J. Bertrand - Pattern of Wounds

“The problem,” I say, “is that Brad Templeton isn’t an expert on serial killers. He’s a writer with a nose for sensationalism. He’s also prone to hero worship, and I can see he’s moved me off the pedestal and put you on it. You talked about water being essential to the fantasy, but the real fantasy here is the one you and Brad have cooked up. You’re enabling each other.”

Cavallo pauses me with a half-raised hand. “But, March, there are some connections here.”

Et tu, Brute? When I told her I wanted an honest opinion, I never considered the possibility of her giving it while Lauterbach was on hand to smile and nod.

“If you gather enough material,” I say, speaking slowly, choosing my words, “and you look at it from enough perspectives, you’re inevitably going to find some commonality. You should know that, Cavallo. Remember that thing a few years back-the Bible Code? They put the text into a computer and discovered all these hidden messages by connecting the dots. The Bible predicted the Kennedy assassination, the Cold War, Adolf Hitler, pretty much everything. Only it turned out you can do the same thing with Dickens or whatever else you fed into the computer-probably even the phone book. You could find messages that really weren’t there.

“There’s no difference between that and this. If you strip a bunch of cases down to only the details that match, then hold them up side by side, they probably do look interrelated. But you could do the same thing with a hundred other cases, even if you had a hundred confessed murderers already behind bars. That’s what’s happening here. Donald Fauk confessed. He killed his wife. And all the similarities and parallels in the world don’t cancel that out. And besides, all of this, it forgets one thing.”

Lauterbach leans back in his chair. “What does all this forget?”

Instead of answering, I pluck the folding knife from my pocket, flipping open the blade. Slapping my hand onto the table, fully aware that what I’m about to do is deeply stupid, I stab the pattern into the wood: One, two, three. Four, five, six. One, two, three. Four, five, six. One, two, three -

“Stop it, March. Stop!”

Cavallo times her hand just right, clamping her fingers around my fist as it ascends, arresting the movement without spilling any blood. She looks at me like I’m crazy, and maybe she’s right.

“ That ,” I say, “is what the man who killed Simone did to her afterwards. Over and over. That’s the one thing you could have shown me to change my mind about your theory. But you can’t. Because it isn’t there.”

I close the knife and put it away. Both of them are stunned, both of them staring. The fresh gouges in the conference table are staring too, so I shift a stack of files to conceal them.

“I think we’re done here,” Cavallo says.

Lauterbach stands. “You are right about that.”

He follows us all the way back to the elevator, making sure I don’t have the opportunity to vandalize any more Sheriff’s Department property. Overcome by a sense of my own immaturity, I keep my eyes on the ground, not looking up until I’m in the elevator and the doors are sliding shut. Cavallo shakes her head at me like I’m a naughty schoolboy. A disappearing Lauterbach raises his hand and delivers a one-fingered salute.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12 — 7:44 P.M.

“I feel like I’m baby-sitting a spoiled brat,” Cavallo says.

Walking through drizzle under amber lights, she stays a few steps in front of me all the way down San Jacinto, throwing remarks like this over her shoulder as we go. I try closing the gap, but her anger proves to be a reservoir of strength, always keeping her a stride ahead.

“You accuse everybody else of operating with blinders on. Everybody else is twisting the evidence to fit some preconceived idea. Have you ever considered that maybe you’re the one wearing the blinders?”

“Lauterbach doesn’t have a case.”

“Not yet-but with more time he just might. Then what are you going to do? If you were smart, you’d try to make an ally of the man, just in case he’s really on to something. But your pride has to come first, doesn’t it?”

“He thinks Fauk faked the confession. He’s wrong.”

She wheels on me. “Are you sure about that? Whatever you think about Brad Templeton, I highly doubt he’d do an about-face without good reason.”

“Lauterbach is good at snowing people.”

“Or maybe what he’s saying makes sense, March. You wanted my honest opinion, so here it is. As of right now, the story he’s telling would probably be laughed out of court. I’m with you on that. But every investigation I’ve ever worked would have been laughed out of court on day one. The further he gets, the tighter the case will be. The media is already sniffing around the edges, which means-”

“Which means they’re as gullible as everyone else.”

“March,” she says with a sigh. “Talking to you is like driving nails with my bare hands. It takes too much out of me, and doesn’t do much good.”

“If you’d let me get a word in, I’ll explain why he’s wrong about everything.”

She raises her hands in surrender. “What’s the point? Convincing me won’t do any good.”

“I’d like to convince someone.”

“Is that all you want? Someone to pat you on the back and say you’re right about everything? I could do that, but then I wouldn’t be much of a friend. Or much of a cop. I’ve worked all of one homicide, so it’s not like I’m the expert. From what I know about Simone Walker’s murder, though, it sure looks like a serial killing.”

“Yes, but-”

“And you made the connection between her case and Nicole Fauk. You did. So are you gonna trust your instinct from ten years ago or trust your instinct today?”

The drive to her place consumes more silence than it does time. After she slams the door shut and dashes up the walkway to her front porch, I roll my window down for a parting wave. She disappears behind the door without turning.

Whatever I wanted from her, I didn’t get it.

My car follows a path of its own, taking turns and shifting lanes, carrying me toward home without going the full distance. I pull to a stop in the empty parking lot of a half-abandoned chain of storefronts, parking near the darkened entrance of what used to be a bar called the Paragon. On the radio they’re tallying election results, declaring Captain Hedges’s candidate the clear winner. A historic moment. I switch it off and listen to the rain.

On September 11, 2001, a woman sat at the bar inside the Paragon for hours, watching coverage of the terrorist attack on New York, downing one drink after another. When she finally left for home, she blew through a traffic light and struck the passenger side of Charlotte’s car. Since October of that year, I’ve kept coming back.

This is the trickle, the mountain spring that eventually swelled into my river of numbing pain. Tracing it back to the source has never done me any good. I still seem compelled to do it, though, to repeat the futile routine of nighttime vigils. Now that the bar has closed, one more victim of the economic downturn, I find I prefer the company. Alone at last with a swirl of blackness and no pretenses to maintain.

My phone begins to buzz. On-screen, a stack of missed calls. My cousin Tammy and, strangely, Reverend Curtis Blunt. The incoming call is from Quincy Hanford, probably looking for absolution after this morning’s disappointment, and I’m half inclined to ignore it. But I don’t.

“I have an idea about your email,” he says, almost panting over the line. “I could try explaining, but it might be easier just to show you.”