CHAPTER TEN
It was strange, Kate thought. People could be so polite and co-operative when you first met them. But if you had cause to come back to them a second time… It was almost like a mathematical equation. The more genial that first encounter went, the worse it would be on the second.
Dr Morrison followed them all the way round her apartment, scowling all the way, pointedly adjusting the things they’d had cause to move and giving a tiny, barely-audible grunt each time she did so, as if the effort was truly wearing her out.
If she wasn’t rearranging her belongings, then she was uttering thinly-veiled legal threats or questioning Kate and Marcus’s capability as agents.
It didn't get to them, though. They were too seasoned for that.
They didn't trash people's homes. Nor did they get a kick out of invading anyone's privacy.
They did the whole thing with sensitivity, tact, and discretion, remembering, just as they'd been taught at Quantico, to be conscious of how they'd feel should the shoe be on the other foot.
And also remembering that the warrant, currently lying ignored on Dr Morrison's coffee table, gave them the legal right to be right where they were, doing just what they were doing.
They'd searched the bedroom, the living room, and the kitchen, without finding anything of note.
The decor was textbook Single Academic throughout: varnished floorboards, an heirloom rug, and an industrial quantity of books.
The walls were bare, save for a couple of framed exhibition posters, one from Paris, another from Budapest. There was an upright piano, and an old hi-fi system, but no TV, while draped over the back of the battered leather sofa was an embroidered, pueblo-style blanket, rough to the touch.
The only real surprise came from the bathroom, where they found two toothbrushes facing each other in the mug, like an arguing couple.
‘Do you live alone, Doctor?’ Kate asked.
‘I have a…’ She hesitated before saying the word. ‘I can’t call him a boyfriend. But I never know what word to use. He’s 53. He stays over sometimes.’
Kate nodded, looking in the medicine cabinet.
‘I suppose you think you’ve got me pegged now,’ Morrison went on, sharply. ‘The lonely spinster. Waiting for the man who’ll never leave his wife.’
Kate looked at her. ‘I’m not making any such assumptions, Dr Morrison. How often does your… friend stay over?’
‘Once, twice a week,’ she replied stiffly. ‘His wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of 46. I’d appreciate it if you left him out of it.’
‘We certainly won’t trouble him unless we need to,’ Kate said, as they moved out of the bathroom. A floating staircase bisected the kitchen from the living space – more like a ladder, fixed to the floor. ‘May we go up?’
‘Why bother asking?’ Morrison exclaimed. ‘You’ll go anyway.’
‘I still consider it polite to ask,’ Kate said, refusing to be rattled. ‘Is it safe up there?’
‘Perfectly safe. It’s my studio.’
Kate started to go up the ladder. Morrison followed behind her.
The studio was impressive, with three huge skylights; Kate could imagine how they'd flood the space with sunshine in the warmer months.
It had to be like working in the clouds, or the next best thing.
There was a substantial workbench with drawers underneath, a sink in the corner, a partition made of yet more overstuffed bookcases, and what looked like an electric kiln.
Throughout the room, two smells vied with each other for supremacy: the sweet-sharp tang of varnish and the earthy, dusty odour of clay.
Kate picked up one of the tools from the table: it was a sharp-looking scalpel, covered in dried clay.
On the shelves were more of the sculptures Marcus had photographed in Morrisson's office: a skull, a rat on its hind legs, a hand curled into a fist, and then, in stark contrast to the others, a distinctly happy-looking frog in a teacup.
‘How long have you been into this?’ Kate asked.
‘Since I was a girl. I always liked how dirty it was. Girls are supposed to like watercolors, aren’t they?
Sketching flowers in insipid bloody pastels.
I just wanted to get up to my elbows in mud.
’ She smiled, seeming to forget how annoyed she’d been at the search warrant, the intrusion, the questions.
Kate almost didn’t want to spoil the mood.
‘Both of the recent murder victims were found with clay sculptures. Effigies, I guess you could call them.’
‘I didn’t know that. Do you have a picture you can show me?’
Kate obliged, handing her phone over. Morrison was expressionless as she looked at the photographs. She handed the phone back, again without giving any clue as to her inner state.
‘Whoever made them is considerably more talented than me.’
‘Why do you say that? I mean, apart from the obvious reason?’
Morrison almost smiled. ‘The “obvious reason” being that I would be inclined to say that, in order to deflect any suspicion from myself, right?’
‘Exactly.’
'I say that because it's clear that the sculptor has made these pieces freehand from a single piece of clay. He or she knows their material so well that they can judge perfectly how much they'll need to create the image they've got in their mind's eye, and do so with perfect proportionality.'
‘How does that differ from your technique?’
‘I barely have a technique, Agent Valentine. But such as it is, I create each component separately and stick them together, sometimes using a wire scaffold for stability. As a result, my sculptures have visible joint marks, whereas these have none. Look –’
She handed the frog and tea-cup sculpture to Kate. What she’d said made sense: it was a composite figure, made of individual pieces stuck together.
‘If you were to x-ray these items left at the crime scenes, I’m certain you wouldn’t find any kind of underlying scaffold or frame.
As a result, your killer’s statues – assuming it is the killer who makes them – have a living, breathing quality that I can only admire from afar.
Although, I have to say, I wouldn’t want them anywhere near me. They’re deeply unsettling pieces.’
They agreed on that, at least, but Kate kept silent, weighing up everything the academic had just said.
Was she telling the truth? She could have guessed, correctly, that someone like Kate knew very little about the topic, and might therefore swallow any plausible explanation.
But then again, much of what she’d said was easily checkable.
‘What you say makes sense, Doctor Morrison. But I’m struggling with one detail.’
‘Go on,’ Morrison said.
‘You had photographs of Ms Vasquez’s home. Images of the front drive. A map showing how to get there. Why would you have them?’
‘Elena sent them to me.’
It was such a surprise that Kate almost flinched. ‘Why would she do that?’
‘She got in touch not long ago. She felt bad about how the film depicted me. She wanted to understand my perspective better, well… she thought we could both understand one another better if we met and talked. So she invited me to her home on Long Island.’
‘When did you meet?’
‘We didn’t, in the end. We made a date, which she had to cancel.
Then we made another date, which I had to cancel.
You know how it is. Lives, schedules, obligations.
We just didn’t get round to it, and now, of course, we never will.
I feel very sad about that. I sensed that she was changing her mind about the pictures.
Or at least, that she was open to another point of view.
Anyway, I can forward you our email correspondence. ’
Such things could be faked, of course. But Kate was longer sure if Morrison belonged on her list. She left the apartment building and found Marcus already in the car, eating cookies out of a large paper bag.
He’d been interviewing Morrison’s neighbors, one of whom, it seemed, was a keen baker.
Keen on feeding big chunky guys like Marcus, too.
‘Mrs DeMeo has the apartment right opposite. She’s 76, sharp as a tack and she doesn’t sleep. She said goodnight to Morrison by the communal garbage area just after midnight on Tuesday and she saw her leave for work again at six am in the morning.’
‘So technically, Morrison could have gone back into the city to murder Ashworth and then driven home.’
‘True. But Wednesday, Morrison was home sick all day. Mrs D called in on her multiple times, including lunchtime.’
Kate relayed the details of her second interview with Dr Morrison. They both sat in silence for a while, munching Mrs DeMeo’s cookies, which were very good.
‘I’m kind of glad Morrison’s in the clear,’ Kate said. ‘I liked her, in the end.’
‘Why?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I liked her apartment.’
‘And that’s your reason?’ Marcus laughed softly. ‘You liked her apartment.’ He laughed again, more loudly.
She looked at him. ‘Well, even if you are cruelly mocking me, I’m glad to see you looking and sounding more cheerful.’
'Yeah, well, I wouldn't say cheerful. But better. I talked to Cheryl. I found out why she ran away from my friend at the hospital.' He took a deep breath. 'She has a lump.'
She put her hand on his arm. ‘Marcus, I’m so sorry. Is it… dangerous?’
‘They don’t know yet. They did a… they put a needle in and take some cells.’
‘A biopsy.’
‘That’s it. She’s waiting to find out. But it’s sore, she says. And she’s lost weight, Kate. Those aren’t good signs, are they?’
‘No, but they can be signs of lots of things. She might just have lost weight because of the stress she’s under. Is that why she called off the engagement?’
'I don't understand how her mind works. The first thing she thought is that I need to be free to choose someone else. That it's not fair on me to have a sick wife. I mean – does she really think I'm that kind of person? How can she even think that?'
‘I guarantee you, her head’s in such a state that she doesn’t know what she’s thinking.’
‘Or is it a test?’ Marcus went on, barely acknowledging what Kate had said.
‘She tells me she’s sick, in order to see my reaction.
She’s always testing me. That’s why I was weird when that Columbia girl took our picture.
Because I knew there was no way I could ever let Cheryl see that picture, even though it’s innocent.
And then, of course, I felt bad for thinking that. But it’s true. Cheryl’s very jealous.’
‘Marcus. I don’t know Cheryl, but I can’t believe that she’d test you with a cancer diagnosis. Or a cancer scare, if that’s what it turns out to be. You know she’d never do something like that.’
‘No, you’re right.’ He rubbed his face for a moment; she could hear the rasp of stubble against his palm.
‘Sorry. I’m just so… so freakin messed up.
I don’t know what to do, Kate. Back in the SEALS, I jumped out of helicopters.
I protected an injured colleague for 16 hours, 16 hours on an exposed mountain ridge waiting for Medevac, with just a pistol between us and the Taliban.
I don’t run from danger. I don’t fold under pressure.
’ He stared at her, his eyes filled with tears. ‘But I don’t know what to do.’
‘There might not be anything to do right now. Just be with her. Wait with her. Face the news with her. Make sure she knows that she’s not alone. Can you do that?’
‘I think so. Thanks, Valentine.’