Ridley Pearson - Beyond Recognition

Casterstein had penetrating eyes and a firm handshake. He introduced himself as Howie and said immediately, “If the body you found was Melissa Heifitz-the owner, as we believe will prove to be the case-then the match violated an act of interstate commerce by torching the place. Heifitz made huckleberry jam and did catalog mailings out of her house; that qualifies as interstate commerce. It allows us in, no problemo . I’m here strictly as a chemist. I mean no invasion of your investigation whatsoever, Sergeant. Just so we’re clear on that. Let the desk jockeys fight it out over who’s running the show-not for this boy to hassle with.” He added, “One of your arson dicks, a guy named Bahan, contacted us concerning the Enwright evidence. Your lab up here wasn’t picking up hydrocarbons in the samples. We didn’t pick them up either, so when we got a whiff of this one on the wire last night my boss sends me up as a solo NRT man-National Response Team.” Boldt couldn’t get a word in edgewise. “The NRT is for Podunk towns that don’t have fire investigation units, or for massive hits like Oklahoma City. We can be on any fire, anywhere in the country, in twenty-four hours or less. That’s me. That’s my story. What can you tell me?”

Boldt wasn’t sure where to start. “I’m Homicide,” he said.

“I know who you are,” Casterstein said, perfecting the art of compliments. “Me and a couple of the boys attended that talk in Portland a few years ago. The thing about the victim. It was good work.”

“Oh, yeah, ‘the thing about the victim,’” Boldt muttered, offended. Off to a bad start. He attempted to clarify. “You’re here as a chemist or a spy? At what point do you boys move in and take over?”

Howard-call me Howie-Casterstein grinned artificially. “It’s not like that. Bahan wants our lab involved. We’ve got the neat toys,” he said. “That’s all it is, Sergeant, nothing more.”

For now, Boldt was thinking. Trying for a new start, he said, “Well, we need all the help we can get. If Melissa Heifitz was in that fire, we’ve got two homicides and precious little evidence. Anything you can supply is greatly appreciated.” How did the Feds know the victim’s name before he, the investigating officer, did? He felt humiliated. “And if she’s single, we have a city of terrified women on our hands. The press is making this front-page.”

“So we get to work,” he said, holding up a pair of shiny metal paint cans used to collect fire evidence. “This match of yours has us puzzled. And by God, Sergeant, that’s something we just won’t tolerate.” He turned toward the burned-out structure. “If you’d care to join me, I’d appreciate the company. These road trips suck.”

Lou Boldt followed in step, ready to learn something. Howie Casterstein had that look about him.

Boldt spoke loudly enough to be heard over the whine of a passing motorcycle. “If you value your shoes,” he warned, “I wouldn’t go in there.”

Daphne Matthews danced with the devil. It was the same devil, nothing new. And though all her training, all her experience in the field of psychology, told her that to share it with another living person might exorcise it, might help purge it from her memory bank, she had never allowed it to come to that. To speak of it was to risk the fear of bringing it to life; being haunted by it was altogether different-controllable, in a strange uncontrollable way. Subconscious versus conscious. Dream versus reality. At all costs, she would never allow it to come back to life. She could not afford it. And so it went unmentioned. And so it ate into her at times like this, wormed into her like a bug trapped inside her ear and turning toward darkness instead of light. She lived with this darkness. She had even come to believe she had tamed it, which wasn’t true and was probably the most dangerous lie that she told herself. Her conviction remained in living with it rather than confronting it. The hypocrisy of her position was not lost on her; she was not that far gone. But there were times like this when she realized she was close.

When the devil possessed her, all else was lost. Gaps in time. Sometimes minutes, sometimes half an hour or more: a form of short-term amnesia, where she sat in a trancelike state. One day of her life, eleven years earlier, and still it managed to overcome her at times, force her to relive each dreadful, terrifying minute.

The images came to her in black-and-white, which she had never figured out. Snapshots, but with blurred motion to them: the gloved hand-the smell of him! — the pain as she was shoved into the car’s trunk…. At times vividly clear, at times disjointed and hard for her to see. Like flipping through the pages of a photo album too quickly.

Perhaps it was the privacy of her knowledge that prevented her from sharing it. Perhaps it was that no one, not even Owen Adler, was that close to her. Or perhaps she didn’t want to give it up. This thought concerned her most of all. Why hold on to such a thing? Why protect the horror? What sickness accounted for such behavior?

She caught him out of the corner of her eye. She protected her feelings for him as well. No one knew. It was their secret. Theirs to share, but never with others. And who had such answers? Who could possibly understand? Her heart still beat furiously when he passed in the hall, when she heard a Scott Hamilton cut and was reminded of him. He wasn’t particularly good-looking-although to her he was; he didn’t hush a crowd when he entered a room. He was an observer. He blended in. He was a student: of people, of behavior, of music, science, the arts. He was better at math than anyone else, and yet no one knew this of him. He could name the key of a song within seconds. He could remember the page number of a particular line he had read, a caption, a photograph. His eyes saw things before the techies ever uncovered them. He noticed things that no one else noticed and wasn’t afraid to mention them, but never in a bragging way. “You’re wearing a new scent.” “You cut your hair.” “You look tired today. Anything wrong?” He could tell a story and hold her captivated, regardless of its importance. And yet, around the building, he moved fairly unnoticed. No one seemed to know much about him, despite his twenty-odd years there. They talked of him, religiously sometimes-absurdly so. But no one noticed.

People had noticed her all her life. It was just something she lived with.

“Interrupting?” he asked.

Considerate. Humble. Cautious. Apprehensive. All that knowledge chiseled into him, like a figure cut of granite, and yet none of it showing. He couldn’t dress himself no matter how hard he tried. Missed buttons. Stains. Five-o’clock shadow for two days at a time. Disheveled didn’t do him service. Marriage didn’t help. Scuffed shoes. Knotted shoelaces. Hair uncombed. No one could change him. They could share time with him, be a part of him, but not change him. She envied Liz her chance and felt angry at times at how she had passed up the opportunity because of her own ambitions. Lou Boldt needed someone to nourish him, to draw out the genius, to stimulate. Liz missed so much of this in him. If only things had been different….

“No,” she answered. “Never.”

“New flowers,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And what is that, a Wonder Bra?”

She blushed. It was, in fact.

“You’re the talk of the bull pen.”

“And what do you think?”

He sat without invitation. “You don’t need it. Throw it away.”

“Okay.”

“Just like that?” he asked, surprised.

“Yes.”

“What does Owen say?”

Owen hadn’t noticed, but this wasn’t something she would share-even with him. “It’s under consideration.”