Silent Victim - C. E. Lawrence [133]
“Not yet,” he said, closing the top drawer and moving on to the middle one. There he hit pay dirt: the first tab proclaimed, PATIENT FILES, in neat capital letters. “Got it,” he said, pulling a stack of manila folders from the cabinet.
“Good,” Butts said, slamming closed the desk drawer.
Lee handed Butts half the folders and kept the rest. He estimated there were about forty or so, one for each patient; Perkins appeared to have quite a thriving practice. Of course, some of the folders were possibly of past patients, though he imagined someone like Perkins would create separate file drawers for past and present patients. There was no sign of a computer—another indication of Perkins’s avoidance of modern technology.
Ana Watkins’s file was in the stack of folders Lee kept. He started by looking at it—perhaps there was a clue hidden in it. Perkins kept impeccable notes, all handwritten. The file was organized in chronological order, with notes for each session on a separate page, all in blue ink, the handwriting obsessively neat and precise, but oddly ornate. Lee started with the most recent sessions first.
“Got anything so far?” Butts asked. “Not really. How about you?”
“Naw—just a bunch of neurotics so far; no one that looks threatening. A lotta people whining about their mothers. What are you reading?”
“I’m reading Ana’s file, hoping to see some clues to who might have killed her. So far I haven’t seen anything I didn’t already know about her.”
“Well, keep lookin',” Butts said. “I still think it’s possible the UNSUB is one of his patients.”
“I do, too,” Lee agreed, especially now that Perkins seemed to be eliminated as the killer—or was he? “Hey,” he said suddenly, “how likely it is that Perkins could still be the UNSUB?”
Butts frowned. “Doesn’t that seem like too much of a coincidence? He’s the killer, but then he’s found murdered?”
“Yeah. I was just wondering what you thought.”
“What I think is that the same guy who did Perkins did everyone else, and has got Charlotte—and if we’re lucky, Krieger, too. If we’re really lucky, his name is somewhere among these papers.”
“Right,” Lee said, and went back to perusing the patient files.
Then one file in particular caught Lee’s eye. The patient’s name was Eric McNamara. He was in his late twenties, worked as a chauffeur, and owned his own limousine, which he garaged somewhere in the Bronx. He also took care of an infirm and elderly father. But what really caught Lee’s attention was the mention of an unnamed tragedy in his past, one that Dr. Perkins could not seem to get to the bottom of, but which, it was hinted, was something involving water. There was only one reference to gender issues. After a session two weeks ago, Perkins had written
There were plenty of other patients who had cross-dressing fantasies, but Eric was the right age and matched other aspects of the profile. Throughout Eric’s file, as with most of the patients, there were mentions of a past-life identity. Here, though, Perkins was more specific, referring to a person by the name of Caleb, whose soul he believed Eric had inhabited in a previous life. The man named Caleb was a troubled spirit, and had died tragically by water—though the file wasn’t specific on exactly how.
“Hey, look at this,” Lee said to Butts, handing him the folder. Officer Anderson, who had been wandering aimlessly around the room, looked on with interest, like a dog waiting for a scrap of food or affection.
Butts glanced at it and handed it back at Lee. “Caleb … wasn’t that one of the names on Ana’s pottery receipts?”
“You’re right!” Lee said. “You commented what an old-fashioned name it was.”
“You think this could be the guy?”
“Look at the similarities to the profile. The age is right, there’s the cross-dressing thing—and look at this.” He pointed out the section where Perkins had written:
Butts looked at Lee. “Curiouser and curiouser,” he said softly. “Too bad the good doctor had to die for us to find this.”
Finally Officer Anderson could stand it no longer. “Find what?” he