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What Have You Done Page 18
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“I was his brother and had no idea. We were all in the dark on this one.”
“And you never saw a violent side of him?”
“Never.”
“And you didn’t know the victim?”
“I told you, no. I’m as surprised about all this as you are.”
“They’re going to make an example out of him. This case is a gift as far as the press is concerned. Serial killer is a cop. There’ll be too much pressure on the DA. She’ll be forced to go full-on with everything. Death penalty. Life with no parole. Something like that.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Sean spoke. “So what happens now?”
Phillips pulled his middle drawer open and came away with a yellow legal pad. “You write down everything you know about what’s happened up to this point. This is going to be your official statement. When you’re done, you can go back to the control room and help the team track your brother down.”
“And we bring him in like I said.”
“Just like you said. I don’t want fanfare, either. I’m trying to keep this professional. As professional as I can, anyway.”
Sean pulled at the shield that hung around his neck and slid the pad closer to him. He unclipped a pen from the inside of his jacket pocket and started writing. This would be the most important statement he’d ever make if he was going to stay on the outside to help bring Liam in. Any missteps and IA would find it. His story needed to be airtight. Don’s too.
“Never thought I’d be doing this,” Sean said.
Phillips rose from his seat and walked around his small office. “Never thought I’d see it. The whole thing just stinks. I knew this kid. I looked into his eyes. We’ve shared meals together. I never would’ve thought he could be capable of something like this. Never.”
“You know what happened with my mom when we were kids, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s all I can think of. Maybe crazy is passed on. In a gene or something. Like blond hair or diabetes. Maybe he got Mom’s gene, and one day he snapped.”
Phillips stared out onto his Homicide Division. “Maybe. But God help me, I thought he was a good man. I thought he was one of us.”
“Me too,” Sean replied as he finished writing his first sentence. “Me too.”
44
Dr. Cain’s reception area was empty but for the nurse working behind her desk. Liam held his head in his hands, waiting for Gerri to arrive back from a meeting. His pants were soaked from hiding in the storm drain and dripped onto the carpet. He was cold. The nurse at the desk kept staring at him, and he suddenly became aware of how vulnerable he was. He scanned the floor and took note of the exits at both the stairs and elevators, something he’d never thought he’d ever have to do. But he was on the run now, and he couldn’t wait for Sean to call. He had nowhere else to go.
“Am I ever on time?”
Liam looked up and saw the doctor approaching. He forced a smile and stood on legs that were still weak. “Not that I’ve ever seen. Thanks for seeing me last minute.”
“Why are you all wet?”
“I’ll explain inside.”
“Okay, come on in.” Gerri turned to the nurse. “Dorothy, hold my calls.”
Dorothy nodded and went back to whatever it was she was doing at her computer.
Gerri walked into her office and shut the door. When they were alone, she dropped her bags and hurried toward the windows, shutting the blinds, one at a time. “What are you doing here?” she whispered. “Christ, Liam, you’re wanted for murder.”
“You know about that?”
“It’s all over the news. Why are you here?”
Liam fell onto the couch and rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted and wanted so badly to sleep. He could feel his mind wandering. “I need help. The truth is I can’t remember anything about last night, and I couldn’t remember anything about the night Kerri was killed.” He paused for a moment, trying to find the words. “I was the father of that baby, and I was having an affair with her. The night she died is all a blank. Like that suppression you were telling me about.”
Gerri grabbed a towel from her closet and tossed it to him. “You were talking about you the other day?”
“Yeah.”
“Liam . . . I . . . I don’t know what to say. Do you really think you could be capable of doing those things we saw in the pictures you showed me?”
“I didn’t, but that doesn’t seem to matter now. Two murders point to me, and I can’t remember where I was for either of them. It’s gotta be me, as much as I can’t believe it. I must’ve had one of those psychotic breaks. That’s the only explanation at this point.”
Gerri pulled a file that was sitting on her desk and opened it. “I did some digging after you left. This girl who was murdered, Kerri Miller. You said her head was shaved?”
“That’s right.”
“Have you found the hair?”
“No.”
“Interesting.” Gerri walked over to where Liam was sitting. “Look, it’s absolutely possible you committed these crimes and don’t have any recollection of them, but something’s not clicking.”
“What do you mean?”
“When it comes to the human mind, all bets are off, and there have been plenty of cases documenting people who’ve committed vicious acts with no recollection of committing them, but the head shaving changes things. The way I see it, the guy who killed Kerri Miller revels in the fact he can cause so much fear and intimidation in his victim. When we spoke last, I explained how cutting the girl’s hair and hanging her was a power trip. He wants to remember the process. He wants to remember all the details. He’s not going to let himself forget. The killing is what he gets off on. He took the hair as a trophy because he didn’t want to forget. This isn’t the act of a killer so traumatized that his mind suppresses the events. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Nothing makes sense. Her head was shaved because that’s what my mother did to her hair the day she tried to kill me and my brother.”
“Then you being innocent makes all the more sense. If you killed the girl and the trauma forced you to suppress the memory, I doubt your subconscious would want to keep the hair. The two forces of the brain don’t work in conjunction like that.”
“If I am being framed, I can’t prove it. Everything points back to me.”
Gerri pulled another sheet of paper from her folder. “Have you ever been to Lakewood, New Jersey, with Kerri?”
“Lakewood? That’s by the shore. Near Point Pleasant, right?”
“Yeah.”
Liam thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I’ve never been there.”
“You remember my theory about bruising or past scars or something that would show us a history of violence?”
“Yeah. We looked at the body and couldn’t find anything.”
Gerri sat down on the couch. “I ran her name and social through the system, and it turns out last year Kerri was brought into Kimball Medical Center in Lakewood with a facial contusion and sprained wrist. She filed a police report with the Lakewood PD while she was in the ER. I bet if you find out who’s named as her assailant in that report, you find her killer.”
Liam took the paper and studied it. He was tired and cold. His hands shook as he read through the report. “I remember that. She told me she hurt her wrist falling on wet tiles and hit her cheek on the bathroom door.”
“You don’t file a police report after you slip on wet tiles.”
“I have to get to Lakewood.”
Gerri got up from the couch and rushed over to her desk. She pulled a second file from her drawer and opened it. “I also got a copy of your blood work back,” she said. “They automatically send me a copy since I’m the department liaison. The other one went to you at the office.”
“What did you find?”
“Clean. No traces of anything.”
“That doesn’t help me.”
The intercom on Gerri’s desk be
eped once, breaking the silence in the room. “Dr. Cain, please pick up.” It was Dorothy, the nurse at the reception desk. Gerri picked up her phone and stood quietly, listening. After a few moments, she hung up.
“I need you to stay calm,” she said.
“What?”
“Don’t do anything rash.”
“Come on, Gerri. What?”
“Dorothy recognized you from the news reports this morning and called the police. They’re on their way.”
Liam jumped from the couch. “Dammit!” he screamed. “I came here for help!”
“This is the time to surrender, Liam. As your friend, I’m telling you this is the time to give yourself up, and we’ll give them the information they need to track down what happened in Lakewood. I don’t think you’re guilty, but you can’t keep running. We’ll tell them what we know and let them handle it. We don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”
Liam ran to the door and cracked it open. The reception area looked clear. He could see Dorothy standing at her post, looking his way.
“You’re only going to make things worse,” Gerri cried.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t turn myself in yet. I will, but not yet. My brother’s working things out on his end, and I have to get to Lakewood. No one’s going to listen to me about theories of a frame job once I’m in custody. I have to find out what happened before I get caught. It’s the only way right now.”
Liam threw the door open and ran toward the stairs next to the elevators. He slid quietly into the stairwell and listened for approaching footsteps. He could hear someone coming from down below, but no one was talking. He turned and made his way up toward the next floor, determined to find a way to escape the hospital.
The next floor was the Medical Surgical Unit. He walked into the busy corridor and quickly stepped in line with the other foot traffic, passing the main desk without being noticed. As he passed the rooms, he peeked inside and saw mostly elderly people lying in beds, semiconscious, tubes protruding from various parts of their bodies. It looked as if they were in suspended reality, stuck between life and death.
“Clear the way! Coming through!”
A small team of three officers at the far end of the hall came running in his direction. The sea of people clogging the corridor parted ways as they ran by, guns at the ready. Liam ducked down and slid into the closest room he could find, shutting the door behind him and hiding against the nearest wall. He waited until he heard them pass. When they were gone, he turned to find an old man lying in the bed, asleep with the television on above him.
The patient’s locker was at the far end of the room. Liam ran over and opened it. Inside were street clothes the old man had worn when he came in. There was a pair of tan slacks, a black golf shirt, a brown leather jacket, and a Phillies cap. Judging from the man’s frame, it appeared they would fit well enough to disguise him and get him out of the hospital. He grabbed the clothes and began changing, stripping out of his wet pants and throwing those into the locker. He pulled the golf shirt over his head, and then put on the pants, jacket, and hat. When he was done, he stuffed his pockets with the cash and contents from his own pants. It was time to run.
“Hey, what are you doing?” The old man was trying to sit up, pointing at Liam, who stood frozen for a moment. “Those are my clothes!”
“As soon as I’m done with them, I’ll give them back. Promise.”
The old man pressed the red call button on the side of his bed. “Nurse!”
Liam scurried out of the room and back into the hall. He passed the nurse who was walking toward the room he’d just left. It wouldn’t be long before she’d sound an alarm and alert the police. He had to get out onto the street where he could blend in better.
The elevator doors opened as he approached. He pulled the cap a little lower and stepped on, only then noticing two young officers who were already inside. The doors closed before he could react one way or the other. He kept his head down and waited.
The ride to the first floor took forever. He watched the light come on for each floor as it crawled along. The officers were talking behind him.
“All units, be aware suspect is still in the building and has changed clothes.”
Liam bit the inside of his lip to keep from screaming as he listened to the report coming over the officer’s radio. They were passing the second floor now. He was almost there.
“Suspect is now wearing a black shirt, tan pants, and a brown leather jacket.”
The elevator stopped at the first floor. Liam could feel his knees buckling, struggling to hold his weight. The officers behind him stopped talking. He dared not turn around.
“Suspect last seen on the fifth floor. Also wearing a red Phillies hat.”
Liam was off the elevator before the doors had a chance to open completely. In a matter of seconds he was swallowed by the crowd in the main lobby.
“Excuse me, sir!”
He could hear one of the officers calling after him, but he continued on. The exit was fifty yards away, clogged by police personnel.
“Sir! Stop! You in the brown jacket!”
Walking faster. Turning down the first hall he came upon. A sign reading Garage pointed him straight ahead and to the left. When he was free from the crowd and somewhat out of sight, Liam ran as fast as he could.
“Liam Dwyer! Stop! Police!”
The officers began their chase. He looked back and saw them both in pursuit, running hard as they shouted into their radios. He threw himself through the double doors leading to the garage and picked up speed. His legs were heavy as he pressed ahead, hoping he wouldn’t trip or fall down. Arch Street was on the other side of a first-level concrete wall. If he could get onto Arch, he could get to the subway. In the background, he could hear the army of police sirens coming for him. They were getting closer, trying to block off any exits and pin him in the garage.
“Hold it right there!”
Liam slid under an orange mesh fence that was a corner perimeter of a construction area and was suddenly on Arch Street. A few people who were walking by backed away and watched him as he climbed to his feet and ran to the end of the block, where sawhorses had been erected to block the rest of the roadway. Heavy machinery was parked behind the barrier. He knew people were watching, so he hopped over the horses and ran around a dump trunk, then in between a front-end loader and a backhoe. The voices behind him were gaining.
“He went in there!”
Liam doubled back and slipped into the oversized bucket of the front-end loader. It was piled with crumpled drywall and chunks of broken concrete, so he did his best to burrow under the debris to hide, but there was no way he could get deep enough. If one of the pursuing officers happened to look inside the loader, he’d be caught, but he was counting on the men running at full speed, with their focus up in front of them. If the eyewitnesses on the street told them he’d run through the site, all the better.
It wasn’t long before the galloping footsteps of what seemed like a dozen officers came up to the front-end loader. Liam held his breath and buried his face farther into the debris. The officers ran by without slowing. He waited until he no longer heard anything and then poked his head out just a bit to ensure he was alone.
The gaping mouth of the subway entrance waited on the opposite side of the street. Liam climbed out of the bucket and ran as fast as he could into the subway.
The police would be retracing their steps at any second and setting up a net around the adjacent blocks. His lungs burned as he jumped down the steps, hurdled the toll slots, and threw himself onto a train that was pulling away toward West Philadelphia. He looked through the windows to see if anyone was following, but it was clear. He would have to get off at the next station and get himself back aboveground where he could hide. It was the only way.
45
The control room was bustling with activity. Three men were set up to handle all computer traffic while two others were on special dispatch to the patrols on th
e street. Liam’s blown-up photograph from his department ID hung on one half of a whiteboard with his statistics written all around it. A few pictures of Kerri at the Tiger Hotel and Guzio in his tub had been taped next to Liam’s picture. Everyone was talking or moving about. Sean stood at the edge of the chaos, watching.
Don walked over to Sean. “They froze his credit and debit cards, and we have units at the bridges, airport, and train stations. It shouldn’t be long before they bring him in.”
Sean rubbed his eyes. “I just wanted this to go away, you know?” He pointed to the crime scene photo from the Tiger. “I wanted to find out if Liam really did do that to Kerri, and if he did, I wanted to get him help behind the scenes without anyone else knowing about it. Why did he have to go and kill the hotel owner? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I have no idea,” Don replied. “I’m thinking this might be for the best. Bring him in now, and end this before someone else gets hurt. Do you have any idea where he might be?”
“None.”
“You think it’s time to tell them about what we found at Kerri’s apartment?”
Sean shook his head. “I just told the lieutenant I’d never seen Kerri before. Ever. I suggest you do the same until we can find Liam and bring him in the right way. Let’s get him in, and then we can figure out what to do next. If I can’t buy him time, I can at least bring him in on my terms.”
Heckle and Keenan burst through the doors of the control room. “You got some balls interfering with our investigation,” Keenan cried.
A few of the men turned to see what was going on.
“What are you talking about?” Sean replied.
Keenan’s face was red. His anger made him seem even larger than he already was. “You show up at our homicide with some excuse about maybe you knew the victim, and it turns out you’re running your own investigation behind our backs to protect your brother.” He held up a small business card. “Went back to the Miller girl’s friends to see if they recognized Liam’s picture, and they show me Don’s business card and tell me he was around their house a couple of days ago asking questions. What the hell is that?”