Ed Gorman - Voodoo Moon

"Mr. Payne was with the FBI," Susan Charles said.

"I'll try not to hold that against him." He didn't even try to make a joke out of it. He had the sometimes deserved animus of most cops for the federales .

He led Tandy and Laura away.

Susan Charles said, "He doesn't talk much."

"He doesn't need to. His opinion was loud and clear."

"He's a very practical man. Doesn't go much for theoretical stuff." Then, "I wouldn't think FBI men would go much for theoretical stuff, either." I liked her euphemism for "crazy." Theoretical. Nice civilized touch.

"If you mean Tandy, there's nothing 'theoretical' about her. She helped me on two very important cases when I was still with the bureau. In both cases, she found bodies we'd been looking for for weeks."

"Wow."

"Is that a sarcastic wow?"

She laughed. "Did it sound like a sarcastic wow?"

"I wasn't sure."

"Well, it wasn't. She just shot way up in my estimation. I'm impressed-with her helping you, I mean. With this thing with Rick…she doesn't really believe there's a supernatural connection here, does she?"

"That I'm not sure about. I haven't had any time alone with her. My recollection is that she didn't go in much for anything except straight ESP powers. Back when I worked with her before, I mean. She said that she thought that the ESP 'gifts,' as she called them, could be explained scientifically. But she pretty much rejected the supernatural and things like that. I remember she said that she felt sorry for the people who got rooked into them."

"She seems to have changed her mind."

"Her sister told me that she now sees all these things as 'of a piece.'"

"I imagine that's a useful way of seeing things when you've got a TV show to do each week," she said. "So tell me more about the shooting."

I did better than that. I put the shell casing on her desk and then drew a description of the cleated boot impression I'd found. I was telling her about the angle the shooter had used when a tall blond man with actor good looks and actor arrogance knocked loudly on the frame of the open door. He wore a white silk shirt, chinos, and had a blue tennis sweater tied jauntily around his neck. He had that easy, smirking, big-lug kind of arrogance that never quite went out of style, not even when most of the men on TV were turning sensitive back in the seventies and eighties. "Excuse my interruption, folks. I'm looking for Laura and Tandy. I'm Noah Chandler. I produce their show."

"There you are!" a female voice said from down the hall.

A stocky woman in uniform khaki appeared, out of breath, next to Chandler. "You were supposed to wait for me to bring you back." She looked at Susan Charles. "I'm sorry, Chief."

"It's all right, Am."

"Sorry," Chandler said, giving us a boyish Hollywood grin. "I saw you on the phone and figured you'd be on there for a while."

"They'll be in the interrogation room," the chief said to Am.

"Well, nice to meet you." Chandler said, giving us a little salute before leaving the room. He stared openly at Susan. Irrationally enough-and to make my ninth-grade crush complete-I got jealous.

"He used to be on a TV show."

"Professional wrestling," I said.

She smiled. "No, some kind of cop show. He was a detective or something." Then, "Well, back to business."

She kept the shell casing and the sketch of the boot sole.

Her phone rang. She listened a moment and said, "Sounds bad. Just a second. Mr. Payne-"

"Please, just Robert."

"Robert, then. There's been a train derailment and I have to see to it. I was going to walk you down to the interrogation room, but I guess you can find it by yourself."

"Sure."

"Straight down to the end of the hall. Then turn left. It's right there."

"Fine."

"Thanks."

"Thank you," I said.

I left her office and started down the hall.

I was about halfway to the end of the corridor when I saw them, two unmistakable impressions made by mud and cleated shoes on the newly polished floor. Three rows of Vs. Just like the ones the shooter had left in the woods. Fresh, too.

The tracks grew faint but they led right to the interrogation room where Mr. Showbiz himself, Noah Chandler, was standing in the doorway.

He held the door for me and I walked in past him. "There's another door," he said, nodding toward the east wall. "That's where they are. I was just thinking about knocking and going in."

We walked over and he knocked. He smelled expensive. He was undoubtedly wearing a cologne whose name was something manly. Mountain Musk. Canyon Connection. Stallion Sweat. You know what I mean. He shouldn't have ogled Susan that way.

Laura said, "Come in."

There were five of them at a long, plain folding table, the kind you rent for weddings and funerals. There was an outsize cassette tape recorder on the table. Deputy Fuller sat near us, at this end of the table, by himself, his back to us. Arms folded.

I assumed that the kid with the pimple on the tip of his nose and the green sleep boogers in the corners of his green eyes and the straggly, long, unclean black hair and the black western shirt with the fancy piping and even fancier fake-pearl buttons was Rick Hennessy. I also noticed the symbol of Satan he'd had tattooed on the top of his right hand. His folks probably got it for him for Christmas.

The short, slender, older man with the Einstein white hair and the searing blue eyes I didn't recognize at all.

"This is Dr. Williams," Laura said.

"Please," the man said. "Aaron will do fine."

"Aaron, then. He's the chief psychiatrist at the Mentor Psychiatric Hospital. He's also been working with Rick for the past two years."

"Almost three years," Williams said, and smiled at Rick.

Rick yawned. "I hope this fucking thing doesn't take much longer."

Williams looked embarrassed, the way you would when your two-year-old just barfed all over the matron's lap. I'm sure the good doctor felt we judged him by the behavior of his patient. And I'm sure he was right.

"I didn't fucking kill her and I'm getting real fucking tired of repeating it," Rick said.

Williams looked up at Mr. Hollywood and me. "He's telling the truth. He really didn't kill her. I would stake my entire reputation on that. I want everybody here to understand that before we begin the interview. We don't have a murder trial here. We have a miscarriage of justice."

"How can you be so sure he's innocent, Doctor?" Laura said.

"Because I know him. I know him better than anybody's ever known him except poor Sandy."

Laura nodded.

"Twenty fucking minutes max," Rick said.

"You mean he didn't kill her because Paul Renard had possessed him," Noah Chandler said.

"No, I mean that Rick feels very guilty about Sandy's death and has convinced himself that he did kill her because of Paul Renard's possession. He wants to punish himself for her death," Williams said. "He feels that even if he didn't do it he's somehow responsible. He wasn't a very good boyfriend. If he had been, she'd be alive today. That's his reasoning subconsciously."

"Can we please get the fuck moving with this?" Rick said.

He was a charmer, all right. I hoped they didn't plan to put him on the stand. The jury wouldn't need to take a vote. They'd lynch him on the spot.

This was the tale: Nerdy boy meets beautiful girl who, for some inexplicable reason, likes him. Begins going out with him. Begins having sex with him. But nerdy boy is out of control, desperately jealous, possessive. I had a relationship like that myself in high school. I can tell you all about the inclinations of nerdy boys. You're so intimidated by the beautiful princess-you can't believe your luck any more than the other kids can---that you begin to cling. And when you begin to cling-calling too often, starting to suspect she's seeing somebody else on the side, being miserable and dysfunctional when you're apart for even an hour-she begins to withdraw. Comes to her senses, if you will. How did I ever fall in love with him ? The girl I was in love with did me the favor of moving away. Our friend Rick wasn't able to cut it off clean. Started stalking her, threatening her, harassing the boys she went out with. Grades went to hell; sulked in his dark bedroom; severe weight loss; took up drugs, including crystal meth, which had become a plague upon small, quiet, self-respecting Iowa; and happened upon an article about the infamous Paul Renard and his involvement with voodoo and Satanism. Rick starts buying books on voodoo, begins experimenting with hexing people. Drives into Chicago, a mere four hours away, and visits a paranormal shop that sells voodoo dolls and other paraphernalia. Cuts up photos of Sandy and puts faces on dolls and begins sticking them with pins. The meth is becoming a serious problem by this time. Hallucinations. Rages. More weight loss. At this point, two years ago, his parents take him to Dr. Williams's hospital. He sees Rick twice a week for two years. A People magazine stringer is in Des Moines covering the national primary and reads an article about Dr. Williams's success with his various patients, most notably Rick. Voila. A People article about this fab-fab-fabulous doctor and his prize patient Rick. Who has given up stalking his girlfriend. Who has given up his suicide attempts. And, most important, has given up his use of meth. Dr. Williams's fifteen minutes of fame has arrived. The hospital prospers, as does the doctor. Rick is clean, mentally healthy (though still seeing the good doctor twice a week), and no threat whatsoever to Sandy. Then, four months ago, it all goes to hell. All his reading about Renard floods back to him. The doctor describes these as psychotic episodes; Rick apparently believes that Renard is inside his mind, puppeteering him. Back to meth. Back to stalking. And then, at least according to the police-Rick himself so swacked on meth he can't remember-he murders Sandy. His trial is about to begin two weeks hence. The national media, especially the tabloids, are rubbing their hands. The only thing more fun than building somebody up is tearing him down. Dr. Williams has become the villain. Rick's parents had begged the doctor to put Rick in the hospital. He was spookier and more violent than ever. They were afraid of what he might do to Sandy or himself-or both of them. They had pleaded with Dr. Williams on four different occasions for their son to be committed. Dr. Williams said that he could continue to see Rick on an outpatient basis and everything would be fine. Rick was just going through a minor setback. Everything would be fine. Very soon now.