The Good Lie by A.R. Torre
CHAPTER 41
I didn’t have a chance to process the announcement before Robert strode down the hall and out of sight. I stood to follow and heard the front door swing open.
“Detective Saxe,” Robert said warmly, and the man deserved an acting award.
I stepped into the hall and moved slowly toward the front door, wondering why the detective was here. Earlier, I’d been concerned about being arrested for my failure to report John’s premeditations toward Brooke. Now, with his BH Killer label in place, did any of that really matter?
Another possibility entered the fray. Detective Saxe could have the same opinion that Robert had held—that I’d known the BH Killer’s identity this entire time. My stomach turned.
“Good evening, Mr. Kavin.” The detective stood on the front porch and eyed me as I came to a stop beside Robert. “Dr. Moore.”
I cleared my throat. “Hi. Come on in.”
Robert moved to the side and the detective entered, his badge glinting from his hip. I gestured them into the study and flipped on a lamp beside the chair.
“So, you’re both here.” The detective looked at each of us. “Again. Is this a thing, or do you guys just really love talking about dead people?”
I rubbed my forehead and wished I had eaten the spaghetti back at the office. I felt light-headed from lack of food, and I needed every bit of my limited brainpower right now. “We saw the news. I’m surprised you aren’t at the scene.”
“I was, but only because it was originally my scene. The task force and feds have taken it over now. Detectives are headed to Scott Harden’s house, but I thought I’d swing by here first. I tried to call, but you didn’t answer.”
I looked in the direction of the kitchen, my purse still on the counter where I’d left it. “Sorry, my phone’s in the kitchen.”
“Well, we’re trying to figure out what happened. We’ve got two dead serial killers and a kid who escaped the morning they died. Before I start looking at Scott for that murder, I wanted to know if you had any insights, especially since John Abbott called you that morning.”
I met Robert’s eyes for a heartbeat, then looked away. How many people, other than him and me, knew that he’d killed John?
And how had he known John was the BH Killer? The latter was a question I still needed the answer to.
“Right? Isn’t that what you told me initially? That John left you a short voice mail, asking you to call him back?” Detective Saxe looked up from a small tablet. “Care to change any part of that story?”
“Two dead serial killers?” I frowned. “You have definitive proof that Brooke Abbott was involved?”
“There’s no way she couldn’t have known. Not with him keeping the boys in the house. Now . . .” He let out a frustrated sigh. “Anything else I need to know? Because I got to tell you, Doc, given what your patient was up to, there’s about to be a lot more attention on your pretty little head.”
He was right. And if this was the moment that I lost my medical license, so be it. “John killed his wife. I don’t know that for certain, but I know that his desire to kill her was what I was treating him for, and I spent a year listening to him talk about it. You probably did a tox screen on her for poisons, but I would check for vitamins that can be deadly in combination with whatever her heart medication was.” I made it the short distance to the closest seat and sat, immediately relieved by the confession.
Detective Saxe peered down at me as if I were crazy. “John Abbott wanted to kill his wife? You expect me to believe that’s what you were treating him for?”
“Yes. His client file’s in my office. Take it with you, if you need to.”
“Wow. Suddenly singing and ready to unveil client confidences.” He looked at me with thinly veiled disgust. “You could have just told me this from the beginning. Saved the department and myself a lot of time.”
“They were both dead,” I said simply. “I didn’t know about the teenagers. I thought he was just a jealous husband, one who was trying not to hurt his wife.”
“I don’t think Dr. Moore should say anything else.” Robert stepped in, and it was sweet how a man who came here to kill me was now protecting my legal rights.
Saxe paused, and I waved him forward. “Keep going.”
“And John Abbott never said anything about the boys tied to a mattress in his attic?”
I forced myself not to go down the psychiatrist rabbit hole, but the details were fascinating. Brooke’s awareness of the acts. Her potential romantic involvement with the victims. Keeping them in their house.
In the expectant silence, I shook my head. “No. He never mentioned that. Never even hinted at it. I came right home as soon as I heard the news, to go through his file and see if there was something I missed, but . . .” I looked between the two men. “I don’t think I did. They were two separate silos. Morally, he was fine with being the BH Killer. Enjoyed it, if I had to guess. But his dark thoughts turning to Brooke . . . that scared him. That’s why he came to me. I just didn’t realize what I was dealing with.” I swallowed.
It was clear from Detective Saxe’s expression what he thought of my competency. Well, screw him. I had tried my best with the information I had been given. Yes, I’d kept things secret, in order to protect my career. But so had Robert. And probably, at some point, so had Detective Saxe. It was human nature to protect ourselves.
“So, John killed Brooke?” Saxe asked.
“I’m pretty damn sure. Like I said, I’d run the tox screen.”
“And who killed John?”
Robert’s eyebrow twitched, and now was the moment. I could just tell Saxe, right now. He was armed, he could protect me. Arrest Robert and take him away. That was my civic duty, right? Instead, I pinched my facial features in a confused look. “I thought you told me that he killed himself. Stabbed himself in the gut.”
“I did . . . ,” he said slowly. “But now we know more. There’s a lot more reasons for someone to want him dead.” He regarded Robert. “Take Mr. Kavin, for instance. Your son was his sixth victim. I’m sure, if we put a knife in any of the parents’ hands, they would have done the deed. Would you agree?”
If I was sweating, Robert was as cool as ice. “I’d have gutted him like a fish,” he said without hesitation.
Detective Saxe chuckled. Chuckled. I guess I wasn’t the only one unable to tell a killer when he was standing right in front of me. The cop returned his attention to me. “So, you think suicide is still consistent with his mentality?”
“He was hopelessly in love with his wife. If he broke and actually hurt her—killed her? Yes. Absolutely. Killing himself would have been very plausible, if not expected.” Since no one else was seated, I gripped the arms of the chair and stood.
“Okay.” The detective nodded. “I’ll be back in touch with any more questions. Kavin, looks like you caught a break with your client.”
“I wouldn’t call it a break,” Robert said. “Thompson’s life has been ruined.”
“Well, sue Scott Harden, not the police department.” He tucked his tablet into his breast pocket. “Stay in town, Dr. Moore. We’ll probably be back for that file.”
“Sure,” I said tartly, and I didn’t even feel a little guilty at letting him believe that John had killed himself.
As the detective left, Robert stayed in the foyer. He turned to face me, and there was a moment of silence as we stood just a few feet apart.
“Don’t feel guilty about Brooke’s death,” he said gruffly. “She was as much a monster as him. While he was dying, he told me everything.” He closed his eyes and sucked in a pained breath. “It was bad, Gwen. He was physical with the boys, but she was emotionally cruel. It was a sexual and emotional game between them, with the boys as pawns. She deserved to die, and in a lot worse way than she went.”
I hugged my arms over my chest. “I’ll try not to, but the guilt is still there. Now in about a hundred new ways.”
From the street, the detective’s car rumbled to life. Robert twisted the knob and pulled open the front door. “Goodbye, Gwen.”
I stepped forward. “Wait. Robert.”
He ignored me, moving onto the porch and pulling the door shut, quick enough that it almost hit me. I jerked back and watched him through the thin panes of glass. He stepped into the dark yard and didn’t look back. A few seconds later, car lights illuminated at the curb, then pulled away.
I flipped the dead bolt, then moved to the kitchen and repeated the action at the side door, irritated with myself for leaving it unlocked. Returning to my office, I took my chair and picked up the knife that he’d left behind. It was one of the ones from his collection, one he hadn’t shared a story on. I turned it over in my hands, then placed it in my desk drawer and let out a sigh, looking over the papers spread out before me.
An hour ago, I was frantic to look at John’s file and find the clues I might have missed. Now, it was the last thing I wanted to do. And did it really matter? At some point, the file would be confiscated by the cops or the courts. My work would be a news story, a Wikipedia entry, and a cocktail-party conversation piece. I would become famous as the most inept psychiatrist of all time. Randall Thompson would be released. Scott Harden . . . I frowned, unsure what would become of him. Obstruction of justice, surely. Was that in my future, too?
I didn’t care. I had spent the last month paralyzed with guilt over a woman’s murder, and she had turned out to be a monster. I now had the blood of two teenagers on my conscience and would spend the next couple of decades microanalyzing every conversation I’d ever had with John Abbott.
Just a week ago, I’d been bristling with excitement over the chance to speak to Randall Thompson. I’d considered it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to sit across from the Bloody Heart Killer. Now, I knew that I’d had a year of interactions. I’d doodled in the margins of my notebook while Los Angeles’s reigning killer had spoken.
I had failed, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever forgive myself for it.