Dead Even (12 page)

It burned in Gerald's gut that he had been turned down yet again for the principal's job.
The board and the founder of William's are of the opinion that the Academy could best be served if you continued in your teaching position, and did not take on the responsibilities of administration at this time.
He had received the news only minutes ago, and the curt letter from the board had done nothing to ease his already foul mood.

He waited until the last students had passed through Audra's door, then entered, ready to do battle.

“Audra, we have over five hundred guests coming to this wedding. I can't believe you are so inconsiderate as to postpone it at this late date. People simply don't behave in this manner. Don't you realize that you're putting your job on the line by this cavalier attitude? Not to mention mine?” He shook his head in disgust.

Audra rubbed the back of her neck wearily. He had called her out of the classroom twice already. The first time he had been apologetic, avowing his love for her. The second time he had promised to at least
try
and get along with Bess. When neither of those had worked, he was now back using the tactic most common to him—bringing her to his way of thinking with a combination of superiority, righteous indignation, and the spreading on of guilt a foot thick. What had ever made her think she was in love with this dreary man?

“Gerald, I'm not
postponing
this wedding. I'm calling it off entirely! It just wouldn't work.
We
wouldn't work. We don't care about the same things, or see things in the same light.” Why couldn't he understand that she no longer needed a buffer between herself and the world? She no longer needed someone to tell her what to think or how to act. The brick wall she had built around herself had crumbled.

“I'm sorry, Gerald. Truly I am.”

“
Sorry?
You're
sorry?
What are my parents going to think? And just how do you intend to let everyone know about this little change of heart of yours? There are over five hundred people who have to be notified in the next few days!”

“I don't know, Gerald. Maybe Bess can help me. We'll write a note and—”

Gerald exploded. “
Bess
again! I won't have her name associated with mine! She is the main cause of the trouble between us anyway. You have always sided with her, Audra, with that old hag of a woman who drinks too much! Over me! And I will not have it. I simply will not have my name and reputation sullied.” Gerald threw his arms in the air in a manner that reminded Audra of a child throwing a tantrum. “Christ! I can just imagine the kind of a note Bess Truman would pen, if she can even write, which I doubt!”

Audra stood. “The trouble with you, Gerald, among other things, is that you are an incredibly pretentious son of a bitch. You are also a know-it-all, superficial blowhard! For the last year you have told me how to dress, how to wear my hair, what to say, what to think, and even tried to tell me who to vote for! You have badgered me if I didn't put a certain percent of my salary away for the wedding, and bitched when I so much as bought a houseplant.”

“Now wait a minute—”

“No, Gerald.
You
wait a minute. Bess Truman is the finest person I know, and I won't listen to any more of your mealymouthed insults. And I'll tell you one more thing. I'll contact the twenty people
I
invited to the wedding, and
you
can contact the other five hundred!”

“You've got to be kidding—”

“No, Gerald. I am not kidding. I'm certain I wouldn't handle it to suit your expectations, anyway, so hop to it, yourself. Now get out of my room. I want to eat lunch!”

“If I were you, I'd go. It sounds like she means business.”

Gerald and Audra turned to see Mike Ramsey leaning against the open door, his arms folded casually in front of him.

“And just who are you?” Gerald demanded.

Mike reached in his coat pocket and brought out his badge. “Detective Ramsey. Mike Ramsey. And I need to talk with Miss Delaney. That is, if you're through—and I take it you are.”

Gerald turned to Audra and spoke through clenched teeth. “We'll discuss this further later, Audra.” He walked swiftly out the door.

“What is it?” Audra snapped at Mike, her mood still dark and angry.

“Hey,” he grinned, throwing his arms in the air in mock surrender. “Don't take it out on me. I'm just an innocent bystander.”

Audra looked at him a few seconds, shook her head slightly as if just aware of what she had said, and chuckled softly. “I'm sorry. It's just hard to shift gears when you have a good head of steam going.”

Ramsey smiled. “Well, I'd say you were definitely on a roll. Lovers' quarrel? Or is it none of my business?”

“No, that's all right. Everyone will know before long anyway. I just broke off our engagement, and Gerald seems to be more concerned over what people will think than anything else.”

Mike remembered his call the previous evening and suddenly hoped he had not in any way been responsible for Audra's decision. “You never returned my call last night,” he said tentatively. “I wanted to see you to apologize for the way things were left yesterday.”

She stared at him, blankly. “Your call?”

“Yes. On your answering machine. About seven?”

“I'm sorry, Mike. I went shopping last night, and to the beauty shop. By the time I got home and put everything away, I was tired and went straight to bed.” Audra remembered the blinking light on her machine. “I did see that a message had been left when I used the telephone this morning, and intended to check it after I made my call, but—” She stopped, recalling the icy shiver that had coursed through her body when she had completed her message. She had slammed the phone down quickly as if the inanimate object could somehow do her bodily harm, then grabbed up her things and fled the apartment—not willing to contemplate what she might have set in motion with the call.

Mike was staring at her unabashedly. He nodded his head slowly. “I like what you did.”

“Wh—what? How did you—?” Audra stopped, stunned into silence that he already knew of her call.

“Your hair—the clothes—it all suits you somehow.”

“Oh.” She could hear the relief in her voice. “Yes—yes, I'd say it is an improvement.”

Mike studied her, aware that he was missing something, but not able to pin it down. Was she nervous about her appearance? Breaking off her engagement? What?

He laughed, hoping to get by the awkwardness of the moment. “Well, now, I wouldn't make this change seem like a major overhaul. After all, you weren't exactly chopped liver before! But I
did
sense that you were deliberately trying to downplay your attractiveness, for whatever reason. Not that you succeeded, of course.”

Audra surprised herself by answering truthfully, ignoring his compliment. “It was all tied up with the attack somehow. And I can't even fully explain what has happened to me these last few days. The natural thing for me to have done, faced with the likely prospect that the man is somewhere in this city, was run as fast and as far as I could in the opposite direction. I have, literally, been afraid of my own shadow these last ten years. But there was something about hearing his voice, hearing him calmly inquire about an
accent
table, that pressed some button in my soul. It was like, how
dare
he be living a normal life after what he did to me! How
dare
he be concerned over getting the
right piece of furniture,
when I have been too terrified to even go running in the park!”

Mike nodded his head, concentrating on her words, trying to understand this woman who so intrigued him. “And by getting rid of the oversized clothing, and the old hairdo, you feel somehow like you're shedding the last hold he had on you?”

Audra looked down at the mosaic of colored tile covering the kindergarten floor. “I know it must sound stupid to you, but yes, that is precisely how I feel. I'm reclaiming my life, somehow, reclaiming the person I used to be.”

Mike spoke honestly. “I don't think it sounds stupid at all, Audra. I went through sort of the same process when I quit drinking. For almost two years
I
hid in a bottle. Everything I said, did, or felt during those months was colored by the alcohol in me. When I finally quit, I took a long look at myself, and didn't like what I saw. My hair was long and unkempt; I shaved maybe once a week; my clothes were dirty; and my house a wreck. The first thing I did when I got out of rehab was to get a haircut, shave, clean my house, and wade through twenty-three loads of laundry! When I got through with all that, I felt like I really was going to make it—that now the old Mike Ramsey was back in control.”

Audra nodded her head vigorously. “Yes! That's exactly it! For the first time in years, I feel like
I'm
back in control of my life, not some faceless monster.” As she said the words, a long-repressed memory flitted across her mind for just a moment. She looked at Mike in surprise.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don't know. It's gone. I almost remembered something, some detail about that night, only it vanished too rapidly. Damn! It's like when you're trying to recall a person's name, and you can't quite pull it forward, then you almost have it, but it doesn't come.”

“Don't force it, Audra. Your mind will unlock the memories in its own good time. It could well be that the events of the last few days will start triggering those suppressed memories. If that happens, I want you to tell me everything you remember, no matter how insignificant you think it is.”

Audra looked at him thoughtfully. When she spoke, her voice was barely audible. “You
do
think he is the man, don't you? If you had ruled him out entirely, you wouldn't be here, would you?”

The lie didn't come easily to his lips. “The department feels you have identified the wrong man. The man you identified was speaking in front of three hundred salesmen the night you were attacked. He could not have been in two different places at the same time. Officially, that is their position.” He couldn't stand to watch the look of anguish that crossed Audra's face, and silently cussed Markham's firm stance on this issue.

“And unofficially?” Audra asked.

“Unofficially, I am going through all of the material the Lawrence police sent. Butch is checking out all similar crimes, trying to get some sort of lead. Just try to forget about it for the present, and let us see if we can come up with anything.”

Audra nodded her head. “But if the voice I heard on the radio isn't the man who attacked me, we are no closer than we were ten years ago, right? Actually, not even
as
close, because the trail is long since cold.”

“Not really. We know the assailant had a voice much like your man on the radio. Butch and I are re-examining every piece of evidence, and you, yourself, may be on the verge of remembering. Just be patient.”

“All right. But keep me informed, will you?”

Mike gave her a broad smile. “Sure. How about if I check in with you, say about seven this evening?”

She returned his smile. “That would be fine.”

Audra walked Mike to the door, and stood watching as he retreated down the hallway. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that he knew more than he was telling her. There also was no doubt in her mind that the hands of the police were tied because of the man's so-called airtight alibi. Well, her hands weren't tied. She had every intention of rattling his cage until he knew what it felt like to be a victim.
Let's see how
you
like living in fear!

Mike reached the end of the hallway and glanced back east toward Audra's room as he rounded the corner. She was still standing there. He raised his arm and gave a quick wave before passing from her line of vision.

He was worried about her. He didn't like what he saw on her face, in her eyes. It was a look that was familiar to him. He had seen it on the face of a father when a technicality let the man who had molested his child walk. He had seen it on the face of a husband as he sat in court and heard a judge give a three-month sentence to a man who had raped his pregnant wife. He had seen it on the face of a young mother who listened while a high-priced lawyer convinced a jury that the drunk driver who killed her two children could not possibly have been his client. In every case, the look was the same: a quiet resolve to handle what the system screwed up—a determination to somehow even the score.

Was that what was in Audra's mind? If so, thank God she did not have Simpson's name.

Chapter TEN

By three o'clock, Mike was tired, frustrated, and in an altogether rotten mood. He had spent the afternoon checking with insurance agents present at the Lawrence conference. So far, eleven people had called back to confirm they were not only at the meeting, but also remembered Simpson giving a speech. Three men also verified they had been at the bar with Simpson after the meeting concluded. They all insisted the date and time were right, and had checked old appointment logs for verification. Apparently, Howard Simpson was well known in the insurance field, and his hoarse voice made his speech stand out in their memories.

There was only one other possibility, not substantiated by the facts in the case, that being that the attack took place much earlier in the evening and lasted only a short time—short enough for Simpson to return to the motel in time for the conference. Audra claimed the man held her for several hours, but because she was so fuzzy on all the other details, couldn't she be wrong about that, also? Judging from the time she was due back at the dorm to the time the young couple found her, no one ever questioned her assertion on that point because it seemed the most logical answer.