Chapter Twenty-Nine

 

 

“You’re here awfully early,” Tom quipped, popping his head into Anna’s office.

His voice startled her and she shot him a quick glance before checking her watch.

Early? It’s nearly seven. I wonder what he would say if he knew that I’ve been here since five. Aloud she said, “I had a thought that wouldn’t let me sleep so, I decided to come in and follow up on it.”

“What happened to not making this personal?” He took the empty seat across from her desk. “If you’re losing sleep, then I think that qualifies as taking your work home with you.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t take this case seriously. I didn’t go to bed thinking about how we can crack the case. The thought just hit me out of the blue.”

“So what were you thinking about when you went to bed?” Tom winked at her.

She glared at him.

He threw his hands up in surrender. “Hey, take it easy. I’m just having a little fun with you.”

“You can keep those sorts of comments to yourself.”

“Okay, okay…” He put his elbows on her desk and leaned up to peek at the manila folder she held.

“You don’t have to be sneaky. If you want to know what I’m working on, just ask.”

“Okay, what was your big epiphany?”

“Nice word, have you recently started reading?”

“And you can keep those sort of derogatory remarks to yourself.” He twisted her words before feeding them back to her.

She grunted her amusement and spread the folder on the desk. “I have been going over the files they pulled from Dr. Pearlman’s house.”

“Everyone on his client list has been questioned. None of them, with the exception your lead, knew anything about him outside of his practice.”

“I’ve been reading through the notes he made on various sessions—”

“Anna, stop right there. You know that anything we find in his files won’t be admissible in court.”

“No, but I have found something odd.”

“I bet you did.” He laughed. “I wonder how anything revealed to a shrink wouldn’t be odd.”

“He has a stack of sessions with this one individual that are particularly disturbing.”

“A stack? I was under the impression that we only pulled out a few of the files before the house went up.”

“Yes, everything he had archived down in his basement was lost. They did, however, manage to pull out two full filing cabinets from his office.”

“This doesn’t look like enough folders to fill two cabinets.” Tom motioned to the short stacks on her desk.

“No, the rest are still booked in downstairs. These are just the files from the first drawer.”

“How long have you been at this?”

“That’s not important. Listen, I cross referenced the names on his client list to the files, and I found one patient in the cabinet who wasn’t listed in the Rolodex.”

“Maybe Pearlman dropped him as a patient. You said yourself that you found some disturbing stuff in the file. He could have decided he had bit off more than he could chew.”

“Well, I thought of that, but none of the files in the cabinet are more than a year old and the last entry is dated within a week of the latest one I found.”

“When was the last entry?”

“A little more than six months ago.”

“Six Months? How?” Tom paused. “Why didn’t that piece of information come up when we interviewed the other patients?”

“Yeah, it struck me as strange too.”

“So, who was the last person to see him?”

“That’s not important,” she said, shaking her head emphatically. “If they would have been among the missing, we would have flagged them during the initial—”

“I know that,” Tom interrupted. “I was just thinking we could ask the patients if they noticed anything different about Pearlman the last time they saw him.”

“I want you to read this.” She pulled a piece of paper from the bottom of one of the stacks and handed it to him.

Taking the paper from her hand, Tom began reading the report…

 

He seems to be slipping again. I wonder if he is still taking his medications. He is living proof that God is a masochist, giving a man that big such a nasty affliction. His imagination is as strong as his body. The images he describes are so vivid they leave me nauseous. I pray that they are only hallucinations. If they weren’t, I am sure it would have made the papers by now.

He wrote a poem which he read to me today. He told me he didn’t remember writing it but knew it was his handwriting.

 

Tom stopped there to look for the poem. When he looked up, Anna was holding it up between her thumb and forefinger. He grabbed the paper and began to read.

 

 

“Confessions of True Love”

 

Murder held dear is like death so sweet

The aroma of flesh, of rotting meat

The moldy skin and puss filled sores

Eyes the texture of a sandy shore

 

Your death is marked by an oozing third eye

A telltale sign of how you died

The eye stares blankly out into space

None will know the last horror it faced

 

You looked at my pistol and begged for your life

You told me you had children, a home and a wife

My response was a quick "Then tonight’s not your night."

When my words faded away, so did your life.

 

 

Tom took note of the neat, deliberate handwriting. Each letter was the exact same height and width as the one before it. “Your guy has a way with words,” he said, before returning it to the file. He went back to reading the doctor’s report.

 

He said the poem frightened him. When I asked him to elaborate, he said he was afraid of anyone who could have written about such a horrible act.

There are times that I admire his duality. It seems like it would be an incredible freedom to entertain our darkest thoughts without fear of the memories following us into our waking life. Now matter how bloody his dreams, he wakes each morning with a clear conscious.

 

Tom looked up from the report. “So, you think the sessions with this Schizo are what sent the doctor over the edge?”

“No, I am beginning to think we’re after the wrong perp.”

“What? And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“If you read through the rest of the sessions, you’ll find he fits the profile a lot better than Brian Pearlman ever did.”

“Maybe you’ve forgotten about the blood we found at the Joyner house,” Tom scoffed. “The blood on that lamp definitely belonged to Pearlman.”

“I’ve been giving that a lot of thought,” she said after taking a deep breath. “The Puppeteer has never left any physical evidence before and hasn’t left any since. What if the blood was placed there deliberately, to throw us off his scent?”

“Then we’ve all been had,” Tom admitted in a whisper.

“There’s always the possibility I’m wrong, but I have a strange feeling about this one.”

“Does your suspect have a name?”

“Kyle,” Anna shook her head. “Just Kyle. I haven’t been able to find a last name written down anywhere. It’s the damnedest thing.”

“I guess we can go down the list of Kyles in the Rolodex. It’s as good a place as any to start.”

“I’m way ahead of you. There are none. I checked and re-checked and there is no one named Kyle, or any variation of the name, in the entire list.”

Tom felt like he had just taken a kick to the gut. God, please let her be wrong. A nationwide manhunt for the wrong guy?

“I should call Captain Duke to see how he wants us to handle this.” He groaned in frustration and stood. “The media is going to have a field day with this.”

“I wouldn’t make that call just yet,” Anna said. “I found a few other things we need to discuss. There were some fascinating documents in Dr. Pearlman’s personal effects.”

“What, are you just jacking with me?” Tom’s patience grew thin. “Are we after the wrong guy or what?”

“Just hear me out,” she urged, motioning for him to sit.

Tom shook his head in disgust but returned to his chair.

“I kept running across obscure references to something called Goetia scrawled in various notepads with all of these strange drawings.”

“What the hell is that?”

“It is the actual name of the Lesser Key of Solomon.”

“Sounds familiar, but I don’t remember the context.”

“It is the handbook for someone dabbling in the occult.”

“So, Pearlman was a Satanist?”

“Not necessarily, but it does mean that—”

“He’s a searcher,” Tom interrupted. “He’s not satisfied with the world the way it is and he is searching for a way to see it in a new light.”

Anna stared at him. “That may well be the single most profound thing I have ever heard you say.”

“That just goes to show how little you listen to me.” He smiled. “If you spent a little less time ridiculing me and a little more time getting to know me, you would realize that I am actually a man of great depth.”

They shared a comfortable laugh at the thought of it.

“I am a little confused as to how you can go from hearing occult and instantly thinking Satanist, to making the leap to creating a better world through magic,” Anna said.

“Who said anything about magic? I just meant he was trying to see the world from a different perspective, or a different path.”

“Well, I think that path may have led him to a really dark place. I doubt his intentions were to make changes for the good of the world.”

“So, you think Pearlman and this Kyle fellow are in cahoots?”

“I think it’s possible. The more I read through Dr. Pearlman’s notes the more it sounds like he grew to admire Kyle.”

“So what you’re telling me is this guy must be one hell of a talker.”

“How do you mean?” Anna asked.

“He goes to therapy and not only does he not get the help he so obviously needs.” Tom motioned to the poem. “But he manages to talk his doctor into going on a killing spree.”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“There is a major hole in your theory, buttercup. One I am surprised you missed, what with how thorough you’ve been up to this point,” he said with a tired grin.

“What are you talking about?”

“These killings… The Puppeteer… this case, is a lot older than I think you realize. About a decade ago, this city was plagued by a series of killings where the murderer had exactly the same M.O. as we’ve seen with these recent murders.”

“But I didn’t say anything about—”

“What, did you miss the headlines on the newspaper clips pinned to the wall behind you?” Tom pointed. “They say The Puppeteer has returned, not we have a new killer in the city.”

“If you would let me finish, I was about to explain my theory on that as well,” she said, trying desperately not to grind her teeth.

“Oh, I’m all ears, detective.”

“That’s not the part of the anatomy I would use to describe you.” Anna seethed. “I think Dr. Pearlman may have been able to somehow suppress his homicidal urges. That’s why the murders stopped all of those years ago. He managed to lead a normal life, coming to terms with what he had done and reaching out to others who were mentally ill. Everything was going great until he met a patient that reminded him so much of himself, it plunged him back into his old habits.”

“That’s all well and good but it doesn’t explain what…” Tom stopped short as he reached for the stack of papers and began sorting through them.

“What are you looking for?”

Tom held up a single finger signaling for her to wait as he looked for the right report.

“What if Kyle was the killer all along. I saw something here a minute ago that talked about all of the horrible things Kyle thought he had done.”

“Either way, I would be willing to bet when we find one of them, we will find the other.”

“I think you may be on to something here, Anna.”

“Now that we are on the same page, we have to see if we can find more information on Kyle.”

“Have you been through all of the files yet?” Tom was visibly excited about the prospect of finding a new lead.

“Not yet,” Anna said with a shake of her head. “Do you have any plans for say… the next couple of days?”

“Yes, actually I do.” Tom nodded vehemently.

“Really?” Anna asked. “I couldn’t imagine what could be more important.”

“I plan on spending the next couple of days knee-deep in files.” He gave her a wink.

“Smart ass,” she retorted.

“Hey, I guess that’s a step up from dumb ass, which is what you were thinking when you first met me.”

She grunted an agreement and handed him another stack of files.

“Shall we get started?”

“Oh, absolutely.”