Agnes Hahn Read online

  “But the murderer won’t be behind bars,” Jason said. “Are you willing to gamble that Lilin won’t kill again?”

  “I’ll stand tall and admit my mistake once we catch Lilin and put her away. We may even consider making Agnes parole-eligible in that case.”

  Jason looked at Bransome and shook his head. He felt his face heat up. “And if Lilin murders again, what are you going to say to the families of the victims? They’re people of this state.”

  Bransome looked at the ground.

  Grayson slid in front of Jason, facing Bransome, the back of his head just under Jason’s face. “Are we agreed?”

  Jason shuffled back a step.

  Dr. Leahy raised her hand. “I have a question.”

  Grayson nodded.

  “Agnes needs help. Have you considered the possibility that she’s not mentally competent? I could make a good case for it.”

  Grayson’s face turned maroon and his lips tightened into thin, straight lines. “I can parade a line of prominent psychiatrists by you who agrees she is. God damn it, she slit Eddie Hahn’s throat. Do you think the public’s going to stand by and let her go to a mental hospital with a chance of getting out if one of you people think she’s suddenly cured?”

  “She sliced off his penis and threw it in the sink, too,” Dr. Leahy said. “Doesn’t sound normal to me.”

  “She knew exactly what she was doing. He abused her. She got revenge.”

  “You have good evidence for abuse?” Dr. Leahy asked.

  Grayson’s mouth opened, but nothing came out for a full three seconds. “I don’t want to face the public on this one without the minimum of a life sentence.”

  Dr. Leahy took a step forward. She was a full inch taller than Grayson. “You don’t want to face the public without it, or you don’t want to face reappointment?”

  Bransome forced his way between them. “All right. All right. Let’s see if we can work this out. Let’s agree we still have some issues and see if we can find some common ground.”

  “Wait.” Jason stepped around next to Bransome and stabbed a finger at Grayson’s chest. “I get it. Eddie Hahn’s murder occurred in Marin County. And the early ones in Sonoma County. But if she confesses to Eddie’s, along with the three that happened here in Mendocino County, you can run the show up here instead of letting the Marin County people handle it. You can get the credit for putting away the dreaded serial killer, and the men in the Bay Area can go back to picking up women in bars. As long as she confesses to the ones that occurred here. Very clever. But she isn’t the serial killer.”

  Grayson slapped Jason’s hand away. His eyes narrowed. “She confessed to all of them. I can take that and run all the way to the needle.”

  “And I can go back on the off-the-record thing.” He inched forward and poked at Grayson’s chest again. “How do you think the officials from the other counties will react?”

  Bransome thrust his forearm into Jason’s chest and moved him back a step. “That’s enough. Let’s see how Agnes’s lawyer reacts.”

  Jason held Grayson’s stare. Silence fell on the air, broken by the ring of Jason’s cell phone.

  CHAPTER 38

  JASON PUT HIS PALMS ON THE GLASS OF THE ONE-WAY window. Agnes looked like she was fading—like she had lost twenty-five pounds in the last couple of hours. Twenty-five pounds she didn’t have to lose. Her skin was the color of milk.

  She slinked across the interrogation room and sat at the table next to her lawyer, who’d entered the room a few minutes earlier.

  Bransome walked to the door of the interrogation room and looked at Jason, Grayson, and Dr. Leahy.

  “Here goes nothing.”

  Agnes didn’t flinch when the door opened and closed. Her focus remained on the table. Her lawyer nodded without altering his frown.

  Bransome pulled out the chair across from them and flopped down. “Hello, Agnes. Are you feeling okay?”

  Agnes didn’t respond.

  “Thank you for talking with Dr. Leahy earlier. It was very helpful.”

  “Why wasn’t I called?” the lawyer said. “Are you trying to pull something here?”

  “I told the desk clerk to call you. She said she left a message on your pager.”

  “I didn’t get a message.”

  “Well, we sent one. Besides, Agnes agreed to talk.”

  “To a psychiatrist?”

  “Dr. Leahy talked with her before, remember? She’s on Agnes’s side.”

  The lawyer shook his head. “This is classic Grayson. That little prick is going to go down.” He pulled a legal pad and pen from his briefcase. “Get on with what you want. And don’t try to pull any more end runs.”

  Behind the glass, Jason looked at Grayson and smiled. The speaker made their voices sound high-pitched, almost cartoonish.

  Bransome straightened in his chair and turned to face the lawyer. “You know she’s confessed to all of the killings?”

  “I want to hear her say it to you now.” The lawyer turned to Agnes. “Did the detective, or any other people force you to say anything you didn’t want to say?”

  Agnes shook her head.

  “You have to answer out loud. Did they force you to say anything?”

  “No.”

  “Did you tell them you committed all the murders?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Remember what we talked about? Do you still want to say that you did them all?”

  Another head nod. “Yes.”

  The lawyer looked at Bransome. “What kind of deal does that weasel, Grayson, have cooked up? Where is he anyway? Why isn’t he in here?”

  Bransome looked at the mirror out of the corners of his eyes. “He has a case.”

  Jason chuckled and looked at Grayson. Quite a play going on here.

  Grayson’s face twitched red, like a lobster dropped in boiling water.

  “I’m sure he does,” the lawyer said.

  Bransome cleared his throat. “She pleads to Inverness, Anchor Bay, Point Arena, and Fort Bragg, she’ll get life in prison, no chance of parole. If it goes to trial, Grayson will go for the death penalty.”

  “Grayson is amazing. He doesn’t want to share this one, does he? Power-hungry turd.” The lawyer leaned over to Agnes. “Do you understand what all this means?”

  She nodded.

  “And you agree to it?”

  Her eyes didn’t leave the table. “Yes.”

  He turned to Bransome. “How long do we have?”

  Bransome glanced at the mirror.

  Jason thought he looked worried.

  “Uh. I don’t know. We didn’t discuss a time limit.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you know tomorrow. I want to sleep on it, and I want Agnes to sleep on it, too.”

  Behind the glass, Grayson spun around and whispered a curse.

  Bransome stood and shook the lawyer’s hand. They both walked to the door.

  Jason looked around as Grayson scooted down the hall and disappeared around a corner.

  The lawyer exited the interrogation room first and hurried out toward the front doors.

  Bransome approached Jason and Dr. Leahy. Grayson peeked, then stormed around the corner in their direction.

  “What was that all about?” Grayson said.

  Jason’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me.” He walked down the hall, in the opposite direction of Bransome, Dr. Leahy, and Grayson.

  Jason moved to the door of the interrogation room and looked up the hall. Bransome and Grayson still argued. Dr. Leahy pressed her face close to the one-way glass, as far from the other two as she could get.

  Jason took a deep breath and entered the room.

  Agnes straightened in her chair when he rounded the table. A faint smile dimpled her cheeks.

  “Hi, Agnes. Are you doing okay?”

  Agnes stood and pushed her chair back with her legs. “I’m fine. I know what I’m doing.”

  Jason walked around and took Agnes’s hands in his. “Do you
know where Lilin is?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Can you call her? Do you know her number?”

  “Yes.”

  Jason pulled her a little closer. “You should call her and let her know you’re okay. Does she know what you’re doing?”

  Agnes looked down at the floor. “She knows.”

  Jason reached into his pocket. “Here. Use my cell phone. You won’t have to worry about being traced.” He flipped the cover open.

  Agnes punched in a series of numbers and put the phone to her ear.

  Jason shuffled back two steps and stopped.

  “Hello, Lilin? … It’s Agnes … Yes, I’m all right …”

  Jason walked to the door and stopped, his hand on the knob.

  “… I’ve done it …” Agnes turned and gave Jason a smile. “You’re free …”

  Jason opened the door and Bransome grabbed his shirt and pulled him through. The door eased shut.

  Bransome slammed Jason against the opposite wall as Grayson ran up to them. Jason’s head spun. Bransome pulled him away and slammed him against the wall again.

  “Why the hell did you do that? We had a phone wired up for her, you asshole. You blew any chance we had to get to Lilin.”

  Agnes’s words rang out from the speaker. “I love you, too … You’re welcome.”

  Jason managed to spin loose from one of Bransome’s hands and avoid a third wall slam. “Wait.” He held out his hand.

  Bransome looked down. “What’s that?”

  “The battery,” Jason said between breaths. “For the phone.”

  Dr. Leahy put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God!” She ran to the window.

  Agnes folded the phone and put it on the table.

  Dr. Leahy brought her other hand to her mouth as well. “Oh my God.”

  It took several seconds for it to register with Bransome. He let go of Jason’s shirt and took a step back. “How’d you know?”

  Grayson lunged at Jason. “What’s going on here? Why’d you let him go?”

  Bransome stopped Grayson with a stiff arm. “Shut up and listen for once.”

  Jason leaned against the wall and tried to catch his breath. “The phone call I just got. It was from Yolanda Torres. Out at Inverness. They were working up Eddie’s grave site this morning. They found something else.”

  “What the hell’s he talking about?”

  Bransome turned to face Grayson. “Just shut the fuck up, okay?”

  “Underneath Eddie’s body. Something was wrapped tight in sheets.” He took several short, deep breaths. “It was another body. Wrapped so tightly it was partially mummified.”

  Dr. Leahy joined them.

  “It was the body of a little girl. Maybe three or four years old. The coroner thinks it’s more than twenty years old.”

  Dr. Leahy gasped. “Oh.” She ran back to the window and pressed both palms to the glass. “It’s Lilin. My God. Poor Agnes.”

  “Is somebody going to tell me what the hell is going on?” Grayson said.

  Bransome stared at the DA. “Scott, put your hands on your ears.”

  “What? I’m not in the mood for playing games.”

  Bransome took a step closer. “I mean it. Put your hands on your ears.” His voice boomed in the hall.

  Grayson put his hands up near his ears.

  “Now, pull your head out of your ass.” He turned to Jason. “Does the coroner think it could be Lilin?”

  “He thinks they can get DNA from the bones. We’ll have to wait, but in the meantime, I’ll lay a handsome bet on it.”

  Grayson walked over to Dr. Leahy. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  She pointed at Agnes through the glass. “It’s Lilin.”

  “I thought the fingerprints proved it was Agnes.”

  “It is. She’s both of them. She must have seen the whole thing. When she was only three or four. She must have seen her father kill Lilin and bury her body in the backyard. No wonder she shut everything out. No wonder Gert and Ella took her away.”

  Grayson stomped his foot and balled his hands into fists. “You mean she’s schizophrenic? She’s both Agnes and Lilin?”

  Bransome came up behind Grayson. “Welcome to the obvious, champ.”

  Dr. Leahy seemed excited. “It’s not schizophrenia. It used to be called multiple personality disorder, but now it’s DID—dissociative identity disorder. And ever since Charcot and Babinski, most psychologists think it’s therapy induced. Not in this case. There hasn’t been any therapy. This is the real thing.”

  “How do you know she isn’t cooking all this up?” Grayson kicked at the floor. “To let Lilin get away?”

  Bransome started to say something, but Jason interrupted. “We’ll let the DNA answer that question. Until then, you may want to contact Agnes’s lawyer. And you better meet him face to face instead of having Detective Bransome fake a phone call. I don’t think you’re going to get your life sentence on this one, so you better start preparing your opinion brief. You agree, Dr. Leahy?”

  “She’s going to need to be institutionalized, but not in prison. If the DNA comes back as a twin sister, your team of psychiatrists won’t disagree with me on this one.”

  Grayson stomped down the hall and disappeared.

  Bransome looked at Jason and smiled. “Sorry about slamming you. Are you all right?”

  “I could use a couple of aspirin. But first, we have one more detail to cover. Can you give Wilson a call? There has to be a way to get from Agnes’s backyard into the U-Store lot. I checked the fence from one end of Agnes’s backyard to the other, but there might be a breach somewhere else. There has to be an opening, or we’ve got a loose end to explain.”

  “Done,” Bransome said as he walked to the workroom.

  Jason opened the door to the interrogation room and hesitated. Agnes turned in the chair and smiled. He walked to the table and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

  Agnes stood and reached for him. She put her hands on his shoulders and pulled close, leaving a small gap between them. “Thank you. You are one of the good ones.”

  He kissed her cheek and took her hands off of his shoulders. “You’re welcome. Everything’s going to be all right now. They’ll take good care of you.”

  Jason walked to the door and grabbed the knob.

  “You’ll wait for me?” Her voice sounded different.

  He turned around. The smile on her face looked like a blend of Agnes’s dimpled grin and Lilin’s vicious sneer. The hair on his arms stood straight up as he pushed through the door.

  CHAPTER 39

  JASON STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS LIVING ROOM AND stretched his arms straight out at shoulder height. It was nice to be back in his own apartment again, listening to the curses of the golfers on the sixth hole, smelling the cat pee odor of the wet eucalyptus trees, trying to force himself to go out on the patio after dark.

  It wasn’t nice to remember what happened the last time he was here. He couldn’t believe it was Agnes’s hand that held the razor that sliced the air inches from his neck. Even if it wasn’t her mind, it was her hand. Yet, through it all, Lilin had just used Agnes. Used her to get to Eddie. Used her for all of the murders. The only good thing—now Agnes would get the help she deserved. Maybe she could get back what Lilin had taken from her. Maybe she could be Agnes without Lilin. If so, Jason wanted to be there.

  The Rolling Stones broke into “Beast of Burden” on the stereo, probably a little loud for the day-sleeping neighbor above. And even though his future at the Press Democrat was more unsettled than before, normalcy seemed within reach.

  The alternation between guilt and justification had settled at dead center for now. After all, it was his reappearance in Mulvaney’s office that had sent the editor into the tizzy that ripped the bulging cerebral artery, depriving the better part of the right side of his brain of oxygen. It had taken Jason a full ten seconds to pick up the phone and dial 911, mostly due to the shock of watching Mulvan
ey crumple to the floor. If anyone would die standing up, it was Christian Mulvaney.

  The latest news helped settle the sliding scale. Mulvaney’s family was about to take him off of life support. The doctors found so many nodules in his lungs they’d have an easier time cutting out the good tissue. And the ventilator was about to blow a gasket trying to adequately work lungs that were well below 50 percent functional.

  Jason walked to the sliding patio door and unlocked it. He could get two, maybe three hours of work done on the laptop before dusk chased him back inside. The assignments from the interim editor were all simple ones. Easily banged out in fits of effort. He’d fill in the gaps working on his book.

  Collecting his computer and stack of notes under his arm, he paused. His favorite part of the song was coming up.

  The doorbell interrupted the moment. Jason strode to the door, setting his burden on the credenza. He was mellow enough to be polite to a salesperson. He peered through the peephole and froze. His hands thrust against the door propelling his body backward. He stepped up and looked again.

  Light brown hair in a slightly ratted shell. She stood sideways, her face turned away. She turned her head and dipped it forward. Her hair slid across her cheek.

  Jason pushed his face into the door.

  Her hand fished down into the scoop neck of her deep maroon blouse and adjusted her breasts upward.

  He shoved away and ran to the patio door. It was hard to throw the small lock lever with his hands in a violent Parkinsonian shake. He scanned the apartment. Too late to turn down the stereo.

  The doorbell rang again.

  Thoughts sprinted past. Agnes. Deception. Lilin. Razor. He ran to the front bedroom and pressed his face against the wall next to the window. He could see the edge of the front porch, but no one was there.

  His little toe caught the bed frame as he ran to the window in the back bedroom, and the pain swamped his desire for silence. Two hops and he fell backward on the bed, his initial scream subdued into rhythmic grunts. It was the same foot the GTO had mashed.