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Frederick Chilton suspected he’d made a mistake. He made them so rarely, when they did occur they struck him as especially glaring. Worse, his occasional mistakes seemed somehow graver than the ordinary, run-of-the-mill mistakes committed by people who blundered through life as a matter of course.
He should have hired a regular, licensed private detective, the kind better used to following up dodgy insurance claims and photographing adulterous couples, than looking for escaped murderers. He should have, except the inmates (Frederick preferred to think of them by that old-fashioned term – ‘patients’ was too innocuous) of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane would have made literal minced meat out of any regular private eye.
Not that the person Frederick had brought in was immune to violent death, probably. She was, however, slippery enough to get away with it. Maybe.
Frederick stood leaning against his mahogany desk and focused on keeping his expression neutral now he was face to face with the woman lounging in one of the pair of sleek, matching Finn Juhl chairs he’d bought especially to intimidate visitors. He couldn’t shake the distinct impression that he had blundered worse in asking Freddie Lounds to find his errant charge than he would have done if he had hired some retired flatfoot out of the phonebook.
For one thing, she was not in the least intimidated by Frederick’s office, his bespoke three-piece suit or the diplomas on his walls and the brass name plaque, polished every morning, presiding over his desk. For another, she had jumped at the chance to poke around the BSHCI with the chief of staff’s permission. She would take payment in kind, meaning information, rather than $500 a day plus reasonable expenses. She’d made that much clear on the phone before she’d agreed to meet with Frederick.
Freddie Lounds crossed her legs, smoothed her skirt with its awful pattern, tapped her stylus on her iPad. From his vantage point, Frederick could see that she took notes in shorthand. This both reassured and unnerved him: he would not have credited Freddie Lounds with any traditional journalistic skills, other than dogged, unscrupulous perseverance in pursuit of a headline.
“I have to ask,” she said in her usual, archly amused tone. “The journalist’s professional deformation: the compulsion to ask questions. You have the local cops and the FBI rushing around on your behalf. Your lunatic will be back in the asylum soon even without my help. So why go the extra mile by asking me to look into it, not to mention open your doors and filing cabinets to me?”
She made filing cabinets sound obscene, but Frederick wasn’t fooled. This woman didn’t want in his pants or even to pick his brains, she wanted to be let loose in the hinterland of his career.
He never should have asked her for help, but there was no backing out of it now. She’d just get in the way of a flow of information she shouldn’t have, if he did try to fob her off at this juncture.
Frederick adopted a thin smile. “I am not just some turn-key, Miss Lounds. My patient should be returned to my care with all haste.”
His private taste in vocabulary aside, he resented her barging into his office and flinging words like ‘lunatic’ and ‘asylum’ around like confetti. They made Frederick sound like an asylum keeper in the comic subplot of some middling Jacobean tragedy, the kind which ended in a bloodbath regardless of the quality of the verse.
“Law enforcement agencies tend to treat every dangerous escapee the same,” Frederick added. “Bringing this one back sooner rather than later would be… prudent from the standpoint of public safety. You have access to sources of information the police cannot or will not use.”
Freddie Lounds leaned forward in her chair, scenting prey. “Yes, but why? You may as well tell me, I’ll find out anyway once Dr. Gideon is back in your care and I interview him.”
She twinkled up at Frederick, who couldn’t restrain a glower. He had been far too quick (too desperate) to give in to her demands.
Frederick shoved away from his desk, walked around it, and sat down. He needed distance and a barrier of sorts between himself and Freddie Lounds – the reassurance of elementary psychology.
“You may be aware that this escapee murdered his wife and her parents in rather gruesome fashion.” Positively Jacobean, in fact, slaughtered over Thanksgiving turkey. “Surely I needn’t explain what that could mean for any member of the public who crosses his path. You have written enough sensationalist pieces about murderers to be able to fill in the details without the benefit of actual facts.”
As soon as he shot that particular barb, he knew he’d misjudged. Freddie Lounds’ journalistic integrity and the nature of her work must be impugned on a daily basis. Trying to distract her with barely-veiled digs would only focus her attention. Her gaze bore into Frederick, even as the corner of her lips twitched into her customary smirk.
“Abel Gideon murdered his family, not random strangers, and he didn’t even try to run. He called the police himself, then he sat at the table, with his family around him, and ate his blood-bespattered Thanksgiving dinner. Family annihilators do not tend to go on sprees. And you haven’t brought yourself to say his name once since I got here.”
Frederick held and returned her gaze. He would not be intimidated by this, this hack in his own office!
He averted his gaze, suppressed the urge to pick up his name plaque and check whether the humid air and Freddie Lounds’ presence had smudged it.
“Doctor Chilton, what have you done?”
Frederick wished he smoked or chewed gum or any other displacement activity he normally found so distasteful. Or amusing, depending on the person engaging in it. He preferred Freddie Lounds when she sounded smug rather than serious.
“I may have…” He looked up, raised his hand, forefinger pointing skyward, for emphasis. “May have allowed Abel Gideon to develop certain ideas during his therapy. Ideas which may have affected his sense of self to the point where he now thinks he is much more interesting than he actually is. He may decide to act in accordance with that belief.”
“Who have you convinced him he is?”
Frederick’s nostrils flared. That was not what he’d said! It wasn’t his fault, broken minds operated according to their own logic, he couldn’t be expected to control everything all the time.
“Dr. Chilton!”
He told her. It seemed easier than attempting to throw her out or offer her a large bribe to forget all about it.
Freddie Lounds stared at him in open-mouthed shock. The sight soothed Frederick a bit.
“Jesus fuck,” she said. “Aren’t you supposed to fix them, not make them worse than they already are?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be posting this story even as we speak?” Frederick fired back. “If you’re just going to sit there and tell me the fucking obvious, you may as well hurry up out of here, and break the news of my error of judgment to Jack Crawford and your subscribers. Let the vultures come and pick over my carcass, they won’t even have to wait for Abel Gideon to finish me off.”
Freddie shook her head, bright red curls bouncing, and shoved her iPad and stylus into her garish bag. Frederick expected her to flounce out of his office, but she remained sitting. Her expression was grave. It did not suit her.
“Self-pity isn’t going to help you get through this, you know,” she said. “Anger and figuring out how to cover your ass do help, and I could write a better story if I get to interview the Chesapeake Ripper once he’s back in custody, than if he kills you and then gets killed by the cops or vanishes without trace.”
Frederick opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He couldn’t quite parse everything she’d just said, not right away, but he understood enough: she’d help him because it got her what she wanted. Frederick recognized that kind of calculation.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, before habit got the better of him.
Freddie pretended she hadn’t heard. Frederick rather resented how much he appreciated the gesture. Anyway, he’d pay her several times over for her help – pay her with stories she could publish and private gloating she could indulge in.
“Do you own a gun?” Freddie asked. Frederick shook his head no. “We’re going right now to buy one, then you are going to the range to practice while I call some people I know.”
“Couldn’t I hire some bodyguards, extra security for my home, instead?” Frederick demanded.
He didn’t want to get gun oil on his suit, and firearms made him nervous. Not that he would tell Freddie that, she didn’t get to see him any weaker than she already had.
She was on her feet and looked at him now with her head cocked and a smile on her lips, so he knew her moment of gravity and concern was over. Thank goodness.
“The fewer people get close to this, the better. Less chance of anyone else finding out and stealing my scoop.”
She didn’t say ‘less chance of anyone else getting hurt.’ Frederick hadn’t expected her to say it, found he rather liked her for not saying it.
“All right, Miss Lounds,” he said, rising and collecting his coat and wallet. He hoped guns weren’t too expensive, he had his eye on an Art Deco decanter from an extortionate antiques dealer recommended by Hannibal Lecter. “I’ll dance to your tune, for now.”
“Buck up, Dr. Chilton,” Freddie said over her shoulder as she opened the door and preceded Frederick out of his office. “Beautiful friendships have begun under odder circumstances than these.”