Flick’s pale skin turned gray, the pink rash, beige. His neck tendons — cords he’d severed in other people’s necks — stood out in relief, stiff as pencils.
“You,” he said, extruding words through taut lips, “are stupid and obtuse and ludicrously in error.”
“Not claiming to be a genius, Cameron, but I’m totally on base. Not only were you kicked out of the department, you didn’t make much of an impression while you were there. I’ve spoken to several of your professors. They barely remember you.”
“That,” said Flick, “is... is... you’re blaspheming.”
“Now you’re God?”
“God-like. The mentally gifted are. I was talking when I was ten months old. Taught myself to read at four and a half—”
“Great, Cameron. But looks like you front-loaded your smarts and reached your apex at the bachelor’s degree level. Didn’t even earn a master’s. Even a dumb guy like me could do that. M.A. in American Literature. True, it’s not math, but it’s still one degree above you.”
Flick stared. Gripped the table. Opened his mouth, clamped it shut. Produced a small oval aperture in the center of taut, nearly white lips.
“Session over!”
No response from outside the room.
Milo said, “Maybe Deputy Coolidge took your words to heart, Cameron. Superfluous, so why stick around?”
“You,” said Cameron, “are a dolt. A taurine — no, too charitable, you’re a porcine dolt. An obese, slavering, sweaty-faced porcine saurine admixture of scale and swine... and... and...”
His lips continued working but nothing came out. Something choking internally.
Unable to come up with more words, he began shaking. Banged a left fist on the table, so hard it had to hurt.
“Session over!”
Milo said, “So there you have it, Cameron. I may be a dolt but I’m a dolt with a master’s. Which you don’t have. But let’s put that aside and talk about Alex here. He’s got a Ph.D.”
Flick gaped. “Right.”
“This is Dr. Alex Delaware, our consulting psychologist. Didn’t you get your Ph.D. from the U.?”
I nodded.
“Same place that had no use for you, Cameron. How old were you, Doc, when you earned your degree?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four, Cameron. Did you eventually get tenure, Doc?”
I nodded.
“How old were you when you got tenure?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Hear that, Cameron? Tenure at thirty-two, which is just around your age, isn’t that something. Dr. Delaware earns tenure and you can’t even—”
Flick’s body shot upward. His shackled hand yanked him down on his right side and he ended up standing in a lopsided, crab-like position.
“Smart is as smart does, Cam. You’re here because you’re stupid.”
“Session over! Overoveroveroverover!”
The door opened. Slowly. Deputy Coolidge peeked in, then stood back for a second as Flick continued to pound and shriek.
“Everything okay?” he asked Milo.
“Someone’s having a rough morning.”
“Looks like it. Okay, you shut up or I’ll call the medics and they’ll inject something in you.”
Cameron Flick shouted, “Sess—” then stopped himself and stared at each of us in turn.
“You fixin’ to behave yourself?” said Coolidge. “The least bit of trouble and it’s Thorazine or whatever.”
Flick said nothing.
Coolidge said, “I need a response.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“I’m fine.”
“Better be,” said Coolidge. To us: “Have a good one, Loo. You, too, Doc.”
Milo said, “You as well, Twan.”
“ ’Bout as good as it can be taking care of idiots.”
Cameron Flick shuddered.
Coolidge said, “Don’t start or you will get injected.”
Flick’s face seemed to melt.
As we left, he said, “Don’t think it’s over.” But in a new, pitiful voice.
Outside the jail, Milo said, “What do you think he meant by that?”
“Empty threat,” I said. “He’s pretty much torn down.”
“Think he will subpoena me?”
“Maybe. Doesn’t matter. He’s delusional.”
“Hey,” he said. “Keep your voice down, just in case his next lawyer’s around here.”
No one in sight but for two deputies returning to the jail. Fronting the building was a dirt patch in which a few gray-green shrubs struggled to survive. I went over and pretended to search behind them.
“Nope, coast is clear.”
He laughed. “Time to ditch my own delusions, huh?”
Chapter 50
No subpoenas or other communication arrived from Flick. Milo and Petra were busy refining their murder books pre-trial.
Unnecessary, as it turned out.
Three days after our visit to Flick, he was found dead in his isolation cell by a deputy making her rounds, lying in a massive pool of blood. A pile of legal books and math texts that he’d requested were stacked neatly in a corner, unstained.
Milo called to tell me. I was at my desk, reviewing notes on a custody eval.
I said, “How’d he do it?”
“With a pen. They gave him a few to do his trial prep. Felt-tips to avoid problems with ballpoints. He snapped off one of the plastic clips, sharpened it, and tried to slice open his own neck. Big mess, from what the deputy told me, had to hurt but he lacked the gumption to dig deep enough. Even though he’d stockpiled and swallowed a whole bunch of extra-strength Tylenol they’d given him for headaches. After the neck didn’t work out, he moved on to his wrist. Did it the right way — longitudinal.”
“Sounds horrific.”
“Sure does,” he said. “And it makes me wonder.”
“About what?”
“When we saw him he was so goddamn arrogant. Then to just toss it all in and destroy himself? Remember what you said when we left the jail? He was torn down. Did I rip him up to the point where he couldn’t take it anymore?”
“No reason to think that,” I said. “And spare yourself anything close to guilt.”
“Why?”
“He was highly disturbed and unpredictable.”
“Still—”
“No still,” I said. “He murdered a lot of people in cold blood and would have kept doing it. Plus, this saves a bunch of families having to endure his antics at a trial.”
“True,” he said. “I need to keep that in mind. Actually was talking to Donna Batchelor when the message came in and for the first time she sounded kinda happy. Before that I’d informed Dr. Rosales and he started crying. I was about to call Hannah Gardener, then Shari Flores to thank her for alerting us to Whitney’s case.”
“There you go.”
“Okay, thanks. Send me your bill.”
After I hung up, I sat there, wondered why I felt uneasy.
A pen clip.
I wrote at least six people on a piece of paper and stared at it. When that wasn’t enough, I downloaded the photos of Flick’s victims. Studied them, one by one.
Woman in a boat. Little boy watching her die. Terrified by abandonment.
A gifted teacher slaughtered while taking out the garbage.
No need to go beyond that.
No reason to give any of it another moment of thought.
I went to get a cup of coffee.