The Prettiest Feathers (21 page)

Before tucking a copy of Sarah’s journal into the manila envelope I had already addressed to Pop, I stuck a Post-it note on a page that I knew would interest him:

Sinclair came in just before showtime with the feds, but refused to attend. I didn’t push it because he looked worse than I did. I was hoping that he also smelled worse. He reeked of Old Milwaukee, and something else that I couldn’t identify.

Maybe it was getting a whiff of him that made me feel so queasy. Whatever it was, I was rocky on my feet and I felt terrible. So when Special Agent Walker cornered me after the briefing to tell me that “we girls” should work together, share whatever we dig up, show “the boys” who the real sleuths are, I didn’t even try to be tactful. I gave her a flat no. She wanted
me to turn over all my files, but she had no intention of giving me anything. That’s the way the feds operate. They’re real good at taking, but just try to pry anything out of one of them.

I hadn’t told Robert the one piece of essential news that had come across my desk that morning. It had arrived by fax during the briefing: a jawbone found in the debris of the Hasty Hills explosion, with three teeth still intact, had been matched up, via dental X rays, with a fellow named Bernard Lallendorf. He was the missing handyman I told Sinclair about earlier. According to the report, he was employed at the Hasty Hills Municipal Building, the same building that I had reached when I pressed the redial button on Sarah’s phone. It was also the building where our pseudo Chad-wick’s office was located. Someone up there had noticed that Lallendorf went missing the same day the crater turned up where Chadwick’s house used to be.

God, how I hated this case. All it did was make me dizzy. I had to quit letting fatigue, my bad mood, and my upset stomach get in the way of the investigation. I swallowed my frustration as best I could, and went searching for Robert to update him on the jawbone. But he was nowhere to be found. I had no idea how long it would be before he’d check in again, so I copied the report and left it on his desk. I left the same information on his answering machine, and told him that Hanson had asked me to take a polygraph.

Robert wasn’t even supposed to work the case. Because of his rank, Swartz never acted as lead anymore. I had walked into it. God, how I wanted to walk out of it. I was in over my head—wishing I could be back in uniform, but no longer sure I could handle even traffic, B&Es, or domestics. That’s what this case had done to whatever confidence I once had.

For the first time in two months, I also wanted the comfort of Robert. I remembered the last time we were together. Robert and I got dressed and ate breakfast in silence that morning, not even looking at each other. It was a relief when
we finally climbed into our separate cars for the drive to the precinct—and, once there, immediately fell back into our “cop mode,” bantering and biting just like always. Anyone watching us would figure that we hated each other—or were in love.

I knew that Robert and I couldn’t be. But it didn’t make me want it any less.

A ringing telephone pulled me back to the present. It was the one on Robert’s desk.

“Detective Sinclair’s office,” I said.

“Is Detective Sinclair in?”

“He’s on temporary leave. Perhaps I can help you. This is Detective Frank.”

“My name is Henry Street. I was Sarah Sinclair’s psychiatrist.”

“I’m heading up that investigation, sir.”

Street cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I’m more than a little uncomfortable,” he said. “I keep remembering how Susan Forward went public after Nicole Simpson was murdered, and all the criticism she encountered.”

I didn’t say anything. If the man knew something that could help us, I certainly wasn’t going to bring up professional ethics.

“I’m wondering how I might assist you,” Street continued. “I know that you can gain access to Sarah’s records through the appropriate filings with the court, but there’s someone else you might want to take a look at—and I’m trying to figure out just how I can guide you toward him. It’s someone I learned about several years ago. A case in Vermont.”

I waited.

“Are you still there, Detective Frank?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And are you interested?”

“Intensely.”

“Then let me grapple with this. I’ll have to get back to
you. Meanwhile, you may want to get the proper wheels turning regarding the records I have here at my office.”

This was going to be touchy. I wasn’t too sure I wanted to see the outpourings of Sarah Sinclair’s heart, especially if I was mentioned in those records. And I didn’t think Robert ought to get his hands on that stuff, either. But it was my job, just as her journal was required reading. So, as soon as Street and I had said our good-byes, I got in touch with the DA’s office. I told an assistant DA what we needed and where to find it, then, on impulse, asked if I could speak with Robbins.

“I haven’t got time to switch you around,” she said. “Why don’t you call back and ask for his extension.”

Just as I was hanging up the phone, Miller was at my desk.

“Did you get my note about the fingerprints?” he asked.

“I tried to call you last night. What’s up?”

“We got another match on those Chadwick prints. They come back to an Eric Randolph, a guy who spent eighteen months as a cop in Contra Costa county, California, in the early seventies.”

“You’re kidding.”

“And
to Lester Walden, who drove an armored car for a few months in Denver, Colorado, during the mid-seventies. Lieutenant Swartz gave the company a call. According to their records, Walden just dropped out of sight. Didn’t report to work one day and that was it. Denver has two unsolved cases from that time period similar to ours.”

“Jesus.”

“And there’s one more. This one’s a criminal match. A case that dates back to the mid-sixties, in Vermont.”

“Vermont?”

“Right. But it was heard in juvenile court. I doubt if we can get the name. The file is sealed.”

“I think I love you, Miller,” I said. “We just had our first piece of good luck.”

Miller dropped the reports on my desk and left, not even
asking what I meant. I looked up Street’s office number and gave him a call. He answered his own phone.

“This is Detective Frank,” I said. “Was that Vermont situation you mentioned a juvenile case, by any chance?”

“You do work fast, don’t you?”

“And would it have anything to do with a fellow named Chadwick?”

No response.

“How about Wolf?”

I thought I heard a slight intake of breath on the other end of the line.

“John Wolf?” I asked.

“The weather isn’t perfect, but it’s certainly getting warmer.”

“John …”

“Cold.”

“Wolf.”

“Hot.”

“Does the first name begin with an A?”

“Brrr.”

“B?”

“Brrr again.”

“Listen, could we get together and go through the alphabet? I could be there in a half hour.”

He agreed, but not with much enthusiasm.

On my way to Street’s office, I stopped at Radio Shack, where I bought a fax machine to install in my apartment, along with a switcher box so I wouldn’t have to put in a separate phone line. Maybe Hanson didn’t want Pop on the case, but I did. I also didn’t mind the idea of communicating with him in a more private way. There was no telling how many pairs of eyes were reading his faxes before I did.

Street was seated in his office, with the door open. As soon as he saw me in the reception area, he stood up and
came toward me, a smile on his face and his hand extended in a warm welcome.

“Detective Frank,” he said. “This is a genuine pleasure. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

I must have blushed because right away he fell all over himself apologizing.

“I meant from your father, not Sarah,” he said. “He and I trained together with Dr. Herman up in Boston, then kept in touch over the years. I understand he’s retired now.”

“Somewhat.”

“And how is your mother—Savannah, isn’t it?”

“Still curing animals in Africa.”

“Well, come in, sit down,” Dr. Street said, ushering me into his office. “May I get you a Pepsi?”

“No thanks,” I said.

“Pineapple juice?”

“Nothing for me, thanks.”

“Punch?” he asked, almost spitting the “p” at me.

“We aren’t by any chance looking for a Peter Wolf, are we?”

Street laughed. “Cold,” he said.

“The only other male name I can think of that begins with a P is Paul.”

“Really?”

“Is that it?”

“If you’re too warm, I can turn up the air-conditioning.”

“Are we talking about the mid-sixties here?”

“I think sixty-four is a comfortable temperature, don’t you?”

“Vermont?”

“Wonderful climate.”

“Please,” I said. “No more games. I really need to know about this guy.”

Street rose from his chair and walked to the window, where he stood with his back turned toward me. He stayed there for what seemed like several minutes, though I suppose it was less than that. Then, still not looking at me, he said,
“Sarah Sinclair met someone shortly before her death—someone who claimed to have had some sessions with me. She said his name was John Wolf.”

“Then it’s John, not Paul?”

“Hold on a minute,” Street said, turning to face me. “She
said
John, but the name meant nothing to me. And then this thing happened, and I couldn’t get that conversation out of my mind. The last name—Wolf—kept rolling around in my head. And then I remembered. Paul Wolf. Saxtons River, Vermont. A troubling case, a terrible case, really—and I couldn’t help wondering if that was the fellow she met. He’d be about the right age.”

“He was a patient of yours?”

“No. His case was part of my training, something one of my mentors used when illustrating the rights of minors, the limits of confidentiality—that sort of thing. I talked with the presenter afterward. We became friends and that case came up in conversation several times later. It stuck with me, at least in part because it was so brutal. I don’t know how Sarah’s fellow happened to know my name. I don’t even know if the Wolf that she met is the same one I knew about. But I did feel that it was worth mentioning to you.”

Street explained that the case had fascinated him because it focused on the requirement to report an explicit threat. The question was, “Can a threat be reported if it’s made by a juvenile?”

“This was before Tarasoff in California, when there were no real guidelines,” he said. “This young man had specific plans to kill a dozen different people. The therapist and social services people screamed confidentiality, so the youth’s rights were protected. Then one of those people he named was killed in precisely the way he said he would do it. He was in a private school at the time, technically in state custody, but he had a history of leaving the place whenever he felt like it.”

“Was he ever tied to the murder?”

Street shook his head. “The investigation produced
nothing. I also remember that when they removed him from his home, they searched his bedroom. There were small bones, feathers, crudely cut pieces of animal pelts—shoe boxes filled with the stuff. Curiously, there was no odor. Everything had been cured in some way. He was an extremely primitive but exceptionally intelligent young man. That can be a deadly combination, especially in someone with no regard at all for other people.”

“Since we’re exchanging confidential information,” I said, “fingerprints found in Sarah Sinclair’s house matched up with someone in a sealed file in Vermont. A case from the mid-sixties. A juvenile.”

“Perhaps I can find the notes I took when the Wolf case was presented to us. I know I wouldn’t have hung on to them, but my mother was a pack rat, saved everything, absolutely everything. My first tooth, my first bib. Thank God she had the sense to throw away my first diaper. I’ll see what we’ve got in the attic. I was so outraged by the case, I may well have written home about it.”

As I was leaving, Dr. Street took my hand and held it in both of his, staring into my eyes the entire time.

“Please remember me to your father,” he said. “And forgive me for the silly game I put you through. It’s just that these ethical quandaries always confuse me.”

“As far as I’m concerned, we never spoke.”

“Thank you,” he said, his hands still holding mine.

Until we were standing toe to toe, I hadn’t realized just how much taller than I he was. At least six inches. It felt wonderful being able to look up to a man for a change. We made plans to talk again as soon as he’d had time to sort through all those boxes his mother stuck in the attic thirty years ago.

I felt drained. After leaving Street’s office, I intended to go back to the precinct to see what had come in during my absence, but I was exhausted. Far too tired to think about interviewing the folks at the massage parlor and Fast Eddie’s.

I used my cellular phone to call Carol, my doctor’s assistant. She gave me an appointment, and I said I’d be there. We’d had problems with that in the past—missed appointments—but I knew that I’d keep this one. Whatever was wrong was slowing me down. I was losing time I didn’t have.