Time Release (11 page)

Melissa was sitting halfway down, at the fifty-yard line, a solitary form in the otherwise empty stands. In her heavy down parka, and with no hint of scale, she might just as well have been one of the ponytailed football players. But he knew it was her. He saw the white bandage on her left hand when she waved to the drum major.

She moved to her right, as if making room for him to sit. “Hi,” she said over the din. “You're way early.” She moved again when he sat too close.

“I know,” he said. “Drum section sounds really weak without you.”

A shrill whistle brought the music to a disorderly stop. From atop an aluminum stepladder, the balding band director screeched realignment directions through his bullhorn to a gaggle of trumpet players. “First time in the W.P.I.A.L. playoffs this decade, people!” he said. “We want it right!” It still looked like a ketchup bottle, only now with a bubble on one side.

Christensen cleared his throat.

“The crime lab finally finished the tests. I just talked to Detective Downing.”

“And?”

“We've got a few answers, anyway.” Damned scary answers, despite Downing's reassurances. His daughter stared straight ahead.

“It was some kind of acid, like car-battery acid,” he said. “I should have known something was wrong because it was in a glass bottle. Nobody puts shampoo in glass bottles anymore.”

Melissa pulled the bandaged hand from her parka pocket and studied it. In the week since the injury, most of the dead skin had flaked and peeled away. Her palm was still red and tender, but healing nicely. Christensen imagined again how much worse it could have been. What if she'd poured it directly onto her head like old Mrs. Donati and thirteen other people who got samples?

“The two people that died?” she asked.

He put his arm around her, surprised that she let him. “The cereal.”

“And nobody saw who delivered it?”

“The Mymans got home at midnight and didn't see bags on any of the doors. But the bags were there at four when Mr. Capelli got up to let their dog out. So whoever left them came pretty early.”

The director excused the band. Most of the players headed for the heated gymnasium at the far end of the field, amid the bleating of stray brass notes and random paradiddles. A young man carrying a set of three tom-toms started up the stadium steps toward them, but retreated when he saw Christensen with his daughter.

“Anybody I should know?” His question was more reflex than inquiry.

Melissa just smiled. “How many bags were there?”

“A couple dozen in each neighborhood, usually every house on a single street. That's why I didn't think anything of it. Everybody on our street had one, so I just assumed it was some big marketing gimmick.”

Christensen cleared his throat again. “There's something else,” he said, “but it has to stay between us, okay?”

He tried to stay calm and reassuring, but his voice sounded emotionless and flat.

“I got involved in something at work in the last few weeks that I think may have been a big mistake, and I want to tell you about it. I don't know that it had anything to do with what happened to you. It probably didn't, not directly anyway. But I want you to understand what's been going on, and why I'm going to put a stop to it.”

For once he had her full attention, but there was no victory in it for him. And why was everything he said coming out like the drone of an outboard motor?

“Years ago, in 1986, there was something called the Primenyl poisoning case. Somebody killed six people by putting poison into these headache capsules and then putting them back on store shelves. Do you remember any of this?”

“Sort of.”

“Nobody was ever arrested, but the police think they know who it is. And a few weeks ago they asked me to help out in the case.”

“I thought you weren't going to do that anymore after that guy shot at you,” she said. She was right. Did she worry about him, or did she just enjoy catching him in a contradiction?

“Let's just say I got talked into it,” he said. “They really thought I could help, and it was hard to say no because … just because of the kind of case it was. Is. See, there was another product-tampering case about a month ago, and they think maybe it was the same guy. It's kind of complicated, but they thought somebody with my background could help.”

Melissa reached into her backpack and pulled out a cherry Chap Stick.

“They needed a psychologist?” she said, tracing the balm over her lips.

“Someone who knows a lot about how memory works,” he said. “So I wanted to help if I could. But now, with all this, I wonder if it was a mistake, my getting involved. So, I'm sorry.”

His daughter stopped mid-pout, the Chap Stick still poised. “For what?” she said.

He could see her mind kick into instant replay, trying to make sense of his story and to figure out why he was telling it now. “Wait. You're saying this same guy put the acid in the shampoo?”

“I don't know. But—”

“And sent it to us?”

He shook his head. “Not specifically, no, but there weren't really that many of those sample bags. It's just got me spooked is all.”

She pulled her injured hand from her parka and examined it again.

“What if it's not just a coincidence?” he said. “You know I'd never do anything to put you or your sister in any danger. I told the police that right off, and I believed them when they said we'd have no problems. But even the thought—” He hugged her tighter. “It's just not worth it, Lissa. They can handle it without me.”

Melissa put the Chap Stick back into her pack and zipped it shut, taking care so he couldn't see the pack's contents.

“I don't understand what help you could be,” she said.

He hadn't intended to share details, but he didn't see how he could avoid it now.

“The killer has a son, a little older than you,” he said. “Police think he may have seen something back in 1986. But they also think he may not remember seeing it. With something awful like that, sometimes those memories can get tucked so far in the back of the mind that they're pretty much forgotten. So they wanted me to talk to him to see if I could help him remember anything.”

“That's what you've been staying late for on Thursdays,” she said.

“Right.”

“And that's what you were talking to Brenna about the other night when I came in the room and you all of a sudden told her you'd have to call her back.”

“Probably.”

“And how many people do they think this guy killed?”

“Six in 1986. One down in Greene County a few weeks ago, and maybe another one down there a few days ago that left a kid in a coma. Now these two. What's that, nine dead so far?” He sighed. “There was a lot of Primenyl stuff in the news around the tenth anniversary of the '86 killings. That may have set him off again.”

Melissa stood up, slung her backpack over her right shoulder, and started up the stadium steps toward the parking lot. As she walked, she pulled something from her coat pocket. He recognized it by the colored foil wrapper as the jam-filled Nutri-Grain breakfast bar he'd put in her lunch. How carefully had he checked it?

She stopped about ten feet away and turned back toward him, then held up her bandaged left hand until he looked away. She waited until he looked her in the eye. “And you'd just quit with this guy still out there?”

Christensen stared at the intercom, then checked his watch. 5:20. Sonny wasn't due for another forty minutes. He was always prompt, but never early, in the five weeks since they'd started their Thursday sessions. Christensen had kept the after-hours meetings private, so his secretary and Sonny had never before crossed paths.

Christensen shuffled the stack of pink phone messages in his hands. Downing was driving him nuts.

“I was expecting him, but not until six. It's okay. Just tell him I'll be a few minutes. No need for you to wait around.”

Christensen arranged the messages chronologically. Downing had called at least once a day for the past week, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. He'd called him here at his private office, at the Pitt counseling office, at home. He'd been so persistent, Christensen started having Melissa screen his calls. Not only did he have nothing to report about Sonny's progress, but he was troubled by the escalating urgency of Downing's messages. The most recent one, left just an hour earlier, was the most troubling of all.

Christensen read it again: “Det. Downing. Please call. Re: Sodium amobarbital.”

Where was Downing getting his information? Sodium amobarbital wasn't much known outside a small circle of therapists and researchers who considered the drug a chemical shortcut to repressed memories. A shortcut with dangerous and incalculable side effects, as far as Christensen was concerned. That Downing would research it and mention it as a possibility for Sonny's therapy mirrored the helpless panic Christensen sensed in nearly everyone he knew. The pattern of deaths was emerging, and like in 1986, it wasn't a pattern at all. But to that familiar randomness had been added a chilling new dimension: the killer's mastery of inventive, almost casual, terror. He'd tapped into the very lifeline that sustains a consumer society, and he was poisoning it at will.

Still, Sodium amobarbital simply wasn't an option, and not just because Christensen wasn't licensed to conduct drug therapy. From what he'd read, the drug was especially risky for someone like Sonny, whose medical records noted an irregular heartbeat.

Christensen set the message slips aside, careful to place them well out of sight. He'd intended to call Downing, if only to ask him to back off. But that could wait. He crossed the room and opened the door into the waiting room. His secretary was already gone. Sonny looked up from his magazine, his eyes somewhere in the shadow of his baseball cap's bill.

“I'm early,” he said. “Sorry.”

“It's fine. I'm clear until six anyway. I was just catching up on some stuff and—”

Sonny brushed past him and into his office, taking his usual chair in the sitting area without taking off the cap. He sat forward, head up, forearms on his knees, a posture very different from the casual, almost indifferent, way Christensen was used to seeing him. Something was on his mind.

“Everything okay?”

“Not sure,” Sonny said.

Sonny's body language suggested a level of agitation that Christensen hadn't seen in him before, and his face was drained of the confidence that had so struck the psychologist during their initial meeting. Christensen picked up a notepad from his desk and sat down in the wing chair.

“Nice hat,” he said, smiling.

Sonny took it off. The comment seemed to divert him, as Christensen hoped it would.

“My dad's,” Sonny said. “He was this big stud player. Third base.” Sonny examined the cap's interlocking C and A emblem, which Christensen recognized as the trademark of major-league baseball's California Angels.

“Clairmont Affiliated,” Sonny said. “Lettered all four years.”

Christensen stole another glance at the emblem. “The college in West Virginia?”

Sonny nodded. “Got invited to try out with the Pirates' Columbus farm team his senior year, but he broke his leg. That was that.”

Christensen wrote “Clairmont Affiliated?” on his notepad. “It happens,” he said. “So what's on your mind?”

Sonny looked around, saying nothing. Slowly, apparently without realizing it, he started rocking back and forth, his tempo picking up as the awkward silence continued. “Had this dream,” he said finally. “Had it a couple times in the last two weeks. Switching to a daytime work schedule screws up my sleeping pattern, so maybe that's why.”

A thousand questions ran through Christensen's mind. “Want to talk about it?”

“I'm here, aren't I?” Sonny snapped.

“I'm glad you came,” he said, absorbing Sonny's glare like a body punch. “I'd like to hear about it.”

Sonny waited. The rocking started again. “It's about water. I'm on my back, but my head's underwater. And it's a really weird feeling. It's like I know something's wrong, but I'm, like, helpless.”

Christensen tried to imagine Sonny in full backstroke, but with his head beneath the surface. “I don't think anybody could swim like that for very long. Could they? I mean, it seems like an awkward position.”

“That's the thing,” Sonny said. “It's not like I'm swimming. I'm just a kid, maybe twelve or thirteen. I didn't start swimming until later. I'm just on my back and there's this light above me, kind of a square light, and it's not like I'm floating. More like I'm lying on something hard, and I'm on my back, and I can't breathe. And I'm really cold. And I try to pull my head up out of the water but I can't.”

He stopped rocking and sat forward. Christensen watched the rise and fall of Sonny's chest and wrote “Respiration up” on his notepad, careful to maintain eye contact.

“You can't pull your head out of the water?” he asked.

Sonny nodded.

“Then what?”

“I wake up,” Sonny said. “It's pretty ugly. Usually I don't get back to sleep.”

He was breathing even harder now, and his face had changed. Christensen wasn't just seeing shaken confidence; Sonny was scared.

“I don't get it,” he said. “Why can't you pull your head up?”

Sonny closed his eyes. “I try, but I can't.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know.”

“Is anyone with you?”

Sonny looked away. “I don't know. My brother's there. He helps me.”

“What kind of place are you in?”

“I don't know. Dark.”

“But with a square light above you? Are you inside or outside?”

Sonny closed his eyes again, apparently trying to make sense of what was replaying in his head. “It doesn't seem like outside.”

“How'd you get there?”

“I don't know,” Sonny said. “Down some steps maybe? It's a dream. Not everything makes sense.”

Christensen laid the notepad on the table. “I wonder why this dream upsets you, though.”

“I'm drowning.”

“But you're a strong swimmer.”

“I'm not swimming, I told you. It wouldn't be like that if I was swimming.”

The phone chirped once. Christensen ignored it. The answering machine in the outer office picked up after the second ring.

“Why do you think your brother is there?” Christensen said.

Sonny shifted in his chair, rocking, crossing and recrossing his legs. “I don't know.”

“But he helps you?”

“Yeah, I think.”

“Do you dream about him much, Sonny? Since he died, I mean.”

“Sometimes.”

Christensen waited. Sonny crossed his legs again.

“There's one other thing in the dream. Maybe it's later, or a different dream. I'm in this room, and there's a dog. On this sort of checkerboard floor.”

“And then what?”

“That's all.”

Christensen thought of the packet of coroner's photographs in Sonny's juvenile records file. What had led Sonny to David's body in the upstairs bedroom the day David shot himself were the bloody paw prints that one of the boys' frantic dogs left on the kitchen floor. The packet contained several shots of the grisly path across a distinctive checkered linoleum-tile floor, as well as a photograph of the dog.

“Is David there?”

“No. Somebody else.”

“Besides the dog? Who?”

“I don't know.”

“Are you sure?”

“I said I don't know.” With the back of his hand, Sonny swatted the inflatable Wham-It off the coffee table that sat between them, then stood up. “Can I get a drink of water?”

Sonny had led them to a door, but didn't want to open it. Christensen pointed to the compact refrigerator across the room. “In the fridge. Help yourself.”

Sonny twisted the cap from a bottle of Evian. “Sorry,” he said as he sat down. “Unreal, isn't it?”

“Is it?” Christensen said.

“Meaning?”

Time to take a chance. Christensen retrieved his own bottle of water. He wasn't thirsty, but he needed time to frame his thoughts. Nudge him, but ever so gently.

“It sounded pretty real to me, at least parts of it.”

“Like the dog,” Sonny said. “I guess that was Izzy.”

“Izzy?”

“Izzy Vicious. One of our dogs. We had two until Trooper ran away.”

“That must have been hard on you.”

“We used to travel a lot. Three, four weeks at a time. So neighbors would keep both of them for us. And one time Trooper just took off. Never found him.”

Christensen wasn't interested in the dog. “Those are long trips. Where'd you go?”

Sonny's eyes roamed the floor. “All over. Europe. North Africa once. Spent my tenth birthday in Algiers. Anyway, Trooper ran off right before I went into foster care. And when I did, I had to give Izzy away.”

Christensen wrote “Birthday, Algiers?” on the notepad, then spoke slowly, trying to add weight to his words. “Sometimes things that upset us never really go away. Maybe that's why Izzy's in the dream.”

“The house seemed like this place we used to live in Irondale, on Jancey Street. But I can't make any sense of it.”

Christensen opened his water. “Dreams are funny things,” he said. “Why do you think that one bothered you so much?”

“It's just so weird.”

“But you never had that dream before, right?” Chris­tensen let the question hang.

“Not that I can remember,” Sonny said.

“Why do you think you had it now?”

Sonny shrugged.

“I ask because we've been talking a lot these last few weeks about when you were a kid. And now here you are having dreams about when you were a kid, with your dogs and maybe your old house and everything. Maybe talking about that period of your life planted the seeds that grew into dreams. That happens. Or maybe something else is going on there.”

“Like what?”

“Ever hear the song ‘Dream Weaver'?” Christensen said.

Sonny's face was blank.

“Before your time. Never mind. Anyway, dreams really are woven from a lot of things. Fantasies. Fears. Bits of memory. Things that happened to us that day or things that happened years ago. When we sleep our brains mix all that together and come up with a story. The hard part is figuring out which parts of the story are fantasies and which ones are fears, or memories, or experiences. It's tricky business.”

Sonny walked to the window and stared into the darkness. An inch of fresh snow lay on the sill, and the bitter cold outside had left frost on the inside corners of the single-pane window. It reminded Christensen that Christmas was less than a week off, and of how little time he'd had to shop for the girls.

“Trooper didn't really run away,” Sonny said.

“The dog?”

Sonny laid one of his palms on the window, then the other. He pressed his cheek against the pane. For half a minute, maybe more, Christensen watched Sonny frozen in tableau, as if seeking the cold. When he finally pulled away, his palm prints were melted into the window frost and his cheek was bright red.

“I want to talk again tomorrow,” he said.

“Tomorrow?” Christensen returned to his desk and checked his calendar. “Friday night is bad for me. High school football, and my older daughter plays in the band. Could you come during the day?”

Sonny shook his head. “I swim in the morning and work noon to eight now,” he said. “It's okay. I understand.”

“How about if we get together two nights next week instead of one?” Christensen said. “I can plan around that for as long as you want. How about if we meet at six next Tuesday along with our regular Thursday meeting?”

“I just—”

“Sonny, it's fine.”

“But you have family. And the holidays and all.”

Christensen pretended to scribble on his calendar, but wrote “Sensitivity to my family commitments” on his notepad. “They'll understand,” he said.

From his office window a few minutes later, Christensen watched Sonny's solitary form cross a snow-covered parking lot lit only by neon signs and the garish twinkle of Christmas lights from nearby stores. The single trail of footprints across the virgin snow disappeared down one of Oakland's countless side streets, and only then did Christensen wonder if Sonny was spending the holidays alone.

He poked the answering machine's playback button as he shrugged into his coat. “If you're there, Jim, pick up,” the message began. “We got a positive for hydrogen cyanide on the Squeezie Pop, but sucking it frozen just delivers a sublethal dose. Not one of Corbett's better ideas. The sugar on the cereal was probably cyanide powder blown in through the bottom of the box and a hole in the wax-paper liner. Add enough and shake it up good: boom, boom—the morgue gets two more. Final tox is due back on all those other free samples in a couple days…”

Downing's tiny voice, full of muted panic, sounded like a trapped bumblebee as Christensen locked the office door.