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10 X 19: PERFECTION Dr. Mindy Rinehart thought she'd seen the last of the X-Files, until the paranormal walks into her office... |
I heard someone scream as the agent leveled his gun and fired instinctively,
realizing after only a few seconds I had heard my own anguished outcry. Rob
flew backwards, landing hard on the floor of his cheap but immaculately kept
apartment. Blood was seeping from his wounds, and his breathing was ragged.
He had only a few minutes at most, but the psychologist in me had to know,
wanted him to provide the answer for himself.
I knelt beside the boy, now transformed from a polite, shy, conscientious
young man into a tortured soul many, including the relentless FBI agent now
standing above us, would have condemned as grotesque and inhuman.
“Why?” I choked a sob from my question. Though his life was draining quickly
away, Robert Roberts’ opaque, shark-like eyes became clear, and his…fangs…drew
back in a triumphantly grin of belated revelation.
“I can’t be something I’m not,” Rob declared, and the light faded from the
poor creature’s – the poor man’s -- eyes…
J.
Three months later
He caught up with me as I was returning my visitor’s pass to the impassive
lobby security guard. Strangely, Mulder didn’t seem to be reveling in his
victory – I’d finally realized I was facing an insurmountable wall of bureaucracy,
and my quest, if that’s what it was, had cost me my job with Hungry Boy Corp.
I needed to embrace the three R’s of my profession: Regroup, refocus, and
recover.
Special Agent Fox Mulder regarded me intently and, it seemed, compassionately.
I acknowledged him with a single glance and turned for the exit.
“Dr. Rinehart,” he murmured, and I stopped. “You had to know I had no choice.”
“We all have choices, Agent,” I responded, overriding my resolute decision
to ignore him. “Rob gave you no choice but to kill him, but you gave him
no choice but to give into his internal torment, his feelings of isolation
and despair.”
“He ate his landlady’s brain,” Mulder began to protest. Then he raised a
hand of truce. “Look, Doctor. The tests, the post-mortem. As much as it goes
against your core beliefs, Rob Roberts wasn’t human. Not what we define as
human. Humanity was contrary to his instincts.”
“He wanted to be good. Rob wanted to do good.”
“Maybe he felt that he could achieve some level of humanity, suppress his
predatory drive. Deserving of our pity, our empathy? Sure. Was his death
tragic and pathetic? Of course. But…”
My heart, my ears were pounding, and I was inches away from tears. “What
do you want, Agent? I surrender; I don’t have any fight left. What do you
want from me?”
Mulder’s eyes softened, and the hint of a sad smile formed in the corner
of his lip. “I think it’s more a matter of what you need, Doctor. There are
things we can’t explain, things Freud and Jung and Adler couldn’t quantify.
Rob Roberts was one of those--”
“Things?” I countered, gently. “Agent Mulder, you may never fully comprehend
this, but the actions I’ve taken over the past few months haven’t been for
Robert’s or my benefit alone. You represent a public danger, and a danger
to yourself. If you don’t hear anything else, this you must hear. I can’t
help you. But you must get help, or this obsession of yours will swallow
you whole.”
Mulder looked at me, and I could tell I hadn’t gotten through.
“Goodbye,” I said, turning my back to him. I never saw him again.
Three years later
I’d become lost in another foggy moment: They passed like clouds over my
brain, bringing flashes of memory, regret, re-evaluation. I glanced up guiltily
up at Tyler Ransome, who seemed neither slighted nor concerned.
“I’m so sorry, Tyler,” I offered, adjusting my legal pad on my lap. “I guess
I just kind of fade out every once in a while. Now, you were about to tell
me how Kyle’s death has affected you. Sometimes we feel angry when we lose
a close friend, perhaps even at the individual who’s died.”
Tyler sat ramrod straight, as usual, hands on the chair arms. No nervous
fidgeting, no searching the ceiling for an answer, no adolescent defensiveness.
“Oh, I’m not mad at Kyle or anybody. He just died. He shouldn’t have been
drinking, I know that, but he didn’t know that.”
Tyler had such an odd take on things, grounded in reason where reason seemingly
would not be called for. It had been my idea to call Tyler in for a talk
after Kyle Sikking and three of his classmates had run full-speed into a
bridge abutment the previous weekend. The dean of boys had not seen the need,
as usual, but I was concerned a young man as emotionally reserved as Tyler
Ransome might be sitting on some powerful feelings of grief and recrimination.
Now, I was at nearly a total loss. “Tyler, what do you feel?”
“I’m going to miss having Kyle around. He was a good guy.” The junior sat
for a moment, smiling politely at me. “More?”
“Whatever you feel,” I murmured.
He sat for a moment longer. It wasn’t that Tyler was uncooperative, or unfriendly,
or disrespectful. He was a flawless 4.0, had helped take the school’s football
team to a state championship, and in a year or so would likely be delivering
the keynote speech at graduation. But I believe perfection is a way of laminating
one’s emotions and humanity – they’re protected, but still visible under
the surface. Tyler was unnervingly perfect, and thus I felt he was even more
vulnerable.
As I pondered what tack I might take next, it happened. It was something
like when a radio signal starts to blink out as you head out of the station’s
range: Tyler began blinking out, becoming fainter and fainter until he was
no longer sitting in my student chair.
I remembered to inhale, and as I did, he reappeared.
“Nope, I guess that’s it,” Tyler concluded apologetically.
Four weeks
later
“So if I might ask, who recommended you call us?” Special Agent John Doggett
inquired.
I was somewhat taken aback by Fox Mulder’s successor at the FBI. Given the
seemingly peculiar mission of this X-Files Department, I suppose I was expecting
some sort of darkly obsessive academic not unlike Mulder, though I should
know by now that the difference between preconception and misconception is
a mere prefix and that we should strive not to pre-fix our ideas.
Where Mulder was laconic and reflective, even when addressing my complaints
about him to his superiors (superior in the FBI heirarchy – I could discern
Mulder’s innate intelligence beneath his layers of regressive delusion and
evasive humor, while his director, a man named Kersh, was a rigid anal retentive
comfortable with the corporate dynamic), John Doggett had a gravelly New
York accent with blue collar shadings and a policeman’s economic way with
words. He seemed too well-grounded, too pragmatic to be jousting with preternatural
demons.
His tone nonetheless was thoughtful and courteous, and I sensed an emotional
self-sufficiency about the agent, even over the phone. Doggett very likely
had experienced some life trauma, perhaps a difficult upbringing or a catastrophic
personal loss he’d walled off long ago. The efficiency and deference I chalked
up to a military stint, though he sounded too young for Vietnam and too old
for the Gulf.
“I, ah, was involved in a case involving your Agent Mulder a few years ago,”
I proceeded slowly. “Actually, I filed a complaint against Mulder. I felt
– still feel – Mulder harassed a client of mine – well, a client of the company
I formerly worked for – into a suicidal act. My client apparently suffered
from some form of genetic defect, and although his condition had driven him
to kill – and, admittedly, consume --
several people, I could see he was suffering guilt feelings and was potentially
receptive to treatment. Agent Mulder obviously felt differently, and he maneuvered
Rob – my client – into a corner where death was the only exit available.”
Doggett was silent for a moment. “You don’t mind me saying, I’m surprised
you’d want to deal with us again.”
“I believe Agent Mulder was emotionally unfit for the high-risk occupation
he’d chosen – I discovered as I was shuffled from one federal administrator
to another that he was driven likely by guilt to rationalize a bizarre scenario
of conspiracies and demons and monsters that would explain the loss of his
sister when he was a child. That’s a dangerous delusion to foster in a man
with a gun.”
“So you don’t believe in monsters, huh?” Doggett sounded sympathetically
amused.
“I don’t believe in monsters – I believe in people.” I sighed. This was
difficult, but disclosure often is a crucial stage of closure, so I forged
on. “However, what I’m calling you about today, well, Mulder may be one of
the few people who might have an explanation. And now you tell me he’s retired
from the FBI.”
“Uh, yeah.” Doggett’s cautious tone told me Mulder had not gone quietly.
Had he snapped, or had someone finally, truly heard my concerns about his
damaged psyche? “Agent Scully has left as well. But I’m in charge of the X-Files
now, me and my partner, Monica Reyes, so maybe you could tell me what’s up,
and I’ll see what I can do.”
A good heart – he could have blown me off, transferred me to some other
bureaucrat. But cautious, didn’tmake
hollow promise – a lack of confidence that he was up to my problem? I felt
slightly disheartened, but I didn’t want to feed this obviously kind man’s
esteem issues.
“All right.” I took a deep breath. “I’m a counselor at a private high school
in Mobile, Alabama, now, and this is about one of my students. I don’t know
how to explain this quite right…”
“Just fire away,” Doggett encouraged.
“Well, this young man, my client, I mean, one of my students…”
“Mm hmm…?”
“He keeps disappearing.”
“Disappearing? You mean he runs away?” Doggett sounded suddenly apprehensive.
“You think he’s being abducted?”
“Oh, no. I knew this would be tough. No, Agent Doggett. I mean Tyler disappears.
On four separate occasions over the last three weeks, Tyler has vanished in
the middle of our sessions.”
The line went silent again. “Vanished. You mean like alakazaam, he’s gone?”
“It isn’t like a magic trick,” I stressed. “He seems to just blink out,
as if he literally leaves this world for a minute or so. Then he comes back,
and he doesn’t seem to realize anything’s happened.”
“I see,” Doggett said cautiously. I didn’t like to be approached cautiously,
but I kept my composure. “And this has happened how many times now?”
“Four.”
“Just disappears.”
“Exactly.”
The agent’s sigh rustled through the phone line. “Dr. Rinehart, I want to
ask you something, and I don’t want you to be offended. Is there any possibility
at all that this could be a result of some physical condition?”
“Well, obviously.”
“No, Doctor. I mean you. Could you maybe be having some kind of visual problem,
stress, anything that might impair your senses?”
“I had all that checked out after the second time. And I don’t believe I’m
delusional.”
“I don’t believe so either. But you have to admit, this is kinda hinky.
If there was another witness…”
“How about our headmaster? Would he do? He was with us the last time.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Doggett murmured. “But even so, I don’t hear anything that
makes this FBI business. This kid hasn’t committed any crimes, right?”
My heart sank. “No. No, he hasn’t. I just thought maybe you’d want to know.
The whole time I kept trying to reason with your superiors, Agent Mulder kept
going on about needing to know the truth, that the truth was always out there
somewhere.”
“Agent Mulder had more, ah, latitude, both professionally and personally.”
I detected a note of sharpness. Was this solid, pragmatic, seemingly decent
man envious of Mulder’s madness? “Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t know how I
could justify flying down to Mobile to investigate a disappearing student.
I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I said, immediately regretting it. Guilt is an unacceptable
approach to persuasion. “Thanks, though, for hearing me out.”
I clicked off quickly. For the first time in more than three years, I yearned
for the guidance of Fox Mulder…
One week
later
“Mr. Kostner found him just like that,” Lt. Sheldon Cullen informed Agent
Doggett as he slid the crime scene photo over his battered desk.
“Can you even imagine how difficult it would be to do that to a human being?
Both physically and from a sheer balls standpoint? Sorry, ma’am.”
“Not at all,” Special Agent Monica Reyes assured the middle-aged policeman
as she accepted the photo from Agent Doggett. Not a radical feminist, no
obvious defensiveness at being a woman surrounded by testosterone-driven men.
I perceived in her a quiet confidence, a willingness to learn from, rather
than reshape, her environment. I was impressed that Doggett had so immediately
consulted his female partner about the photo, rather than attempting to retain
control.
I noted Lt. Cullen had not addressed his apology to me, though I hadn’t needed
one. He was irritated by me, in part because I had persisted in injecting
myself into his investigation, possibly because he was a blue-collar, African-American
man in a pragmatic occupation who likely did not care for psychologists,
psychiatrists, or psychotherapists, particularly an assertive woman. However,
Cullen had allowed me to sit in, and he didn’t appear to resent the involvement
of two FBI agents in his case, so perhaps there was some latitude, some growth
potential, in the man.
“My God,” Reyes murmured, passing the grainy picture back to Doggett. I had
seen, and recoiled from, the original image: Greg Roos, a senior at Eustace
Adams, lying on his stomach, cyanotic, on the fieldhouse floor. You’ll note
I didn’t say facedown – Greg’s head had been twisted 180 degrees, his cervical
vertebrae wrenched loose and his neck bruised and creased. While I’m not
a forensic profiler, I knew raw, primal hatred when I saw it.
“Kid looks pretty tidy,” Agent Doggett observed quietly.
Cullen reached across and retrieved the photo. “What’re you getting at? Killer
probably took him by surprise. Probably snapped his neck clean in one stroke.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Doggett frowned. “But I mean his clothes. They’re too tidy.
That’s a pretty expensive-looking sweater, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes,” Reyes murmured encouragingly. The nurturing mother, except her eyes
held a gleam of intimate pride, admiration. Was there something between the
agents more than professional camaraderie?
“So you wanna break somebody’s neck. Hard enough to snap the spine. Lieutenant,
show me how you’d do that.”
Cullen regarded Doggett oddly as the agent stood, but rose to his feet and
came around the desk. Doggett lifted his arms slightly, and with a sigh,
Cullen grasped him just under the diaphragm with his left arm and cupped
the side of his face with his right hand.
“Go ahead, try it,” Doggett urged. The policeman slowly wrenched Doggett’s
head as his left arm worked instinctively in the opposite direction. The
agent’s jacket creased sharply, and his shirt tail began to pull free from
his waistband.
“OK,” Doggett grunted. Cullen released him, and the agent grinned as he displayed
his newly disheveled appearance. “But look at Roos: Neat as a pin, except
maybe some hairs out of place.”
“So what are you saying?” the cop drawled, easing back into his chair. “You
think the killer did what?”
“What I think,” Doggett offered, “is the perp might’ve done this one-handed.”
Cullen looked down at the photo, then back up at the agent. “You mean like
some kind of Bruce Lee shit?”
“That’s one explanation,” Reyes said softly, her eyes locked on Cullen’s.
I had a disheartening feeling of déjà vu. “Aren’t there cases,” I began,
struggling for rationality, “where sheer adrenalin can drive a person’s natural
strength to abnormal levels? Or what about that drug, the one that was so
popular back in the ‘80s? TCB?”
“PCP.” I fought off irritation at Cullen’s dead-pan, ultra-dry correction.
It was defense mechanism, reflected feelings of insecurity. If he wasn’t
such a maddening man, I might have considered adding him to my small list
of private patients. “Too neat for PCP, my opinion. He likely would have
done worse damage to the boy he’d been doing that. Wouldn’t you agree, Agents?”
Now the lieutenant was rallying his colleagues in dismissal of the ivory
tower shrink. Doggett merely shrugged noncommittally – he appeared to be
a man of rare regard, reluctant to play on others’ weaknesses even when it
was to his advantage. I was warming to him, despite his earlier lack of support.
“But I do have to agree with the lady in one respect,” Cullen said somewhat
more emphatically, possibly in retaliation to Doggett’s refusal to play along.
“There’s gotta be a better explanation for this than what I think your partner’s
getting at. This ain’t Metropolis. I don’t know how he did it, but an ordinary
man did this to this boy.”
“Or woman,” Reyes added with a slight smile.
“Or woman,” Cullen responded wearily with a slight bow of the head.
“Greg Roos was typical of the young men that enroll here, or should I say,
are enrolled here,” I began as Agents Doggett and Reyes settled into the
cheap pseudo-leather guest chairs supplied to non-tenured support staff at
Eustace Adams. “Privileged, academically talented but often without the imagination
or resources to fully utilize that talent. Greg was a member of the football
and basketball teams as well as the debate team and the National Honor Society.
His father is one of Mobile’s top architects, and his mother is a nationally
recognized neurosurgeon.”
“Perfect,” Doggett murmured. At first I thought he was commenting on the
prospect of mingling with such upper-crust people, but the remark was instead
a wry appraisal.
“Seldom ever,” I countered. “In fact, I’d say a lot of these young men and
women here face even greater challenges than the lower-income fast food workers
I used to counsel at Hungry Boy. The parents often are extremely class-conscious
and oblivious to the dangers that surround their children. They drink socially
to excess and sometimes gobble prescription drugs as if they were dinner
mints, but are traumatized when one of their sons or daughters is arrested
for pot or a DUI. It’s a far from perfect world. I thought it would be when
I came here, but that proved a foolish delusion.”
“How was Greg’s behavior?” Agent Reyes inquired, bringing me gently back
to task. “Did he have any enemies you knew of?”
I shrugged, caressing the thin file I’d compiled on Greg Ross over our four
conferences. “He had a slight lapse in grades the fall of his junior year,
after he began dating a freshman. Typically, they were obsessed with each
other, at the expense of Greg’s academic performance, and the dean asked
me to help him ‘grasp reality,’ which at the time I deemed code for keeping
Greg’s grades up to school athletic standards. Mr. Roos – Greg’s father –
was applying misplaced pressure on the young man, but we were able to help
Greg achieve some balance between relationships and responsibilities.”
“We?” Doggett asked. “You and the kid’s dad?”
“Greg and I,” I amended. “Self-realization can only be achieved through the
Self.”
“Mm,” Doggett responded. “And this Tyler Ransome? Where you figure he comes
into this?”
“I don’t really know,” I admitted. “But two such bizarre occurrences in the
same place, within this brief a timeframe? Doesn’t that strain coincidence?”
“So we have a disappearing boy and a killer with superhuman strength.” Doggett
turned to Agent Reyes. “You heard it. Get out an APB for the Teen Justice
League.”
“John,” Reyes sighed.
“Okay, okay,” Doggett sighed back. “So, Doc, what about Ransome? He and this
Roos know each other? They were both on the football team, right?”
“We have a relatively small campus, Agent Doggett – most of the seniors know
each others fairly well. I had consulted both of them within the past few
weeks --a mutual friend of theirs’
had died in a car accident, and I was worried about their emotional response
to his death. Often, adolescents can’t achieve full closure until—”
“What was their reaction?” Doggett inquired.
“Well, I really shouldn’t discuss the particulars of a discussion with a
patient, ah, with a student…”
Reyes smiled patiently. “We understand your situation, Dr. Rinehart, but
we are trying--”
“I know, and I suppose I’ve already told you more than I should have. Oh,
well. Greg’s attitude was typical of his peers’: A veneer of machismo apathy
layered over deep-seated grief and a common teen anxiety about death and
dying. He was going to come back in tomorrow.
“Tyler’s reaction was far more atypical. It was obvious he regretted what
happened to Greg, and that he was genuinely fond of him, but he took the
fact of his death more in stride, as if he recognized premature death is
sometimes an unfortunate reality of life. It wasn’t really a sociopathic reaction
– Tyler appears to be very considerate of his classmates and adults, very
positive and constructive, out of a strong ethical prerogative rather than
to impress the people around him. But it was a very odd reaction, and as
I said, very atypical. I…”
Doggett leaned toward me. “Yeah? Go on.”
“Well, I shouldn’t be so judgmental, I suppose, but I find Tyler, well, unnervingly
perfect. Even the high achievers, the Honor Society students I work with
today display some degree of anger, insecurity, resentment, bravado. Tyler
doesn’t – he’s almost relentlessly polite and, well, nice. As hard as I work
to plumb the depths of his psyche, I can’t crack the surface. In fact, if
it didn’t defy all psychological tenets, I’d question that there is a psyche
there to plumb.”
“What are you saying, Doc?”
I searched the room for an answer. “I don’t know.”
Doggett nodded. “Well, one mystery at a time. Let’s figure out how – or,
no offense, if – Ransome does his little vanishing act. Maybe all this does
tie in somehow. The truth is out there, right?”
“What?”
Reyes rolled her eyes. “Private joke.”
**
“Dr. Rinehart, I wish you had consulted me before sharing what I’m certain
you must have understood to be a personal confidence,” Leonard Grinnell sighed,
disregarding the agents. The headmaster of the private high school was a
lanky man with waves of silver hair and a very expensive, very conservative
black suit. “I should think you would respect my, you know, my ‘privilege.’”
“Privilege pertains to the doctor and the patient,” I corrected gently. “I
only told Agent Doggett what you saw, along with me.”
The school administrator now glanced at Doggett as if he were an egg stain
on a professor’s necktie. “Well, now, I’m not so certain just what I saw
that day, Doctor. I wonder if perhaps we managed to persuade each other that
the Ransome boy, er, dematerialized. A shared delusion, perhaps. Folie a
deux, I believe the French call it.”
“Leo,” I breathed, flabbergasted but ultimately unsurprised. Grinnell was
from an old money southern family, and he put great store on his image and
reputation. “You know what we saw.”
“Mr. Grinnell,” Doggett interjected. “Why don’t you at least tell me what
you appeared to have seen the day you and the doctor met with Tyler?”
The headmaster frowned, leaning back into the sunstripes cast by his wooden
blinds. He looked like a well-dressed convict, trapped by his own conflicting
perceptions. “All right, though I’m certain it was an illusion of some sort.
Dr. Rinehart was rather concerned about the boy, and asked me to sit in on
one of their discussions. Normally, I don’t involve myself at that staff
level, but she seemed, er, agitated.
“Well, I suppose it was about 20 minutes into the session – lots of psychological
word games and riddles, no offense, Doctor – when the illusion occurred.
The Ransome boy and Dr. Rinehart were discussing, well, I don’t know really
what they were discussing, when he flickered out, I suppose you’d say.”
“Flickered out?” Agent Reyes asked. “Like an image on TV?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Grinnell said, not looking at her. “I don’t own a television.”
I saw an amused muscle flicker in Doggett’s cheek.
“More like,” Grinnell searchedthe ceiling,
“more like a flash of shadow across a window blind. One second, he appeared
to be sitting across from Dr. Rinehart, one moment, he did not. Of course,
it was obviously some sort of trick of the eye or mind.”
“Of course,” Doggett rumbled.
Office of Mindy Rinehart
“Aside from about eight million questions from the cops and everybody, I
guess I’m fantastic,”
While her tone was sullen and apathetic, Cori Chappelle’s body language
was as flagrant as a hurricane siren. Her large brown eyes ricocheted between
every object in my office, refusing to connect with my own. Her arms were
crossed tightly across her chest, her legs tucked under her.
“It’s all right not to feel fantastic, Cori,” I reminded the 15-year-old.
“Someone killed your friend in a very violent manner, and… Cori? What is it?”
As I spoke the word “friend,” her head
came up, and I caught a flash of anger and anguish in her eyes.
“Cori? I know you and Greg have been having relationship problems, but he
was your friend, wasn’t he?”
The girl’s sweatered arms tightened. “Jesus, why can’t you ever just leave
things alone?”
“I’ve found when we leave our issues alone, they usually won’t leave us
alone.”
“Oh, God,” she exclaimed loudly, grabbing her head with both hands. “Why
do you always talk like that? Do they teach you that shit at shrink school?”
“Cori. Did Greg do something? To hurt you?”
“Leave me alone,” she growled. Then Cori’s eyes welled up, and she began
to shake. I kept my seat – this was a very sensitive moment.
“What did he do?”
Cori’s head shook violently back and forth as she tried to close the door
on what she was about to confide. “I found out about him and Trina – she’s
this senior, you know, big tits? Well, I took him to the gym and told him
I wanted to break up. He begged me not to, but I told him I didn’t need this
shit. So he says fine, but just one more time. I’m like, one more time for
what? And then I realize what he wants. He always liked, you know, for me
to…” She made an agitated gesture with her mouth and forefinger. I nodded
encouragingly.
“I told him he could fucking forget it – get some from his senior bitch.
He grabbed me, and he was gonna m-make me…”
“Cori,” I said gently as she sobbed, my heart pounding. What I was thinking
was absurd – Greg was nearly twice her size and, I was certain, five times
as strong. “What happened? You need to tell someone.”
Cori’s face began to reharden. “Yeah, right. You’d think I was fucking crazy.
I already think I am. They’re gonna fucking lock me up…”
“No one’s going to lock you up.” I shouldn’t have promised that, if her
tale was headed where I believed it might be. “What happened?”
“Well, he was about ready to make me do it, and I’m trying to scream for
help, when it busted in.”
My pen dropped to the carpet. “It.”
“See?”
“No. Go on, Cori.”
She inspected my expression, then sighed. “It told Greg not to hurt me,
then it just, just snapped his neck. Then it ran off.”
“What was it?” I asked, fighting a feeling of building horror.
“A monster,” Cori stated. “Like Shrek, you know, an ogre?”
Mobile Police Department
“A monster,” Cullen stated, glancing through the doorway as Cori shakily
filled in details for a patient, fatherly police artist. “A six-foot-five,
blue monster with big clown feet and hands big enough to palm an NBA ball.
Am I supposed to put out a warrant for a killer Smurf?”
Doggett glanced furtively at Reyes. “Ah, Lieutenant, we’re trying to do without
the sarcasm. Doc, you think it’s possible this girl could be hysterical or
something? Some kind of weird memory repression or something?”
I considered. “It’s more likely she
would’ve blocked the incident out entirely than to conjure up such a fantastic
killer. I’m hoping perhaps that as she describes the killer to the artist,
her actual memories of the killer might come out.”
“Mm hmm,” Cullen murmured. “Doctor, you remember this morning, you were talking
about folks getting superhuman strength from an adrenalin rush?”
“Yes?” I drawled, knowing what was coming.
“I just wonder, was I this girl and this big, strong boy was about to make
me, well, you know, maybe that would get enough adrenalin pumping to where
I could--”
“Do you honestly believe that?” Reyes challenged. “This girl snapped Greg
Roos’ neck one-handed?”
“Don’t know what I think at this point,” Cullen snapped. “But I’m not ready
to believe the evil ogre from under the bridge murdered the Roos boy.”
“Troll,” Reyes supplied. “If you’re talking about Billy Goat Gruff, it was
a troll under the bridge.”
Cullen chewed on his lower lip. “Pardon me, Agent – I’m not ready to believe
a fucking troll or a leprechaun or a blue unicorn killed that boy, either.
Agents, Doctor.”
Doggett chuckled as the cop stalked away, then looked in on Cori and the
artist. “For the record, Doc, I don’t believe a troll or an ogre did this,
either. I think somebody she knows killed Roos, and she’s either covering
for him or went into some kind of shock and dreamed up this blue-faced boogeyman.
My guess is somebody who cared enough about Cori to kill.”
“Like a family member?” Reyes questioned.
“Or another boy. And since we only know one boy at the moment who seems to
be able to do impossible things, maybe we ought to start with him.”
Residence of Orrin and Pamela Ransome
“Yeah, I know Cori,” Tyler Ransome told us pleasantly. He seemed delighted
to see me when we showed up on his doorstep at dinnertime, much more delighted
than his parents had been. And it was quite a doorstep: The Ransomes lived
in a beautiful Southern brick home, probably ‘40s vintage, on a rolling green
lot with a gazebo and a well-maintained carriage house Pam Ransome explained
was her “studio.” What she created in this studio, she didn’t explain.
Mr. and Mrs. Ransome nonetheless put up a smiling front, offering the agents
and I coffee and cookies. Homemade, crafted by Pam Ransome for her son’s return
from school.
“I mean, I don’t know her really well or anything,” Tyler added. “I’d say
hi if I saw her in the hall or the cafeteria or something.” He smiled and
clasped his hands as he perched on the edge of an expensive burgundy wing
chair.
“If I may ask, what is all this about?” Orrin asked, concern creasing his
athletic features. He was the square-jawed former high school quarterback,
his wife the maturing cheerleader, honed over the years into a perfection
brought about by a mix of genetics and money. Orrin Ransome was a well-known
financial adviser and investment manager in town, Pam a regular face in the
daily paper and on the five o’clock news for her social and community activities.
Though they were comfortably at home, nesting for the evening, they appeared
to have draped themselves with designer sportswear with the same attention
Orrin had paid to dressing for the office that morning.
“We’re just checking into the death at Tyler’s school,” Reyes explained.
“The Roos boy?”
Pam inhaled. “So tragic. Orrin, we
should take something over to the Rooses, don’t you think?”
“We scarcely know them,” her husband
muttered, a moment of cynicism flashing across his flawless face. “So why
my son? They were on the team together, but they really didn’t know each
other any better than Tyler knows that girl.”
“We’re just trying to get a feel for any relationships, any hostilities,
between Greg Roos and his classmates.” Agent Doggett sat silently on the
couch, leaving his partner, I assumed, to play “good cop.” “Tyler, do you
know of anyone who may have had an argument, an issue with Greg?”
Tyler’s brows rose contritely as he shrugged. “Gee, I’m sorry. All the guys
liked Greg pretty well. He was a nice guy, and a real good sportsman.”
Reyes exchanged a quick, curious look with Doggett. Tyler’s outdated courtesy
and positive attitude should have seemed refreshing these days, but even
as a psychiatrist, he gave me a slight case of the willies.
“How about Cori?” Doggett finally spoke. “You know she and Greg were having
a rocky relationship? Were any of the boys maybe interested in her? You said
you spoke to her a lot at school…”
“He didn’t say he spoke to her ‘a lot,’” Orrin interjected coolly, and he
also said he scarcely knows her. What’s the deal, Agent? And now that I think
about it, why’s the FBI interested in a murder at a private school? A bit
out of your jurisdiction, wouldn’t you say?”
“We’re merely investigating some curious incidents at the school,” Doggett
said.
Orrin looked at me. “And what’s your interest in this, Dr. Rinehart? Tyler
told me you keep having him come in for little ‘talks.’ Why? My son is perfectly
well-adjusted: Star athlete, 4.0 GPA, Honor Society, Debate Team. You don’t
have enough troubled kids to deal with, you have to pick on mine? Ours?”
“Mr. Ransome, I’m not ‘picking’ on anyone,” I protested. “A good friend of
Tyler’s died tragically--”
“The Sikking kid?” Orrin snorted. “Probably wasted when he ran that car into
the bridge. He’d had a DUI about four months ago – his dad knew a judge.”
“I checked the coroner’s report on that accident,” Doggett informed him.
My jaw nearly dropped. Why? “Neither Kyle Sikking nor the other kids in his
car had any sign of blood alcohol. Tyler, you have any idea what might have
happened to your friend?”
“Don’t answer that,” Orrin snapped. “I think we’re done here, Agent Doggett,
unless you think we could call our attorney.”
“Honey, honey, no need to be so dramatic,” Pam chided. “These people are
just trying to get to the bottom of this thing, and I’m sure Dr. Rinehart’s
only been trying to help, though I can assure you, Doctor, that Tyler’s just
fine. As for the Roos boy’s death, Tyler was at a debate team event all afternoon,
in Tuscaloosa. You can ask his coach, the other boys.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Doggett said. “I think we can--”
“Oh, my god.” Agent Reyes’ exclamation turned all of our heads, except for
Tyler’s. She waved a finger toward the side window of the Ransome’s living
room.“It was a – I don’t know what
it was. But it what Cori Chappelle saw. It was staring in at us.”
Doggett drew his gun from his shoulder holster. “Stay here, Doc.” The front
door slammed as the agents presumably gave chase.
“That’s so weird,” Tyler murmured, staring curiously at the window.
“Honey,” Pam responded in a low voice.
“What is it, Tyler?”
He turned to me, a strangely beatific look on his perfect face. “It was him.
Petey.”
“Ty,” Orrin sighed.
“Who’s Petey, Tyler?” I asked.
Tyler looked to his father, who exhaled loudly.
“His imaginary friend.”
**
“I see him every once in a while,” Tyler said, giving Agents Doggett and
Reyes and I an embarrassed grin. He tapped the police artist’s sketch of
“Petey” a winded Doggett had spread on the coffee table after the “monster”
had eluded him down an alley. “I used to talk to him when I was little. He
wanted to know stuff about Mom and Dad and like that.”
“He was six or seven,” Pam explained. “I figured all children go through
an imaginative phase, so I didn’t see the harm in the fantasy. But he kept
it up for several years.”
Orrin wiped his face, looking at his wife and son as if they were some unusual
species.
“I still see him every once in a while, around the house, ‘cept we don’t
talk any more,” Tyler admitted. “I didn’t tell you guys ‘cause I was afraid
you might think I was nuts or anything.”
“If you are, then Cory and I are, too,” Reyes stressed. “Have you ever touched
Petey, Tyler?”
He frowned in concentration. “Noo, don’t think so. He won’t tell me much
about himself – at least he wouldn’t when we used to talk – and he doesn’t
ever get too close to me.”
“OK, that’s quite enough,” Orrin interrupted loudly. “You – and I mean all
three of you – stay away from my boy.”
CeeJay’s Shrimp House
It was a busy night at CeeJay’s, but the owner, whose son attended Eustace
Adams, managed to get us a great table by the patio. After a plate each of
chilled boiled shrimp, a round of margaritas, and some personal histories
all around, John got down to business.
“You remember that case last year, you know, Bob Fassl?” he asked Monica,
who had turned out to be a warm and funny complement to her gentle but serious
partner. John glanced sidelong at me, and I could tell there were things
about this “case” he didn’t want me to know.
“You think this is the same thing?” Monica frowned.
“Bob Fassl was a cable TV man who was convicted of slaughtering a family
years ago and accused of killing a prison inmate before he was cleared by
DNA evidence,” John began. “An attorney who’d helped get him out let him stay
with her, and several more people were murdered by a man who couldn’t possibly
have existed. A man who showed up on the prison’s video monitors. I shot
this man, this phantom, but Fassl died.”
“Fassl was a devout Catholic who vehemently denied any of the murders he
purportedly committed,” Monica continued. “We theorized that Fassl’s psychic
denial was so great that his guilt manifested into a separate entity – a
sort of disassociated personality with a body.”
I took a long sip of my margarita. “You have to realize that’s utterly impossible.
You sound like, well, like Agent Mulder.”
John smiled and speared a shrimp. “Is this any more incredible than a disappearing
boy? You seen this kid – he’s the Brady Bunch on dope. He’s a little too
good to be true – any kid that tightly wound has to have some real darkness
drifting around somewhere. Maybe this big blue monster is that subconscious
darkness. Or maybe it’s not even subconscious. Maybe Tyler conjured up this
thing to kill Luke so he could have Cory for himself.”
“Luke?” I puzzled. The shrimp stopped halfway to John’s mouth. Monica’s face
was pained, and she touched his arm.
He put his fork down and forced a smile. “Jeez, what did I say? Greg; I meant
maybe he killed Greg. Hey, it’s almost eight. You ladies excuse me, I want
to call Cullen, check a few things.”
As he strode toward the restaurant foyer, I studied the silent Monica. She
smiled back weakly.
“Who’s Luke?” I asked.
Monica took a breath. “John’s son. He was murdered several years ago, the
victim of a child predator and a Mob killer. It always seems to be in the
back of John’s mind when he works a case involving kids.”
“Is that why he has this interest in the, uh, supernatural? Is this some
way of trying to connect with Luke? Because I don’t think it’s healthy.”
Monica swirled her margarita. “John…has been forced to go through some life-altering
changes ever since he joined the X-Files. You can see he’s a very pragmatic
man. Well, it hasn’t been easy for him to face some of the truths he’s witnessed
over the last few years. You could say he’s developed a logical framework
for the illogical, a whole new set of rigid rules to replace the rigid rules
he’s had to abandon since coming onto the X-Files. Even at that, he feels
he’s in way over his head.”
I hesitated at delving into personal
territory, but I steeled myself. “This is none of my business, and please
feel free to tell me to butt out. But you like John, don’t you?”
A pair of dimples appeared, and Monica’s eyes twinkled. “Of course. He’s
my partner and friend. And beyond that, he’s one of the most genuine, honorable
men I’ve ever met.”
“Let me rephrase myself. You love John, don’t you?”
Monica grinned silently.
“You could be so good for him,” I suggested. “If…”
“If I didn’t seem to be as crazy as John?” she inquired, eyes full of mischief.
Alabama Route 15
10:11 p.m.
The Route 15 bridge was relatively deserted, though what traffic there was
slowed to watch Lt. Cullen’s men set up the floodlights. The bridge abutment
was stilled crumpled and scarred from its impact with Kyle Sikking’s Eclipse.
“Don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” Cullen groused. “And why she’s
along. No offense, Doctor, but I feel like pretty soon, I’m going to have
to start paying you the hourly rate.”
John had attempted to dump me on my doorstep – one not nearly as grand as
the Ransomes’ – but I had to make sense of everything we’d found out. I couldn’t
accept John’s theories about corporeal guilt or evil or hulking monsters
sent forth to do a teenaged boy’s bidding. At the same time, I was equally
convinced Tyler’s repeated disappearances were no figment of my imagination,
no folie a deux shared by myself and a pompous administrator.
“What are we looking for, anyway?” the lieutenant demanded, as his men fanned
out. “This accident happened six weeks ago, and the M.E. does emphasize it
was an accident.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it was an accident,” Doggett said, scanning the newly
illuminated ditch to the right of the approach to the highway bridge. “But
why?”
“Why what?” Cullen barked, obviously tired of dealing in riddles.
“Why did this accident happen? I read the accident report back and forth.
Road conditions were perfect that night, no rain or fog. Skid marks right
as the boys came up on the bridge, as if they were trying to avoid hitting
something. Or as if something spooked them.”
“Aw, Jesus, here we go with Tales from the Crypt again,” the cop growled.
“Probably a possum or a dog or something crossed the road, they dodged it,
and bam.”
“C’mon, you were a teenage boy once. You think Sikking would’ve slammed on
the brakes for a raccoon or a kitty.” John kneeled by the guard rail, inspecting
the trampled dirt that led down into a vast thicket. Holding his arms out
to balance himself, the agent headed down the incline as Monica scanned the
burm some 30 yards back from the bridge. I stayed up top.
“All right, so what do you think spooked those boys?” Cullen yelled over
the rail.
John turned back to the highway and addressed a nearby uniformed officer.
“You wanna give me some more light down here?”
Every line in his craggy face was suddenly and harshly illuminated, and he
fell to one knee before a patch of bare dirt. Cullen and I watched with respective
irritation and curiosity as he searched the dirt.
“Cullen! Hey, Cullen! Get down here!”
The policeman put a foot on the rail and peered down the embankment. “What
do you have there?”
“Three or four shoeprints,” John called
up. “I want you to get a moulage of this.”
“You know how many kids and bums use that ditch to screw or take a shit?”
Cullen posed.
“How many kids or bums you met with Size 16, maybe 18 sneakers?” John countered.
“I think our ‘monster’ came up from the ditch and surprised Kyle and his
buddies. Probably didn’t mean to hurt anybody, but I think your killer Smurf
caused them to crack up.”
Cullen reluctantly ordered a technician to take a casting of the shoeprints,
then went off to his car. Monica brushed thistles and burrs from John’s suit
after he emerged from the overgrowth.
“I guess I don’t have to remind you that monsters don’t tend to wear Air
Jordans,” she scolded.
John smiled crookedly. “Looked more like K-Mart Blue Light Specials, from
the tread. But your point’s well taken.”
“Granted, it seems like quite a coincidence that some giant was lurking here
in the ditch,” I conceded. “But don’t you think you’re stretching to make
the facts fit your theory?”
John’s face shrugged in the harsh police halogens. “Doc, I would. Except
you know what’s on the other side of these woods down there, about a half-mile
or so? Orrin and Pam Ransome and their perfect son.”
Eustace Adams Academy
7:13 a.m.
“Dr. Rinehart?”
I looked up the stairs to my office to find Leonard Grinnell waiting at the
top.
“Hello, Leo,” I greeted, continuing up the marble steps with a feeling of
dull dread. “Can I help you?”
He was a study in academic constipation today, with his affected red bowtie
and khaki tropical suit and tight-lipped frown. “I wanted to see if our friends
from the FBI were satisfied, or if they plan any further disruptions.”
I moved past him, digging in my purse for my office keys. “A boy was murdered.
I’d hardly call their investigation a disruption of any greater magnitude
than that.”
“Quite, quite,” the headmaster bowed,
stalling. “The other issue I’d like to address is the school’s budgetary
woes.”
I turned to face the white-haired man. “Budgetary woes? Enrollment’s at an
all-time high, what with all the paranoia about public school safety.”
“Irregardless,” Grinnell said impatiently. “The board’s meeting later this
week to consider some necessary cuts. Staff cuts.”
I stopped, my stomach shrinking. While it might not have satisfied my impulse
to save humanity, Eustace Adams had served as a pleasant sanctuary for me
in the years since watching my “client” gunned down by Fox Mulder.
“What is this, Leo?” I demanded. “I just had a superior annual review, and
you yourself told me you could see a difference in student morale.”
He looked pained and slightly embarrassed that I would have the poor taste
to throw his own words back at him. “Doctor, can I call you Mindy? Mindy,
it’s just that your perspective, your attitude, has become, well, somewhat
erratic. These tales of disappearing boys and killers with superhuman strength.
You must see how that sounds to the outside world. And in addition, we’re
starting to receive parental complaints.”
“Parental complai--” It hit me. “Did Orrin and Pam Ransome call you last
night?”
Grinnell blinked. “Well, yes. They frankly were concerned about your mental
state. And I must confess I harbor some concerns about the stress you’re
apparently under. I just ask you to please consider whether this is a proper
environment for your temperament and views. We can talk later.”
Leo fled, and I continued to trudge up the steps. As I reached the top, Monica
emerged from the girl’s restroom.
“I tried to call you, but I guess you already left,” the agent smiled. “John
left me a message when I woke up. He was onto something, and he wanted to
meet both of us at your office.”
“Oh, God, what else today?” I asked, my customary wellspring of optimism
waning in Leonard Grinnell’s wake.
“You two ever hear of the Blue Fugates?” John asked immediately as I pushed
open my pebbled glass door. His hands were clasped behind his head, no-nonsense
black Florscheims propped atop my desk. In anyone else, I might have read
his body language as a display of arrogance, dominance. It didn’t fit the
self-effacing John Doggett, and I quickly decided I was seeing a rare moment
of self-confidence, satisfaction. I glanced at Monica, who stared down at
her partner with a look of what appeared to be loving pride.
“They were a Kentucky family famous for an unusual common physical trait,”
he continued. “They were known as ‘The Blue People.’ The Fugates, and other
folks like them, especially in their part of the state, apparently suffer
from a condition called methemoglobinemia, a heredity blood condition that,
well, makes you blue. In the pigmentation sense, that is. Some folks suggested
that when the Fugates threw a family reunion, it may not have meant just
potato salad and chicken.”
“Ah,” Monica murmured, sitting back to savor John’s forthcoming theory.
“So you think Tyler’s ‘imaginary friend’ isn’t so imaginary?” I asked slowly.
“Call it my skeptical nature, Doc,” he murmured. “I don’t believe in monsters
any more than you do – somebody tells me they saw a blue man, I wanna know
how you make a man blue. And there it is:
Methemoglobinemia. It’s supposed to come from a recessive gene, and it’s
pretty much faded with each generation of Fugates, but what if this kid has
it?”
“Kid?” Monica queried, a sly smile dimpling her face.
“I’ll get to that. OK, so here’s a way to explain why Tyler’s imaginary buddy
might be blue. Once you get to that point, the rest doesn’t seem too tough.
The facial features, the big-boned hands? How about acromegaly?”
“Acro--?” Monica attempted.
“Acromegaly,” I supplied. “I’ve worked with adults with physical deformities,
and sometimes it pops up as a cause of depression or feelings of isolation.
It’s a hormonal disorder that occurs when the pituitary gland produces excess
growth hormone. The soft tissue of the hands and feet begin to swell first,
and then, eventually, the bones and cartilage get thicker. Patients may have
jutting brows or jaws and huge noses. Like our ‘monster.’”
John frowned. Something was eating at him, more than what he was trying to
tell us. “Doc, in some cases, if something’s genetically off whack with somebody,
can’t they also have a whole lot of things off whack?”
I suppressed a smile at his scientific phraseology. “It can happen. Chernobyl,
children of severe drug users. The whole system may be congenitally impaired.
Generally, acromegaly isn’t believed to be a genetic disorder, but a genetic
mutation in a pituitary cell can bring it on.”
His brow furrowed, and he looked to be in some pain. “One of things I read
about acromegaly was that it’s pretty treatable, right? Once you catch it?”
“The methods of treatment are a little beyond my psychological knowledge,
John, but yes, I believe that’s correct.”
The agent nodded, worry filling the creases in his face.
Monica stared at him. “My God, the rational explanation’s almost more fantastic
than the supernatural one.
John sat up, grinning without an ounce of mirth. “Oh, I’ll go you one better
than that. C’mon.”
Ransome residence
5:30 p.m.
“Agents,” Pam Ransome said flatly, her perfect face fixed in a rigid smile,
her perfectly crafted nails wrapped around the front door jamb. “We were
about to have supper...”
“This may not take very long,” John assured her, feet planted firmly on the
immaculate Ransome doormat. His conditional phrasing wasn’t lost on me. “You
mind if we come in?”
Pam glanced back quickly, her smile fading. “Oh, I suppose. Orrin!”
It was more a warning than a summons, and my bewilderment deepened. John
refused to share any theory or suspicion with us on the way over, though
he drove with his jaw locked in determination.
Orrin stepped into the foyer, a Wall Street Journal crumpled in one hand.
“What’s up, people? I thought we pretty well finished our business during
our last discussion. You’ve picked a rather inopportune time for an unannounced
visit. We were just about to sit down for…” The words trailed off. What was
going on here?
“Tyler at home?” John asked cheerfully. “Like to have a few words with all
of you.”
Orrin Ransome stared at the agent. “Honey, go get Tyler. He needs to wash
up for supper anyway.”
“I don’t wanna interfere with your supper,” John added politely. “Why don’t
we just talk in the dining room while you folks eat?”
“All ri—” Pam began. Her perfect coral lips clamped shut as Orrin’s head
whipped toward her. “It’s a roast, crock pot, so it should keep. Maybe we’d
be more comfy in the living room.”
“No, no, I insist that you go about your business,” John said, heading down
the hall past the Ransomes. Monica followed gravely, murmuring amenities
at the couple.
“Wait,” Orrin called, pivoting and racing toward the agents. He caught John
by the sleeve, whirling him around. John’s eyes turned to blue steel, and
he grabbed two handfuls of burgundy Polo shirt.
“No need to get physical,” John finally said, grinning. “Let’s just see what’s
up for supper.”
The dining room was elegant and intricately appointed, in the southern tradition.
The table was spread with white linen – a perfect formality for a perfect
family. The two place settings at the head of the table were expensive and
obviously several generations old.
“Doc,” John addressed me. I nearly jumped. “You’re an expert in abnormalities.
What’s wrong with this picture?”
I blinked and re-examined the room. Nothing seemed out of place – the scene
was set for another genteel evening meal among Mobile’s affluent. A gilt-framed
portrait of the Ransomes and their son hung above a sideboard. I looked back
to the table.
“There are only two settings?” I asked rather than said.
“Bingo, good work, Doc,” John applauded. “I’m gonna assume your place is
at the head of the table, right? And somebody with, ah, looks like lip gloss,
finished up half the Coke at the other place. Where’s Tyler’s plate, Mr.
Ransome? You said he needs to get ready for supper. Where’s his plate?”
Orrin was a statue in the doorway, his
wife beside him a study in terror.
“John, what’s going on here?” I demanded. He looked at me, his face now serious
and…and anger.
“Let’s find Tyler’s plate, huh?” the agent invited with deadly calm, heading
for the kitchen beyond.
The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was a designer showplace: Black
and white tile, brushed aluminum appliances, black marble counters, a huge
prep island moored beneath a collection
of ornamental copper pots. On the island was a beef roast on a platter, prepared
to butter-knife perfection and redolent of garlic and rosemary. A second
platter of red potatoes and a third loaded with crescent rolls flanked the
beef; a pair of salads awaited delivery.
“This it?” John asked grimly. His voice was controlled but clearly strained.
As he turned toward the Ransomes, his face was corded in, what, anguish,
outrage? “Mr. Ransome? Mrs. Ransome? Is this your son’s dinner?”
Then I spotted it on the counter next
to the range. It was a large, chipped Corel plate, much cheaper stuff than
the Ransomes would dare grace their table with. Roasted beef was piled high
and haphazardly on the Wal-Mart plate, a couple of potatoes seemingly tossed
on top of the meat.
“Let’s take Tyler his dinner,” John growled, his voice now icy.
“Please,” Pam whimpered, breaking down in sobs on her husband’s arm.
“John, what--?” Monica whispered. Then her eyes widened in realization. “Dear
God…”
“Hey, Agents Doggett and Reyes, Dr. Mindy,” a hearty voice broke through
the cloud of inexplicable anger and tragedy. I turned to see Tyler, grinning
broadly in the kitchen doorway, his eyes full of perfect happiness. “You
guys staying for supper?”
**
“See, we had this thing all backwards,” John told the now-silent Ransomes.
“It just didn’t occur to me how wrong this whole scenario was.”
“I’m at a complete loss, John,” I tried again. Tyler was still smiling that
perfect, flawless, unnerving, vaguely horrifying smile.
He leaned back against the island. “OK, I told you and Monica about the blue
Kentuckians, the acromegaly, everything that would explain Tyler’s imaginary
friend. So let me ask you, Doc? What makes more sense? A perfect boy, 4.0
GPA, star of the football team, a model of teenaged manners, seemingly impervious
to physical injury, who dreams up a ‘monster’ for an imaginary friend? Or
a physically deformed, ‘grotesque’ boy with perfect parents and a perfect
home, who dreams up a perfect version of the boy he could never be?”
I couldn’t speak. I thought of John as the voice of reason, logic. What he
was saying was so fantastic…
“Or should I say, the boy his parents always wanted him to be?” Pam shrunk
from John’s words; Orrin’s jaw tightened. “You two left St. Louis when Tyler
was about six, right? Fairly abruptly – you left a pretty cushy brokerage
position, didn’t you, Mr. Ransome? I checked the federal birth registry,
and made a few calls to the hospital where he was born, your obstetrician.
Seems your son was born with some fairly severe genetic problems, had to
have nearly round-the-clock care for his first six months or so. Wonderful
recovery, huh?”
Tyler smiled.
“I figure Tyler was about six when he started fantasizing about your perfect
son, the son he wished he could be,” John continued. “It was probably hard
for you two to hide your frustration, your disappointment. Maybe your revulsion.
And all your son wanted was to give you what you wanted.” The agent nodded
at the perfect teen in the doorway. I glanced at him.
And gasped as Tyler flickered.
“You never realized what a special kid you had – what special abilities he
had, how generous he had to be to sacrifice his own happiness to give you
the perfect son.” John was breathing roughly now, though his anger scarcely
registered with me. I was gaping at the doorway, where Tyler continued to
fade and rematerialize. “And you let him, you son-of-a-bitch. He’s got a
disease that could kill him someday – you have to know agromegaly can bring
on diabetes or cancer. Or did you even care enough to find out what was wrong
with him?”
“John,” Monica said gently.
“I had a perfect son once, you know that? His name was Luke, and you know
what made him perfect, Mr. Ransome? He was my son, and he loved me, and if
I could have him back green, with three arms and an extra eye, I’d sell my
soul in a second.”
Orrin Ransome was silent for a moment. “He wanted us to be happy. He wanted
this for us.”
This horrifically selfish rationalization broke the spell. I’d stared into
the eyes of a cannibalistic serial murderer who’d denied his own humanity,
and I could see the murderous rage on John Doggett’s face now.
“I’ve met some of the worst scum you could ever imagine,” John laughed harshly
at the irony of his statement. “I’ve looked evil in the face a dozen times.
But I wonder if I ever really understood evil until right this minute.”
“How dare you,” Orrin snapped, moving forward. “Who the hell are you to judge
me or my wife?”
John came off the island. “Please, Mr. Ransome. Give me an excuse.”
I stepped in front of the FBI agent. “John. Are you saying this isn’t Tyler?
That Tyler is…”
John blinked. “The carriage house out back. Is that where you keep him?”
“Fuck you,” Orrin stated. “You take your partner and the shrink here and
your bizarre fantasies and get the hell out of my house.”
John nodded, and his hand eased inside his jacket. It emerged with a gun
that he leveled at Tyler’s father.
“Is that where you keep him?” he repeated.
“Yes,” Orrin stammered, backing up a step.
“John, please put your gun away,” I urged firmly. “That boy needs your help.
Help him, John.”
He looked at me for the first time. Something caught in his throat, and I
squeezed his forearm. John nodded and holstered his weapon.
“Tyler.”
We both turned at Pam’s anguished whisper. “Tyler,” she repeated, staring
at the spot where her perfect “son” had been.
**
His huge, misshapen head turned as we entered the carriage house. He was
lying on a Salvation Army couch, watching Jeopardy on a ‘70s-vintage console
set.
“Tyler?” Monica inquired. “Tyler Ransome?”
The blue boy sighed, his brown eyes wide under his bony brows. “I guess Mom’s
pretty mad.”
I sat down next to Tyler, patting one of his huge hands. “Tyler? What your
parents have done to you is wrong. You know that, don’t you?”
John looked down at the “monster.” “That’s why your ‘friend’ started to fade
away, isn’t it, Tyler? At some level, you were beginning to realize you didn’t
owe your folks anything because of the way you were born. They’re the ones
that aren’t normal, Tyler. Not you.”
A tear rolled over Tyler’s jutting cheekbone. Doggett kneeled before the
teenager, and placed a hand on his knee.
“Son, you did kill Greg Roos, didn’t you?”
More tears appeared, and he wiped them away with outsized blue fingers. “I
didn’t mean to kill him, but he was going to hurt that girl. Mom and Dad
told me never to leave my room here, but I guess I’ve been getting more curious
about what Tyler sees and feels. You know what I mean. I guess he probably
won’t be back now, huh?”
“That’s up to you,” I suddenly provided. He’d come to see his imaginary companion
– dear God – as the real boy.
“I took the alleys and everything to get to the school – I’d found my way
there with Mapblast. Mom lets me use Tyler’s computer when Dad’s gone. Anyway,
when I came into the gym, that boy had his hands under that girl’s dress,
and she told him to stop. I just tried to make him stop, but when I grabbed
him by the neck…”
Tyler covered his misshapen face. Tears leaked through his hands, plopping
onto John’s sleeve. The FBI agent held his grasp silently as Tyler’s huge
shoulders began to convulse.
“I’ll call Family Services,” I offered as the man an