C. Lawrence - Silent victim

"Any luck?" Butts grunted as he rifled through desk drawers, which Lee thought he was doing with unnecessarily vigor.

"Not yet," he said, closing the top drawer and moving on to the middle one. There he hit pay dirt: the first tab proclaimed, PATIENT FILES, in neat capital letters. "Got it," he said, pulling a stack of manila folders from the cabinet.

"Good," Butts said, slamming closed the desk drawer.

Lee handed Butts half the folders and kept the rest. He estimated there were about forty or so, one for each patient; Perkins appeared to have quite a thriving practice. Of course, some of the folders were possibly of past patients, though he imagined someone like Perkins would create separate file drawers for past and present patients. There was no sign of a computer-another indication of Perkins's avoidance of modern technology.

Ana Watkins's file was in the stack of folders Lee kept. He started by looking at it-perhaps there was a clue hidden in it. Perkins kept impeccable notes, all handwritten. The file was organized in chronological order, with notes for each session on a separate page, all in blue ink, the handwriting obsessively neat and precise, but oddly ornate. Lee started with the most recent sessions first.

"Got anything so far?" Butts asked. "Not really. How about you?"

"Naw-just a bunch of neurotics so far; no one that looks threatening. A lotta people whining about their mothers. What are you reading?"

"I'm reading Ana's file, hoping to see some clues to who might have killed her. So far I haven't seen anything I didn't already know about her."

"Well, keep lookin'," Butts said. "I still think it's possible the UNSUB is one of his patients."

"I do, too," Lee agreed, especially now that Perkins seemed to be eliminated as the killer-or was he? "Hey," he said suddenly, "how likely it is that Perkins could still be the UNSUB?"

Butts frowned. "Doesn't that seem like too much of a coincidence? He's the killer, but then he's found murdered?"

"Yeah. I was just wondering what you thought."

"What I think is that the same guy who did Perkins did everyone else, and has got Charlotte-and if we're lucky, Krieger, too. If we're really lucky, his name is somewhere among these papers."

"Right," Lee said, and went back to perusing the patient files.

Then one file in particular caught Lee's eye. The patient's name was Eric McNamara. He was in his late twenties, worked as a chauffeur, and owned his own limousine, which he garaged somewhere in the Bronx. He also took care of an infirm and elderly father. But what really caught Lee's attention was the mention of an unnamed tragedy in his past, one that Dr. Perkins could not seem to get to the bottom of, but which, it was hinted, was something involving water. There was only one reference to gender issues. After a session two weeks ago, Perkins had written

There were plenty of other patients who had cross-dressing fantasies, but Eric was the right age and matched other aspects of the profile. Throughout Eric's file, as with most of the patients, there were mentions of a past-life identity. Here, though, Perkins was more specific, referring to a person by the name of Caleb, whose soul he believed Eric had inhabited in a previous life. The man named Caleb was a troubled spirit, and had died tragically by water-though the file wasn't specific on exactly how.

"Hey, look at this," Lee said to Butts, handing him the folder. Officer Anderson, who had been wandering aimlessly around the room, looked on with interest, like a dog waiting for a scrap of food or affection.

Butts glanced at it and handed it back at Lee. "Caleb… wasn't that one of the names on Ana's pottery receipts?"

"You're right!" Lee said. "You commented what an old-fashioned name it was."

"You think this could be the guy?"

"Look at the similarities to the profile. The age is right, there's the cross-dressing thing-and look at this." He pointed out the section where Perkins had written:

Butts looked at Lee. "Curiouser and curiouser," he said softly. "Too bad the good doctor had to die for us to find this."

Finally Officer Anderson could stand it no longer. "Find what?" he cried impatiently, twitching all over with excitement. "Did you find the killer?"

"Maybe," Lee said.

Anderson lunged eagerly across the room to have a look. In his haste, his foot caught the edge of the Persian carpet, and he tripped, falling forward.

"Hey-watch it! Don't contaminate evi-" Butts yelled, but stopped in midsentence, staring at the edge of carpet where Anderson's foot had caught. The corner of the rug had been pulled from the floor, exposing it. "Wait just a minute," Butts said as the trooper got to his feet, leaning over to straighten the carpet.

"What is it?" asked Lee.

"I dunno, but there's something funny about that floor," Butts replied.

Lee looked at the section of the floor Anderson had just exposed. The smooth pattern of floorboard was interrupted by something at that spot. He walked over to inspect it more closely. There appeared to be a small round handle, the kind you could hook your thumb through to open-a hidden compartment. He looked at Butts, who smiled.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Lee said.

"What is it?" Anderson almost yelped. "Is something hidden down there?"

"The good doctor had somethin' he didn't want anyone else to see," the detective said. He kneeled, his knees cracking like walnuts, and inserted a stubby thumb through the handle. There was a click, and the door slid smoothly open.

They all gazed down at the opening. It was a small recessed compartment underneath the floorboards, about a yard square on all sides, and a couple of feet deep. It contained a video camera, a stack of tapes, and a VCR.

"Bingo," Butts said softly.

Lee had a cold, hollow feeling in his stomach. What other secrets did the eccentric Martin Perkins keep hidden from the world-including his sister?

Butts lifted the tapes out carefully with his gloved hands. They were all neatly labeled, each with a different name on them. Two of the tapes were of particular interest: one of them said ANA, and the other CALEB.

"Well, whaddya waitin' for?" Butts scolded Officer Anderson, who stood staring at their discovery. "Plug in the video recorder so we can see these damn things!"

"Which one should we start with?" Lee said when the machine was ready to go.

"I'm really curious about this Caleb character," Butts said. "Why don't we start with him?"

Anderson hit the play button, and they gathered around the machine like teenagers at their first porn film, with a combination of excitement and uneasiness.

The camera was focused on the couch in the corner of Perkins's office. After a moment, a young man entered the frame and lay on the couch. Dr. Perkins was not in sight, but his voice came through the camera's microphone.

"Are you comfortable?"

The young man nodded.

"Good," said Perkins, and began to lead his patient through a series of imagery Lee recognized immediately as standard suggestions intended to induce hypnosis.

"He's hypnotizing the kid!" Butts whispered, as if he didn't want to disturb the other movie patrons around him. "Right, Doc?" he asked Lee.

"That's right," Lee said.

"Very well," Perkins was saying, "go ahead, let yourself go-and when you're ready, let Caleb come through."

"Jesus," Officer Anderson whispered. "This is weird."

The young man twisted and fidgeted on the couch, his eyes still closed; then he became still. He appeared to be sleeping.

"Caleb?" Dr. Perkins said. "Are you there?" "I'm here," the young man said in a firm, clear voice. His eyes were still closed.

"Do you know who I am?" Perkins asked. "You're… my father."

"Holy shit," whispered Butts. "He's got the kid involved in this whole past-lives crap."