Page 23 of Go Home (Kate Valentine #1)
Professor Gabriel “Gabe” Levine was a neat, spry little man with a fondness for bright waistcoats and striking eyewear.
He always met Kate in the same place: a downtown coffeehouse called The Pixie Hollow.
Gabe often attracted smiles and second glances, particularly in The Pixie Hollow, because he did look slightly like a pixie.
But Kate knew him also as a man of exceptional patience and kindness, a teacher of renown, and, whatever his actual height, a towering intellect.
They swapped news while waiting for their grilled cheese sandwiches and a pot of Darjeeling. That is, Gabe updated her on his hectic schedule, which never seemed to ease up, despite his being on the verge of celebrating his seventy-fourth birthday. And Kate listened.
She loved listening to him. The former profiler had tutored her at grad school and been a key influence in her decision to quit academia for a role in the FBI; it was a reverse journey to his own, a fact which still seemed to amuse him, all these years later.
But Gabe wasn’t one of those raconteurs who loved the sound of his own voice.
Abruptly, as their food arrived, he leaned forward and fixed her with his keen, bright, searching gaze.
“Enough about me. Are you taking care of yourself, Kate?”
“I’m good. You know. I go running when I can.”
Gabe waved a hand, as if flicking her answer away. “That’s self-torture.”
She laughed. “It makes me feel good.”
“You feel good when you take your hand out of the fire, because your hand has stopped burning.”
“You could have picked a better analogy.”
Gabe’s gaze turned stern. “You are not invincible. You need the same things that everybody else needs. Light. Love. Rest. Fun. Cake. You laugh, but it’s true. You look tired, Kate. You need to be kinder to yourself.”
Kate had a memory of Gabe that she’d never shared with him.
Or anyone. After Denton’s attack, she was in the hospital, full of morphine, slipping between consciousness and awful dreams, jagged thorns of pain whenever she moved in the bed.
She recalled a moment of clarity: waking to realize he was sitting in a chair next to her bed. Crying.
It was clear, ten years on, that however much Gabe disguised it with jokes and teasing, he blamed himself for what had happened to her, just because he’d encouraged her to join the FBI.
She knew Gabe was wrong, she knew that whole line of reasoning was deeply flawed.
But she also knew that she’d never change his mind about it
“So. What’s going on with the case?”
She gave him a summary: the victims, the coded messages, the latest developments.
“He’s enjoying the game,” Gabe said, thoughtfully. “It’s like someone flying a kite. You know, how you let out a little bit of the rope at a time… That’s what he’s doing to you. He pays out another puzzle, a little clue, and you dance to his tune. You are his puppet in the sky.”
“But why? It’s not just because I caught the case. Right from the start, he’s been trying to say something directly to me.”
“The concern, in the first set of messages, with the witness. It’s you. You don’t agree?”
“I – I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. I guess it could be.”
“It’s you. And notice his concern with naming. He wants to be given a special serial killer name. He feels that will validate him. And he wants you to say it. You are very significant to him.”
“But why?”
“He’s killed two men who are father figures.
One of them is even called Father. This is a little boy who wants his mother’s attention, but he can’t get it because there are men in the way.
Maybe in his foundation story, they were lovers, boyfriends, johns, yes?
I would suggest you validate him. Use the name he wants you to use.
He won’t be expecting it. It will disarm him.
And crucially, Kate, it will put you in control.
He wants you to be in control. He’s like the child whose behavior gets worse and worse because he wants someone to stop him.
He’s taunting you with all this information he has about you.
He’s saying – look, look at what I’ve done.
What I’ve found out. What are you going to do about it? ”
He stopped, realizing just as Kate did that a trio of elderly ladies in tracksuits were gazing at them, cake-forks frozen in their hands, completely agog.
“Shall we finish this outside?” Gabe suggested.
A wind was getting up as they walked slowly back to her car.
She zipped up her jacket, wishing she could just stay in The Pixie Hollow all the time, eating cake, talking to Gabe.
“I don’t believe it’s that simple, Gabe,” Kate said, as they walked slowly back towards her car. “I’m a woman so he sees me as his mom?”
“Of course it isn’t. He’s one complicated little bunny rabbit. But the whole parent-matrix is something to bear in mind. Especially when you consider his religious outlook. He can’t beat the all-powerful, vengeful daddy-figure. So he becomes like him. Ministering his justice.”
“That reminds me. Have you heard of the King of Tarshish?”
Naturally, Gabe had. “It’s a pseudepigraph .
A book purporting to be part of the Bible.
Allegedly written by the prophet Jeremiah, I think.
It’s an odd little tale, and even the most obscure collections of pseudepigrapha tend to leave it out.
The only full version seems to come from sixth-century Georgia, but it could be much older. Second century BC even.”
“What’s it about?”
“On the surface, it’s about a king who sails to a far-off island that’s full of gold and silver.
In order to get his hands on all the goodies, he has to do battle with a huge, terrifying beast. He battles it for forty days and forty nights and finally kills it.
So, he does a triumphant war dance, jumping up and down, singing about how great and wonderful he is.
And then the whole island begins to shudder and shake and move.
And he realizes that he isn’t on an island; he’s standing on the side of an absolutely enormous beast. It’s the mother of the creature he’s killed and, of course, like any outraged mother, it tears him apart and eats him. ”
“Wow. So, what’s it really about?”
“Take your pick. Human folly, arrogance. There’s always someone bigger than you. God’s bigger than all of us…”
“Again, though, Gabe. Why me?”
“That’s something you’ll have to work out for yourself. It will come. You know it will.”
After they parted, she sat in the standard-issue black sedan for a while, trying to make sense of the story Gabe had told her.
She sensed the meaning out there, like a word you’ve suddenly forgotten, a movie star whose name escapes you.
It usually wouldn’t come until you gave up.
But how could she give up with a serial killer at large?
She didn’t have time for her subconscious to work its magic.
A copper-colored SUV was trying to exit the lot at the same time as Kate. The driver flashed for her to go first. She gave a wave of acknowledgement and set off into the early afternoon traffic, her mind still, inevitably, set on figuring out the meaning behind the myth.
What could the original writer have wanted to say?
It wasn’t easy for her to put herself in the mindset of a sixth century Georgian monk, or someone from an even more distant past, but she had to try.
Perhaps the story said something about the nature of God, the size of the vengeful monster being a stand-in for God’s vastness, eternity, omnipresence.
Even a warrior-king is puny by comparison.
Or was it about motherhood? A feminist might see it as a celebration of the power that men lack: to create a child.
The beast’s mother was so vengeful because the king took a life she had created.
Weren’t there numerous tales of mothers who’d found the strength to lift cars and kick down walls when their babies were in peril?
Come to think of it, were any of them true?
More traffic lights. She noticed the copper SUV was still behind her.
She hoped the tale wasn’t about motherhood. As Gabe had suggested, the killer was trying to show her how much he knew. She really hoped that knowledge didn’t extend to her medical records. The thought of him knowing that kind of detail was almost unbearable.
A strange light suffused the sky, a combination of the lowering sun and an impending rain shower, tinging the edge of everything with silver.
She couldn’t enjoy the beauty for too long; shortly after crossing the railway, she got behind a Cap in the traffic.
The Cap, according to Marcus, was a death knell for any driver in a hurry.
If the guy in front of you was wearing a golfing cap, then he’d be over eighty, still rely on hand signals, and drive at ten miles an hour.
Unless you could get in front of him yourself, you might as well cancel your journey.
There was a great deal of oncoming traffic, though, so no easy means of overtaking.
Strangely, the SUV driver behind her showed no signs of impatience, merely adjusting to the drastically reduced tempo.
She realized there was a slight tint on the windscreen, meaning that she couldn’t make out whether the driver was male or female.
Was it the weird light? Or did she need glasses? But was he staring at her?
She grabbed the opportunity – a break in the oncoming traffic, just enough for her to nip ahead of the Cap. She pulled a sharp right, soon after that.
Why was she so sure it was a man?
She took another right, waited for a school party to cross the street; they were little kids, and they all waved. She waved back. When they’d all crossed, she felt a sudden stab of shock in her heart. Facing her, on the other side of the crossing, was the copper SUV.