For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these, “It might have been!”
—John Greenleaf Whittier, “Maud Miller”
You mustn’t blame yourself,” McGregor said.
“But he is sending me a message. Don’t you see? He is killing them now for blood sport. It has become an even greater game since I entered the picture. This whole national search thing. It’s a load of crap.” Cat looked at McGregor sideways. “Don’t you see, by escalating our search, we are feeding his sick fantasy. And who are we kidding? This guy doesn’t live in some backwoods trailer in South Carolina. He’s right here, right under our noses. And he’s rubbing our noses in that fact every second.”
“How can you tell that?” McGregor tried to remain calm, to soothe her. He’d seen this type of reaction before. A combination of getting too close to the case, too little sleep, and too many suspects.
“We can’t find him. He leaves us too little.” Pent-up frustration came through. “What kind of sicko enjoys this?”
McGregor shook his head. “Cat, maybe you should take some time off the case for a little while.”
“It’s just a suggestion. You’ve been out here for two and a half weeks. It’s plain to see you’re on edge…”
She wheeled around to look at him, stop him from going any further. “You want me to chuck it? Leave it to you local guys?”
McGregor understood that he underestimated Cat’s passion and her toughness.
“You think that would be fair?”
He said nothing.
“You think I’d just walk away from this? You think I possess that kind of righteous disregard for my investigation to have someone else simply take over? That’s ridiculous.”
“I’m saying others are capable, Cat. Someone not as close could be more objective.”
She felt her pulse throb in her neck.
“He’s sending messages to me. How could I possibly walk away from that? ‘I want.’ What the hell does that mean? I want what? I want to live, I want to die. I want to do this to every woman I meet.”
Anger, like a cascading flood, poured out. McGregor knew better than to say anything more. This was a catharsis. He’d hit a nerve. He would let it ride.
“You wonder about my sanity, think of his. How sane can someone be who writes messages into corpses’ heads and then sends them on their watery way?”
Her question reverberated in the car that Tuesday morning as they sped toward the home of Dr. Caldwell Hamilton Marsh.
“How do you think I feel?” There had been a leak from the coroner’s office and the papers had plastered the fact that the Burning Man was carving messages into his victims. This had earned Cat a dubious honor. “How do you think I feel when I walk down the street? Everybody saying ‘There she is’? Asking me what it’s like to be the object of this bastard’s affection? Everyone wants to know if I’m enjoying it?”
“People are curious, Cat. You, of anyone, should know that.”
“I do. But for the first time, my personal life has become intertwined with a case. And I don’t like it one single bit.”
Newspapers were filled with speculation about what it was he could want. Her job, money, more victims, compassion, forgiveness, a place in her heart. Cat knew he wanted none of these. He wanted to be understood for being himself.
Not just the public persona which he so carefully cultivated and crafted, but the warped, wretched side of him that only she could understand.
It was like looking at a Picasso or a Van Gogh. One could not begin to understand the artist without first studying the brush strokes…the use of color, line symmetry, light, dark.
With the Burning Man, she could not begin to understand him without studying each of the corpses, blood work-up, toxicology, his modus operandi. With each new killing, he was leaving her more clues, but they were leading nowhere specific.
His killing fever was growing. She was running out of time.
She sat sullen for a minute as they headed along Jamboree, up into Orange Heights.
Soon they came to Dr. Marsh’s home. Set back from the road, Cat could nevertheless see a sprawling English Tudor-style home, painted cream and brown. To one side, a turret speared up into the sky. In front, a proper English garden flourished—Pacific giant delphiniums, late-blooming David Austin Roses, an array of sedum and lamb’s ears. At first blush, the house seemed quite large, austere, a massive combination of wood, concrete, steel covered by a wood shake roof, which looked somewhat in need of repair. On closer examination, the house, like the man who lived there, seemed warmer, more modest than its exterior. Complexity and simplicity in one.
Dr. Marsh answered the door. From his looming exterior shone appealing eyes, a firm handshake, a sheltering persona. She understood instantly why he was a famous doctor. His sheer size made one feel protected, his personality nurturing. He did not have the “God complex” that many surgeons had. Instead, he welcomed them in easily and warmly.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” McGregor said.
“It’s not a bother at all.” Dr. Marsh quickly pulled off gardening gloves, rinsed his massive hands under the sink. “Would either of you like something to drink?”
Both McGregor and Cat declined.
He ushered them to a formal living room, done in monochromatic furnishings, leading the eye naturally to Santiago Canyon’s hills beyond, now painted green by the summer’s rains. Cat could hear the sounds of birds, wildlife outside. She supposed the point of the room was just that—to allow nature’s sounds to be the star. Magnificent white orchids dotted the room.
Cat touched one of the flowers, not believing it real.
“One of my hobbies, raising them,” said Dr. Marsh.
“They are beautiful.” Cat ran her fingers across the delicate petal, wondering how God could create such perfection in a flower and such evil in a killer.
“They are my babies. Well, at least one anyway.” Sitting on the edge of the chair, he spoke at a fast clip. Despite his size, she was sure he was the type who never sat still. It was visibly killing him to sit now.
McGregor pulled out his notebook and got to the point. “Doctor, I know you’ve read the papers. Heard of the terrible condition of the latest…” McGregor caught on his words. “Victim.”
Dr. Marsh’s face showed emotion for just a millisecond.
Before McGregor could say anything more, Dr. Marsh began talking, his voice tragic, hushed. “It’s really my fault. Nancy wanted to head off to UCLA. She was a bright young woman. She’d been offered a partial scholarship there to study English literature. After a liberal arts education, we had talked about law school for her, maybe Loyola.”
Cat watched him wring his big burly hands as he spoke.
“Her mother had accepted the fact she would be leaving. But I could not. She was my only girl. My baby. I wanted her to stay. Convinced her to do a year at Chapman, said it would be good for her. In a liberal arts education, the units would transfer. Hell, I had friends at Chapman who’d make sure they did. I just couldn’t bear to lose her yet. We had so much left to do.”
He refused to look at them, focusing instead on his hands.
Cat had seen this before, this guilt and self-blame that followed a parent around for the rest of their life. Knowing if only a different decision had been made, their child would be with them today. It was clear that Dr. Marsh would carry the scars the rest of his life.
“Doctor, I know we’ve asked you this before. But it’s really important now. We have reason to believe that the killer has medical training.” McGregor paused, ready to write down whatever came out of the man’s mouth. “Is there any one of your colleagues, associates, who might have wanted Nancy…” McGregor let his words trail off, the obvious implication hanging in the sunlit room.
“No. Not that I remember. Nancy was a charming girl. Most of the men I work with had watched her grow up. We’re a tight-knit, close family. The people at Hoag are an extension of that. For all the money that’s been pumped into that place, the doctors and nurses there are still real people. We all work together to preserve, not destroy—” he stopped, tears welling in his eyes—“life.”
“I know that. But maybe there was someone who took a special liking to Nancy. Someone who showed her special attention.”
“Everyone showed Nancy special attention. She was that kind of person. She could charm a flower into opening early, could sing the birds down from the trees.” He looked out across the white carpeting, through the glass doors and concrete pavers to the hills. “You could look straight through that girl, just like you can this house. She didn’t have a bad bone in her, not one. And I remember…her laugh.”
His gaze returned to his hands.
“You see that garden out there.” He looked up toward a backyard filled with perennials, annuals, all in bloom. “That was her favorite spot. We designed it together, to blend in with the wildlife.”
Cat looked up. Indeed the carefully manicured lawn and flowerbeds did give way to towering trees, a babbling creek, probably filled with tadpoles and crayfish.
“On a Sunday morning, we would sit out there. Just the two of us, with our coffee, talking. Sometimes fighting over who got the sports page first. Usually she’d win, be up first. She’d be sitting out there, her feet propped up in her white bathrobe, hair slicked back wet. We’d start our Sundays that way.”
Cat saw tears in his eyes.
“Of my three kids, she was the one I loved the most. And I couldn’t protect her. From him.”
“We don’t know who he is. Is there anyone you can think of at all who might have had it in for you? Someone you pissed off?”
Sunlight poured in through the south-facing window, cutting a path across the man’s face. As he looked up, wet trails stood testament on his cheeks. “There’s no one, no one at all.”