some trigger to release them. A person could curse, cry, hallucinate, and in general depart from normal human interaction in an instant. Violent behavior is possible. One of the medical treatments mentioned includes the drug Seroquel, the one found in Stern’s apartment.
Wisdom leans back and focuses his eyes on a square white ceiling tile. If Stern needs Seroquel, it’s very likely that he may suffer from hallucinations, and if so, then what would he have thought when he caught a quick glimpse of Brigid in Posner’s driveway, looking for the entire world like the Heidi in his memory? How would a troubled mind react to seeing his presumed dead lover turn up alive and as beautiful as he remembered? Maybe it wouldn’t mean much if he was on his meds, but they did find the mostly filled pill bottle in his apartment, didn’t they? If he’s off the meds, then he could really be off-the-wall.
His thoughts are interrupted by another call from Bennett.
“Got some more interesting news for you. After Brigid told us about Stern having a white car we checked registrations for white cars against local addresses. Seems the people down the block who live in a house on the far corner of Posner’s street have a white Chevy Malibu. And get this. It’s the same location where Stern’s cell phone calls were made. Only he wasn’t standing outside when he made them. He was in the house. A team just got back from there. No white Chevy, but Stern’s rented Ford is in the garage. And one more thing. There’s plenty of evidence that the guy spent time upstairs, and from the bedroom window he’d have a clear view of anyone around Posner’s house.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he could have doubled back and watched everything going on from his cozy little window seat. He could have seen all of us come and go as well.”
“Including Brigid. He could have seen Brigid.”
“Right. And he could have followed her back to her house. When did she leave Posner’s? Late afternoon?”
“That’s it. But I had a cruiser stop by after she got home as well as this morning. Everything seemed quiet.”
“Did patrol speak to her?”
“Yes. Yesterday as well as this morning. Everything seemed normal and quiet.”
“I wouldn’t trust quiet in a case like this.”
“Roger that. I’m on it.”
He presses another button to dial the patrol dispatcher and asks them to patch him through to the cruiser that checked out Brigid’s house that morning.
“It was exactly eight-o-five when I knocked on the door. I’m reading right off my book.”
“Anything unusual?”
“Nothing I could see. Oh, she did take more than a few minutes to answer the door. Said she was sleeping. And she was wearing that same dress that she had on the day before. You know, the pink-and-white one.”
“I know,” agrees Wisdom, but a bell goes off. Why would she be still wearing the dress she claims she dislikes so much on the next day? Or, for that matter, even a minute longer than she ever needed to?
“Anything else? Did she say there was any problem?”
“No. Said everything was fine. Thanked me and said goodbye.”
At that moment Wisdom’s mind starts to wander and his silence is obvious.
“Anything else, sir?”
“No. that’s all. Thanks. Unless you can think of something else.”
“Well there’s one thing. Maybe it’s nothing, but all the time we spoke, and it couldn’t have been for more than half a minute, she kept rubbing her wrists. Alternating hands.”
“Like to get the circulation going?”
“Right. Like someone just took the cuffs off. We’ve sure seen it enough to know the motion.”
“Holy shit! He’s there. He’s with her. He’s holding her hostage. Where are you now?”
“Montauk village.”
“You’re a good ten minutes closer than me. Get over there right away but stay on the main road away from the driveway until I get there. I’ll call in for backup. No one in or out.
“And pass the word that I’m driving over there and should make it in about twenty minutes.”
He disconnects and jumps out of his chair. In the process he knocks the rest of his already cold coffee off the desk and onto the floor. He snatches his jacket, hops over a puddle, and races out the door. The wall clock he passes in the hall reads a minute before ten.
He presses the gas pedal halfway to the floor and sticks the overhead on the roof. Just enough time to call Bennett, who’ll get onto County. He doesn’t care who gets the collar. After all the mistakes he’s made, starting with his agreeing to the pink-and-white dress masquerade, he just wants Brigid to be safe. He sees the Old Montauk Highway fork and veers to the right. He risks keeping the speed at fifty despite the blind hills.
“Hang in there, Brigid. I’m coming. I’m coming.”
Even though he’s alone in the car and still a few miles from her house, he still hopes she can somehow hear him.
CHAPTER 25
The next morning arrives with shafts of sunlight that steal around the curtains and outline Brigid’s rigid body as it lays spread across the white duvet cover. Her eyes are shut, legs splayed apart, as if posed in a men’s magazine, but there’s no overt eroticism. Her arms stretch above her head where the wrists are tied to bedposts with her own stockings. A shallow breathing betrays the only sign of life. The only clothing is a white bra and matching cotton panties. No thongs in her life, Stern thinks. Not like Heidi who sought the prospect of sexuality in every garment. The plainness and simplicity of the underwear actually desexualized the woman, although he knows it’s more than that.
He studies her body again. Her breasts seem smaller when she lies flat and the few tiny black curls that escape the underwear are the only hints at what might have propelled him into a state of erotic arousal, only it didn’t work. Nothing worked.
He remembers the previous night. She lay there just as she does now. He’d tied her arms and she began to cry, which he blatantly ignored. He removed his own shirt, pants, shoes, and socks. He hooked his fingers into the elastic of his Jockey shorts and then stopped. Nothing happened. He wanted to fuck this woman out of anger, yet nothing happened. He stroked himself, but arousal still eluded him. She watched him for a moment then averted her eyes.
Just like with Heidi, he remembers. Maybe she really is Heidi. He isn’t sure whether he speaks or thinks the words. Logic tells him it’s the fucking Seroquel. He started taking the pills randomly again a few weeks ago from the old bottle, but the results are mixed. Sometimes he feels calmer, yet he still imagines things. Sometimes he still feels like he’s in another person’s body. Half of him wants to believe Heidi’s still alive. The other side to the medication is that it depresses his sexual desire to the point of nonexistence. He accepts now that he’s in some kind of sexual twilight zone, where relatively normal social behavior can arrive at the risk of losing all sexual drive. Conversely, if his old sexual appetites return, he assumes it will be at the cost of more serious mental disorders. He clinically dissects his condition, as he always has, mentally adding up the gains and losses of any approach. Sometimes he makes the wrong choice, just as with a patient. Last night he was determined to fuck this woman’s brains out but couldn’t even get semihard. In the end he tied her up and fled to the living room couch, but sleep joined sexual performance as elusive goals.
When he heard her calling,
His watch shows eight and she looks as if she’s still sleeping, but he guesses she’s only faking it. Like she faked being Heidi yesterday. Her whole story is just so much bullshit.
He puts on his jacket and drops the gun into a side pocket outside of the flap.
“Time to get up, sleepyhead,” he says and loosens the stocking around her right wrist.
He’s just starting to untie her second wrist when he hears a knock at the door. There’s a moment of paralysis when everything he’s ever feared in his life leaps out at him; his father’s endless stream of disapprovals, anxiety
