Agnes Hahn Read online

  The cigarette continued to smoke itself in the ashtray. What was he up to? A show to motivate him?

  “I know what’s been going on. Everyone does.”

  Jason raised his elbows toward the armrests but gave up. “Going on with what?”

  “Your productivity.” Mulvaney pulled a cigarette from a half-crumpled pack, but he didn’t light it. “Ever since your fiancée walked out on you.”

  Eugenia? “That has nothing—”

  “Let me finish. I’m worried about you. You’ve always had a bright future in this business, but you’re about to throw it away.”

  Jason folded his hands together on his lap. How long was Eugenia going to haunt him? “I’m turning in quality stories.” His voice was near a whisper. “That hasn’t changed.”

  “Jason, this newspaper is my life. This isn’t a stepping-stone position for me. You may not realize it, but I’m proud when our reporters move up to a major market. I like to think it’s because of what they’ve learned here. What they’ve learned from me. I have high hopes for you. But you’re about to blow it.”

  Jason flicked his hands upward and let them slap back down on his thighs. “How?”

  “That’s what’s been bothering me. Ever since … your problem … I don’t know how to say this.” Mulvaney twiddled the unlit cigarette between his fingers. “Most people would go into a funk, neglect their work. Not you. You’ve been working day and night. Harder than everyone else. But your productivity still has gone down. Think of what I said earlier. I think you’re being too good. You don’t need to triple-or quadruple-verify a source when a double check will do. You don’t have to dig back into everyone’s childhoods to explain their actions. Here’s a good journalistic quote for you: Thoroughness isn’t served by redundancy. You get it now?”

  Jason gripped his thighs. Righteous bastard probably never had his heart ripped out with no hope of reattachment.

  Mulvaney lit the cigarette and inhaled the tip red. He exhaled the smoke through his nose. “I’m trying to help you here. You have to get back on track. Do you know how much competition there is for positions at the Chronicle, or in LA, for the Times? You think I’m rough on you? They won’t give you the benefit of an ass chewing.”

  “This is an ass chewing?”

  Mulvaney stood and walked around the desk. “No. This is an ass nibbling. I’m not good at motivational speeches and rah-rah camaraderie.” He took another drag. “Try this.” Smoke punctuated each word. “You’ve got someone breathing on your heels. She’s sharp as hell. Not bad to look at, either.”

  “Yolanda?”

  “You could learn from her.”

  “I could pierce my belly button, too.”

  Mulvaney half-laughed, half-coughed out a cloud of smoke. “Good idea. I could attach a chain and give it a yank when you dally.”

  “I don’t dally. I told you, I’m thorough. Maybe she could learn something from me.”

  Mulvaney massaged his temples. “Okay. Good cop, bad cop time.” He finished off the cigarette and mashed it into an ashtray. He pulled another from the pack. “Don’t go Pulitzer on me. You young hotshots think you know the news. Here’s a flash for you. You ain’t shit. You’re just a grunt doing the fieldwork. Save your dreams for the nights and give me what I want when you’re on the clock. But get that girl out of your mind. She’s gone. It’s over. Move on, damn it.”

  Fuck him. Eugenia was everything. Someone like her couldn’t be stubbed out like a cigarette butt.

  “I mean it. Forget her.”

  Jason scooted to the edge of the chair and saluted.

  “Yes, sir. Is that all, boss?”

  “No. You just don’t get it. How long are you going to let her ruin your life? She did you dirt, what, four months ago? She’s long gone and you’re letting her do it to you over and over every day. I’m giving you one more chance to get back to where you were. And it’s a good one.” Mulvaney lifted a manila folder from his desk, but didn’t open it. “You’re on the Menstrual Murderer story. Female serial killers are as rare as honest politicians. But don’t slip into redundancy. Don’t try to psychoanalyze everyone and their cousins. I’m throwing you a softball here.”

  Jason inched farther forward. “That’d be great if anyone knew where she was, or who she was.”

  A smile pulled Mulvaney’s lips tight against his cigarette. He shook the folder. “This is why I like my job. I got a tip. Something just broke on the case. Up in Mendocino. You need to get up there right away.”

  Jason covered his face with his hands. Not Mendocino. Anyplace but there. He raised his head. “They don’t like me much in Mendocino.”

  “God damn it. I can give the job to Yolanda, if you want.”

  Jason shook his head. Mulvaney didn’t have a clue, didn’t remember. All this hadn’t started with Eugenia. It had started in Mendocino. Two years ago. Eugenia had taken his heart, but Mendocino had taken his soul.

  “Powers? Do you want the assignment or not?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll get on it.”

  “Okay, but if you don’t curl my toes with this one, I’ll yank you like a leashed Chihuahua. If I call you in and you stop to piss, you’ll be working obituaries.” He reached for the cigarette pack. “You got it?”

  Jason pushed hard on the armrests and struggled, but stood. “Right in the tailpipe, boss.”

  “Good.” Mulvaney tapped the filter end of a cigarette on the desk and turned to the window. “And remember what I said. I want the old Jason back.”

  Jason paused at the door and pushed a framed diploma crooked on the wall so a slash of pristine white paint showed against the surrounding yellow. It was a game he played every time he came into the office, and the diploma was always straight on his next visit. He opened, then slammed the door hard enough to keep the pollution in the office, but not hard enough to alert his co-workers down the hall. He dusted his clothes with his hands. His first impulse was to rid himself of Christian Mulvaney. To be the apple that fell far from that tree. But Mulvaney was a master at invoking the laws of Sir Isaac Newton. For good reason—he was right.

  Jason pounded his fist against his thigh. Because of Eugenia he had thrown himself into his work, but now he realized it was just to stay busy. That’s why he was so deliberate. What had Mulvaney called it? Redundant. It was all done to keep his mind off of her. Worked really well, huh?

  This time he’d do it right. It was time to show Eugenia she couldn’t hurt him any longer. No. To show himself, not her. He would survive Mulvaney and the Press Democrat. Survive Eugenia.

  Jason relaxed his fist and his hand fell to his side. Surviving Mendocino was another story.

  CHAPTER 3

  NIGHTMARES DIDN’T HURT. BUT AGNES’S WRISTS stung, even though the handcuffs had come off five minutes ago. Or was it ten? They were on again, off again through the booking. And the whole while, the pain persisted. Not a nightmare. Or was it?

  The room was bare, painfully bright, and filled with apprehension. It triggered a brief flicker of a memory—of another room, about the same size. But it was dim, gloomy. And cluttered. Could opposites produce identical feelings of trepidation? At that, her mind turned away as if a heavy door had slammed the second room shut. All that remained was the glare of fluorescent lights, illuminating a stark table and three chairs, and a round clock on the wall that seemed to make a tsk sound every time the second hand jumped. And why only three chairs? A table had four sides. Four sides, four chairs.

  She rubbed her left wrist. There was no need to cuff her at the shelter. But they had. They knew her, knew of her, and yet they felt the need for restraints. And now, they were gone. Off to catch a real criminal, or to pick up an injured animal and deliver it to the shelter.

  She was now in the hands of Detective Art Bransome. Why had she remembered his name? Probably because he had pronounced it like it was spelled in all capital letters. With an equal emphasis on each syllable—an accent mark for each. He had tilted his torso forwa
rd and then back with each sound, bending only slightly at the waist, like the inflatable, bobbing punching bag she had played with at a friend’s house when she was young.

  Detective Art Bransome. Didn’t he realize she was innocent? That this was a ridiculous mistake? Had he brought her in to apologize?

  She looked at the reels of the tape recorder, spinning slowly. He had pushed the button without a word to her. He spoke only to the machine. Something about the date and her name. The words were all lowercase, no accents.

  Then he had started to pace. With each step, his large belly pushed his shirttail farther across his belt. She caught a good look at the belt before it disappeared. The dark brown leather faded at the margins, frayed with wear. Her frown gave way to a squint. His shirttails billowed from his waist, such a bright white they hurt her eyes.

  Why was he waiting? Why wouldn’t he say something?

  At the far end of the room, Bransome pivoted on his heels. Agnes’s eyes fixed on his black shoes. They were either patent leather or spit-shined to a military mirror finish.

  “Ms. Hahn, would you like a lawyer present for this questioning?”

  Yes.

  Agnes’s head jerked upward. He didn’t hear it. But it said, “Yes.”

  “Ms. Hahn. Do you want a lawyer?”

  Bransome seemed to fill the room. He used three people’s allotment of oxygen, and he bragged about it—his heavy inhalations drew across his tongue with a slurping sound.

  “Ms. Hahn?”

  “No.” It had said yes, but it didn’t understand. She was innocent.

  “Okay, then. Let’s get started. Where were you last Saturday night?”

  Silly question. Same as always—at home, watching television.

  “Ms. Hahn, did you hear me? Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is. Where were you last Saturday night?”

  Agnes’s eyes followed the wood grain on the table. The lines were two-dimensional. “At home.”

  “All night?”

  “Yes.”

  “You weren’t in Anchor Bay?”

  Anchor Bay? On a weekend?

  “Ms. Hahn?”

  She kept her arms and legs tucked close, within the confines of the chair, like it was a floor-to-ceiling enclosure. “No.”

  “Can anyone else confirm you were at home?”

  She looked at the table again. It wasn’t real wood. The grain pattern repeated.

  “Ms. Hahn?”

  “No.”

  “Why should I believe you, then?”

  Agnes looked up at Detective Bransome’s massive chest. “I never travel at night. Especially on weekends.” Her eyes returned to the table.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like to drive at night. And people drink on weekends.”

  “So you were in Mendocino, at your house, all night Saturday night, but no one can verify it. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  Bransome walked over and centered himself across the table from her. He leaned forward, his huge hands pushing into the fake wood grain. The table groaned. “And, last month, on the fourteenth. That was a Saturday night, too. Where were you that night?”

  Agnes’s eyes scanned halfway up his shirt before the glare drove them back down. “If it was a Saturday night, I was at home. I don’t go out.”

  “You never go out on Saturday nights?”

  “No.”

  “Any nights?”

  “No. Unless there’s something I can’t avoid.”

  “So, you weren’t in Bodega Bay on Saturday, July fourteenth?”

  Bodega Bay? A month ago? Her mind flew through her mental calendar. “No.”

  “How about June fifteenth? That was a Friday. Were you in Cotati?”

  A frown. “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean you don’t think so?”

  “I give talks. To schools and libraries. About animal adoption and pet care.”

  “So you can’t remember if you were in Cotati on Friday night, June thirteenth?”

  No need to think back. “Not on a Friday night.”

  “How are you so sure?” Bransome leaned on the table again.

  “I schedule the talks for the mornings so I can get back here in the afternoons. I don’t drive at night.”

  Bransome resumed pacing. “Let’s go back to Anchor Bay, last Saturday night. What if I told you a motel operator identified you coming out of a room at eleven o’clock, last Saturday night?”

  “It was a mistake.”

  “She said she saw the pet shelter woman. She attended one of your presentations with her children. She gave a complete description. Do you want to change your story?”

  Agnes gripped the table edge with both hands. “No.”

  “Maybe this will jog your memory.” Bransome opened a manila file folder on the table and pushed an eight-by-ten glossy photograph across until it touched her hands. It was a man. Nude. Blood everywhere. His throat was cut and his penis was severed, sitting on his chest, covered with blood.

  Agnes felt the room spin. She closed her eyes tight but the turning wouldn’t let up. Her stomach lurched, then went into spasm. Vomit gushed from her mouth, splattering the photograph and half of the table.

  “God damn it.” Bransome jumped back, agile for a man so large. He found an unsoiled corner of the photo and lifted it, letting it drain on the table. “Shit.” He dropped it back in the puddle.

  Agnes’s head pounded. She didn’t want to look at the photograph, but she couldn’t look away, either. Did they think she could do something like that? She closed her eyes tight.

  The door slammed and Agnes flinched. She looked around—Bransome was gone. Why was he asking about all of those places and dates? Sure, she traveled in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties, even Marin County, to give her talks. All carefully scripted and recited. But she was always back by midafternoon.

  She glanced back at the photo. The straight, red line on the man’s neck looked clean, like the incisions on the television surgery shows. Her fingers curled into fists and she twisted her feet together under the chair. She couldn’t even kill a spider.

  Agnes scanned a wide arc. The new room was nearly the same size as the previous one, and the table and chairs looked like clones. This one had a window, with bars, so it was flooded with natural light.

  She relaxed her focus. Her mind floated beyond the window and wound around the cliffs that overlooked the rough Northern California shoreline. Normally, her mood was like the backwater of a protected bay, lapping at the shoreline, rising and falling with a tide of only inches. Today, she felt like huge breakers were pounding in her head, leaving only the coarsest of sand on the beach.

  Her thoughts looped back in the opposite direction. The room was within a tiptoe peek of the fringes of the great stands of redwoods. But even within the silence of those fog-shrouded towers, she found no peace.

  The tape recorder button snapped. Agnes jumped, her mind once again imprisoned with her body.

  Bransome repeated the flat introduction and sat down this time, on the opposite side of the table. “Ms. Hahn, have you ever been arrested before?”

  The words pulled together in slow motion.

  Bransome leaned forward and spread his hands, palms up.

  “Yes.”

  Bransome retreated to the chair back. “How many times?”

  “Once.” Her eyes followed his hands as he opened the manila file and turned a couple of pages.

  “When?”

  “Late eighties. I was nineteen, so it was 1989.”

  “You were a member of the Animal Action Committee?”

  “No. It was called the Animal Protection Committee.”

  “That’s not what it says here.” His right index finger stabbed the page like he was trying to hurt it.

  “The name changed later. I didn’t know they were breaking into labs. I didn’t know they hurt those people.”

  “But you were arrested.”

  “Yes, b
ut the charges were dropped.”

  “Well, we brought up your fingerprints, along with the ones we took today, and compared them to a print we found at the Anchor Bay murder scene.”

  Agnes’s eyes locked on Bransome’s. “It didn’t match. It couldn’t.”

  “It wasn’t a perfect print. We can only use the general shape and pattern.” “It didn’t match.” “At that level it did.”

  Agnes held her stare. “You’re making this up. I was at home.”

  “There’s one way to tell for sure. Would you consent to a DNA test?” No.

  Agnes shifted her eyes to the left, then to the right, then back to Bransome. It would clear everything up. They’d see it was all a mistake.

  “Ms. Hahn. Can we take a DNA sample from you?” “I was at home.”

  “The test should answer that, shouldn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  CHAPTER 4

  THE SQUEAK OF NIKE SNEAKERS ON THE CLEAN FLOOR echoed in the corridor of the Mendocino Police Station. Jason froze. What was it about this place? The basketball court traction on the sheet linoleum, the smell of wintergreen disinfectant. They dredged up two-year-old memories that brought him to the tip of dread in an instant. He tiptoed to the door and ground his molars together. Would Bransome remember his squeaking shoes? He’d remember everything else. Bransome had come within inches of breaking some of his own laws two years ago. He’d said so, and Jason had believed him. But right now, Jason worried about the sounds. He wanted to get inside the room before Bransome heard him coming.

  Jason took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

  Bransome faced the door, his face crimson. “What the hell are you doing here?” He slammed a file folder shut on his desk. “You’ve got balls, coming back here. Why don’t you stay down in Santa Rosa and leave us alone?”

  Jason reached out his hand, then pulled it back when it didn’t receive a glance. “Detective Bransome. It’s been a while. I’m here on business. Heard you caught the Menstrual Murderer yesterday.”

  “Those details aren’t public knowledge. You call her that in print and I’ll have your ass. Only this time, I’ll do it the back alley way.”