I grabbed a Marlboro out of a package on the dashboard. "What did they find? Scleroderma?"
"Not funny. I've clarified that I..."
"...never put forward..." I lit up.
"Exactly."
"So what's the finding?"
"I wouldn't call it a
find
ing until it's
fin
al."
"I wouldn’t expect you to."
"Even the best labs screw up."
"Understood," I yielded. "What's the
preliminary result?
"
"A toxin, like they thought. But it wasn't anything the killer sprinkled on the wounds. It was already inside Sarah when he cut her up."
I blew a long stream of smoke out the window. "Are you saying she was poisoned?"
"In a way. The tissue samples I sent them were contaminated with silicone."
I veered into the breakdown lane and stopped. My chest was tight with a mixture of anxiety and excitement.
"I should have come up with the idea myself," Levitsky said. "The crap only sparked one of the biggest lawsuits of our time."
"You do mean silicone as in breast implants."
"Well, she wasn't stuffed full of computer chips. Sarah must have undergone augmentation at some point. The implants leaked and caused fibrosis. Our killer didn't slice away all the affected tissue."
"Did he try?"
"I don't think so. This guy isn't shy with a blade. If he'd wanted to go deeper, he would have. My guess is the implants adhered to the surrounding musculature. He had to cut away the underlying tissue to free them up."
I took another drag and blew the smoke out my nose. "Why not rip them out?"
"They'd rupture. There would be silicone gel everywhere."
"Which obviously mattered to him."
"I'd certainly say so. It took real time to get those implants out in one piece — maybe five minutes each. He wanted them."
"Or wanted them back."
"Huh?"
I was less reticent to implicate Lucas. "Maybe he put them in there to begin with."
"What do you mean,
put them in there?
"
"Maybe he's the one who enlarged her breasts."
"You think the murderer is a cosmetic surgeon?"
"Anything's possible."
"You saw the wounds, Frank. There was nothing elegant about them. They were hack jobs. He'd have to intentionally make a mess."
"Unless he was intoxicated by the kill, shaking from it. Think of the power, Paulson: creating, then destroying a woman."
"Maybe... except a surgeon's skills become part of him. They crystallize under pressure. They—"
I wasn't in the mood to be lectured. "I get your point."
"You don't think Mike Tyson would beat a man to death with haphazard blows, do you?"
"I don't think Tyson had anything to do with this," I said dryly.
"He'd fire off fierce, crisp combinations."
"How do you know that, Paulson?"
"The laws of stimulus and response. People react predictably, especially when they don't have time to think. They aren't much different than birds pecking for seed."
"Psychopaths don't conform to traditional behavior patterns. That's the problem with them."
"Granted."
"Thank you."
"How does Monique fit into your theory?"
"She had implants, too."
"Her, too?" He was silent a few moments. "If the killer is a doc, that helps me settle on what sort of weapon left so many short, clean lacerations. I was picturing a straight edge. I think I mentioned a razor blade."
"But..."
"But now that I think about it, they're even more consistent with a scalpel."
* * *
I pulled onto Route 16. My head throbbed along a thick band running ear to ear like headphones. My fingers trembled so much that I dropped my cigarette and had to grind it into the carpet with my heel. I didn't know whether my nervous system was clamoring for cocaine or overwhelmed with what I had learned. At minimum, Lucas was swapping surgery for sex with patients, male and female. He was even more predatory than I had imagined. And if he had been Sarah's surgeon, then he was the common denominator in two murders.
I was beginning to question whether rage was the only force driving him. Levitsky's comment about the billions in legal settlements over silicone implants hadn't been lost on me. With Dow Corning, the largest manufacturer of silicone implants, filing bankruptcy, every ambulance-chasing lawyer in the world was looking for other deep pockets. Doctors were their next logical targets. And not every cosmetic surgeon carries malpractice insurance. Was Lucas killing off his liabilities? Had Sarah and Monique threatened to sue? The idea seemed outlandish, but I reminded myself of what I had told Levitsky: Psychopaths act in ways that test society's capacity for reason.
I switched lanes, shot past a school bus, then remembered my mishap with the Mustang and slowed down.
Was Kathy blind to Lucas’ dark side? I couldn't believe that. Relationships are never chance events. Maybe all my theorizing about how losing her little sister had affected her was bullshit. Maybe she only paid lip service to wanting a stable life. Plenty of people who survive tragedies end up ambivalent about danger — frightened by it, yet strangely drawn to it.
Was that dynamic driving me? I couldn't deny that I had played a part in creating the psychological and sexual ties that bound Lucas, Kathy and me. The actions of any one of us affected the other two. I shuddered as I realized how easily Lucas could strike at me by attacking Kathy. Even worse, I had to wonder whether leaving him on the streets meant I unconsciously wished he would do it. Had I primed Lucas to kill her? Was I really as rageful toward women as he, just less straightforward about it?
I pulled the Rover into the breakdown lane again and waited. When I had the chance, I made a quick U-turn and headed back for the Lynn Police Department.
Hancock wasn't in her office. Mark Meehan, one of the cops at the front desk, told me she was taking target practice.
"Does she usually do that? In the middle of the day?" I asked.
"No," Meehan said. "She usually does it first thing in the morning. Right after church. But she said she could use another session."
I walked through the station to an iron door imprinted with the outline of a human torso and head. I opened it and stepped inside.
Hancock was the only one in the long room, standing at the last of a dozen stations, staring straight ahead. She was wearing safety glasses and earphones. Her arms were outstretched and motionless, her fists curled around her revolver. Her eyes darted my way, then snapped back and focused down the lane again. A paper target was hanging about fifteen yards from her. Without warning, the silence exploded into three echoing blasts that made me shudder and throw my hands over my ears. Three holes appeared dead center of the target's chest. Hancock stood still. Her arms stayed extended, like the first branch off an oak. I walked toward her. Suddenly, she turned in my direction, fixing me in her line of fire. I stopped. Our eyes locked. I smiled, but her expression didn't change. I wasn't certain she even recognized me. I thought about diving for one of the shooting stations, but I knew Hancock could pick me off midair. So I just stood there, alive or dead according to her whim. I felt terror so consuming it bordered, strangely, on complete peacefulness. "Emma," I managed, "it's Frank."
She looked confused.
"Put the gun down," I said softly.
She squinted at me. A smile that seemed forced appeared on her face, then vanished. "My Lord," she said, lowering the gun, "you didn't think I'd fire, did you?"
I swallowed hard. "Your gun was pointed at my head. It kind of threw me."
She took off her earphones and glasses and looked at the gun in her hand. "I was imagining what it would be like to rid the world of the demon who tortured Monique." She tossed the gun on the countertop in front of her. "I'm sick of ripping holes in pieces of paper. It's driving me crazy."
"And you figured I'd be happy to stand in for the killer?" I walked over to her.
"I'm sorry. I haven't been myself lately." She paused. "You alright?"
"I am now." I shook my head, remembering the combination of panic and peace that had taken hold of me.
"You felt it."
"
It?
"
"The calm at the gates of heaven."
"If you want to call it that."
"Yes. I do. I've been at the wrong end of a gun more times than I care to remember and I've felt it every time." She looked down, lost in thought. "I felt it even as a girl."
"As a kid? You got shot at?"
"No." She looked back at me. "I had Hodgkin's disease when I was ten."
I stayed silent.
"I try not to think about it. But lately I can't stop myself. I wake up thinking about it. Sometimes one, two in the morning."
I kept listening. It finally made sense to me why Hancock was such a loner; children faced with losing everything can grow up unwilling to embrace anything — except their prayers.
"I lost my hair from chemotherapy. There were cankers in my mouth so big I couldn't bear to eat. Most of the time I didn't have an appetite anyhow. But you know the worst part? I couldn’t get my hands on the one thing that was after me. It was invisible. It wouldn't fight fair."
"So now you catch killers you can lock up." I winced, realizing I'd delivered another punch line to somebody's life story.
"I never thought about it like that." She smiled the shy, wondrous smile with which my psychotherapy patients had always greeted the truth about their lives.
"I hope Monique felt it," I said.
"What?"
"The calm. At the gates."
"I pray she did."
We stood together for several moments. "I wanted to talk what you about the case," I said finally.
"You have something?"
"I've got a bunch of things. I'm not sure they add up."
"Let's hear ’em."
"It's all circumstantial. No hard evidence."
"Let me be the judge of that."
I shared what I knew. I told her about Lucas having been with Monique shortly before she was murdered, about the deal he had cut with Mercury, about the implants, even about the Dow Corning lawsuits. I also let her in on the fact that Lucas was screwing Kathy and that I was frightened for her. Hancock's eyes narrowed. She started clicking her nails. "There are things that don't fit," I cautioned her.
"Like what?"
"Like the fact that Lucas showed me..." I looked away.
"Come on. Out with it."
"He showed me the ring Monique wore through her... private area. He said he..."
"Tell me, damn it."
"He ripped it out of her while they were fooling around in his car."
"He ripped it out of her? Down there?"
I nodded.
Hancock picked up her gun and started to load the chambers she had just emptied.
"Let's think this through, Emma: If Lucas killed her, why would he show me the evidence?"
"Who knows, Frank? Why did the Unabomber contact newspapers? Why do serial killers leave notes?"
"There are other problems."
"Like what?"
"Like I can't quite understand why somebody who gets paid to cut women up every day would risk life imprisonment to do it outside the OR. Even the lawsuit thing doesn't seem quite right. Lucas is so flush with cash he could probably take a couple major hits and still come out smelling like a rose. There's no clear motive."
Hancock clicked the barrel of her gun into place and held it out to me.
"What?"
"Take it. I'm going to teach you something."
"I don't want it."
"Take it. Just for a second."
I took the gun. I had never held one before. It had more heft to it than I would have imagined. My fingers curved around the grip and onto the trigger. I looked at my hand holding the thing.
Just then Hancock grabbed my hand with the gun in it and pulled the barrel against her chest. She pressed her thumb against my finger on the trigger.
I froze. "What the hell..."
"You could end it all for me," she said.
I started to sweat.
"Your friend Levitsky wouldn't be able to identify my heart."
"Emma..."
My heart was pounding. I imagined what the kick of the gun would feel like against my arm, how Hancock would stumble back, bloodied. It was up to me whether she took another breath.
"I can see it in your face. You're the whole world to me, like I was to you when you walked into this room. Press a little further, and I disappear. I'm nothing. Zero. A half-column in obituary in tomorrow's
Item
."
I looked her straight in the eyes. I pressed ever so lightly on the trigger, just to get a little higher. When I did, Hancock jammed her finger against mine and pushed the trigger all the way down. IN that split second every nerve cell in my body must have dumped adrenaline into my bloodstream. I felt a high that made cocaine seem like a cup of decaf. I braced for the explosion, but all I heard was a hollow click. I stood there, staring at Hancock's chest.
She took the gun out of my hand, loaded the chamber she had left empty and slipped the gun into her holster. "He wants to feel what you just felt, Frank. Only he wants the payoff, too. The release. The devil playing God. And I'd bet he takes his time at it. He wants to watch his victim start to bleed, feel her flesh give way, guess at which breath will be her last."
"But why? What would drive Lucas to want that?"
"He likes it."
I was still shaken. "You could say that about any killer," I managed. "It doesn't mean Lucas is our man."
"True."
"But you're gonna pick him up anyhow?"
"Well, sure. I don't expect he'll be able to stand up on his own once I'm finished with him."
* * *
One of the tugs working Chelsea Harbor was forcing a tanker the last fifty yards toward the dock at the end of Rachel's street. The thunder of its engine drowned out the sounds of traffic on the Tobin Bridge and turned a man on the tug's bow into a pantomime act as he cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed silently toward shore.