Free Murder Suicide by Keith Ablow Page B

inflict those wounds on herself, she had to be psychotic."  He shook his head.  "Maybe she was sicker than I could tell.  She talked about feeling guilty.  Maybe it was more than that.  Maybe she was convinced she was evil.  Maybe she believed bleeding out was the only way to purge herself of her sins."
    "Could killing Snow put her in that frame of mind?" Anderson said.
    Clevenger looked back at him.  "It could have."  Part of the element of performing forensic evaluations of killers was understanding that their mental states can throw a person into something that looks a lot like mania, or even paranoid schizophrenia — sometimes minutes, sometimes hours after the act.  He shook his head.  "She just didn’t feel like someone who was losing contact with reality."
    "Until we have something else, we go with your gut.  If this was a murder-suicide, it’s all over.  Same thing if they each committed suicide.  But if there’s somebody out there guilty of a double homicide, we’re the only ones looking for that person."
    Anderson was right.  The two of them were the only ones searching hard for the truth.  And if that truth included a killer brazen enough to murder a high profile inventor and his high society lover, it was time to start worrying about their own safety.  "We should start watching each other’s back," he said.
    "You got it," Anderson said.
    "I think my next stop is Snow’s wife, find out whether she knew about Grace Baxter.  I get Snow’s journal from Coady tomorrow morning.  I’ll take a look at it before I visit her."
    "I still have Coroway to track down.  And somehow we’re going to have to get access to George Reese."
    "Agreed."
    "You realize we don’t exactly have a client here," Anderson said.  "You have a report on Snow’s mental state to generate for Coady, but he might even pull that back if we go full throttle on a double homicide theory."
    Clevenger thought about that.  They were free to walk away form the case, and part of him would have liked to.  There were plenty of other cases simmering in the office, not to mention how much time and energy it took to keep Billy out of trouble.  But he knew that if someone had killed Grace Baxter and John Snow, that person would rest easier once he and Anderson quit.  And that would keep him up at night, and bring back the nightmares, too, the ones of his father drunk and raging through the night.  Having been murdered little by little by that man, he just couldn’t stomach giving a killer the right of way.  That’s how the broken pieces of his psyche had set, what he had become.  "The only client we ever really had was John Snow," he said.  "I figure he’s the one who can tell us off."
    "If he does, let’s hope it’s long distance."
     
    *            *            *
     
    10:35 P.M.
     
    Clevenger took the freight elevator to the fifth floor and started toward the steel door to his loft.  He heard voices and occasional laughter coming from inside.  He wondered whether Billy had invited a friend over, something he still had a habit of doing on school nights, despite Clevenger asking him to save it for weekends.  He tried to pry his mind free from the investigation, to get ready to deliver a fatherly Let’s-call-it-a-night speech — and something a little sterner once he and Billy were alone.  But when he opened the door he saw J.T. Heller sitting with Billy at the kitchen island, drinking Cokes, like old buddies.
    Heller stood up, walked over to Clevenger.  He had a thick envelope in his hand.  "Sorry to make myself at home," he said.
    "Not at all," Clevenger said, taken aback.
    "I was dropping off the records you asked for.  Snow’s inpatient psychiatry admission."
    "Thank you."
    "I wanted you to have the ASAP," Heller said.  "You forgot to leave me your address today.  I got this one from the Mass Medical Society.  Billy said you’d be right back."  He held out the envelope.
    Clevenger