Before the day’s visions, I’d been curious, like a hungry Lake Herring nosing the bait on the end of one of my father’s fishing lines. Now, after what I’d seen and felt and knowing that there were a bunch more victims, possibly recent ones, I was well and truly hooked.
– 5 –
Friday, April 6
Boston, Massachusetts
Professor Kenneth Perry peered at me from across his desk in the psychology building at the university in Boston. “I don’t mind admitting I was a tad worried about your thesis for a while there, but you aced it. I was right chuffed with the final product,” he said in his strong British accent. Perry was a psychologist and my faculty supervisor. “What’s your plan now?”
“I’m going to hand over my job — lock, stock, and admin passwords — to the new departmental assistant.”
“Yes, sorry about that. We’re gutted to lose you, but the position is reserved for an actively enrolled student. And since you bloody well refuse to do a doctorate, we had to give it to someone else.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
We sat in silence for a few seconds, then Perry cocked his head at me. “So?”
“What?” I asked.
“What are you going to do? With your life?”
Why did everybody keep asking me that? It wasn’t like I had an answer, though I was sure I no longer wanted to be a psychologist or any kind of counselor. My interest in psychology, I now realized, had really been a desire to understand myself and my catastrophic reaction to Colby’s death rather than any vocation to help others with their mental and emotional issues. I had more than enough of those of my own.
“You can’t sit around doing bugger all for the rest of your life, Garnet.”
Since getting back to Boston four days ago, I’d alternated spending my time between watching the news coverage of the mass burial site in New Hampshire and searching online job sites. From the news channels, I’d learned that the remains of eight bodies had been unearthed. Names of the victims hadn’t yet been released, but police were confident they knew the identity of half of them. Of the bodies as yet unidentified, one was thought to date back much earlier than the other murders. That must’ve been the different body that had been found near the rusted metal button Singh had brought me.
From Career Builder and Zip Recruiter and a handful of other job-listing sites, I’d learned that I could potentially apply for positions as a teacher’s assistant, tutor, or HR officer, or I could try for a general administrative job in marketing, banking, or health services. None of these appealed to me in any way whatsoever.
My mother, keen to lure me back to Pitchford, had invited me to come work in her new-age store, Crystals, Candles, and Curiosities. “You could do readings for people, dear. Just think of the customers that would attract!” she’d said.
That option would be an absolute last resort for me. If I had to surrender all dignity and ambition in order to dispense dreamcatchers and divinations for my over-excitable, utterly illogical, and verbally disordered mother, I’d soon be on the scene of another murder, one I would have committed.
“Honestly? I don’t know,” I told Professor Perry. “I’m not really qualified to do anything appealing or profitable, and if it’s not for fun or money, what is it for?”
I ran a thumb over the tips of my fingernails, staring out of the window behind him. The last time I’d sat in this office, discussing my future, it had been winter. The trees outside had been bare of leaves, the sky gray with clouds, and the icy grounds empty. Now the sun shone down on clusters of students sprawled on the lawns, the bare bones of maples were studded with scarlet buds and tiny yellow flowers, and a pleasant breeze drifted in through his open window.
“Is there nothing at all that’s piqued your interest?” he asked.
I wondered what to say. I wasn’t exactly eager to lower his opinion of me. Then again, I might never see him again after today. Did it matter what he thought of me?
“I don’t know if you remember,” I said, “but back in December, I told you I was getting … images and words in my mind when I touched things that had belonged to my late boyfriend.”
“I do remember.” Perry scrutinized me carefully from behind his spectacles.
“Well …” I fiddled with the African violet on Perry’s desk, breaking off a couple of dead leaves and tossing them into a nearby trashcan. “It turns out those weren’t just symptoms of concussion or post-traumatic stress.”
“Oh?”
“It looks like I might actually have some kind of ability to get, you know, readings off of objects.”
“I see.” Behind his blank expression, Perry was probably thinking, Are you off your blooming rocker?
I poured the last inch of a glass of water onto the violet’s parched soil, being careful not to wet the leaves. Wet leaves, according to my mother, killed violets.
“You really should take better care of your plants, Prof,” I chided him, even though I was a fine one to talk. I’d never managed to keep a potted plant alive for longer than a month. Even cactuses died on me.
“You were talking about your new … ability?” Perry said.
“I know it sounds crazy, and I don’t expect you to believe it, but I’ve had two visits from an FBI agent to assist them with their investigations.” As I said it, I heard how ridiculous it sounded. Believing that I had insight into life beyond the veil and was now being courted by the FBI? No doubt Perry thought I was diagnosably delusional. I waved a hand in the air as if to erase any lingering lunacy. “Forget what I just said. The point is that I’m very interested in the case of a New England serial killer.”
I expected Perry to challenge me or maybe insist on conducting a mini-mental-state examination to check whether my cognitive functioning and reality testing were intact.
Instead, he said mildly, “Didn’t you tell me that your father had an interest in serial killers? Perhaps you’ve caught his bug?”
I nodded. By all means, let Perry think that I was just following in my father’s homicidal hobbyist footsteps. “Anyway, I figure I should learn more about serial killers in general.” I gestured to the heavily laden bookshelves that covered three walls of his office. “Can you point me in the direction of some good books on the subject?”
“I can do better than that.”
“You can help me?”
“No, not my field of expertise at all. But I can connect you to the resident expert.” He picked up the receiver of his desk telephone and dialed an extension. “Hi, Brad. I’ve got a soon-to-graduate master’s student here who’d like to know more about serial killers. Do you have a moment? Excellent! Should we come to you or— Wonderful, thank you.” He hung up and told me, “He can give you twenty minutes, and he’ll be here in five.”
The expert arrived almost immediately. He was middle-aged and had milky-white skin, small eyes, and a tonsure of dark hair running around his otherwise bald head. With his thin face and narrow nose, it gave him the look of an aesthetic saint, or perhaps a fanatical monk. I recognized him at once. He’d done a lecture on homicide in one of our psychopathology courses. I didn’t remember much of what he’d said about serial killers except that they sometimes went back to the decomposing corpse to have sex with it. That fact had been gruesome enough to penetrate the fog of my depression and lodge in my distracted brain.