Bad Love

The screen went black. Then bright blue.

The dog was barking again, loud and insistent.

I made a shushing sound. He looked at me, cocked his head. Stared at me, confused. I went over to him and patted his back. His back muscles were jumping and drool trickled from his flews.

'It's okay, fella.' My voice sounded false and my hands were cold. The dog licked one of them and looked up at me.

'It's okay,' I repeated.

Milo rewound the tape. His jaw was bunched.

How long had the scene lasted- a few minutes? I felt as if I'd aged watching it.

I stroked the dog some more. Milo stared at the numbers on the VCR's counter.

'It's him, isn't it?' I said. 'Hewitt. Screaming on my tape.'

'Him or a good imitation.'

'Who's the poor woman?'

'Another social worker at the center. Adeline Potthurst. She just happened to be sitting at the wrong desk when he ran out after killing Becky.'

'How is she?'

'Physically, she's okay- minor lacerations. Emotionally?' He shrugged. 'She took disability leave. Refused to talk to me or anyone else.'

He ran a hand along the edge of a bookshelf, grazing book spines and toys.

'How'd you figure it out?' I said. 'Hewitt on the 'bad love' tape?'

'I'm not sure what I figured, actually.'

He shrugged. His forelock cast a hat-brim shadow over his brow, and in the weak light of the library, his green eyes were drab.

The tape ejected. Milo put it on an end table and sat down. The dog waddled over to him, and this time Milo looked pleased to see him.

Rubbing the animal's thick neck, he said, 'When I first heard your tape, something about it bugged me- reminded me of something. But I didn't know what it was, so I didn't say anything to you. I figured it was probably 'bad love'- Hewitt's using the phrase, my reading about it in the clinic director's witness report.'

'Had you watched the video before?'

He nodded. 'But at the station, with half an ear- a bunch of other detectives sitting around, cheering when Hewitt bit it. Splatter's never been my thing. I was filling out forms, doing paperwork… When you told me about the tape, it still didn't trigger, but I wasn't that bugged. I figured what you did- a bad joke.'

'The phone call and the fish make it more than a joke, don't they?'

'The phone call, by itself, is stupidity- like you said, cowardly shit. Someone coming on your property in the middle of the night and killing something is more. All of it put together is more. How much more I don't know, but I'd rather be a little paranoid than get taken by surprise. After we spoke on the phone this afternoon I really wracked my brains about what was bothering me. Went back into the Basille files, found the video, and watched it. And realized it wasn't the phrase that I remembered, it was the screams. Someone had stuck Hewitt's screams on your little gift.'

He pulled his wet hand away from the dog's maw, looked at it, wiped it on his jacket.

'Where'd the video come from?' I said. 'TV station's raw footage?'

He nodded.

'How much of it was actually broadcast?'

'Not much at all. This TV station has a twenty-four-hour crime-watch van with a scanner- anything for the ratings, right? They got to the scene first and were the only ones to actually record the whole thing. Their total footage is ten minutes or so, mostly no-action standoff before Hewitt comes out with Adeline. What you just saw is thirty-five seconds.'

'That's all? It seemed a lot longer.'

'Seemed like a goddamn eternity, but that's what it was. The part that actually made it to the six o'clock news was nine seconds. Five of Hewitt with Adeline, three of Rambo close-ups on the SWAT guys, and one second of Hewitt down. No blood, no screaming, no standing dead man.'

'Wouldn't sell deodorant,' I said, pushing the image of the teetering corpse out of my head. 'Why was the sound off for most of it? Technical difficulties?'

'Yup. Loose cable on their parabolic mike. The sound man caught it midway through.'

'What did the other stations broadcast?'

'Postmortem analysis by the department mouthpiece.'

'So if the screams on my tape were lifted, the source had to be this particular piece of footage.'

'Looks that way.'

'Meaning what? Mr. Silk's an employee of the TV station?'

'Or a spouse, kid, lover, pal, significant other, whatever. If you give me your patient list, I can try to get hold of the station's personnel records and cross-check.'

'Be better if you give me the personnel list,' I said. 'Let me check it against my patients, so I can preserve confidentiality.'

'Fine. Another list you might try to get is the one for your 'bad love' conference. Anyone who attended. It was a long time ago, but maybe the hospital keeps records.'

'I'll call tomorrow.'

He got up and touched his throat. 'Now I'm thirsty.'

We went into the kitchen, opened beers, and sat at the table, drinking and brooding.

The dog positioned himself between us, licking his lips.

Milo said, 'He doesn't get to go for the gusto?'

'Teetotaler.' I got up and slid the water bowl over. The dog ignored it.

'Bullshit. He wants hops and malt,' said Milo. 'Looks like he's closed a few taverns in his day.'

'There's a marketing opportunity for you,' I said. 'Brew a hearty lager for quadrupeds. Though I'm not sure you could set your criteria too high for a species that imbibes out of the toilet.'

He laughed. I managed a smile. Both of us trying to forget the videotape. And everything else.

'There's another possibility,' I said. 'Maybe Hewitt's voice wasn't lifted from the video footage. Maybe he was taped simultaneously by someone at the mental health center. Someone who happened to have a recorder handy the day of the murder and switched it on during the standoff. There'd probably be machines lying around the center, for therapy.'

'You're saying there's a therapist behind this?'

'I was thinking more of a patient. Some paranoids make a fetish of keeping records. I've seen some lug tape recorders around with them. Someone who'd been bearing a grudge since seventy-nine could very well be highly paranoid.'

He thought about that. 'Nutcase with a pocket Sony, huh? Someone you once treated who ended up at the mental health center?'

'Or just someone who remembered me from the conference and ended up at the center. Someone tying me in with bad love- whatever it means to him. Probably anger at bad therapy. Or therapy he perceived as bad. De Bosch's theory has to do with bad mothers letting their kids down. Betrayal. If you think of therapists as surrogate parents, the stretch isn't hard to make.'

He put down his bottle and looked at the ceiling. 'So we've got a nut, one of your old patients, gone downhill, can't afford private treatment so he's getting county help. Happens to be at the center the day Hewitt freaks out and butchers Becky. Recorder in his pocket- keeping tabs on all the people talking behind his back. He hears the screams, presses RECORD… I guess it's possible- anything's possible in this city.'

'If we're dealing with someone who's been stewing for a long time, witnessing Becky Basille's murder and the SWAT scene could have set him off. Hearing Hewitt screaming about bad love could have done it, too, if he'd had experiences with de Bosch or a de Boschian therapist.'