fingers as Nina’s words settled in his mind. “What about the trauma of being homeles? Can that make someone snap?”
“It’s possible. Given enough time. Or enough bad experiences.”
“Have you ever worked with the homeless directly? At a pro bono crisis clinic, for example?”
“No. Never.”
He nodded. Continued to filter sand through his fingers. “Can someone who is experiencing grief experience a psychotic break?”
“Someone like Lester Davenport, you mean?”
“Yeah. Someone like him.”
“Someone who’s grieving might not experience clinical psychosis or delusions, but his mind might not work the way it did before. Psychologists often talk to grief patients about five stages of grief—”
“I know—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.”
“Right. Depending on the severity of the stage a person is experiencing, he can start to think outside the box. He could be so driven by his grief that he does something completely out of character.”
“Something like...I don’t know...kill someone with mental illness because he ‘blames’ mental illness in general for taking his daughter away from him?”
Nina frowned. “That’s an interesting question. Do you mean he views mental illness as an actual entity upon which he can seek revenge?”
“Maybe. Is that possible?”
“Anything’s possible where the mind is concerned. But—but what are you really talking about? Do you think that’s what Lester Davenport is doing? That he’s acting out two agendas? Targeting me because I didn’t save Beth. And targeting not only homeless people but mentally ill homeless because mental illness drove Beth to kill herself?”
“It’s a theory. The major one I’ve been able to come up with based on the facts I have.”
“Including the facts you discovered yesterday and today?”
He nodded.
“Tell me.”
“Louis Cann and the latest victim were both residents of the Welcome Home homeless shelter. That seemed to be their main connection, despite the fact they were both stabbed in Golden Gate Park, because Cann’s killer didn’t leave the same signature. No initials. So today, I decided to double-check some things. Although I’d seen the crime scene photos in Cann’s file, I never actually visited the crime scene myself. This morning, I did. While I was doing that, DeMarco stopped by Welcome Home and canvased nearby walk-in crisis clinics. Anyplace a resident from Welcome Home might go. He found one place advertised in a flyer on the Welcome Home bulletin board. The crisis clinic is located a few blocks from Golden Gate Park. Turns out both murder victims went there at some point.”
“They told you that?” she asked with surprise.
“For confidentiality reasons, the counselors wouldn’t disclose what the men had been seen for, but DeMarco got them to admit they recognized both of them. Why they were there doesn’t really matter. Either they were in mental crisis or led someone to believe they were. That fits my theory about why Davenport attacked them.”
“But again, how do you know it wasn’t simply the location that tied them together? Maybe the killer hangs out near the clinic and was simply looking for easy prey, mentally ill or not.”
“I can’t dismiss that thought completely. But a crime of opportunity based on shared location doesn’t go deep enough. It doesn’t explain how the men might be linked to you and Davenport’s determination to get revenge for his daughter’s death. The mental illness angle does. Can you think of anything else that makes sense?”
She shook her head. “No, but none of this makes sense. Still, there’s a flaw in what you just said. You said both men might be linked to me. This latest man who was carved with the initials BD? I understand why you think that. But with Cann, you said the initials weren’t a factor.”
“They weren’t. That is, I didn’t know they weren’t until I revisited the scene. Before today, I relied on SFPD’s report on the crime scene.”
“And?”
“And the responding officers missed something. Something engraved in the tree right next to where Cann was found.”
“The initials BD.”
“Right.”
She sat in stunned silence until he reached out, took her hand and finally said, “This isn’t your fault, you know.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
* * *
AT SIMON’S INSISTENT question, Nina nodded. “In my head, I do. Even though I don’t always feel it in my heart. You, of all people, can understand that, can’t you?”
He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Yeah, I can.”
She savored the feel of her hand in his for several moments before reclaiming it. She told herself that she needed to be strong. Let Simon ask the questions he needed to ask her. And ask him a few questions of her own.