Roses Are Red

Betsey asked the agents crowded into the van. “Did I miss any fun? Is the Master-prick up yet?”
    We were told that Francis was up, and that he hadn’t called Kathleen McGuigan yet. I had an idea and made a suggestion. Betsey liked it a lot. We called Kyle Craig and got him at home. Kyle liked the idea, too.
    Agents in Arlington, Virginia, arrested Nurse McGuigan at a little past ten that morning. She was questioned, and denied knowing anything about a relationship between Dr. Bernard Francis and Frederic Szabo. She also denied any involvement in the scheme. She said that the allegations against her were ridiculous. She hadn’t called Francis the night before, and we were welcome to check her phone records.
    Agents, meanwhile, were searching McGuigan’s house and yard. Around noon, they found one of the diamonds from the MetroHartford job. McGuigan panicked and she changed her story. She told the FBI what she knew about Dr. Francis, Frederic Szabo, and the robberies and kidnappings.
    “Yes, yes, yes, yes,”
Betsey Cavalierre said, and jumped around the back of the surveillance van when she heard the news. She bumped her head on the van roof. “That
hurts.
I don’t care. We’ve got him! Dr. Francis is going down.”
    At a little past two that afternoon, she and I walked across the manicured front lawn and up the brick stairway into Francis’s building. My heart was thudding in my chest. This was it. It had to be. We took the elevator up to the fifth floor — the penthouse, the Mastermind’s lair.
    “We’ve earned the right to do this,” I told her.
    “I can’t wait to see his face,” Betsey said as she rang the bell. “Cold-blooded piece of shit.
Ding-dong,
guess who’s at the front door? This is for Walsh and Doud.”
    “And the little Buccieri boy — all the others he killed.”
    Dr. Francis answered the door. He was tan, dressed in Florida Gators sweatpants, a Miami Dolphins T-shirt, no socks or shoes. He didn’t look like a cold-blooded and heartless monster. So often they don’t.
    Betsey told him who we were. She then explained to Dr. Francis that we were part of the team investigating the MetroHartford kidnapping and several bank robberies back East.
    Francis seemed momentarily confused. “I don’t think I understand. Why are you here? I haven’t been in Washington, well, in nearly a year. I don’t see how I can help you with any bank robberies up north. Are you sure you have the right address?”
    I spoke up. “May we come in, Dr. Francis? This is the right address. Trust me on that. We want to talk to you about a former patient of yours named Frederic Szabo.”
    Francis managed to look even more confused. He was playing his part well, and I guess I wasn’t surprised.
    “Frederic Szabo? You’re kidding me, right?”
    “We kid you not,” Betsey said emphatically.
    Francis became petulant. His face and neck flushed. “I’ll be
in my office
at the hospital in West Palm on Monday. The hospital is on Blue Heron. We can talk about my former patients there. Frederic Szabo? Jesus! That was almost a year ago. What has he done? Is this about his crank letters to the Fortune Five hundred? You people are incredible. Please leave my home now.”
    Dr. Francis tried to slam the door in my face. I stopped it with the heel of my hand. My heart continued to beat hard. This was so good — we had him.
    “This can’t wait until Monday, Dr. Francis,” I told him. “It can’t wait at all.”
    He sighed but continued to look incredibly pissed off. “Oh, all right. I was just making myself coffee. Come in if you must.”
    “We must,” I told the Mastermind.

Chapter 121
    “WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE?” Francis asked again as we followed him through an all-glass loggia that looked down onto the rolling surf of the Atlantic several floors below. The view was spectacular, worth at least a couple of murders. The afternoon sun created countless stars and diamonds that danced on the water’s surface. Life was so very good for Dr. Bernard Francis.
    “Frederic Szabo figured it all out for you, didn’t he?” I said, just to break the ice. “He had an elaborate fantasy for revenge against the banks. He had all the know-how, the obsession, the contacts. Isn’t that how it happened?”
    “What the hell are you talking about?” Francis looked at Betsey and me as if we were as deranged as some of his mental patients.
    I ignored the look and the condescension in his voice. “You heard about his