Chapter Twenty-Two
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Mathias!” I call. “I need to speak to you.”
I’m speaking in French, but he keeps walking. I repeat it in English.
Then, “Mathias! If you fucking make me run after you in my condition, I swear I will see you evicted from this damn town no matter what goddamn blackmail you threaten me with.”
He turns slowly, his expression impassive. “You have been with your husband too long. You are starting to sound like him, all profanity and empty threats.”
“You think that’s an empty threat?” I stride closer. “Try me, Mathias. I understand you’re protective of Sebastian—”
“I am not ‘protective’ of anyone. I am angered that you are the victim of very obvious framing and do not see it.”
I plant myself in front of him. “Do you honestly think I’m not very aware that someone seems to be framing Sebastian? If I wasn’t, he’d be coming south with us. His medication was used to dose Kendra. His lure was found in Lynn’s drawer. And an eyewitness claims to have seen him with Lynn during the storm. I would be a shitty detective if I didn’t suspect he’s being framed, and I’d be an inept one if I presumed he was being framed and didn’t question him. Now I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I need you to stand down.”
He crosses his arms. Then he says, “How are you feeling? I know it has been a difficult pregnancy.”
“If you are implying that baby brain is affecting my ability to investigate, just say so. If you are implying that hormones are making me blow up at you, go to hell.”
“I am simply asking after your health,” he says mildly.
“Yeah? Then you’re trying to lower my guard. You don’t give a shit.”
“ Non, Casey,” he says. “I do give a shit. I also give a shit that someone seems to have…” His gaze flits about. While we’re speaking French, that doesn’t mean a passerby couldn’t hear and understand our conversation. There’s no one around—I made sure of that—but when he checks, I wave toward the butcher shop.
“Go inside,” I say. “I have something to discuss with you, and it seems you have something to discuss with me.”
Mathias takes me up to his apartment. “Sebastian is out,” he says before I can ask. “He is with the boys and Gunnar, playing some sort of board game in the community center.” He glances back. “I presume he is still allowed around children.”
I don’t even dignify that with a glare. We head inside, and he waves me to a seat.
“You first,” I say. “You said you give a shit that someone seems to have…”
“Do you think Sebastian was targeted at random, Casey?”
I ignore the patronizing tone. He’s still in a mood, and if he pokes me any more, I’ll switch to English. That’ll teach him.
“No,” I say. “I have two leading theories on that. The main one is that he was targeted by someone of a roughly similar build, so that if the killer is seen with a victim, while wearing winter garb, Sebastian will fit. Considering that’s exactly what happened—someone resembling Sebastian was seen with Lynn during the storm—that’s a strong theory. My second possibility is that he was targeted because of the temazepam. If the same person who killed Lynn also dosed Kendra’s drink, then it’s likely they heard something to suggest Sebastian had strong sleeping medication. Once they stole that, Sebastian became the patsy, who would continue to be framed.”
Mathias’s grunt allows that this is decent detective work. Then he says, “And the third theory? There is another, perhaps stronger. Something that makes Sebastian the perfect target.”
“The fact that he’s a convicted killer? Or the fact he’s a diagnosed sociopath?” I adjust my posture as the baby decides now’s a fine time to start punching me. “I’ve considered those, but I can’t think of any way for someone to get that information. Core staff knows it, but that’s a very limited number of people. There’s no record of it for someone to stumble over. Sebastian’s not going to raise it in conversation. Neither are you. So unless you’re telling me you got drunk and told someone… or let it slip in pillow talk…?”
He only gives me a hard look.
I throw up my hands. “Then since that’s clearly your theory—that someone knows he’s a sociopath—how do you envision someone getting that information?”
“Too many people know.” He crosses his arms again. “I do not like it.”
“That was Sebastian’s choice.”
“Perhaps someone wrote it down.”
“Wrote down that Sebastian is a sociopath? Someone needed to make a note because they were liable to forget it? Also, except for Will, Eric, and me, the staff only know about the sociopathy. Not the murder conviction.”
Mathias leans back in his seat. “I am only asking.”
“There’s one person who might need to write something down about Sebastian. You, Mathias.”
Silence.
I lean forward. “Do you have notes on Sebastian’s past? His condition?”
“ Non. ” Another hesitation, and I let it drag on until he says, “I have some treatment notes, but nothing that would clearly state his condition or his crime.”
“Could they be inferred?”
“I do not think so.”
“That’s not exactly heartening.”
He folds one leg up over his knee. “The papers are very secure, and I see no sign they have been touched.”
“But someone did enter your apartment—possibly twice—to steal from Sebastian’s room, which he didn’t notice. Neither of you realized anyone broke in, right?”
“ Non. ”
“Then I think I’d like to see where you keep those papers.”
“I am going to need to relocate them now,” Mathias complains as I return the locked box under the floorboard.
“You should anyway,” I say. “Have you never read a single mystery novel? Watched a single mystery film?” I shake my head. “I suppose I should be glad you didn’t shove them under the mattress.”
“I tried, but the box made a terrible lump, and I could not sleep.”
I put the floorboard down. “I agree there’s no sign it was tampered with. Even if someone found it in that ridiculously obvious spot, the contents are about as secure as you can get.” There’s a key lock on the outer box and a combination on the inner one.
“ Merci. ”
“However…” I give him a look. “Someone determined to get into it could just take the whole box and figure out how to pry it open. We have a safe in the town hall. I would suggest you store it there.”
I take some time struggling back to my feet, noting no offer of help from Mathias. “I will consider the possibility that Sebastian was targeted because someone found out about his past, and I’ll pass on the tip to Will.”
“Do you expect William to solve this case? He is a fine police officer, but he is not a detective.”
“I’ll be continuing to work on it remotely, through him. Now, as for my question…” I wave him back into the living room so I can sit. “I don’t know how much you’ve heard about Lynn’s death.”
“That she was apparently left in the forest during the storm, where she became lost and perished of hypothermia. Sebastian also heard a rumor that she was not simply lost, but tied up and left there.”
I tell him the full story. When I finish, he’s quiet. Very quiet. I can’t read his reaction. He seems to just sit there and consider what I’ve said.
I continue, “I’d like to ask a bit about the psychology of that. It’s sadistic, obviously.”
“ Is that obvious?” He gives me a sidelong look. “It would depend on whether the killer believed Lynn had done something for which this was a fitting punishment.”
From what I understand of Mathias’s past, this was his own modus operandi. Horrible deaths that he considered justice for the crimes committed.
I shake my head. “No resident gets in without a full background check, and no one gets in who’s running from crimes they committed. I know why Lynn was here and I’ve confirmed it with émilie. No one is going to punish her for that. Of course it’s possible there’s something else in her past that someone might punish her for. Something involving hypothermia? Maybe she got lost with a friend and left that friend to freeze to death?”
“That would not be justification for killing her in such a manner.”
I’d say nothing is justification for what was done to Lynn, but I keep my mouth shut and let him continue.
“In order for her to deserve such a fate, she would need to have done something such as abandon her friend, taking all the supplies and not telling rescuers where to find her companion. Which, yes, is a highly manufactured scenario. Another possibility might be if, as a teenager, Lynn had a baby and abandoned it to die. Now, that is certainly not justifiable cause to punish her—she would have been panicked and acting irrationally—but someone could…”
He sees my expression, and that my hands have instinctively moved to my belly.
“That was inconsiderate of me,” he says. “I apologize. There is little point in guessing at what Lynn might have done to make someone think she deserved to die in such a manner. But yes, she might have done something and her killer might have decided it deserved such a death. The stronger possibility is, as you say, sadism, which is the real reason you are here and not to ask why someone might consider that a justifiable fate.”
His gaze rests on me, his piercing look suggesting he knows there was some of that in my question, too.
He continues, “Such a murder suggests extreme sadism. They did not simply abandon her. They did not simply tie her up. They did not even simply strip her down and tie her up. They watched. That was the point. The watching.”
“Watching her slowly die, freezing to death, screaming for help that wouldn’t come.”
“Yes. So who does such a thing? We can talk of psychopaths and sociopaths and the difference ad nauseam, but as you doubtless realize, this is not sociopathy as we see with Sebastian, who might kill to achieve an end.”
“But if someone did frame Sebastian because they knew he’s a sociopath, they might not realize that.”
“They likely would not. Or, even if they did understand the difference, would they expect you to know it? Or would you see evidence pointing to a sociopath and close the case?”
“So what are we looking for?”
He sighs and leans back in his chair. “Are you looking for me to play profiler, Casey? It is a game for fools and Hollywood detectives.”
“I know profiling isn’t the science we wanted to think it was. You can’t tell me I’m looking for a white male between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four.”
His lips quirk. “But you probably are, as that is a simple matter of statistics. Yes, I can give you some insight into the mind of someone who might do such a thing. Just do not take it as gospel.”
“I won’t.”
Mathias tells me what he can. He’s right that profiling isn’t what we see in the movies. There can be value in it, but the way it’s portrayed makes it seem like hard science.
We can’t only blame Hollywood either. Hollywood seized on an idea that was already popular in law enforcement. What if you could take crimes and extrapolate backward to come up with a profile of the killer? That works best if you’re saying that the person who killed Lynn is a sadist and getting clues about their personality from that. It does not work well if you decide that the method of her murder is symbolic and suggests they grew up with maternal attachment issues and felt “left out in the cold” by their mother.
As for things like “white male between twenty-five and thirty-four,” as Mathias said, that’s just statistics. It’s like saying that someone committing a sexual assault is probably male. Probably, yes. Absolutely? No.
The most important thing Mathias tells me is that this is unlikely to be a first offense. You don’t start with something this horrific. It’s probably not even a valid jump from “tortured small animals as a child” to this.
If this is pure sadism, we’re looking for a serial killer, at least in the sense of someone who has killed before.
Here is yet another problem we’re discovering in Haven’s Rock. Just because there’s no record—or even suspicion—of a resident having committed violent crimes does not mean they’ve never done it.
What’s the chance that, in our first batch of residents, we’ve let in a serial killer with no police record? One who has never even been questioned in connection with violent crimes? It must be exceptionally low. My vengeance theory makes more sense.
Mathias walks out with me. Then he continues on to the coffee shop while I stop to say a quick goodbye to Nicole as she passes with Stephen. Finally, I start making my way toward the hangar, presuming Dalton will be there with Storm and our luggage.
Shit. I wanted to ask Mathias something else.
I turn to see him in the distance. He’s bundled up, but I pick him out easily from the others. He’s a slight man, not terribly tall, walking with purpose…
I slow as I watch him. A slight man below average height. A man I believe has a history of enacting vicious punishments he considers justified.
“Detective Casey?” a voice says, and I turn to see Carson walking toward me.
I force myself to shift mental gears. “Hey, I heard you guys were playing a board game. How’d it go?”
The boy shrugs. “I got bored and let myself lose.” He motions down, and I see Raoul tagging along. “I said I was taking the dog for a walk.” He looks back at me. “Do you have a sec? Before you leave? There’s something…” He shrugs again, now in a way that suggests he’s uncomfortable. The language of a teenager—every shrug and grunt and eye roll having its own meaning.
“Something you need to speak to me about?”
Another shrug. “Maybe? It’s probably nothing, but if you leave, and I don’t say anything?” He glances away. “I’d rather not do that again.”
When Max went missing, his brother had withheld details, not for long, but enough that his teenage ennui had fallen away to reveal the young man under it, panicked and guilt-stricken.
“Sure, let’s pop into the town hall. I should sit for a minute anyway.”