The Night Bird, page 21
“You knew Dr. Stein was following you?”
“Sure, I spotted her behind me on the bridge. She’s scary. You should keep an eye on her. No telling what she might do.”
“Darren’s right,” Simona added. “I met that bitch. You could tell she was hot for him. I think she’s obsessed.”
Newman gave the woman’s bare ass a playful slap. “Go back to bed, love. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Simona walked down the hallway with an exaggerated sway in her hips. Frost was careful to keep his eyes on Newman’s face and not on the barely dressed girl. Newman grabbed a pack of cigarettes from a bowl near the open front door and strolled with Frost out to the courtyard. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the cold air.
“Is this your house?” Frost asked him.
“My parents own it. They’re in Zurich now. They travel a lot.”
“Your parents have been very good to you. They get you out of a lot of trouble.”
“That’s what parents do,” Newman replied.
“What about the dog? Does he belong to them, too?”
“No, that’s Simona’s. Pissant yipper dog never shuts up. I may have to kill it.”
He made the threat so casually that it took Frost’s breath away. There was not a shred of doubt in his mind that Newman was serious. It made him want to go back inside and tell the young girl that she was in danger, even if she didn’t believe him.
“A lot of people think you killed Merrilyn Somers, too,” Frost told him.
“Sooner or later, every bitch needs to be put down,” Newman said with a smirk.
“None of this is funny.”
“No? You’re just like Frankie. You don’t appreciate my sense of humor.”
Frost leaned in close to the man, but Darren Newman didn’t look easily intimidated. He was too cocky. Too sure of himself.
“Where is she?” Frost asked.
“Who?”
“Lucy Hagen.”
“I have no idea who that is,” Newman replied.
“I want her back. I want her back right now.”
“Is this another one of Frankie’s unfortunate patients? Too bad. I wonder what this one will do when the music starts playing. Drive her car off a cliff. Swallow a bottle of pills. Slit her wrists. Whoever this Night Bird is, you have to admire his imagination.”
Frost didn’t like being baited. And this man was good at it.
“You made a mistake this time, Mr. Newman. You screwed up.”
“Did I? How so?” He took another casual drag on his cigarette.
“You’ve been setting someone up. A man you wanted to frame, just like you framed Leon Willis. The thing is, this man caught you on videotape in a bar. We can put the two of you together. That’s going to make it hard to sell him as the one behind the game. It won’t be like Merrilyn Somers.”
In the semidarkness of the courtyard, Frost saw a darker shadow flit across Darren Newman’s face. He’d struck a nerve. Newman didn’t know about the video. Even so, the man’s smile quickly returned.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he replied. “But a video of me in a bar? Is that the best you can do? I go to a lot of bars. I’m a party animal. Simona will tell you that. I think you better take a long, hard look at the lies that Frankie has been spreading about me. I’m beginning to wonder whether Frankie is doing this herself. The woman isn’t stable. She lost her father recently, did you know that? Tragedies like that can push people over the edge.”
Frost turned away, but Newman called after him.
“Don’t forget to leave me your card.”
Frost dug in his wallet and extracted a card, which he placed in Newman’s hand. The man studied it in the dim light of the garden. “Inspector Frost Easton,” he said. “Who’s your boss in the department, Frost?”
“Jess Salceda.”
“Oh, sure, I know Jess. I’m sure she remembers me, too. I’ll call her tomorrow and tell her about your visit this evening. I think she’ll tell you and Frankie to stay away from me. The last thing the San Francisco Police need is another harassment lawsuit.”
The light inside the car cast shadows under Francesca Stein’s eyes. She brushed back a few loose strands of her brown hair and faked a smile, but Frost could see that she was broken down. Her face, which was always thin, looked fragile. She had her hands in her lap. Her back was arrow straight. Hot air blew from the vents, making the interior warm.
“He knew I was following him,” she said.
“Yes.”
“He played me. He lured me here, and he knew I’d make a fool of myself. No one will believe a thing I say about him now.”
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re right about him,” Frost told her, “but my own credibility isn’t going to be too high after tonight, either.”
Stein turned to face him. Something about her vulnerability made him conscious of how attractive she was. “I’m sorry that I put you in that position,” she said.
“Newman’s good at what he does,” Frost said.
“Yes, he is.” She leaned back against the headrest. He could see the slope of her neck. “Can I confess something to you, Frost? I’m not sure why. I just feel the need to say it out loud.”
He noticed that she’d used his first name, which she’d never done before. “Say whatever you like.”
“I was attracted to Darren Newman when I met him,” she said. “I hate it, I’m not proud of it, but it was chemical. I’m sure that makes no sense to you.”
“I’m a man. I’m never on safe ground trying to figure out what women want.”
“Well, you’d think I’d be smarter than that, but I’m not. I’m married. I’m older than he is. I’m a scientist. I still found him difficult to resist.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
She hesitated long enough to make him wonder what she was going to say. “No.”
“Then it sounds like you have nothing to regret,” he replied, but he wondered if she was lying.
“Oh, I have plenty of regrets when it comes to Darren,” Stein said.
The shadows made her face difficult to read. He wished that he understood her better, but this woman lived in a separate world, where he couldn’t reach her. “You’re wrong about something, you know.”
“What’s that?”
“You said I didn’t like you. I do. I didn’t think I would, but that’s just because I don’t have a great history with therapists. You’re smart, tough, and you care about your patients. I respect that.”
“Thank you.”
“I also need your help,” he said. “Another woman disappeared yesterday. We both know the danger she’s in. I need to find her. Every minute counts.”
Stein closed her eyes. “One of my patients?”
“She came to your office this week. Her name is Lucy Hagen.”
“What do you want? What can I do?”
“Tell me about TF,” Frost said.
He could feel her freeze. “What?”
“You wrote a note. ‘TF. Fall guy.’”
“How do you know about that?” she asked.
“I was in your office. I found the note in your garbage can.”
“You searched my office?” Stein asked. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“You didn’t give me any choice.”
“Did you look at my patient files?”
“No, I didn’t violate anyone’s privacy.”
“Except mine.” She shook her head in dismay.
“I don’t care if you’re angry. The only thing I care about is stopping this man before he hurts anyone else, and you’re standing in my way. I’m not the enemy, Frankie. You’ve got to tell me the truth. You have a patient with the initials T. F., and he knows something about the Night Bird. I need to talk to him.”
“I’m sorry, he’s adamant. No police. I can’t give him up just because you want me to. That’s not how it works.”
“Then talk to him,” Frost said. “Persuade him.”
“I’ll try, but I can’t promise you anything.”
“I need whatever he can tell me.” Frost opened the door of the car, letting in cool air and the noise of the wind in the pines. He hesitated. “Darren told me you lost your father recently. Is that true?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I’m sorry.”
She didn’t seem to care about gestures of sympathy. “What did Darren say about it?”
“It’s not important.”
“I want to know. Please.”
“He said tragedies like that can push someone over the edge,” Frost said.
Stein reached out and took hold of the steering wheel with clenched fists. “That bastard.”
“Does that mean something to you?”
“My father went off the edge of a cliff in Point Reyes while he was hiking,” Stein said.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I haven’t lost a parent, but I can imagine how difficult it must be.”
“It was a complicated relationship,” Stein said. “We weren’t close.”
“Even so.”
Stein stared through the windshield. “Driving here, over the hills, I kept looking over the edge of the cliff. I thought about what it must be like to fall. How your body accelerates. How the ground rushes toward you. What do you have time to think about? What goes through your head? I wonder about his last moments—”
“You shouldn’t do this to yourself,” Frost said, but he wasn’t sure that she was even aware that he was still in the car with her.
“I keep feeling like I’m missing something . . . ,” she began.
Her voice trailed away. Her mouth was open.
He thought, What’s your worst memory?
“Frankie?”
A tremble shuddered in her lower lip. A single glassy tear slipped down her face like melting snow. Her brown eyes were fixed in the darkness. Then, out of nowhere, her entire body convulsed. A spasm jolted her like the touch of a live wire, and she grabbed hold of herself and caved inward.
“Frankie!”
Her body twitched violently; her knees slammed up against the steering wheel. He grabbed one flying wrist. Then the other. He held her as she wriggled in his grasp, and she screamed out one word, drawing it out long and loud: “Stop!”
Seconds later, as quickly as it had come, the seizure washed away. Her body calmed. Her breathing quieted, and her face reddened with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured.
“Are you okay? What was that?”
“Grief,” she said. “A panic attack. That’s all. Everything in the world caught up with me for a moment.”
“Come to my car. I’ll drive you to the hospital.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine now.”
“You shouldn’t drive.”
She put a hand on top of his. Her skin was moist. “It would help if you could not be a cop for a minute, Frost.”
“I’m not being a cop. Just a human being.”
“Then trust me when I tell you I’ll be fine. It came. It went. It’s not coming back.”
“Do you have some kind of illness? Is it epilepsy?”
“No, there’s nothing like that. Really. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m a big girl. I don’t need anyone to rescue me.”
“I’ll follow you back to the city,” Frost said. “I want to make sure you don’t have any problems.”
“If you like.”
Reluctantly, Frost got out of the car. He hiked down the narrow street toward his Suburban, but he kept looking back over his shoulder. Dr. Stein started the engine of her own car, but she waited for him instead of driving away. He climbed into his SUV and put the truck into drive, and both of their vehicles headed back into the Berkeley hills.
He thought about Francesca Stein as he followed her. She was strange, complicated, and beautiful, like a puzzle box for which there was no key. He liked her, but he didn’t particularly like the way she made him feel. She was out of his league.
35
Frankie parked in the underground garage of her building in the Tenderloin. It was late, and she was alone. She walked to the elevator with her head down and her hands tightly gripping her elbows, as if she could hold herself up that way. When she got home, her condominium was dark. She uncorked an open bottle of wine in the refrigerator and poured herself a glass, which she carried up the stairs to their bedroom. Jason was asleep. She stood at the end of the bed and drank her wine and stared at her husband. When the wine was gone, which didn’t take long, she cupped the glass in her palm.
Eventually, as he shifted, he became aware of her presence. He pushed himself up in bed. “Frankie?”
“Yes.”
Silence lingered between them.
“Are you coming to bed?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, and he leaned over to turn on the lamp on his nightstand. A yellow glow illuminated them.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Frankie turned away and went to the windows. She put the toe of her heels against the wall and rested her forehead and palms on the glass. It was like flying. The long fall to the street stretched out below her. “Something happened to me tonight,” she said.
Jason got out of bed. “What is it? Was it Newman? Did he do something to you?”
“No, it’s not that,” she said.
“Then what?”
“I had what I’m pretty sure was a psychogenic seizure.”
Jason folded his arms on his chest. He looked clinical. “How bad?”
“Bad enough. Muscle spasms. Panic. Sweating.”
“Has this ever happened to you before? Have there been previous episodes?”
“No, this was the first.”
He sat back down on the bed. “We should have you tested to make sure there wasn’t a physical cause.”
“That’s not necessary,” Frankie replied. “I know what this was.”
They stared at each other. She could see the truth in his face. He knew where this conversation was going. She should have guessed it much earlier, but she’d written off the mental clues to stress and grief. Doctors made the worst patients.
She turned around and leaned back against the window. Part of her hoped it would give way and let her fall.
“We both know what caused this, don’t we?” she asked him.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Do you remember the patient I told you about three years ago?” Frankie asked. “He was involved in an attempted mugging in Los Angeles. He had a concealed handgun, which he used to shoot the assailant. Then he tried to give CPR, but the mugger died of the gunshot wound. The man was tormented by what he’d done, regardless of the justification. He came to me because he wanted his memory of the event completely erased.”
“I remember,” Jason said.
“Two months after our treatment, he began to have seizures. The doctors thought it was epilepsy, but there were no abnormalities in his EEG. They sent him back to me, and I realized his brain was rebelling against what we’d done. The actual memory of the event was gone, but the underlying trauma was still there. It took a much longer series of traditional treatments to work his way through it.”
Jason didn’t ask why she was telling him this.
“Heights have never bothered me before,” she went on, “but do you know what I see when I look down now?”
“What?”
“I see my father at the base of the cliff. That’s strange because I wasn’t there. I was at our campsite when he went hiking. I never saw my father’s body. I was never on the cliff, and I never looked over the edge. The rangers found him. And yet I can see it in my head, Jason. I can see him lying there.”
“What do you want me to say?” her husband asked.
“I want you to admit what you did to me. You changed my memory of that weekend, didn’t you? All along, I thought that I’d blocked it out. All I could see were images. Snapshots. But they were images you planted there, right? You erased what really happened. You erased what I saw.”
Jason stood in front of her, his face a mask. “Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me to,” he said.
Frankie closed her eyes. He wasn’t lying. She’d already realized what the truth had to be. This was something she’d chosen.
“Was any of it real?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Did he really say he was proud of me?”
Jason didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, “Why go down this road, Frankie? There’s a reason you wanted to forget it.”
“I want to know,” she snapped. “Tell me.”
“No, your father never said that.”
“You lied to me. You planted a lie in my head.”
“A lie? Get over yourself. It’s no different than what you do with patients every day. You take away bad memories, and you replace them with better memories. Don’t blame me if you don’t like your own medicine.”
He was right about that, too. She looked into a mirror, and she didn’t like what she saw. What Jason had done to her was exactly what she did to her own patients. She left her fingerprints inside their brains. She played God. Now, for the first time, she knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end. She wondered how many of the people she’d tried to help found themselves riddled with doubts after it was over. How many of them felt as if they were staring into a well where they couldn’t see the bottom? How many wished they could know the truth again, after the truth had been swept away?
“What really happened out there?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head. “It’s wrong for me to tell you. You didn’t want to remember.”
“Look, if you don’t tell me, I’ll just go downstairs and ask Pam. She knows what you did, right?”
“Yes.”
“So tell me,” Frankie said.
“What do you remember?” Jason asked.
“Nothing. I remember nothing. Just the image of him where he fell. How his body looked. His blood on the rocks.” She stopped, because the image began to get clearer in her brain. The blood was a new detail. She hadn’t seen it before in her flashbacks.
“If I tell you, it might make it worse,” he pointed out. “Sometimes the memories come back more intensely and more painful than before.”
