Wallflower Read online

  The patient Alice, a blond athlete from an affluent suburban family, could not go an hour without remembering in vivid detail the gloating expression on her younger sister's face while she, Alice, then ten years old, had been severely spanked by their mother for an act the younger sister had actually committed.

  Alice was so obsessed with that injustice and the shame aroused by the witnessed punishment that she could barely function as a college student, often losing all concentration, once even in the middle of a final exam.

  After describing the crippling effect of this memory, Archer went on to describe the treatment she had devised. This consisted of provoking the girl into emotionally reliving the shaming experience in all its humiliating aspects, but with the novel difference that in the reenactment the outcome for Alice was triumphant. This time, under Archer's guidance, Alice was able to "reread" the expression on her sister's face. This time it was not gloating that she saw but shame and deep remorse. Thus, by rewriting the script, encouraging Alice to devise a new ending in which she would emerge victorious, Archer had managed to vitiate the destructive power of the memory and even to assist Alice in increasing her sense of personal confidence and self-respect.

  After describing two similar cases, Archer held out hope for patients traumatized by early shame. Though a successful treatment could not be guaranteed, the therapist was encouraged to be as creative as possible in devising ways wherein the patient could work through the insult to her ego.

  "Above all else," Archer wrote in the conclusion of her paper, "we therapists must never underestimate the debilitating effects and the haunting power of early shaming incidents. Often patients will carry the burden of such incidents as baggage through their lives, baggage, moreover, that possesses the surrealistic quality of becoming increasingly heavy as the patient ages. Eventually, unless a cure is effected, the load may become so heavy that the patient will suffer terrifying stress or even break down totally beneath its crushing weight."

  Aaron, wearing one of his Hawaiian shirts, stood at the far end of the office, nursing himself from a mug of coffee. It was early the following morning. A cold rain, which had fallen overnight, had frozen on the ground, creating sufficient ice to turn the sidewalks into bobsled tracks.

  "Tell me about it, Frank," Aaron urged. "Let's see what you got."

  Janek, perched on the corner of his desk, spread his arms. "I've got nothing, absolutely nothing. You know that."

  "So tell me about nothing. Worst I can do is laugh in your face."

  "It involves a number of leaps," Janek said.

  Aaron bit off the end of a jelly roll. "Go ahead," he said. Leap."

  Janek nodded. He stood and began to pace. "Two days before she was killed Jess tried to get in touch with me. Something was troubling her. About the same time she told her best friend she wanted to quit seeing her shrink." He turned to Aaron. "Leap number one: It was the shrink she wanted to talk to me about."

  "Could be," Aaron said, biting off the center section of his roll. "I'll buy that. Go on."

  Janek resumed pacing. "Jess was never involved with archery, but she had an unused archery set in her closet. Her shrink's name is Archer. Leap number two: The archery set's somehow connected to the shrink."

  "Farfetched but. . ." Aaron made a wave motion with his hand. "Interesting," he conceded. "So far I got nothing to laugh at."

  Janek nodded. "Try this. When Sullivan put his high-powered FBI computer to work on the Happy Families crimes, the only victim connection it came up with was that two of the people were from Cleveland. Now it turns out Archer's from Cleveland, too."

  "So?"

  "It starts to add up. I think Archer's involved. I think she did something or she knows something she's not telling. I think she found out Jess saw or suspected something about her and—"

  "You think she's the Happy Families killer?"

  Janek shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't go that far. Not yet."

  Aaron gulped down the rest of his roll. "Now you've done it, Frank. That's a real stretch. Wanna know what I think?" Janek nodded. "It doesn't jell."

  "Of course, it doesn't jell."

  "So let's talk about it."

  "It's impossible. I'm the first to admit that. This tiny fat lady, forty years old—she couldn't possibly break into all those houses, murder all those people. She doesn't have the strength to be a stabbing machine. She may have the hatred, but she doesn't have the guts. The Cleveland connection—that's meaningless, too, because, among other things, only two of the victims are tied together that way. Then there're other dangles, like why would she want to glue their genitals, and what's the meaning of the weeds, and what could Jess have possibly seen, and how could tubby little Archer get in and out so fast, so clean, never seen by anyone, slick without a trace. And I guess the biggest dangle is how could a trained psychologist with a full practice and a respectable career, who consults a day a week at a hospital for the criminally insane—how could such a person possibly be an insane killer herself? She's a healer, right? She specializes in helping young women traumatized by shaming events, right?" Janek paused. "So it's impossible—right?"

  Aaron grinned. "Sure, it's impossible." He looked into Janek's eyes. "But we know what we gotta do, we gotta satisfy ourselves." Aaron stretched. "The only way I can think to do that is check out the Cleveland-connected victims, see if either of them ever crossed paths with Archer. Another thing—Jess was Archer's patient, so I'll want to check if any of the other victims ever had her as a therapist. If it turns out even one of them did"—he grinned again—"then we'll really have something."

  Janek nodded. "That's what I hoped you'd say. Why don't you get right on it? And while you're at it, make a low-level request to Sullivan's people for copies of the victim files. Not just the Cleveland pair, but all of them."

  Aaron nodded. "I'll ask for the crime scene photos, too."

  "To throw them off?"

  "Partly," Aaron admitted. "And also because I think you ought to focus on the weeds. The weeds are a message. You're good at reading messages." He looked at Janek. "What else have you got to do?"

  Janek smiled. "Nothing too important. I thought I'd try and put in a penetration agent, that's all."

  Early that afternoon Janek attended women's fencing practice. He found something tangy and enticing about the aroma of female sweat that wafted across the gym. Later he waited for Fran Dunning outside the women's locker room. When she appeared, her hair was still wet from her shower. Again he escorted her across campus to her afternoon biology lab.

  "I'd like to take you up on your offer to help," Janek said. "I need some information on Jess's shrink."

  "I already told you everything I know."

  "Of course, you have. But I wonder if you'd consider doing more."

  "What?"

  "Going to Dr. Archer as a patient for a while. All you'd have to do is call her up, tell her you were Jess's friend, that you've been deeply troubled since she was killed and you feel you could use some help. I'm sure she'd give you an appointment. Of course, we'd reimburse you for your fees."

  Fran turned to him, her eyes curious. "You think her shrink had something to do with it?"

  Janek shook his head. "I'm not going to lie to you, Fran. I don't know the answer to that. What I do know is there's something there I have to explore. I'm not asking you to do anything more than see this woman a couple of times, then fill me in."

  He could tell by the flush on her cheeks that the idea attracted her. But she was also wavering, perhaps not certain she could bring it off.

  "No spying, no snooping, no playing detective," he warned sternly. "You go in as Fran Dunning, with real feelings and real distress. If she asks about me, and I doubt she will, you can tell her all about our interview. The only thing you musn't tell her about is this conversation we're having now."

  "What do you want to know exactly?"

  "How she acts, her manner with you, her feelings, if she reveals them, toward Jess. I've bee
n in the waiting and consulting rooms, but I haven't seen any other parts of the house. So you might want to ask to use the bathroom, then let me know if you notice anything interesting on the way."

  "What would you consider interesting?" He could see excitement in her eyes.

  "Whatever strikes you. Believe me, Fran, if I thought there was any danger, I wouldn't ask you to get involved. This is a voluntary mission. If you don't want to do it, I'll understand."

  "Oh, I want to do it," she said. "When do I start?"

  Janek smiled, then handed her a piece of paper. "Here's Dr. Archer's number. You might want to give her a call this afternoon."

  The next day Sullivan called.

  "How you doing, Frank?"

  "Fine. You?"

  "Grand, just grand." Sullivan paused. "Understand you want to see some of our material?"

  "Problem with that?"

  "No problem. But I'm curious. Haven't heard a peep out of you since you started up there."

  "Been busy getting organized, setting up an office, all that. NYPD's a little different from the FBI. We're the poor cousins, remember, Harry?"

  Sullivan chuckled in response, a little roll of heh-heh-hehs.

  When the chuckling finally died away, he got to the point. "Actually I called you about something else."

  "What was that?"

  "Your surreptitious little trip up to Harvard Law School."

  "I wouldn't call it surreptitious."

  "Call it whatever you like. Chun has withdrawn as consultant on HF."

  "So?"

  "What the hell did you say to him?"

  "What're you talking about?"

  Sullivan's voice hardened up. "Don't bullshit me. You go up there, next thing I know he quits."

  Janek laughed. "Don't be an asshole, Harry. Chun was uncomfortable with the case. Anyone could see he was."

  During the ensuing pause Janek imagined Sullivan's mouth tightening to a line. But when Sullivan spoke again, his voice had turned cool and businesslike.

  "We're pouching off the stuff you asked for. You'll get it by the end of the day."

  "Damn gracious of you."

  "Either of us finds out anything, we share it, right?"

  "That was the deal."

  "Well, good luck, Frank." And before Janek could wish him the same, Sullivan clicked off.

  He spent the next three days studying the crime scene photographs.

  When they arrived, he and Aaron tacked them up at eye level in neat, even rows on the office walls. Then, while Aaron worked the phones, trying to track down connections between the two Cleveland victims and Beverly Archer, Janek stood before each photograph, staring at it, trying to enter into it before moving on to the next.

  He found this work extremely trying. He could not sustain it for more than a quarter hour at a time. When he felt he had sufficient command of his morning or afternoon quota of brutal images, he would leave the office to take long walks through Greenwich Village.

  Sometimes he would wander as far as the Hudson River piers across from the strip of gay leather bars on West Street or, in the other direction, beyond Tompkins Square Park into the network of cross streets known as Alphabet City. And always on these walks, amidst these squalid surroundings, he would try to imagine the killings taking place. He did this with all the homicides except for one; he still could not bear to imagine what had happened to Jess.

  The trick was to take the still pictures and turn them into movies. Horror movies, splatter movies—those were what he projected to himself. But hard as he tried he could not see tiny Beverly Archer performing a starring role. The intensity, the rage were there—of that he was nearly certain—but not the movements or the staging. He simply could not see her rushing into rooms, surprising people, thrusting at them with ice picks, then working on their fallen bodies with glue. Like most people in this world, Janek thought, the little shrink killed people in her dreams. But could she actually draw their blood? Could little Beverly wield the pick?

  "It's getting interesting," Aaron said.

  Janek had just returned from one of his walks. The moment he came through the door he could feel a certain cocky confidence in the room.

  "Tie-in with Archer?"

  "A very nice one." Aaron grinned. "Old Bertha Parce, the retired schoolteacher in Miami—seems she taught forty years at Ashley-Burnett, a snazzy private girls' school in Shaker Heights. And guess who happened to attend Ashley-Burnett during that same period?"

  "Little Beverly Archer."

  "You got it, Frank."

  Janek sat down. He needed a few moments to think through the implications.

  "So now it's not just Cleveland; it's a small exclusive school in Cleveland," he said. "Jess's shrink, Bertha Parce's student—" He looked up at Aaron. "It's almost too good to be true."

  Aaron nodded. "I like it. It's starting to come together. But we're going to need a hell of a lot more. The subtle telephone approach can take me only so far. You know what I want to do, Frank: go out to Cleveland and make a real investigation into the lady's past."

  Janek shook his head. "Too early. Expose our theory, and we run the risk of it getting back to her, plus we could screw ourselves permanently with Sullivan. Which wouldn't matter if we turn out to be right. But if we're not . . ."

  "So what do you want me to do?"

  "Keep plugging on the Connecticut brothers, the MacDonalds. Match them with Archer and you win a ticket to Cleveland."

  "And if I can't match them?"

  Janek shrugged. "We'll have to take another approach."

  There was something about the weeds, a way they were connected, that haunted him on his walks. It was something that he'd seen but that hadn't registered yet, a binding metaphor that remained just beyond his grasp. He found that the harder he struggled to dig it out of himself, the stronger his resistance to giving it up.

  Exhausted after three days of endless reruns of his self-made murder movies, he decided to try to free-associate. He remembered the moment the process began. He was walking in an area of old coffee and cheese warehouses on Desbrosses Street when, strangely, he detected the aroma of dead flowers in the air.

  The weeds: No question that Aaron was right; the ugly dour little plants contained a message. But what was it? What did they say?

  They had been left so they would be easily found; that could account for the fact that Sullivan's people didn't notice them at first. Left in plain sight, they were perhaps too obvious.

  When, after four killings, Sullivan's team finally did notice them, the weeds from the earlier cases had long since been swept away. But research revealed that they'd been there as well, their presence validated by photographs taken by local investigators.

  Once focused on the weeds, Sullivan's forensic experts were relentless. They carefully collected the scruffy little specimens, then sent them to the FBI lab for analysis. Alas, no secret writings were discovered inside, nor were any poisons or stains found upon their surfaces. So if the weeds did not conceal a message, then they must be the message. But again Janek wondered: What did they say?

  Not orchids or roses or carnations, Sullivan had told them in Quantico, meaning, Janek supposed, not the noble flowers left by mystery-story killers. But if the weeds were, in fact, ignoble, could they then be taken as ironic comment on those elegant, glamorous fictional murderers?

  That was one possibility.

  Another was that the killer saw himself (or herself if it was Archer) as unglamorous, ignoble, homely. And with that thought the binding metaphor sprang suddenly into Janek's brain.

  He mulled over his idea for a moment, then stopped on a street corner, stood still, and closed his eyes. Carefully he recalled the various crime scene photos in which the weeds appeared. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, he forced the pictures to flash successively on a screen inside his brain. Yes, the metaphor was pretty, but would it hold? He would have to go back to the office and examine the pictures again.

  His
heart was racing as he entered the Police Property Building, tore up the stairs, then down the hall. With sweat breaking out on his forehead, he rushed past Aaron to confront the pictures on the walls.

  As he looked at each one in turn, the metaphor locked more firmly into place. But still there was ambiguity: The killings had taken place indoors, inside rooms each of which had four walls.

  It was time now, he knew, to look closely at the pictures of Jess. And when he did, the metaphor was validated. Up in Riverside Park the weeds had been left leaning against the same little stone wall where he had seen the remnants of candles and flowers left by mourners.

  Exhilarated, he turned to Aaron, who, phone in hand, was gazing at him skeptically from his desk.

  "It's the weeds," he said. "They're always placed beside a wall."

  "So?" Aaron asked, waiting for the punch line.

  "That's it," Janek said.

  "What?"

  "The meaning."

  "Meaning? If you don't mind, Frank, please tell me what you're talking about?"

  "It's how she sees herself, Aaron. It's her message, her calling card."

  "So how does she see herself?" Aaron asked impatiently.

  Janek turned to stare out the window. "As a shy and homely girl without a partner at the dance. As a wallflower," he added mournfully.

  Later, when they pulled out the seven pictures and lined them up together, it was so clear Aaron wondered aloud how Sullivan's people could possibly have failed to see it.

  "It was their own word 'weeds' that threw them off," Janek said. "They locked themselves in with that. If they'd started out calling them flowers, degraded, ragged flowers, they probably would have figured it out."

  But still, he knew, it was the placement near Jess that really was the clincher. And perhaps, too, before one could read the message, one would need to have a certain sort of woman in mind—a woman who could be considered a wallflower at the dance of life.

  Janek met Fran Dunning at a coffeehouse around the corner from her dorm. It was one of those sixties-type places, with little marble tables, uncomfortable European café chairs, and a lone, slow, and very spacey waitress.