work already. "It looks like he would stalk one girl for a while and as he was following her around to her different activities, he would pick out another little girl to be his next victim. Look, Elliot, do you really want to talk about this?"
Elliot shrugged. "Not really, but what if he comes after me again? What if he comes to my house? My family . . . "
When he stumbled over his words, Cragen broke in, "He's not going to come to your house, Elliot. He's done what he wants to do to you. He wants you to suffer. You can beat him just by taking care of yourself and getting better. We'll get the son of a bitch off the street, ok?"
Don knew there was a possibility that he was wrong, but right now his friend needed reassurance, not the worst-case scenario.
Elliot turned to face his captain and nodded.
"All right. Liv is doing an interview with Huang right now. Would you like to see her? Do you want me to relieve her and send her down?"
"Nah, just . . . just tell her I said thanks and I'll call her soon," he said haltingly. "And tell her I'm doing all right."
"I'll do that," Don nodded, and looking into the rearview mirror, he said, "Perfect timing. Kathy's back."
"All finished?" Kathy asked when the captain opened the door and got out of her car.
"Yep, just now," he replied.
She lifted a cup of coffee out of the cardboard tray she was carrying and handed it to him. "I don't know how you take it, so it's black," she explained.
"Even black is better than that tar Munch makes. Thank you," he grinned, shutting the door behind him, and maneuvered her towards the back of the vehicle.
Kathy frowned, and Don spoke quietly. "There's been another attack," he told her. "And he left a note for Elliot. We have reason to believe there will be several more if we don't catch him. It's made the news. I thought you should know so you can prepare him before he finds out on his own."
Kathy nodded. "Maureen saw it on channel nine yesterday morning," she said. "We've been trying to keep it from him. He hasn't noticed yet that he hasn't seen a paper or heard a news broadcast since the attack."
"Well, sooner or later, he is gonna find out," Don advised her.
"I know," she agreed. "I was hoping maybe Olivia could come out to the house and break it to him. He trusts her, and if he has any questions about the investigation, maybe she could answer them."
Don gave it some thought. Liv would need to look in on her partner soon, he was sure, and it would provide an excellent opportunity for her to do so.
"Ok, when would be a good time?"
Kathy frowned. "I'll have a better idea of that after the surgery on his hand," she said. "Let me call you tomorrow after he wakes up."
"Ok, you know my number, right?"
She smiled. "My husband's been working for you for twelve years," she said moving back toward the driver's door. "I ought to know it by now."
"Ok, I'll be waiting for your call, then."
"Thank you for being so accommodating," she replied as she opened the door and slipped into her place behind the wheel.
"I, uh, guess we'll be seeing you later," she smiled up at him.
"Ok, take care," Don replied shutting the door for her as she took another cup of coffee out of the tray and began doctoring it for Elliot. It seemed he had been dismissed now that she was back to take care of her husband. He couldn't help but smile as he headed back into the station. Kathy and Elliot might have their problems, but when it came right down to it, she was still devoted to him and would look after him no matter what.
An Ill Wind
"Ok, if you can't recall what happened to Daisy, can you remember how it affected her?" George asked. This interview wasn't going as well as he would have hoped. He knew Annie wasn't being forthright with him, but he wasn't sure whether she was holding back because talking about her friend's abuse was too distressing for her or because she had something to hide. For some reason, he thought the latter was the more likely explanation, but a gut feeling wasn't evidence and it wouldn't get him a warrant to look into her personal business to see if she had been in contact with DeVane.
Annie inspected her manicure while she answered. "She didn't have anything more to do with boys for a long, long time, I know that, but then in high school, well, I didn't see any of it, but people said she kind of went wild."
"What do you mean, wild?" George coaxed.
"Well, I know she had a lot of boyfriends," Annie explained. "It seemed like she was with a different guy every weekend. The rumor was that she liked them to do things to her."
"What kind of things?"
"Kinky stuff, tie her up, spank her. Sometimes I guess she would hook up with an older guy and get him to buy her sex toys at this adult video store in town. Do you think that's why I was an easy target for Roger, because my best friend was into that kind of stuff?"
Huang shrugged again. "What do you think?" As she had described her friend's behavior, Annie's voice had taken on a breathless, almost longing quality and he wanted to see where she would go if he gave her a little room to wander.
"Well, my mom was awfully strict, and Daisy did know so much more about that kind of stuff than I did." she admitted.
Then her voice turned hard. "I think my mother is more to blame than Daisy. I didn't know anything about anything when I came to the city. Maybe I just needed to experiment and find out for myself."
George nodded accepting her self-assessment, then he stuck his lower lip out thoughtfully. "Did you ever tell DeVane about Daisy's assault? Is there any way he could have found out?"
An Ill Wind
"Hey, Chief, was that Elliot and Kathy we saw pulling out when we drove in?" Munch asked as he approached his boss upon entering the squad room.
"Yeah," Cragen replied. "He came in to sign his statement."
"How's he doing?" Fin asked.
"About how you'd expect, I guess."
Fin nodded. "Wish I'd been here to see him," he said.
Cragen shook his head. "He wasn't up to talking to anyone. I had to take his statement down to the car for him to sign."
"Next time you speak to him, have him call me, would you?"
"If it's about a case, you should ask Liv," the captain said. "He's in no shape to think about work just yet."
Fin shook his head. "It's nothing like that," he said. "I wanted to tell him I went to Muriel Faringo's place, and I found where DeVane was hiding. There was no way Elliot would have spotted him."
Munch looked at his partner in surprise. "When did you go to the crime scene?" he asked. "You were with me all day."
Giving his little mischievous smile, Fin answered, "Yesterday when you were interviewing Mrs. Othmer and you thought I was sleeping in."
"Well, you ought to go to Saint Vincent's tonight and tell Elliot yourself," Cragen suggested before Munch could respond. "He's checking in later for an early morning surgery to fix his busted hand, and it would probably ease his mind a little to know that he didn't make any mistakes."
Fin nodded. "Yeah, I'll do that. I would have done it sooner, but I wasn't sure he was up to seeing any of us."
"He might not be," Don warned, "but I think you should try anyway. He could probably use some reassurance. Now, you're back early from your canvass. You must have found something, so give."
As he moved around to his desk, Fin cast his partner a glance. "I have some interviews to schedule with the victims' families," he said by way of excusing himself. "Munch can tell you all about Jeremy and his Mistress and what it really means to be free," he continued with a smirk.
"You only say that because you don't want to have to tell him about assaulting a store clerk who was already in restraints," Munch jibed back.
"Oh, I can't wait to hear about this," Cragen sighed as he walked away, not sounding at all enthusiastic. "In my office, John, and please tell me we're not going to be getting a visit from IAB."
They both looked after their disillusioned captain and then turned to each other and shared a smile. After a shake of his head, Munch followed Cragen, and Fin sat down at his desk to begin making his calls.
An Ill Wind
"You know," Annie said thoughtfully, "when he first started getting kinky with me, I really didn't like it. I did tell him about my friend, and he wanted all the details. I . . . I didn't tell him anything, because I didn't know, but I suppose he could have found out on his own."
"Except that in cases of child molestation, the victim's identity is kept out of the public records," George said, wondering what she would do with that information.
"DeKalb Junction is a small town," Annie reminded him. "Everybody knew about it. If he wanted the details, all he would have to do is ask around. He could pretend to be a cop or a PI investigating a similar case, and those rubes would tell him anything he wanted to know."
"But you just said you didn't have any idea what was done to Daisy, and she was your friend."
"Exactly," Annie said. "She was my friend. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to embarrass her by asking. I just wanted to be there for her, but to everybody else, it was juicy gossip."
"Ok . . . " George conceded, and tried again. It seemed every time he gave her the opportunity, Annie pounded another nail into DeVane's coffin, and he was hoping, if he nudged her just a bit at the right moment, she would smash her own thumb. "Are you sure she never said anything, maybe you overheard some of the gossip . . . "
Annie slapped the tabletop with her palms making George jump. "What does that have to do with anything?" she demanded angrily.
Placing a hand over his chest as if she had really frightened him, George took a deep calming breath and said, "Mrs. Othmer, I'm just trying to get a complete picture of DeVane's . . . perversion. On the one hand, if he thought of the things he did on his own, then this has nothing to do with Daisy, and DeVane is demented, violent, clever, and cunning. We're going to have to outsmart him to catch him. On the other hand, if he's just copying what he learned about from you or someone else who knew Daisy, he's merely perverse, impulsive, obsessive, and lacking in creativity; and before too long he will make a mistake. Then again, if your friend was his first victim and he's been stalking you all this time, he's a hell of a lot more dangerous than we ever thought.
"Believe me, Mrs. Othmer, I know these questions are awkward for you," he sympathized, "but the answers you give me are what will help us stop him. If there's anything you might have told him, I need to know."
Annie wrapped her arms around herself in a protective gesture, closed her eyes, and began rocking. Slowly, two dark, mascara-laden tears made their way down her cheeks, and finally she began to speak.
"My friend was tied up . . . raped . . . beaten with a belt," she said. "It left red marks all over her chest, stomach, and thighs. I know because . . . I . . . I was the one who found her."
As she spoke, Annie's hands had touched the body parts she mentioned. Usually George would sympathize with someone who had made such a traumatic discovery as a child, but the way Annie caressed herself repelled him. Still, partly because he had been raised to be a gentleman and partly because he wanted to appear sympathetic, he offered her his handkerchief.
"And did you tell DeVane about it?"
She nodded, dabbed at her eyes. "Yes. The first time he tied me up, I told him all about it, to . . . to explain why I couldn't do that, but with Roger, sex was all about crossing boundaries, breaking down walls. Every time we were together, he pushed me a little farther. He always told me I would never really love anyone until I could . . . stop holding back. Eventually, he was doing to me everything that had been done to my friend. I didn't like it, but I . . . couldn't stop. It was like a drug. My body craved it."
George nodded, explaining as rationally as he could, "He was mixing a complex cocktail of brain chemicals inside your head. Between the adrenaline surge caused by the fear of breaking taboos, the endorphins released to combat the pain, and of course, the sex itself, he was turning you into an addict as surely as if he had been injecting you with heroin. In fact, I'm surprised he didn't try to get you to take drugs, too."
When Annie didn't correct his last comment, he allowed her to sniffle quietly for a minute or so, and then asked casually, "How's your sex life now?"
An Ill Wind
"What did you and Cragen talk about for so long?" Elliot asked after a long silent ride in the car.
"Mostly you," she admitted without really telling him anything. "He wanted to make sure we were managing ok and wondered if we needed any help, that's all."
"What did you tell him?"
"That you were doing as well as can be expected and we'd call if we needed anything."
"It was an awfully long conversation for just that," he said.
"There are a lot of people who care about you, Elliot," she reminded him. "Some of them need a little extra reassurance. I let him know that Maureen was being a lot of help and that when I couldn't convince you to be sensible about something, she usually could."
He smiled faintly and said, "I kind of figured you two were double-teaming me."
"Only with your best interests in mind," she assured him. "So, what do you want to do with the rest of your day?" she asked as she took the Queensboro Bridge across the East River toward home. They had about six hours to kill before she took him to the hospital, and she didn't want him dwelling on what had happened or what was to come.
He shrugged, winced in pain, and said, "I dunno. Do you suppose we could take the kids out of school? Maybe go to the zoo or something?"
"Do you really feel up to spending a day at the zoo, especially as cold as it is?"
"Well, they do have some indoor exhibits, like the reptile house and the nursery," he replied defensively.
Traffic was heavy and moving slowly, so she took advantage of the circumstances to shoot him a 'you've got to be kidding me' look.
"I just want to do something with the kids," he told her plaintively.
"Well, then why don't we rent a couple of videos, take them home, make some pop corn, break out the Monopoly board, and relax at home? Would that work?"
Elliot grinned, feeling happy about something for the first time in a long while. "Yeah, that would be great."
An Ill Wind
"WHAT?" Annie's voice rose to a shriek on the one flabbergasted word and she stood up, shoving her chair back and began to pace, her fists clenched tightly at her sides.
"How dare you? Of all the . . . My relationship with my husband is none of your business! I can't see how it would have any bearing on your case!"
"Please! Mrs. Othmer," George said in a low tone as she continued her screeching complaints. "If DeVane is still interested in you, he will be interested in your husband as well. If you're doing anything together to make him jealous . . . "
She stopped in mid-rant and focused on him. "Then Randall and I are in danger, too."
George nodded reluctantly. "Anything is possible."
She moved back to the table and sat down across from the psychiatrist again. She straightened her clothes, smoothed her hair, twisted her wedding ring nervously, and cleared her throat. Her behavior made George think of an Opera diva preparing to go on stage before for her big aria.
"Randall isn't exactly . . . a wild man, if you know what I mean. In fact, I would have to say he is a bit . . . dull."
She leaned forward, folding her arms on the table in front of her, and all of her reluctance to talk melted away with the opportunity to complain about her husband.
"Straight missionary sex gets the job done, I suppose, but I usually find myself lying awake for hours after Randall has fallen asleep. Whoever said, 'Always leave them wanting more,' couldn't have held his wife or her needs in very high regard."
George raised an eyebrow. "So, what do you do for . . . excitement?"
Annie grinned. "What do you mean?" she asked innocently, batting her eyes at the psychiatrist.
George gave her his friendliest smile in return. "Well, an attractive, obviously healthy woman like you usually requires a certain level of . . . " He twitched his eyebrows suggestively. " . . . stimulation."
Annie's eyes began to sparkle and she got a dreamy look on her face. "I have a few . . . associates who share my interests," she said. "We get together every so often."
"Your husband must be very open-minded to let you satisfy your needs elsewhere," George said admiringly.
Annie snorted derisively. "I come home with fresh highlights, a manicure and a pedicure, and a new tube of lipstick and tell him I spent the weekend at a spa," she explained.
"And he never notices that it doesn't appear on the credit card statement?"
"Oh, I go to the spa," she said, "but they don't itemize, and Randall has no idea the cost of things. So, between the two-hundred-dollar hairstyle, the eighty-dollar manicure and pedicure, and maybe a mudpack or a sweat in the sauna, he doesn't know any better."
"Doesn't it bother you to be living a secret life behind your husband's back?" George was careful to sound merely inquisitive and not at all accusatory.
"Oh, I'm very discrete," she told him.
"Even so," George said delicately, "don't you feel like you're betraying his trust?"
"I love my husband, Agent Huang," Annie said as if any idiot could see that, "and I keep my recreational outings a secret because I want to protect him."
George raised his eyebrows questioningly, and that was enough to compel her to explain more.
"I've been a good wife," she insisted, "joining all the right philanthropic organizations and charities, playing tennis and bridge with the right people, throwing the most spectacular parties and fundraising balls. I deserve some kind of pleasure for myself, but poor Randall has never been able to satisfy me. He would just be crushed to know that I've been faking all these years, so once or twice a month, I spend a weekend with a man who isn't squeamish about doing what it takes to get me where I want to be, and I let my husband think he's the best I've ever had."
George leered slightly, letting her think he was getting into the spirit of the discussion. "How do you keep him from seeing the marks?"
"Oh, they fade in a day or two," she said. "I never take an inexperienced partner. Until then, I just tell him I'm suffering from jet-lag or PMS and don't really feel in the mood. One time, he wouldn't give up, so when he saw the marks, I told him I'd had a full body wrap at the spa and they'd wound the fabric too tight."
"And he believed you?" George asked in his best gossipy tone.
"Randall is a very trusting soul," Annie replied with condescending affection. "I doubt he has the imagination to be suspicious."
George smiled at her once more, and he hoped she didn't see how much she repulsed him.
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
301 Park Ave., Manhattan
4:35 P.M., November 21, 2005
"I really appreciate your taking the time to speak to me, Mrs. Fonatine," Fin said as he entered the living area of the hotel suite where Sheila Gardener's mother was staying late that afternoon. "I know this is not a convenient time, and I'm very sorry for your loss."
"Detective, I'm grateful to have you working the case," Evelyn Fontaine said in a surprisingly deep voice as she moved into the kitchenette and returned with a laden coffee tray. "Consider me at your disposal any time you need me. Now, do you have any leads on my daughter's killer?"
Fin frowned and wished his partner was with him as she proceeded to fill a cup with steaming coffee and handed it to him so he could doctor it to his preference. He didn't mind calling victim's families to schedule meetings, but he was never all that comfortable dealing with them face to face, and John, with his clean-cut appearance and undertaker's suits, was much better at projecting an image of sympathetic dependability. The fact that this wasn't the grieving mother he had expected actually made things worse, not better, and he was a little worried that Mrs. Fontaine might suddenly fall apart before he could get answers to all of his questions.
Not wanting to jeopardize the interview, he put his concerns to the back of his mind, deciding to save his questions about the woman's emotional state until the end.
"We have a pretty good idea who did it," he said stirring cream and lots of sugar into his cup. It seemed Mrs. Fontaine liked her coffee strong. Fin suspected that if he poked the spoon into it and let go, it would stand up by itself, like a stick in the mud, and that made him think of his partner again. "What we don't know is exactly how he picked your daughter."
"So, you're looking to me to fill in the blanks in her social life," Evelyn said, sticking a Virginia Slim in the corner of her mouth and lighting it with a match from one of the hotel's complimentary matchbooks. She took a deep drag on her cigarette, which explained her unnaturally deep voice, and courteously blew the smoke out away from Fin and in the direction of the ventilation air intake so it wouldn't circulate around the room so much. She took another puff and her next words came out on a stream of blue tobacco smoke.
"I don't really know how much help I can be, Detective," she said in a tone which led Fin to wonder if the woman had dealt with the police in a professional capacity at one time. "My daughter and I have always been close, but since I retired to Florida with her step-father three years ago, we haven't seen much of each other, just the usual holidays and a week or two in the summer."
"Actually, ma'am, the information we need from you probably isn't all that recent."
Evelyn said nothing but sucked on her cigarette, blew the smoke out of the corner of her mouth and raised her eyebrows inquiringly. Feeling a bit off balance again, Fin took her expression as a request to continue.
"You see, your daughter's attack matches the MO of a guy one of our detectives put away about twelve years ago, except that he was assaulting little girls back then. We think he had a list of targets, and once he got out he just picked up where he left off. He started with the girl that our detective rescued and . . ."
"And my daughter was just the next name on his hit list, is that right?" The tone of the question, the way her voice dropped in volume, was the first sign that she really had felt the loss of her child.
"Yes, ma'am," Fin said compassionately.
She shook out another cigarette, lit it from the burning end of the first one, which was already down almost to the filter, and then stubbed the old one out. Crossing the room to the windows, which offered a spectacular view of Manhattan, she blew another lungful of blue smoke and asked, "How did the bastard get parole?"
Fin knew the question was rhetorical, but he answered it anyway. "Actually, it was compassionate release," Fin said. "He has a terminal illness, and, as a reward for his good behavior, was supposed to be allowed to die in a half-way house where he could be surrounded by his friends and family. Unfortunately, he wasn't as ill as the parole board seemed to think he was. I know it doesn't ease the pain of losing your daughter, but if you can help me, maybe we can stop him before he attacks again."
An Ill Wind
George opened the folder and spread the photos of the victims out for Annie to see.
"Do you recognize any of these girls, Annie?" he asked as gently as he could, for despite the way she was deceiving her husband, she was still playing the victim where DeVane was concerned and would expect his sympathy.
She studied the photographs for a long while. There were seven of them, including one of Muriel Faringo as a child. George had left out the new pictures of Muriel's body and Sheila and Ralph Gardener because he wanted to see how she reacted to the images of the molested girls first.
"These . . . these are the girls Roger . . . hurt, aren't they?"
"Yes," George told her. "Do you remember any of them? From before he was arrested, I mean."
She barely glanced at the photo of Muriel Faringo, fully clothed and looking rather bewildered immediately after her rescue, but her gaze lingered on each of the other little girls, all of them looking battered and frightened, clad only in a children's hospital gown which was opened to the waist to reveal the marks left by DeVane's beating. Her eyes widened, her pupils dilated, and when her tongue came out to moisten her lips, George knew he wasn't just dealing with a woman who hid a few sexual kinks from her straight-laced husband. Annelle O'Keefe Othmer was a deeply disturbed individual, and George felt the thrill of the chase as he became suddenly determined to discover what had made her that way and what role she played in DeVane's perverse fantasies. He still wasn't convinced that she had known about the assaults when they happened, but he didn't doubt that she had eaten up every detail once she'd found out.
Annie sighed, straightened up in her chair, and pushed the pictures away. "I, um . . . I don't know that I've seen any of them before in my life. Maybe they came into Lenny's Tavern with their families when I was working there, but that was twelve years ago. I don't know how you think I would ever recognize them now."
She stacked the pictures together, turned them face down. "I understand he's raped and murdered four people since he's been out of prison," she said almost eagerly. "If he's stalking me like you seem to think, maybe I know some of them."
George wasn't squeamish, one couldn't afford it in his line of work, but Annie's attitude was making him slightly ill. He turned over the pictures of Muriel Faringo and Sheila and Ralph Gardener, but, for no logical reason that he could discern, he held onto the pictures of Elliot from the rape kit. He would have questioned the motivation behind such behavior in one of his colleagues, but he told himself that he just didn't want his friend sullied in any way by this perverted woman.
"Oh, my, he's going after men." Her comment, muttered mostly to herself seemed to Huang to have a tone of admiration.
"You only gave me three pictures," she said irritably. "Where's the fourth?"
"We're protecting that individual's identity for a reason," George replied facilely. Annie raised an eyebrow, and he elaborated, "Let's just say that, were we to release his identity, the resulting media attention would complicate the case without generating any useful leads."
"I see," she said, sounding annoyed. "Well, I don't know any of these people, so, what's next?"
George looked through his list of topics and questions. It seemed he had covered all of them, though some of her answers had raised more questions that he would have to look into before he interviewed her again. Checking things off as he read down the page, he finally said, "I think we're done, at least for now. Do you have a . . . private number you would like us to call if we need to reach you again?"
Annie smiled at him and using his pen, jotted a telephone number on the sheet of paper he slid across the table to her.
An Ill Wind
"I need to know what kinds of things your daughter did twelve years ago, extracurricular activities, lessons, stuff like that."
Evelyn nodded, reached for the phone on the end table beside the sofa and dialed a long distance number. Feeling a bit nonplussed, Fin waited quietly. Her actions hadn't seemed particularly rude, but somehow, it seemed as if he had been suddenly dismissed. Abruptly, he realized she was acting just as he did back in the squad room when the captain instructed him to locate some piece of information. There was never any need to go into detail about what he was doing, because the captain trusted him to do what he was told. He just got on the computer or on the phone and found out whatever Cragen wanted to know. Again, he wondered about Mrs. Fonatine's background, but not for long, because the party at the other end of the call picked up before he had much chance to speculate.
"Ron? Hi honey . . . Ok, considering . . . I'm with the detective investigating the case right now. He wants to know about the things Sheila did when she was a kid . . . Because he thinks the guy who did it is someone they put away twelve years ago, look, can we talk about this later? Right now I need to answer the detective's questions and I need your help . . . Can you get Sheila's memory book out of my office?"
Apparently her husband had put the phone down because she looked at Fin and said, "I don't want to forget anything, so I'm going to have him go through her memory book. Everything she did as a kid is in there."
Fin nodded and again wondered at the woman's presence of mind. She should have been a wreck, but she was acting like a professional investigator.
"Twelve years ago, right?" she inquired softly.
"Yeah, maybe even thirteen," Fin told her.
"I know she was a beautiful baby, Ron," she said soothingly into the phone as she nodded to Fin, "but we don't need to go that far back . . . Start with middle school . . . She would have been, oh, eleven then . . ."
Evelyn snapped her fingers at Fin and indicated the notebook that was resting on his knee and made writing motions. Getting the impression that she was used to commanding people, he tore a few sheets loose and handed them to her along with his pen.
"Ok, Ron, I remember band, choir, dance, and Girl Scouts. What else did she do back then?"
For the next twenty minutes or so, Fin sat idly sipping coffee while Evelyn Fontaine expertly questioned her husband about Sheila's childhood activities. He interjected a question every now and then just to keep from feeling superfluous and to remind himself that he was the cop and she was the bereaved mother.
"Ok, thank you, Honey. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Ask him to bring the memory book and any other scrapbooks you might have of Sheila from that time," Fin said before she hung up.
Evelyn relayed the request and then hung up the phone. "I can't remember the names of all the organizations or where some of her sports and clubs met, but most of them are still probably in my address book. I'll get a list for you by the end of the day. What else do you need?"
Fin took the pictures of the child victims out of his folder and felt grateful that each of the parents had provided school pictures twelve years ago. He knew Huang was using the hospital photos in his interview with DeVane's old girlfriend to see how she responded, but he didn't want to plant those images in the head of a grieving mother.
"I need you to look at these pictures and tell me if you recognize any of these girls. We believe they were all attacked by the same man who killed your daughter, and they're all about her age now."
Evelyn took the pictures and frowned at the first one. Hastily, she flipped to the next one, and then the next. "Oh, my God!"
"What is it?"
"These girls are all from the Saturday School!"
"Saturday School? We don't have any record of anything like that."
"You wouldn't," Evelyn said. "It was a program for girls at a new community center a few blocks from P.S. 1 Contemporary Arts Center just off of Queens Boulevard. It offered all kinds of programs, ceramics, music, modern dance, poetry. Sheila was particularly excited about the young writer's workshop co-sponsored by Barnard College's MFA program. We met once, and then it burned to the ground that Wednesday. They rebuilt the center, but by then, Sheila was involved in other things."
"If you only met once, how can you possibly remember these faces?" Fin asked.
"I made the name badges on my computer," Evelyn explained. "I was the only parent with enough computer savvy and the right equipment to do it. Each child had a photo ID she was supposed to pin to her top. It said, 'Hello! My name is . . . ' I filled in all the names, attached the photos, and printed them out."
She laid out the eight-by-tens one at a time, like a card shark laying out a poker hand, and said, "This is Suzie, and Kelly, and Sam, Elise, Karen, Ceci, and Muriel."
Feeling the excitement that always came with an important break in a case, Fin asked in amazement, "How can you recall those names after all this time?"
Smiling, Evelyn told him, "I have a photographic memory, Detective. Show me something, anything, and if I have seen it before, I can fill in the blanks for you. I'm sure I still have all of the names and photos. I just transferred them all to a flash drive a few weeks ago. It's in my office in Florida. Give me an e-mail address and I can have my husband send them to you along with whatever contact information we had back then."
Room 417
St. Vincent's Hospital, Manhattan
6:45 P.M., November 21, 2005
"What's that?" Elliot asked nervously as the nurse injected something into his IV line. They had started him on fluids the night before his surgery, and he could tell by the way he was feeling that they were also giving him something for pain.
"It's just Compazine," she told him. "Same stuff that's in the tablets you take for nausea. I'm starting it a little early in the hopes that your Combivir won't make you so sick when you take it at seven."
"Oh, uh, ok."
Dickie happened to be sitting in the chair on the right side of the bed and he took his dad's good hand in his own. "Don't be scared about the operation, Dad," he said. "You'll just fall asleep, and when you wake up, the pain will be gone."
He looked down at his son and managed not to laugh at the somber face. "Oh, yeah?"
"That's what you told me when I had my appendectomy."
"Was it true?" Elliot asked seriously.
"Mostly. The stitches were sore for a while, but that's all."
Elliot squeezed Dickie's hand and said, "Thanks, Son."
Dickie nodded and brought his other hand up to pat his dad's in a gesture that was so grown up that Elliot had to wonder where the hell he had been all of the boy's life. Not wanting to upset his children, he swallowed hard to keep the tears at bay. He knew they would be misread as anxiety, and didn't want to have to explain that they were really caused by regret.
An Ill Wind
Fin re-read his notes, marking things he knew he would have to check into further before he could take any action. Finally satisfied that he had all the information he needed at the moment, he looked at Evelyn Fontaine and smiled.
"Thank you for your time," he said, "you've been very helpful."
Smiling back, she replied, "I'm glad I could help you, and thank you for everything you are doing to find my daughter's killer."
Fin felt it again, that frisson that told him something was off kilter here. "Mrs. Fontaine," he said hesitantly, "I don't want to offend you, but . . . "
When he hesitated, she nudged him, "Yes?"
"Please understand, I'm not saying your behavior is suspicious, but, it's not what I would expect from a woman who has just lost her only child."
"Oh, I had a good cry before you got here," she told him.
"Even so, I'm still a little concerned about the way you're acting," Fin said, trying to get an explanation of her odd demeanor without sounding like he was accusing her of not caring that her daughter had been brutally murdered. He took out his wallet and fished out a business card, not his own, which he handed to her.
"You should consider calling Victims' Services," he said. "They can put you in touch with a grief counselor."
Evelyn accepted the card graciously. "I appreciate your concern and your sympathy, Detective, but I am grieving my daughter. I'm just saving my tears for the funeral."
"I see," Fin replied dubiously. "Call them anyhow," he persisted. "In my experience, for most people, having such a tight control on your emotions can only take you bad places."
"I am not most people," Evelyn pointed out. "I had a career that required me to control my emotions before I became a wife and mother."
At Fin's quizzically raised eyebrow, she said, "Officially, I was just a secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, and I got out before they started taking hostages. It was, quite literally, a do-or-die proposition for me."
Fin nodded, smiling, not sure he understood, and not sure he wanted to. He was grateful now that Munch wasn't with him. "All right, Mrs. Fontaine. I'll be looking for those e-mails."
"They'll be waiting in your in box before you get back to your station, Detective," she said, walking him to the door. "I'll do anything I can to help you catch my daughter's killer; but I want you to know, if for some reason you can't get the son of a bitch, I have friends who will. They will have no reservations about giving him the slow and painful death he deserves, and you'd never be able to build a case against them for it."
Fin felt his spine stiffen. He was a good cop who worked hard at his job, but every case always had the potential to be won or lost on a technicality. "Yes, ma'am. I understand."
As he walked down the hall, Fin took a few deep breaths. His next stop was Saint Vincent's. He wasn't sure how he would be received, but he knew the captain was right. Elliot needed to hear his news tonight, before going into surgery. A person's state of mind had a lot to do with how they fared in the hospital, and if he could relieve Elliot's burden of guilt, it could speed his recovery significantly.
An Ill Wind
"Bye, Dad, see you in the morning."
Elliot pulled all four of his kids into a group hug and said, "Love you guys."
He kissed each of them on the head before letting them go, and as they walked out of the room, he said, "Remember, Maureen is in charge until Mom gets home."
Dickie, Lizze, and Kathleen grumbled an acknowledgement, and after giving her dad a conspiratorial wink and blowing her parents a kiss, Maureen followed them out.
"Thanks," Elliot smiled up at his wife.
"For what?"
"For letting me spend the day with the kids. Do you think it freaked them out too much, pulling them out of school like that to go home and watch movies?"
Kathy shrugged. "I don't think so. When they look back on it a few years from now, they will probably realize that their dad was in a very vulnerable state and needed the comfort of his family around him, but today, I think they were just excited to get out of school early."
"Ok, I'll take your word for it, but promise me that you'll make them go back tomorrow once I am out of surgery."
"Are you kidding? I need a day to clean the house before Thanksgiving. As soon as you're conscious, I'm making Maureen take them to school. When they release you, we're going home, and you're gonna sit there and watch TV while I get some housework done."
Before Elliot could defend his housekeeping skills, there was a knock at the door and a familiar face peeked in.
"Fin?" Elliot frowned looking a little puzzled and extremely uncomfortable. "Wh- What are you doing here?"
"Cragen told me you were checking in for surgery in the morning and suggested I stop by."
Narrowing his eyes, Elliot asked suspiciously, "Why?"
"I was at the crime scene yesterday . . . "
"No!" Elliot snapped. "I don't want to talk about it. Not tonight and not in front of my wife."
"Look, I just want to tell you . . . " Fin tried again. This wasn't going well.
"I said no!" Elliot almost shouted. "Now shut up and get out!"
"Elliot!" Kathy gasped, but as the two men got into it, she knew her voice wouldn't be heard, so she just moved quietly to the window and watched, determined to get Detective Tutuola out of the room if things got too intense.
Fin, on the other hand, was just as determined to deliver his message. "You didn't screw up."
Elliot was prepared to shout him down again, but he narrowed his eyes instead and growled viciously, "A woman is dead, Fin! She was murdered not ten feet away from me. Just how the hell did I not screw up?"
"He was waiting for you, Elliot," Fin explained calmly. "I found his hiding place. There was no way you would have seen him. Nobody who followed procedure would have."
"You did," Elliot pointed out.
"I had an hour to look around, and there wasn't a woman needing help right in front of me," Fin reminded him.
Elliot laughed sarcastically. "A lot of help I was to her."
"Let yourself off the hook, man, you did your best," Fin said compassionately.
"It wasn't enough. I'm a cop, damn it," Elliot's voice broke on the word cop, but he was too upset and angry with himself to notice, so he just plowed on ahead. "My job is to protect people. Muriel Faringo is dead, and it's my fault. I failed. I screwed up. I let her down."
Fin could see a complicated mix of emotions on his friend's face and hear it in his voice. Elliot was angry and tearful, close to panicking and spoiling for a fight. Things were not going at all as planned. He had hoped to give the other detective some peace of mind that he had done things right even though they had gone horribly wrong, but as far as he could tell, he was only making Elliot more upset and agitated. He had to do something fast to control the situation. Since he was more comfortable dealing with a pissed off Elliot than a weepy and fearful one, he opted for a confrontational attitude hoping the other detective would rise to his bait.
"You know what the hell your problem is?" Fin said antagonistically as he stepped closer to the bed so that Elliot had to look up at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kathy moving towards him, but he backed her off with a glance.
Kathy stayed by the window wringing her hands. This was the most spirit she'd seen from her husband since she'd come to sit with him the night of the attack. She wasn't sure if it was good or bad for him, but she knew Elliot trusted this man with his life, had counted on him for advice and back up on undercover assignments, and for some reason, she trusted that Fin knew what he was doing now.
"What's my problem?" Elliot asked in a challenging tone, tilting his chin up defiantly, almost daring Fin to bring it on.
"Your problem is you think bein' a cop make you freakin' Superman, but it don't. Bad as you wanna be, you still just a white boy from Queens!"
"Oh, yeah?"
"Ohhhh, yeah. An' I'm still just a nigga from the hood, an' sometimes, no matter what we do, it ain't enough. Bein' cops don't make us invincible. Sometimes, we can do everything right, an' the bad guy still wins.
"I'd a done just what you did, Elliot," he said, "an' you ain't no better 'n me, so stop actin' like you think you shoulda done more. The cap'n played your statement for me an' Munch."
He looked from Elliot to Kathy and knew not to say anything more about that.
"You followed procedure. You did everything right. You did everything you could. It just wasn't enough. You ain't responsible for every bad scene you can't fix, Elliot. Some things, no body can make right. Muriel Faringo died 'cause Roger DeVane is a evil son of a bitch, not 'cause you screwed up."
Fin placed a hand gently on his colleague's arm and slipped out of the street vernacular as easily as he had slipped into it. Talking tough, and being able to do so convincingly, was a convenient way to make himself heard among his white, middle class colleagues, but once he'd made his point it was time to go back to his professional language so they could relate to him again and really connect with what he was saying.
"You did your job, Elliot," he said compassionately, "and you did it the right way, so stop thinking you're a better cop than the rest of us, because you're not. Any of us could have been there, and she would have died anyway. I know it's not exactly good news, but you can stop blaming yourself."
Fin could tell the other detective had heard him. Elliot was still angry, but he had heard him. He gave him a pat on the arm and a squeeze on the shoulder, nodded at Kathy, and walked away.
"Fin?"
He stopped at the door when Elliot called his name.
"Yeah?"
"I don't think I'm a better cop than you."
Fin turned and said, "Then stop expecting so much more of yourself."
Elliot pressed his lips into a firm, determined line and nodded slowly. Meeting his colleague's eyes, he said, "Thanks for coming by."
Fin nodded once, and then he was gone.