CHAPTER EIGHT
They were on a road trip, only it didn't feel like one.
Special Agent Hartley drove, and Detective Wolfe had insisted on sitting in the front.
Alison had come freshly from thinking about standing up to Dr. Carver, but she backed down this time.
She could have visited in situ in the front, and perhaps Hartley would have backed her, but what would it achieve?
It would only slow them down and put a wedge between her and the detective. Some battles were worth fighting, and others were better to let go for the good of the case. So, Alison found herself in the backseat of the car as they arrived in Boston.
Dr. Cowan hadn’t worked for the police department in some time. From what they had gathered from making some calls and talking with Detective Wolfe’s contact, Cowan had left the police department, but there were suggestions that he would have been forced out anyway.
He now worked at a private psychiatry practice in the city’s downtown core, and it was extremely successful.
The office stood alone in a separate building, surrounded by high-rises. The sign out front was large, making it visible from the street, but not overly bright or gaudy. There were lots of free parking spaces out front, and plenty in general, subtly displaying the practice's opulence.
Hartley parked the car right out front, and the three of them headed toward the building. They’d made an appointment, but with the risk of Cowan being their bitter killer, they had made the appointment under false pretenses, asking for a consultation for Dr. Cowan’s services.
The reception area within the office building was large, as Alison had expected on seeing the exterior. The reception desk was a dark mahogany with natural grain running down the legs, and a young woman sat behind it.
She looked up at them and smiled as she spoke on the phone. She quickly ended the call and greeted the three visitors.
"You must be Dr. Cowan’s ten o’clock," she said.
"We are," Hartley replied.
"Give me one moment, and then you can go in," the woman said with a smile. "Is it only you, or will all of you be going in?"
"It’ll be all three of us," Hartley told her.
The young receptionist picked up the phone and made an internal call. "Dr. Cowan, your ten o’clock is here…Yes, I’ll send them in now." The receptionist placed the phone back down on the base and smiled up at Hartley. "You can go in now." She gestured to the door to her right.
Hartley led the way, with Detective Wolfe and Alison following.
As soon as Alison entered, she found Dr. Cowan observing all three of them with a curious smirk.
"So, you’re my ten o’clock?" he asked in a way that suggested he knew they weren't there for treatment, but didn’t quite know who they were.
"Special Agent Hartley," Hartley introduced, showing her badge. "My associates, Detective Wolfe and Dr. Payne."
"The whole cavalry is here," Dr. Cowan commented. He’d been standing, but he moved back around behind his desk and sat down. "I assume this is about the recent spate of murders? Dr. Payne, I’m familiar with your work. Seems like we’re in this together now."
"Are we?" Alison asked as she approached his desk.
"You tell me," he said. "I worked on one of the cases, and you worked on the other," Cowan commented. "Of course, we caught the Slasher, but you never did catch the Strangler, did you?"
"Ha!"
Everyone tried to look at Detective Wolfe, who had spat out the word. He smiled and brought his hand to his mouth before removing both the hand and the smile.
"I’m sorry," Wolfe said. "Are you really comparing the cases? They only caught the Slasher after they ignored your suggestions."
Cowan balled the fist that rested on the desktop, pushing his fingernails into his palm. "Look at the case as closely as you like, but my profiling was sound. Dr. Payne, is it factual to say that we are right a hundred percent of the time?"
"That’s a loaded question," Alison replied.
"But we both know the answer, and if you’re working this case, then I’m sure you’ve read the original Slasher field by now. Have you come here to accuse me of something?"
"Is there anything to accuse you of?" Alison countered.
"You’re quite angry about the whole thing," Hartley commented.
"Of course I’m angry." Cowan balled his fist tightly. "Everyone blamed me. And it wasn’t kept a secret either. Whenever anyone in the media asked about my contribution to the case—and the only reason they asked in the first place was that the information had been leaked—it was, alas, met with ‘no comment.’ Which is as good as saying that I’m an incompetent fool who derailed the investigation from the beginning. "
"And what’s the truth?" Wolfe asked, also stepping forward.
Dr. Cowan looked up at Alison with a piercing gaze.
"She knows. If you’ve read the file, you know, and you also know what it’s like for us.
When evidence comes in, you can look at it and decipher it, for the most part.
When it comes to profiling, you don't get to report the facts, but your best approximations and interpretations.
" He held Alison’s gaze as he fell silent, urging her to say something.
"I’ve read the files, and a lot of what Dr. Cowan did in the case made sense. It’s also true that profiling is more of an art than a science. You only have to look at the Strangler case to see that Dr. Carver and I disagreed on where to look for the killer."
"There you go," Cowan said, unfurling his hand and waving it in the air. "They made me the scapegoat because that was better than admitting none of us had a clue. And do you know how he was caught in the end? A fingerprint! He left a fingerprint at the scene. It wasn’t good police work or another profiler brought on board, but a bit of luck. That’s not what the public wants to hear, though, right? They want to know that the police are on top of things, and that if someone is running around the city killing people, they’re going to figure out who it was.
Not that we need to wait for some good fortune and for the killer to mess up. "
"Still," Wolfe said, sitting on the seat on the opposite side of the desk facing Cowan. "When the killer was caught, your profiling was almost completely wrong."
"Excuse me," Special Agent Hartley said as she took the phone from her pocket and left the room.
"What do you want from me, Detective Wolfe?" Cowan asked. "I didn’t mess up back then, no matter what anyone says. Yes, I wasn’t accurate with the profiling, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, and it still doesn’t mean I was wrong."
"All I want from you is to know where you’ve been over the past few days, Dr. Cowan?" Detective Wolfe said. "Made any trips to Philadelphia recently?"
"Oh, good lord!" Dr. Cowan exclaimed. "That’s why you came here? And here I was thinking that you wanted to know why this killer blamed me for the Fenway Slasher killing more people, but you think that I’m the killer."
"Are you?" Wolfe asked.
Dr. Cowan smiled and shook his head, running his tongue behind his lower lip.
"I built a life after I quit law enforcement, and yes, no matter what anyone else might tell you, I did quit. I had had enough with the blame game. I started my own practice here, and I help people. I actually help people, and they’re thankful to me for it.
I have a beautiful house, good friends, and did you see the young woman at the reception desk? I have her, too."
The way he phrased it made Alison’s stomach turn.
"Why would I want to give any of this up?" Cowan asked, glaring at Wolfe.
"Because you’re angry at being blamed for what happened in the past," Wolfe said. "Because you got what you thought you wanted, only to find out that it’s not what you wanted after all? The more you had, the more you wanted? Or that no matter how much you got in life, it couldn’t erase the failures of the past? "
Cowan glared at Wolfe some more before he took a deep breath and let out a sigh.
"I believed therapy might be good for you, Detective Wolfe.
If I believed I was wrong back then, maybe you would be onto something.
I don't believe I was wrong, and if I were in the same position again, I would make the same decisions.
Dr. Payne, if you believe I was in the wrong, then speak now, and we can have a different conversation. "
Alison thought about it. "I don't know the case well enough to make a conclusion," she said.
"And it’s impossible to look back now and apply the same thought process to the evidence with the advances in the field.
So, I can't say with any certainty whether you were right or wrong. However, I do believe you were right at the time. Although that doesn’t mean much right now. "
Cowan ran his tongue under his lip again as he held Alison’s gaze this time.
He nodded. "That’s fair, that’s fair. Okay, how about this?
You can check my schedule over the past couple of weeks, and you are more than welcome to talk with my assistant at the front desk.
I’ve been here during the days, and at night"—he turned his attention back to Detective Wolfe—"I’ve been with Maisie, if you know what I mean. "
Alison rolled her eyes. She disliked Dr. Cowan more and more, but the presence of a concrete alibi was only a benefit. Dr. Cowan was currently a suspect, and if they could rule him out, they could focus their energy elsewhere.
"How about last week?" Alison asked, not really wanting to hear the answer. "Were you with your assistant?"
"Oh, every night," Dr. Cowan said with a wink.
Alison sighed and folded her arms across her chest.
"We’ll talk with her," Wolfe said.
"Oh, be my guest," Cowan said. "Anything I can do to help. Anything at all."
"Hey," Hartley called from the door.
Alison looked around to see Hartley gesturing for them to leave.
"Both of you," Hartley ordered. "We need to go."
"We need to talk to the receptionist first," Wolfe said.
"Quickly," Hartley ordered.
It was Wolfe who moved first, turning from Dr. Cowan and striding out of the room to talk with Maisie before Dr. Cowan could brief her.
Alison followed him out of the room, and Hartley walked with Alison from the doorway.
"We’re going to Baltimore," Hartley told her. "A double homicide this time."