Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(122)

As far as D.D. was concerned, that was a wrap. Andrew had taken his world of spiritual interplanes a bit too seriously, convincing himself that the fate of his father’s soul was more important than the continued corporal existence of various individuals. He had murdered A, believing he was saving B. Or more likely, he had just wanted to terrorize Danielle Burton after she rejected him.

Naturally, Alex argued with her. “He was a spiritual healer. Man did good work, according to his clients—”

“Converts.”

“Clients. You don’t go from being a respected shaman to a mass murderer overnight.”

“He was obsessed with Danielle. She wanted nothing to do with him. How much rejection can one man take?”

“According to her testimony, he wanted her to save his father’s soul. How does killing two entire families accomplish that?”

“It didn’t accomplish that,” D.D. pointed out with a shrug. “Poor problem-solving skills. Definition of a murderer right there. Some guy wants a divorce, but doesn’t want to lose half of his assets, so he kills his wife instead. Did he have to kill her? Were there other options that might have ended his marriage while preserving his bank account? Of course. But murderers don’t see other options. That’s why they’re murderers.”

They were sitting in D.D.’s office. The other taskforce members had left. Case was closed, not to mention they’d heard this same conversation a couple of times before. That didn’t stop D.D. and Alex.

“Yeah?” Alex continued now. “And where in business school and shaman studies did he cover how to slaughter an entire family? Single killing blow to a grown woman, as well as an athletic teenage boy? Not to mention how stone cold you gotta be to chase a screaming girl down the hall, then drag her back to her death. Or shoot a young girl in a dog bed. Or suffocate a baby in a cradle.”

“Merely proves how compartmentalized he was. Think about it: The man had two lives—Ficke the investment pro, Lightfoot the soul saver. Ficke was definitely not nice; he f*cked women and screwed friends, all in the name of high finance. Then one day, Ficke up and reinvented himself as the kinder gentler Lightfoot. Maybe in the beginning he honestly believed he saved his friend’s life. Maybe, given some of the accounts of his work, he lived the life of woo-woo. But think about it: Healing is its own power trip. Next thing you know, the New Age adrenaline rush triggered his old predatory instincts. Andrew begins defrauding the state, taking advantage of overwhelmed mothers, and feeding his inner ego. Lightfoot returns to being Ficke, this time armed with a bunch of spiritual mumbo jumbo for manipulating the masses.”

“He wanted Danielle,” Alex said.

“Absolutely. All comes back to Danielle. The girl his father had once saved. The woman who still wouldn’t do what Andrew said. Andrew wanted her, and Andrew always got what he wanted. Or no one else did.”

“Meaning one stubborn woman can drive a man over the edge.”

“It’s a gift,” D.D. said modestly. “Now case is closed. Perpetrator is dead. It’s seven p.m. I haven’t slept in four days. Why the hell are we still at work?”

“Because you haven’t said yes.”

“To what?”

“To the chicken marsala I’m planning on making you. With a side of Italian bread, and a bottle of Chianti.”

“Is there tiramisu for desert?” D.D. asked.

“Vanilla bean gelato.”

D.D. looked at him. Alex looked at her.

She sighed, took off her pager, set it carefully on her desk.

“Alex, take me home.”


DANIELLE

According to the police’s final report, Andrew Lightfoot allegedly went crazy and murdered twelve people in his quest to gain my attention and save his father’s soul. They used the term “allegedly” because murdering twelve people is a complicated way of saving someone’s soul. Or perhaps that’s why they ruled him crazy.

I didn’t contradict anything they said, though I had my own opinion on the subject. Nothing I could prove. Frankly, until a month ago, not even something I believed. But I work with children, and children are a powerful litmus test of human nature. At one time, kids loved Andrew. They responded to him. Even if I didn’t consider myself a mumbo-jumbo sort of gal, I’d seen some of his results.

I don’t think a madman could’ve helped those kids, particularly the hypersensitive ones, who would’ve perceived the taint. I think Andrew used to be Andrew. And I think, somewhere in his exploration of the celestial superhighway, he encountered a negative energy beyond his control. He met my father’s corrupt soul, hoping to use him to learn more about his own father. Unfortunately, my father’s spirit used Andrew to hunt me down in order to finish what he’d started twenty-five years ago.

There are things I’ll never know. When carrying me into Evan’s house, Andrew urged me to open my heart, to find the light. Was that the real Andrew pushing through, trying to help me survive? Or did my father simply assume that if he could get me to visit the land of interplanes, he could hurt me, too?

Don’t know.

Is my father back in the abyss, even now waiting for the next corporal existence? I know I saw him that night, his eyes shining from Andrew’s face. And I know I felt my mother, Natalie, Johnny, even Sheriff Wayne. Or maybe I just wanted to feel them. Maybe it was the illusion of seeing them that gave me strength. Then again, I found the gun. Surely that argues for my father’s involvement, or I had a way-lucky guess.