David Jackson - The Helper

‘No. That’s not right.’ But she has wounded his confidence. Of course there’s a link. The victims were all killed by the same man. But what if that’s all there is to it? What if there’s no rhyme or reason? What if the victims were selected purely on the basis of a pin stuck in a telephone directory?

No, he thinks. I refuse to believe that. There has to be something, and maybe Anna Friedrich is the only person who can tell me what it is.

‘I think you should go now,’ she says, and once more she gets to her feet.

‘Just give me a few more minutes of your time. Please. I just have one or two more questions.’

‘What about?’

‘About your marriage to Dr Vasey. About why you split up.’

‘Are you serious? You really expect me to start talking about highly personal stuff like my marriage breakdown on the basis of your gut feeling? Forget it, Detective. You’re asking too much. I can’t help you. Now if you don’t mind. .’

She puts her arm out, gesturing to the door, requesting him to leave.

He gets up, but instead of heading for the door he moves directly to Friedrich and looks her in the eye.

‘I am not wrong. He is out there. He has killed several times already and he will kill again. Look at what’s happened. Ask yourself why the city has recently seen a number of unsolved, apparently motiveless murders. Ask yourself why the police don’t seem to have made any progress on catching your husband’s killer. Could it be because they’re looking in the wrong places? Could it be because maybe I’m right about this? And if I have it ass backwards, so what? What harm could it do to answer a couple of lousy questions? Indulge me. Lunatic that I seem, let me have what I want so that you can get me out of your hair. Please.’

She maintains the eye contact, reading him. He lets her in. Lets her see that this isn’t some bullshit game he’s playing.

She glides away and sits down.

‘Take a seat, Detective. What do you want to know?’

He accepts the invitation without hesitation, in case she changes her mind.

‘Your marriage to Dr Vasey didn’t work out. I’m not asking for all the details, but can you give me a rough idea of what went wrong?’

‘Nothing dramatic, if that’s what you’re wondering. No third party or anything like that. We were just too wrapped up in our careers. Both ambitious. Both wanting to succeed. Neither of us had any time for the other. It wasn’t really a marriage.’

‘So you dissolved it. Was that by mutual consent?’

‘Not really.’

‘So whose idea was it? Yours?’

‘One of us had to do it. We couldn’t have carried on as we were.’

‘How did Andrew take it?’

‘Hard.’

‘He was devastated?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far. He was upset. But he was still in control. It didn’t stand in the way of his work.’

‘Are you sure? I mean, could he have been worse than he seemed?’

‘No. If anything, he seemed worse than he was.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Andrew had a flair for melodrama. He liked to throw tantrums. He turned on emotions like a tap when it suited him. I knew him well enough to tell when it was real and when it was phony.’

‘So you don’t think he was as badly affected by your split-up as he claimed?’

‘No, I don’t believe he was. I think he had already accepted we were doomed as a couple. I just don’t think he liked the idea of me calling the shots.’

Shit, thinks Doyle. This doesn’t fit. Square pegs and round holes.

‘Then you don’t think he would have needed to seek counseling?’

Her eyebrows shoot up. A pair of arrowheads aimed at the sky. ‘Detective, have you forgotten what Andrew did for a living?’

‘Yeah, I know, but don’t shrinks see other shrinks when their heads are messed up? Or do they just do it themselves?’

She laughs. ‘You know, I’m not sure about that one. What I do know is that Andrew would never have consulted another therapist. He was too concerned about his reputation ever to consider such a thing.’

Damn.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Thank you. I appreciate your honesty.’

He stands up, ready to leave now.

‘You didn’t get what you wanted to hear, did you?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘I’m sorry. Maybe. . well, maybe it’s telling you something.’

‘Yeah. Maybe.’

He takes the long walk to the door.

She catches up with him. Says, ‘This means a lot to you, doesn’t it?’

‘You don’t know how much.’

‘Then I wish you luck.’

He nods. And then he leaves, wishing he could rely a little less on luck and a lot more on certainty.

A song by the Black Eyed Peas comes on the car radio. Doyle turns it up and hums along.

He’s parked on West 13th Street. Travis Repp lives on the first floor of a three-story apartment building. The stoop of the building is separated from the sidewalk by a gated fence that encloses a small, well-kept garden containing lots of shrubs. Doyle got the address from a copy of Repp’s application for a private investigator’s license.

He checks the clock on the dash. Six-thirty. An hour and a half before the killer is due to strike, but Doyle is taking no chances. He wants to see everyone who enters and leaves that building from now on. Hell, he wants to check out anyone who so much as glances at that building. He’s gonna catch this son of a bitch.

He’s going to catch him here because Repp is the next victim.

We know that, don’t we, Doyle?

Don’t we?

The name of the band is Travis. The killer talked about people who are distractions or irritants. Well, there’s no bigger irritant than Travis Repp. Who else could it be?

But on the other hand. .

Doesn’t it seem just a little bit too easy?

The caller knew that Doyle would check out the song. He knew that Doyle had failed to do so properly before, and that it had cost a life, so there was no doubt that he would check it out fully this time.

So why would he make it so easy?

And this idea of psychologists linking all the victims together. Isn’t it just a little bit tenuous? They all saw a shrink. All except Vasey, who, it seems, didn’t consult a shrink. But he is one, so that’s okay. That ties it all up in a nice pink bow.

Yeah, like hell it does. For one thing, what about Repp? Did he ever have a need for therapy?

Doyle doesn’t know the answer. He knows next to nothing about Repp, let alone why he’s been selected as the killer’s next target.

A car slows as it passes Doyle, then pulls into the curb just outside Repp’s building. Doyle sinks down low in his seat and watches as the driver gets out. It’s Travis Repp. He doesn’t even glance in Doyle’s direction. Just goes straight into his building and closes the door.

‘It’s okay, man,’ Doyle mutters. ‘I’m watching your back. Scumbag that you are, I’m gonna keep you alive.’

A song from the cast of Glee comes on the radio. Doyle turns it right down again.

Almost seven-forty. Doyle is getting antsy. The only sign of anything possibly happening was half an hour ago when another car pulled up in front of Repp’s, and a suited guy got out and pushed through the iron gate. But he was quickly joined by the car’s passenger — a woman who was yelling after her partner — and it became clear to Doyle that they were just a bickering couple who lived in the same building. Since that brief flurry of excitement, nobody has ventured anywhere near Repp’s place. Nobody has given it the once-over. Nobody has pulled up in a car and sat there waiting. Other than Doyle himself, that is — a fact which is starting to make him distinctly uncomfortable.