Another pause. Silence crept across the phone line, but it was the sort of silence that was filled with hidden, explosive noise. Moth waited. He thought he should say something, but the distant doctor spoke slowly.
“And now he’s dead,” Jeremy Hogan said.
“Yes,” Moth blurted out. A single word, but one that carried so much surprise that, watching him, Andy Candy imagined that he’d heard something shocking. Moth’s face seemed to freeze.
“It’s not my fault,” Jeremy Hogan said slowly. “None of it was my fault. At least, I don’t think so. But apparently it was. Whatever it was.”
My fault made Moth stiffen in his seat. His throat was suddenly dry and he waved his hand almost like someone trying to reach out and touch something that was just beyond his grasp. He looked toward Andy Candy and nodded, signaling something to her that made her own pulse accelerate, and she too leaned forward in her seat.
“You remember my uncle?”
“No,” Jeremy replied. “Perhaps I should, but I do not. Too many classes, too many students, too many grades and recommendations and test scores and classroom talks. After all those years, the faces all blend together. I’m sorry.”
“He became a really good therapist.”
“Not my field. Now look, young man, what did he do? What was he to blame for?”
This question was spoken with urgency.
“I don’t know,” Moth answered. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“And his death,” the old psychiatrist started, “what can you tell me about his dea-?”
“He committed suicide, or, at least that’s what the police believe,” Moth interrupted, speaking too fast.
“Yes. I know. In Miami. I read about it.”
“Why did you-?”
“Someone told me to read his obituary.”
“I’m sorry. Someone told you? Who?”
Jeremy hesitated. In a situation that seemed already beyond bizarre, this call from a dead psychiatrist’s nephew seemed to fit right in place.
“I don’t exactly know,” he said slowly.
Moth felt like the phone in his hands was red hot.
“My uncle…” he started, words picking up momentum, “I think he wasn’t a suicide. I think he was killed.”
“Killed?”
“Murdered.”
“But the paper said…”
“The paper was wrong.”
“How do you know that?”
“I knew my uncle.”
Moth said this with so much conviction that it defied doubt.
“And the police think…”
“They also say suicide. Everyone says suicide. That’s the official word. I say faked.”
Another pause.
“Yes,” Jeremy Hogan said, choosing his words cautiously. He was drawing connections in his head. Suicide made little sense. Murder made complete sense. “That would make things significantly clearer. I believe you are correct.”
Moth fumbled, trying to think of what to say next. It was as if questions were choking him like hands around his throat. He needed to ask, but couldn’t spit out words. Many voices had suggested he was on the proper track, but none had carried any proof or authority. This voice seemed different. It had weight.
“Perhaps we should speak in person,” Jeremy Hogan added. His voice had changed, suddenly pensive, soft, and almost regretful. “I do not know what your uncle and I shared, but something linked us together. Can you come up here? You will have to hurry, because I’m expecting to be murdered soon, too.”
She barely said a word to her mother, but took the time to rub some dogs’ ears and affectionately scratch some dog throats. Then Andy Candy went to her room, found a small suitcase, and threw clean underwear and a few toiletries into it. She had no idea how long she would be gone. She found jeans and sweaters and a warm coat. It wasn’t like packing for school, or packing for a vacation. She had no idea what packing for a conversation about killing required.
“You’re going someplace-”
“Yes. With Moth. Shouldn’t be long.”
“Andy, are you sure-”
She interrupted for the second time. “Yes.” She knew she should say much more, but every aspect of her sudden trip north suggested much wider, more difficult talks, which she was unwilling to have. So she adopted a laconic, curt, angry-teenager tone that she hadn’t used in years and that didn’t invite her mother in. For a moment she wondered which was the real Andy Candy. Who are you?-the most common question for people her age. Answers, however, are tricky. Happy. Sad. Possessed. She added up all the rapid changes she had gone through in the past weeks. The Andy Candy who was outgoing, quick to laugh, friendly, and eager to join in all sorts of activities had been closeted away. The new Andy Candy was bitterly quiet and absolutely unwilling to share details.
“Well, at least tell me where you’re going,” her mother said, exasperated.
“New Jersey.”
Hesitation. “New Jersey? Why…”
“We’re going to see a psychiatrist.” This was a statement of fact that was wrapped in a lie, she thought.
Another hesitation. “Why would you go all that way to see a psychiatrist?” her mother asked. Plenty of psychiatrists in Miami. Doubt was riveted to her voice.
“Because he’s the only person left who can help us,” Andy replied.
Her mother did not ask, nor did Andy volunteer an answer to the obvious question: Help with what?
19
A Fourth Conversation, Very Brief
The key to all his killings was deceptively simple: no recognizable signature.
Ed Warner’s death had been a clever puzzle to plan. Finding a way to be seated across from him in conversation had been the clear choice, but still required cautious design. It mimicked a typical therapeutic session. The only difference had been that the handshake at the end had been replaced by a close-range gunshot-an idea he’d stolen from the forty-year-old movie Three Days of the Condor. Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, and Max von Sydow. He suspected that no modern cop, not even one who liked slightly dated adventure flicks, had seen it. But Jeremy Hogan presented different problems.
I told him far too much.
He’s not stupid. But he will be unsure what the next step he can take might be.
Act before he can act.
Winchester Model 70, 30.06 caliber. Weight 8 lbs.
Five rounds 180-grain ammunition.
Leupold 12X scope.
Effective range: 1,000 yards.
But he knew that would be a military-trained sniper making an extraordinary kill shot, compensating for wind, atmosphere, humidity, and the flattening trajectory of the bullet over the terrain.
Exceptional range: 200 to 400 yards.
That would be a highly skilled and experienced big-game hunter. A shot to boast about.
Typical range: 25-50 yards.
This would be a weekend-warrior type, falsely persuaded about his hunting prowess, fantasizing he was some new-day Davy Crockett descendant, armed to the gills with expensive equipment that got used maybe a couple of times a year and spent the rest of its time locked in a closet.
The doctor was the last death on his agenda. He was unsure whether he’d done enough to make it ring true. He feared coming so far over so many years, only to fall emotionally short. That’s the biggest danger, he told himself. Not arrest, trial, conviction, sentencing, and being shunted off to prison to await a date with an executioner. Far worse would be failure after coming so far.
“That’s a strange thought for a killer,” he said out loud, as he rolled this notion over in his mind.