A Question of Ghosts (8 page)

Becca bit back a knee-jerk defense of Rachel, trusting her to speak for herself. The planes of Rachel’s elegant face held the same pallor that had worried Becca the day before and she sat stiffly, as if she were in pain, but she answered Jo easily.

“Under any other circumstances you’d be right, Joanne. I really intended just to do a preliminary assessment and then refer Scott and Maddie on to a colleague who would be a good fit for them. It began as a simple evaluation for marital counseling, but it quickly became focused on Maddie.”

Rachel paused and took Becca’s hand in her own. “Becca, your mother was my patient. You know her death doesn’t release me from the promise I make to all my patients, that I’ll honor their privacy. You’re my friend now, but there are things I can’t and won’t tell you about Maddie’s journey. Do you still understand that?”

Becca ignored Jo’s sliding the recorder closer to them. She didn’t answer Rachel right away, letting the room mellow until it was just the two of them again, comfortable and familiar. “You’ve told me that so many times, Rach. I do understand. Or I do whenever I’m not feeling this raw. But I really need your help with all this tonight, okay? Tell us what you can.”

Rachel sighed and straightened in her chair. “All right. Most of this is fairly common knowledge anyway. Becca’s mother suffered from bipolar disorder, Joanne. She only had one manic episode to my knowledge, before her child was born. But she struggled hard with some devastating depressions when Becca was quite young.”

Rachel spoke gently, but Becca saw no need to cushion these words. Not only was her head too dim to host much feeling right now, she remembered her mother’s emotional cataclysms as the natural order of things. As far as her small self had known, everyone’s mother stayed in bed for days at a time. Everyone’s father came racing home in the middle of the day to feed their kid.

“Becca, she fought so hard to get well.” Patricia seemed to think Becca needed comfort, too. “Maddie really tried, dear. I can’t say I knew her terribly well. I wanted to be closer to her, but I felt she and Scottie resisted spending time with Mitch and me. But those depressions scared her enough to agree to see Rachel privately. And I know Maddie did everything she could to help herself. She made all her appointments, she stayed on her meds. I wish half the homeless women I work with had her courage.”

A small, hard kernel in Becca wondered at Patricia’s unusual wordiness on this topic. She had probably just said more about her mother than Becca had heard throughout puberty. And there was a note of professional detachment in her aunt’s tone, some nuance that made her sympathy sound rehearsed. Lord, Becca thought, I’m getting as scratchy as Jo.

Rachel rubbed her eyes. “In Maddie’s case, Becca, more than any I’ve ever seen, it came down to chemistry. The chemical imbalance in your mother’s brain was just too complex to be helped by medication for long, at least the ones we had back then, in the mid-seventies. It’s a lifetime curse for many of my patients, even today—to be born with minds that are simply too inscrutable for modern psychiatry to offer any real, lasting healing.”

Becca started to speak, but closed her mouth, confused. Jo was staring at Rachel with an odd mixture of foreboding and distaste. Her hands were folded neatly on the table, but Becca could see her fingers were so tightly clenched that her knuckles were white.

“Help me understand this, people.” Jo loosened her hands and traced a pattern on the tablecloth with one finger. “We’re talking about a young mother, by all accounts a loving one, highly motivated to control her behavior. A troubled marriage, but a husband supportive enough to send his wife to a competent psychiatrist. Madelyn Healy was fully compliant with her treatment. How long was she in therapy with you, Dr. Perry? Before the shootings?”

“Eight months,” Rachel said quietly.

“Eight months of private sessions. And she had a husband, concerned in-laws, and a good therapist as her support system. I’m trying to understand why none of you saw the crisis coming. If things happened that night the way all of you say they did, if Becca’s mother suddenly flew into a psychotic rage and took two lives. How is it that none of you were alerted to—”

“I believe Rachel has explained all that, Joanne.” Mitchell was every inch the prosecutor again. “Tragedies happen in families afflicted with mental illness. It’s a fact of life. Pat and I see it every day in our work, and we both deal with the carnage that kind of sickness leaves in its wake. The best treatment in the world can’t save some people.”

“And on that happy note, I’m afraid I must take my leave.” Rachel smiled at them and pushed back carefully from the table. “Patricia, dinner was wonderful, but I have early sessions in the morning.”

“Rachel, please. No need to rush off.” Mitchell got to his feet. “Sit for a while longer. You don’t look well tonight. I’m sure Joanne didn’t intend to imply any criticism.”

“I’m not offended, Mitch, honestly.” Rachel laid her hand on Becca’s shoulder before she could rise, and spoke to her alone. “I promise to help you in this investigation in any way I can, Becca. I’ve just had enough for tonight, and I need to take care of myself.”

“Of course, honey,” Becca whispered.

Jo looked uneasy for the first time. “Dr. Perry, I’m not necessarily talking about any professional failing on your part.”

“We’re talking about the first and saddest professional failure of my career, Joanne. Perhaps of my life.” Rachel bent stiffly, lifted her purse from the floor, and opened it. “Becca, here are the keys to the house. Remember that damn washer is still on the blink. I haven’t had a chance to get it fixed.”

Becca accepted the keys numbly. “I’m sorry, Rach.”

“No harm done.” Rachel kissed Becca’s cheek. “Night, friends.”

“I’m walking you to your car,” Becca decided. Then she decided the night was over for her, too. “Patricia, Mitchell, thank you for having us. Great manicotti. Jo, you can ride back with me now, or you can jump into Lake Washington and swim to Capitol Hill. Your pick.”

Chapter Six

The lights across the I-90 floating bridge burned an eerie fairy path across the dark water, and Jo sat back in Becca’s rattling Toyota and tried to enjoy the ride. She drove this bridge often enough in her own Bentley, but always alone; she seldom got to take in the scenery that was Seattle’s inherent blessing. Not that the palpable tension in this car allowed for such innocuous pleasure.

Jo’s stomach rumbled, and she considered asking Becca to stop at a Dick’s Drive-In en route to Capitol Hill. She didn’t know what Patricia Healy considered decent manicotti, but it was not whatever had inhabited Jo’s plate tonight. Dick’s offered an excellent cheeseburger. She glanced at Becca’s still profile and decided against it.

“I didn’t like the way he spoke to you.” Jo hadn’t intended to say this aloud, but it was the truth.

“What?” They were the first words that had passed between them since Becca pulled away fast from the stately house in Kirkland. “What are you talking about?”

“The way he made you feel. I didn’t like it.” Jo struggled to shut up. Her voice revealed too much emotion, too much of the protectiveness that was still so new to her. “Your uncle talked to you as if you’re simple, as if your opinions don’t matter. It was so different the other night, with your friends. They respect you, Becca. I could hear it in their voices. They treated you the way people who love you should. But your face changed tonight when your uncle spoke to you. You got smaller in your chair. It made me angry.”

“Jo.” Becca’s hands still clenched the wheel, but at least she wasn’t “Joanne” anymore. “Mitchell and Patricia took me in when I was five years old. They never expected to be parents, never even wanted kids of their own. But they raised me kindly. They did the very best they could, bringing me up. And I didn’t always make it easy on them, I promise you.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Jo looked at Becca’s features, lit softly in the light of the dashboard, and realized she found them lovely. “Except for your phobia, and perhaps your too-hardy appetite, I’d think you’d be easy enough to raise—”

“Jo, you have to listen to me.” Becca’s voice was less chilly, but still firm. “I’m telling you that you don’t have my permission to be rude to the people in my life. However you might feel about my uncle and aunt, Rachel, my friends, you’ve got to be courteous to them. If we’re going to spend a lot of time together, you have to understand that. You have to do better.”

Jo stared miserably out the window, flecked now by slanted dots of rain. “I’ll try, Becca.” It was the best she could promise. She had been trying for courtesy all her life and falling short of the mark.

“Thank you.” Becca glanced at her, and her eyes warmed before she returned her attention to the road. Jo understood she was on her way to being forgiven. She realized she didn’t need to consult her files on microexpressions to know the truth about Becca anymore. This was puzzling, as they’d met only eight days ago. Jo didn’t trust herself to interpret the motivations of many people in her life, even after years of acquaintance. Becca’s face seemed familiar to her now, open and expressive and honest.

They chugged up the steep rises of Capitol Hill, but the silence inside the car was more comfortable. Another welcome oddity in Jo’s sparse social life, not having to struggle to fill perfectly good quiet with empty talk. She watched Becca’s fine-boned hands on the wheel, her wrists delicate in spite of the strength in her arms. She imagined Maddie Healy’s hands had been much like her daughter’s.

Becca pulled up in front of the house on Fifteenth Avenue with a squealing of brakes, and the engine harrumphed several times before dying.

“Doesn’t the state pay their social workers enough to buy decent transportation?” Jo hoped Becca would hear the teasing in her voice.

Becca chuckled and tapped the steering wheel. “Well, the state pays me more than the staff makes at my aunt’s shelter. Basically, I’m too cheap to buy a decent car. Or decent sneakers. I love to get out of the city on weekends, so I save all my dinars for trips.”

“Where do you trip?”

“Cannon Beach. Lake Crescent. I seem to run for pretty water whenever I get a chance.” Becca was still tapping the wheel. “I’m stalling. You can tell, right?”

Jo nodded. “It’s hard for you, going back into this house.”

Becca gazed out her window, to the dark cemetery across the street. “It’s going to be hard for me to sleep in this house again. We don’t know how long we’ll have to stay here?”

“There’s no telling, Becca.” Jo was sympathetic but resolute. “If it’s any comfort…I’m not sure why it would be, but if it’s any comfort, you won’t be alone in there. I’ll be with you every minute.” She smiled. “You won’t hurt my feelings if you scream in dismay now and run away again.”

A brief laugh escaped Becca. “Both of us are pretty private people, Dr. Call. If we’re alone together every minute, for days on end, I can imagine we…”

Jo wasn’t sure what Becca was imagining until she started to imagine it, too. Becca’s gaze changed, deepened, as she studied Jo more intently. They stared at each other, and the warm confines of the car seemed suddenly close and confining.

“Pop the trunk,” Jo said. “I’ll get our bags.”

Becca reached beneath the dash and popped the trunk.

*

“We should plan to sleep in this room, and spend most of our time here.” Jo was tinkering with a silver radio on the coffee table in the living room, so she didn’t see Becca’s look of dismay. “It’s best if we consolidate all of our resources in one area.”

“We’re going to sleep in here?” Becca said faintly. “Not in the bedrooms upstairs? I don’t think I can do that.”

“Why can’t you? We’ll be perfectly comfortable.”

There were a vast number of things Becca felt incapable of at the moment, but she decided to focus on dealing with this one, this thing with Jo. She didn’t want to keep ignoring what was happening between them. She continued her slow circle of the living room. “Listen, maybe we should talk. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but it’s my way to be direct about things like this.”

“What is it, Becca?” Jo sat back on her heels, turning a tiny screwdriver to tighten a recessed screw in the radio.

“There’s a funny energy between us.” Becca hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. Khadijah said Becca’s willingness to confront elephants in the room was admirable, but this elephant was Joanne Call. “We’ve had a couple of moments, lately. In the cemetery, and just now, in the car. I think I’m starting to feel some attraction to you, Jo.”

Jo kept working, her long fingers nimble and sure on the machine. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What?”

“Your attraction to me doesn’t matter.” Jo positioned the radio carefully on the tabletop and adjusted its many dials. “It’s nothing we’ll act on.”

“Okay.” Becca felt a flare of embarrassment, which didn’t surprise her, followed by a pang of disappointment, which did. “We won’t act on this attraction because we’re working together? Or because I’m alone in feeling it?”

“Becca, what difference does it make?” Jo switched on a small screen in the box, which cast her austere features in a ghostly amber glow. It was an unfortunate effect that rendered her almost alien. “I don’t sleep with the subjects in my studies. That’s a basic tenet of ethics in any credible research.”

“Joanne, I wasn’t suggesting we ravish each other tonight on the Pendleton rug.” Becca felt her cheeks flush with heat. Even knowing Jo’s limitations, it hurt, putting herself out there honestly and meeting such brusque rejection. “I just don’t believe in ignoring my feelings when they’re this strong. Not when I believe you might share them.” Good Lord, had Patricia spiked her manicotti? What in the world was she doing?

Jo’s back straightened slowly and she pivoted to face her, moving with the feline grace Becca couldn’t stop noticing. “You’re the most transparent person I’ve ever met, Becca, so I’ll respond in kind. I’m not capable of the kind of emotion you’re talking about. I never have been. I don’t do people. I can be your guide in this project, and your ally, even your protector. But I can’t be your friend or your lover. I’ll never be those things.”