Chapter 51
“You wanna add Eugene Reeves to the murder board now, Vaughn?”
Vaughn did not and said as much.
“You can’t think this is all a coincidence. The fact that he—”
“Look, I agreed to go speak to him. Let’s start with that.”
“You heard Detective Howe. He thinks that Dr. Reeves is faking his injuries.”
That wasn’t even close to what the retired detective had actually said, but Vaughn let it lie.
They parked in the assisted living facility lot. It looked much different up close during the day; less ominous.
Vaughn made his way to the front desk, which was unoccupied. There was one of those old-fashioned bells sitting atop it and he reached out to make it chime.
Before he did, however, a woman turned the corner.
It was the same woman that had been in the field with Ivy last night. She was wearing a similar smock, but it was white with small pink flowers instead of blue.
Her head was down.
“Sarah, right?”
She stopped and Vaughn tried to smile. Wasn’t sure he succeeded.
“Ms. Kachinski,” she corrected. It was clear that in the intervening hours since their last meeting, she’d gone over things in her head.
And she wasn’t happy about what had transpired.
Fucking Delaney.
“Sorry—Ms. Kachinski. I’m Detective Vaughn Ryan and this is Detective Darnell Sacker.”
“I remember you,” Sarah said, meaning Vaughn.
Vaughn was on the fence about apologizing for what had gone down in the field, but before he could say anything, Darnell spoke up.
“Ms. Kachinski, can we ask you a few questions?”
She put her hands on her hips. Didn’t say yes, but didn’t say no, either.
“Just a couple of questions about Dr. Reeves—Eugene Reeves.”
“What about him?”
“Can you tell us where he was two nights ago?”
“He was—” Her brow furrowed. “Two nights ago?”
“Yes.”
“He was in the field.”
“The same field as last night?” Vaughn said.
“No, not that one. There’s a field of Queen Anne’s lace behind the home. Dr. Reeves wanders there sometimes.”
“And he was there two nights ago?” Vaughn asked, deliberately avoiding looking at Darnell.
“Yes.”
“Unattended?”
Vaughn didn’t appreciate Darnell’s word choice. It made the esteemed doctor sound like a child. A once brilliant math professor being led around by the hand or worse, by one of those humiliating body harnesses attached to a leash.
“Like I said, around this time of year, Dr. Reeves wanders a lot.”
“Because of the fire?”
Ms. Kachinski nodded.
“We would like to speak to Dr. Reeves,” Darnell said.
The request seemed to annoy the aide.
“Dr. Reeves does not speak. Hasn’t said a single word in three years.”
Annoyed or not, she seemed broken up about this.
“We’re aware,” Darnell said. “How bad is he?”
“What do you mean?”
“Can he . . . I dunno, look after himself?” Darnell was at least trying to be considerate.
“Sure. He can feed himself, go to the bathroom on his own. Sometimes needs help with his food, depending on what it is. Cutting smaller pieces, that sort of thing. But he can’t speak and he can’t write.”
“We’d still like to try.”
Ms. Kachinski reluctantly agreed. Dr. Reeves, despite his injuries, was still a grown man, after all.
The rules regarding interviewing an adult of diminished capacity were sketchy.
Because you couldn’t Mirandize a man who didn’t understand, it was unlikely that anything Dr. Reeves told them here today would be admissible.
But if he gave them something that could set them on the right path, that was a different story.
He won’t. He can’t speak. Doesn’t understand.
“You’re wasting your time,” Sarah muttered under her breath.
She navigated the hallways, stopped in front of a door before opening it for them.
They found Dr. Reeves sitting on a chair in the center of the small, boxy apartment, his back to them. He didn’t react to his door being opened. The man’s mangled right hand—comprised of fingers that were unnaturally short and lacked fingernails—was gripping a chess piece. A rook.
He moved it straight across a small, thin chessboard resting on a table. Placed it on the other side. It was the only piece on the board.
Dr. Reeves starts the fire, plunks Neely on the head. Don’t know for sure with what, but if I had to guess, it was this giant paperweight shaped like a chess piece.
“Dr. Reeves?” Darnell said.
No response.
They walked around to Dr. Reeves’s front.
Darnell stopped abruptly when they got a clear view of his face. Vaughn had already seen the strange peach mask that Dr. Reeves wore, but it was only marginally less unsettling now.
It smoothed all his features, like the thick nylon stockings that bank robbers always wore in the movies. Only in this case, his nose jutted from a hole, and there were additional openings for his eyes and lips.
The man’s eyes appeared more or less normal, and even his nose, pink and smooth, seemed only slightly unusual. In fairness, his nose looked better than retired Detective Howe’s. But the color of Dr. Reeves’s lips was wrong, and they lacked defined borders.
“I—I—” Darnell was too flustered to form sentences.
As petty as it was, Vaughn relished seeing his partner, who always had an insult or quip at the ready, at a loss for words. He let the awkwardness settle for a moment before taking over.
Vaughn also mentally rescinded roughly half of his scathing remarks about Delaney from last night. Coming across Dr. Reeves in this mask in the middle of a field, after just seeing another person dead to gas, must have been a shocking sight.
“Dr. Reeves, my name is Detective Vaughn Ryan, and this is Detective Darnell Sacker. Mind if we ask you a few questions?”
No response.
“Can you tell us what you were doing in the field last night?” Vaughn asked.
Nothing.
“Dr. Reeves, are you familiar with the 100 prisoners problem or the prisoner’s dilemma?” Vaughn asked, thinking that appealing to the mathematical part of the man’s brain might trigger something. If anything clicked with him, it would be this.
Still nothing.
“Dr. Reeves—”
“Tell us about your daughter, Dr. Reeves. Tell us about Ivy.”
Darnell had found his tongue. Vaughn wasn’t positive, but he thought Dr. Reeves cocked his head, just a little. Then he grabbed the rook and squeezed it in his mangled hand.
“Dr. Reeves? Tell us about Ivy.”
No movement this time.
“Dr. Reeves—”
“Darnell, let’s go,” Vaughn said. Darnell didn’t move. “Darnell?”
“I told you he doesn’t speak. If you think that he is somehow responsible for whatever happened last night—”
“Ms. Kachinski, do you guys have a printer here?” Darnell interrupted.
Sarah was taken aback.
“Of course—in the main office.”
“Think I could use it real quick?”
“For what?” Kachinski was suspicious now.
“Need to print something out for my taxes.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. The printer at the PD is busted.”
Darnell was lying, but Vaughn had no idea where his partner was going with this.
“S-sure. I guess?”
They left Dr. Reeves standing where he was, hovering over the small chess board, and Ms. Kachinski led them down the hall. They passed several other patients, one in a wheelchair, but none wearing a mask.
“He always wear that mask?” Vaughn asked.
“Not always. But his face . . . some of the other guests find his appearance disturbing.”
“That bad, huh?”
Ms. Kachinski nodded.
“The printer’s in here.”
Darnell thanked the nurse and ducked into a small office.
When they were alone, Kachinski said, unprompted, “Ivy’s a good woman.
She stayed by her father’s side. It would have been so easy for her to just bury herself in her work.
Drop him off here and never come back. But she didn’t.
The man’s insurance pays the bills, so .
. .” Ms. Kachisnki paused, considering what she’d said earlier. “Even Gene’s wife left.”
This was the second mention of Wendy Reeves in as many hours.
“You ever meet her?”
The nurse shook her head.
“No. But Ivy visits at least once a week. Plays chess with her dad.”
Vaughn cocked his head.
“He plays chess?”
“No. He just sits there while Ivy moves the pieces around. Talks math with him.”
Darnell exited the office, a piece of paper in one hand.
“Got it,” he said. Vaughn tried to look at what the man had printed, but couldn’t make it out. “Thanks again.” Darnell produced a card. “Can you do us a favor? If Dr. Reeves leaves again, can you give us a call?”
Ms. Kachinski made the card disappear.
“Thank you.”
Another business card. So far, their investigation amounted to little more to handing out damn cards.