Beyond Recognition

this.”

“No,” said the other. “I know what you mean.”

5

The psych profile was ready on Friday.

Daphne Matthews, the department’s psychologist, notified Boldt by leaving a message on a piece of notepaper, accompanied by her trademark doodle of a smiling bird.

Sight of her still stopped Boldt’s breath. Some things never changed. He wondered if it was because of her thick mane of chestnut-brown hair or the narrow face with the sharp features. Perhaps the slender body, the dark skin, and long fingers. She was a woman who could play a set a tennis, talk a suicide out of a window, or hold a press conference where no one shouted. Maybe it was those lips, red, pouty, that just had to taste sweet, had to be softer than warm butter. Her clothes helped. She wore smart clothes, not high fashion. On the morning of September twentieth, it was khakis, a hunter-green plaid shirt that she filled out deliciously, and a silver necklace with a jumping porpoise leaping below her collarbone.

On her desk, a small plastic Charlie Brown held a sign that read THE DOCTOR IS IN-5 CENTS. A teapot with a twisting vine of soft blue flowers sat on a coaster next to a pile of multicolored file folders. Her ninth-floor office was the only one in the entire building that didn’t smell of commercial disinfectant and didn’t feel like something built by a city government. She had real curtains covering her window, and the poster art on the walls reflected her love of English landscapes and Impressionists. She had a red ceramic lamp with brass handles on the opposite corner from the phone. Vivaldi played from a small boom box on the shelf behind her. She turned down the music, pivoting in her chair, and smiled. The room seemed a little brighter.

In the small stack of files were problems common to the department: the officer-involved drunken brawl at a downtown hotel that erupted after two of the men had entered the hotel pool, after hours and stark naked; the attempted suicide by a narcotics officer that followed the near fatal beating of his ex-wife; the evaluations of several officers in drug and alcohol rehab; a few repeat offenders; a few who couldn’t sleep anymore; and some others who slept too much, burdened by depression.

Daphne Matthews was referred to as the staff shrink. She attempted to paste back together the cops who fell apart. She listened to those who needed an ear. She created psychological profiles of suspects based on whatever she could find.

She poured him tea without asking, putting in one sugar and enough milk to make it blond. She stirred it and handed it across the desk. She didn’t ask why he was here-there were too many years between them for such formalities. “The green plastic in the envelope mailed to Steven Garman? I don’t know what it means. Money? Jealousy? Death? None of the above?”

“The verse?” he asked.

“He has half the deed done, who has made a beginning. It’s from a poem by Horace. Quintus Horatius Flaccus. Born in the century before Christ. Major influence on English poetry. One of the greatest lyric poets. Heady stuff. Our boy knows his literature. College educated, maybe a master’s. It’s either a cry for help or a threat.”

“Our boy?” Boldt asked. “The killer? You think so?”

“We play it that way, don’t we?” she said. “At least until you hand me someone different. The sketch is of a headless fireman going up a ladder. It talks about a deed being done.”

“A confession?” Boldt asked, his heart beating strongly in his chest.

“More of a warning, I think. He warned Steven Garman; it allows him to disassociate from the consequences of the fire.”

“It’s Garman’s fault,” he proposed.

“Exactly. Perhaps Garman is the headless fireman in the sketch-the guy up the ladder.” She explained, “I have to caution you that the handwriting, the block letters, the inconsistent spacing contradicts the notion of a well-educated individual. I’m not sure how to interpret that. He may be young, Lou. Let me run some numbers by you.” She picked up a sheet of paper on her desk. “Sixty-six percent of arson arrests are people under twenty-five years old. Juveniles account for forty-nine percent of those.” Her face tightened while reading.

He asked, “What is it?”

“Just a number.”

“Daffy?”

“Nationally the clearance rate is only fifteen percent.”

Boldt sagged, literally and emotionally. Eighty-five percent of arsonists got away with it. “I don’t like those odds,” he admitted.

Attempting a more upbeat note, she said, “This blob of green plastic is symbolic to him. Though without knowing what that symbolism is, we’re at a bit of a loss.”

“If it’s significant, we run with it.”

She asked, “Have you thought about testing the plastic to find out what it was before it was melted?”

“That’s an interesting idea,” he admitted.

“It would sure help me to know what it was.”

“What about a fireman?” Boldt asked, stating what he believed an obvious question.

“Certainly near the top of our list,” Daphne answered. “A disenchanted fireman. Someone turned down by the department. Discharged. Denied a promotion.” She clarified this. “It works for the sending of the note, but not for killing Dorothy Enwright. Why kill an innocent woman if you’re venting anger? You’d kill a fireman or fire inspector, wouldn’t you?”

Boldt nodded but didn’t speak. He heard it in her voice, her words: This was bigger than Dorothy Enwright, bigger than anyone had foreseen.

“We need the connection,” Daphne said. “The spark, if you will. The motive. It may be something as eclectic as the architecture of the house. It may tie in directly to Dorothy Enwright or Steven Garman.”

Boldt experienced it as a dryness in his throat, a knife blade in his stomach. He didn’t want to ask the question of the psychologist because he feared her answer. Nonetheless, it had to be asked. “It isn’t over, is it?”

She met his eyes; hers were filled with sympathy. “The note tells us that: He has half the deed done, who has made a beginning.” She asked rhetorically, “So what comes next?”

6

Nothing much changed. If Ben had one complaint in life, this was it. He felt powerless to change things himself, and, left to grownups, things remained too much the same. School was school; home was home. He felt pressure from Emily to give the social workers the evidence they needed, but he wasn’t about to give in, so in the end he blamed himself for his situation, and it hurt.

He had Monday Night Football to thank for keeping Jack Santori away. His stepfather wouldn’t come home from work but, instead, would head directly to the bar for the game. He wouldn’t come home from the bar until late, because he placed bets on football and he drank heavily, win or lose. Sometime around midnight he would stumble in downstairs, bang around, and find his way to bed-if he was lucky-or more likely end up passed out on the couch with TV fuzz hissing back at him. By that same time, Ben would be safe, locked behind his bedroom door, having spent the late afternoon and evening with Emily.

There had probably been a time when he had been afraid of the dark, though it had long since passed. He had other things he feared more. Jack had a way, with his eyes and voice, of terrifying Ben so that his legs suddenly went to Jell-O and his thoughts became tangled and confused. There were times when for no reason at all he would press Ben to the floor and, holding a pillow against Ben’s back, would beat him, hammering away with his drunken,