Cast a Pale Shadow(52)

Cole closed his eyes. "She loved me. She wouldn't call it that, but it was love just the same. And I should have -- I should have known. I should have saved her. She was like an angel in the snow, a shattered angel."

"You were fifteen, Cole. How could you have known?"

"I should have."

"You've had enough for today."

Startled by the abrupt end of the interview, Cole shook his head and leaned forward. "Did I kill him?"

"I don't know."

"Play the tape."

"I don't think it is a good idea."

"Play the tape. How much worse could it be?"

"Worse."

Cole held his hand out flat in front of him, and when, after a moment's concentration, it stopped shaking, he nodded. "I'm ready for it. See? May I smoke?" Without waiting for an answer and before it could start shaking again, he plunged his hand in his pocket to search for his pack of cigarettes.

"I've never seen you smoke before."

"He smokes. Nicholas. It's his bad habit, but it sometimes gets the best of me. It's not allowed in here, is it?"

"No."

Cole twisted the pack and tossed it in the waste can. "Play it."

Fitapaldi started the tape. As it played, Cole paced the floor. When it ended, he raked his hands through his hair then shoved them in his pockets. "Thank you for your effort, Doctor. I asked for cure or destroy. I can't quibble with the outcome. It's very clear what I must do now."

"Cole, stay here tonight. The effect of the drug could last up to seventy hours. Take the time to let your head clear before you make any unalterable decisions."

"The decisions were made long ago." Cole took the tape from the machine and shoved it in his pocket.

"Cole."

"Yes."

"Do you remember Cynthia?"

"Yes." Cole slumped in the chair, his fist clenched in the center of his chest. "When we were at the cemetery, it was Trissa's face I saw in the grave, not Cynthia's. I thought it was a hallucination. Not a memory. Do we call the police and have them come for me?"

"We should work this through first. It is only a partial memory at this point. The drugs, your emotional state, even my questions, I'm afraid I botched them badly -- all these things could have influenced your thought patterns."

"You can't blame the questions when you don't like the answers, Doctor." Cole took a deep breath and rose from the chair. "I believe it would be more dignified if I go to the station. Will you drive me?"

"Do you remember killing Bob Kirk?"

"They are looking for someone who buries his victims then forgets them." He tapped the pocket with the tape cassette. "I believe that is my pattern. Shall we go?"



*****



Cole saw Henry Chancellor in his office plucking index cards off a bulletin board labeled Person or Persons Unknown.

The detective who had admitted them to the outer office called out, "Hey, Chancellor, someone here for you."

Chancellor's head whipped round, then jerked back, a double take that would have put Ray Romano to shame. "Brewer! What the hell? And hand in hand with your psychiatrist? What goes here?"

"I've come to turn myself in."

"For what? Bizarre behavior at a funeral? Living in sin with your sweetie? Scoot along home and make your confessions to your shrink. I got more important things on my mind."

"Living in sin?" Brewer repeated, looking a bit muddled by the phrase. "No. No, I'm here about Bob Kirk's murder."

"Yeah? What about it? Have you dredged some memory from that fogbound brain of yours? Let's have it." He reached for a blank index card and his felt tip pen to record the information. "I'll add it to the stack."

"I did it. I killed him."

"What?" A blob of ink oozed onto the card. Chancellor ripped it in half and reached for another

"I murdered Bob Kirk."

"I see." Popping the top back on his pen and tossing it in the side drawer, he rooted for a sharpened pencil stub in the clutter. "And could you describe how the hell that happened? Was that before or after he beat you to a bloody pulp?" He abandoned his search for a functional pencil and stood. "Just a second, let me get a scribe over here. You sure you don't want to have a lawyer here with you, or does this shrink of yours double as a shyster?"

"I'm here because I drove Mr. Brewer here." The doctor drew himself to his full height, which brought him to about Chancellor's breast pocket. "I do not accept or condone what he is doing."

Chancellor motioned him over to the water fountain and leaned over to whisper loud enough for half the room to hear, "Yeah, well, that makes two of us. What's the matter, Doc, you got no better control of your patients than this? Why don't you take him home and work on him a little longer? He don't look like he belongs out in public yet."

Cole knew he looked more than a bit harried and wild-eyed, his face drained of all color except for the green, yellow, and purple rays that radiated across his jaw from the bruise behind his ear.

Chancellor studied him a moment. "Potts, get in here. Bring a pad."

When they were all settled around a table in an interrogation room, Chancellor leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "Okay, Brewer, 'fess up."

Brewer's voice was calmer and steadier than he had expected. "I killed Bob Kirk. We had an argument. We fought. I punched him. And he fell."

"That's it?"

"More or less."

"How about more? What did you hit him with?"

"My fists." Brewer had them clenched on the tabletop. Chancellor wasn't impressed.

"And?"

"And. And a brick from the alley."

"What did you do with this brick when you were done with it?"

"Threw it in a trash bin."

"Anything else?"

"I dragged his body to the cemetery and I buried it."

"How did you get into the cemetery?"

"Under the fence. The dogs must dig."

Chancellor nodded in agreement. "They must, I guess. It's in the nature of dogs. Can you show us this spot where the dogs dig."

"If I can find it again."

"You found it okay that night. In the dark. Beaten half dead. Dragging a body that must outweigh you -- by what -- forty pounds, at least. And the shovel, don't forget the shovel. Where did you get the shovel, by the way?"

"In the garage. It was in the garage."

"Kirk's garage?"

"The one behind his house, yes."

"Could you describe the shovel?"

"What? It was metal, with a wooden handle."

"Very apt. I know just the one you mean now. We'll mark it exhibit one. Go on."

"That's about it. I tried to get away but I didn't make it. I collapsed into the ditch where they found me."

"And did your wife -- did Teresa Kirk know anything about any of this? We know she's not your wife by the way, in case I forgot to mention it."

"Not my wife."

That cracked his eerie calm all right.

"So she can testify against you, if it goes that far. But go ahead, answer my question."

"Not my wife," Brewer repeated dully, like a stuck phonograph. "Trissa had nothing to do with this. I did it all on my own. I went to meet Bob Kirk. He deserved killing, so I killed him. Then I buried him. That's all there is to it."

"But what about your car?"

Brewer's placid face cracked in a frown. "I don't remember where I put the car. I intended to go back for it but I collapsed in the ditch. You know the rest."

"We found it."

"Good."

"Very good for you, actually. We found your car tucked, pretty as you please, in a vacant garage down the alley from Kirk's. Do you remember stashing it there? Was that before or after you killed Kirk?"

"After -- No, before"

"Fine. Now all we have to do is wait for the fingerprints and the final lab reports to apply for a warrant and arrest the -- oh, when was the last time you were in the trunk?"

"I don't know. I keep my cameras back there when I carry them. I put shopping bags back there, just like anybody else."

"And what about the blood?"

"Blood?"

"We found blood back there."

"Kirk's?"

"Don't you know?"

"I remember now." He knew he was starting to scramble. His voice had thinned and shook a little. "I put the body back there, at first, then I changed my mind."