Head Games (18 page)

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Authors: Eileen Dreyer

BOOK: Head Games
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“So what's this important thing I'm going to do for you, Frank?” she asked.
Frank was busy gnawing on his daughter's neck. “Check on Joey.”
Some of that peace of mind evaporated. “Why?”
Frank's tone of voice didn't change at all so his kids wouldn't catch his meaning. “He didn't meet us after mass this morning. And he's not answering.”
“Joey eats breakfast with us on Sunday,” Theresa explained.
Molly knew that. She also knew that Joey was as predictable as the stock market and twice as reasonable. Joey was one of Frank's oldest friends, a pal from grade school when they'd both attended St. Gabriel's in the city. A buddy through high school at St. Louis U. High, where they'd withstood the rites of puberty together, dating best friends and playing pickup basketball on St. Gabe's playground. But that had been a long time ago.
While Frank had come home from Vietnam almost whole, the best parts of Joey had been left behind. Joey now lived in the caves beneath St. Louis, his eyes vacant, his speech slurred, his mind pocked with madness and despair. Joey was Frank's penance, and he'd paid it for years.
“What do you want me to do?” Molly asked, because she knew Joey, too.
Frank didn't face her. “Go in and check on him.”
Go down into the cave, he meant. Just the suggestion made her sweat all over again. “Oh, I don't think so,” she said. “I don't do caves.”
Frank laughed and shot a look toward her basement door. “We all do caves, St. Molly. Joey's is just more literal than most.”
And Frank, brash, bright, fearless Frank, couldn't so much as stand in the entrance to Joey's cave. Frank couldn't even bring himself to set a foot down Molly's stairs into the basement. Molly had never asked why and Frank had never said. But then, Molly respected phobias like that.
“Can't you yell or have somebody else go down?” she asked.
“He won't let anybody else in but you,” Frank said. “It's what you get for having been a female medical officer. Even the crazies respect that.”
A neat little fact Molly had used to her advantage more than once in her career. Amazing how that military lilt in your voice incited reactions like Pavlov's bell. The odd homeless vet, who listened to no one but his voices and the whisper of Jim Beam, couldn't ignore the peculiar pull a nurse's command stirred up. Molly just didn't want to test the theory today. In a cave.
“You talked to the other guys.”
He nodded.
Rhett made a couple quick notes in his book, Molly saw. Probably figuring on checking out Joey, too. It would keep him busy and accomplish nothing. There wasn't enough of Joey left in that wasted shell to summon any emotion, much less revenge.
Molly took a look out her kitchen window, to where the sun shifted among the clouds across a bleak winter landscape. She thought of how the wind would blow down by the river, how the men would shuffle in the shadows just out of sight where they wouldn't have to risk discovery. She thought of Joey, who had a claim on her because of those haunted, hopeless eyes of his.
“Aw, shit,” she sighed.
Frank smiled. His kids grinned at catching an adult in a rule infraction. Outside Magnum began to bark.
“You want me to check for surprise packages?” Frank asked.
Molly shook her head. “It's Patrick. Magnum gets this amazing note of outrage when Patrick comes in the front door so he can sneak by without having to pet him.”
As if announced, Patrick slammed the front door like a poltergeist in a tantrum. “More news, aunt Molly!” he yelled, loping over the hardwood floors toward the kitchen.
“What is it, Patrick?”
He arrived in the kitchen red-cheeked and windblown, his coat hanging open and his shoes half tied. When he caught sight of exactly who was there to greet him, he slid to an abrupt halt. “I thought you said nobody ever came to see you,” he all but accused.
“You know Frank and the kids,” Molly said. “This is Detective Butler. He's helping with the investigation.”
Patrick didn't so much as waste a glance on Rhett. He was doing some kind of weird male domination dance with Frank, as if he realized that Frank was the person most likely to threaten him.
Frank just smiled. “I bet you're back to clean up the kitchen, aren't you?”
Molly wasn't sure whether she wanted to express gratitude or outrage. It had been a hell of a long time since she'd asked a man to settle her problems. Longer even since she'd allowed one to simply take over by rights.
“Exerting your territorial prerogative, are you?” Patrick demanded.
Before Molly had the chance to slap her nephew, Frank laughed. “Call me a consultant. Your aunt is a whiz at carnage, but her long-term experience with teenage boys is a little light.”
“She's doing just fine,” Patrick said, stiff and cold.
Frank nodded agreeably. “Her learning curve is exceptional. I'm just helping fill in a few blanks. See, having been a teenage boy once myself, I know just how far a kid'll go to keep from fulfilling his responsibilities. But I know how much you want to help your aunt Molly to say thanks for taking you in.”
Molly could feel the tension crackle like air around a high-voltage wire. Give those two another minute, they'd be peeing in the corners.
“That's why I came home,” Patrick said in a deadpan voice, his eyes flat as rocks. “Because I forgot to finish cleaning up.”
Frank's smile was bright as day. “Isn't that what I told you, Molly?”
Molly almost broke out laughing. “You did, Frank. And thank you, Patrick. You know how I appreciate a clean house.”
As if pulling a foot from mud, Patrick yanked his attention around to Molly. “Might as well,” he said. “You want it nice for when you're on camera.”
“When I'm what?”
He waved an arm in the general direction of the front door. “There's a camera truck outside from Channel Seven. They asked me if you lived here.”
Molly thought she was going to throw up. “And you said yes.”
“Well, sure. I want to be on TV, too.”
It was all Molly could do to keep from heaving her teacup at the wall. “Damn it,” she groused. “I guess that means nobody got hold of old Donna.”
“Well, you might want to talk to her,” Patrick said with relish. “Before she talks to the evidence guys.”
Now all the adults were staring. “What evidence guys?”
Patrick's grin was sly and triumphant. “The ones digging up your backyard.”
They weren't exactly digging up the backyard. They had taped it, the yellow plastic fluttering in the breeze, and the white evidence truck tucked away on Euclid on the other side of Molly's wrought-iron fence. Two blue-uniformed techs with gloves and tape measures stood there eyeing Magnum, who was barking loud enough to set off the seismographs at St. Louis U.
“All this for one funny flower box?” Frank asked.
Molly whipped around from where they'd been peering out the back door and stalked to the front of the house. Everybody joined her at the front window to consider the scene there.
She had a satellite truck parked in front of her big maple tree. Alongside it stood an overdressed, over-made-up woman in Burberry and Brooks Brothers, who was taking a final pat at perfectly groomed blond hair as she conferred with a guy holding a videocam. A couple of neighborhood doors had opened, and Sam stood on his lawn with Little Allen, who looked as if he were posing for a statue commemorating grocery baggers. And inside Molly's house, her guests were all peeking out her windows like settlers setting up shots in an Indian raid. This had to be just about the most ludicrous day of her life.
“No,” Molly bleakly assured Frank as she let the curtain fall back into place. “All of this is for two funny flower boxes.”
“Those
were
flowers,” he protested. “You're not going to get me on that.”
“
You
sent me flowers,” she said, backing up so fast she almost bumped
into Rhett. “My secret admirer sent me another present. And somebody told the news about it. Which is why we laughed so hard about your Donna Kirkland joke, Frank.”
Frank's eyes widened. “You really got another gift?”
Molly glared. “Yes, Frank. I did. Makes those flowers really funny, huh?”
For the first time since she'd known him, Molly saw a look of consternation on Frank. Only a flash, of course. Frank didn't waste his time on guilt. “I'm sorry, Mol. I guess I believed you when you said it was all a mistake.”
“Why should I be mad at you?” She shrugged. “I tried to believe it, too.”
Molly took care of Ms. Kirkland with a call to Winnie. Rhett watched as the CSI guys raked Molly's yard for a sum total of five half-masticated chew toys, twelve cigarette butts (which Patrick had to apologize for), three buttons, and an empty can of motor oil. And after they'd all gone, Molly spent the rest of the afternoon down in a too-small cave by the river making sure that Frank's friend Joey would again come out.
By the time Molly walked into the ED next day at three, she was exhausted and impatient. And then, to make matters worse, she was waylaid by Sasha in the parking garage.
Molly hated the parking garage. It was just like Joey's cave but more dangerous. Fewer lights, lower ceilings, and the sudden scuttle of the kind of unpleasant company that kept to the shadows.
Molly always tried to park on the roof of the garage, where she could at least see the stars. But then, again, every female who didn't want to feel at risk parked in the same place. So tonight, Molly was two floors down and having trouble breathing.
And then Sasha waylaid her.
“Good,” she said, shutting her car door and falling into step. “I caught you. It gives me the chance to remind you—yet again—that you haven't attended the class about the new computer system.”
“I've got enough on my plate right now, Sash. I add computers to the stew and I might just commit mayhem.”
“You have somebody taking apart bodies for you, and
computers
bother you?”
“Computers should bother any sentient being.”
“Garbage. You just don't want to learn this system. But may I remind you that with the new mergers, we have to be able to access records from at least four hospitals? Does it occur to your Neanderthal brain how beneficial that can be?”
“Of course. It's just that I know that while we're not looking those things are conspiring against us.”
“You said the same thing about the last class of interns.”
“And I was right. They stole every otoscope in the ED and replaced them with vibrators. Or don't you remember?”
“Of course I remember. I'm a huge fan of the electronic age. Which reminds me. I saw your Detective Butler the other day. Have you finished that list of people who hate you yet?”
That got Molly's attention. “No. Why?”
“Well, put me on it.”
Molly stared. “You? It's only a computer class, Sasha. Surely that's not enough to make you throw body parts at me.”
“No. I'm just intrigued by the idea of being interrogated.”
Molly came to a dead stop, not four feet from the safety of the elevator. “You'd hurt him, Sasha.”
Sasha's smile was lazy and private. “Only if he asked.”
Molly just closed her eyes and shook her head. “Well, at least I've finally found something to think about that's scarier than computers.”
“Think of all the research you could do on that computer system.”
“I don't want to do research, Sasha.”
“Not even to check out the people on that hate list?”
Molly got her eyes open at that. No, she thought. She didn't want to check anybody on her hate list.
Yes, she did.
She wanted to know before somebody brought her the news. She turned and kept on walking. “I'll let you know.”
Her decision was made for her not two hours later.
It had been a pretty typical shift, a lot of winter flu, ice accidents, and one candidate for the Darwin Awards. A stupicide they called it in the ED. Death by idiocy.
“Stupicide how?” Sasha asked as the Medical Examiner's transport cart
came rolling down the hall toward room three, where the unfortunate nominee awaited.
“He and his friend thought it would be fun to shoot apples off each other's head. The friend sneezed.”
“I bet that left a mark.”
“Well, at least our man won the bet. The other guy's apple had a perfect hole through it. He gave it to the homicide cops.”
“Who probably ate it.”
“They'd missed lunch.”
“Misch Burke? Isch that you?”
Molly looked up from her perusal of Clarence Jervis's chart to see a couple of men in white shirts and black slacks coming to a halt on either side of an ambulance cart alongside room five. Turning to answer the smiling one, she almost dropped her charts.
“Lewis?” Molly gaped. “What are you doing here?”
Lewis, whom she couldn't imagine being anywhere but in the corner of the city morgue folding body bags.
His shrug was shy and deferential, his smile all but adoring. “They needed some help with the transchport unit. I volunteered.”
Molly couldn't think of anything more productive to offer than a small nod. “Oh.”
“You're here for William Tell?” Sasha asked.
Lewis blinked like a hypnosis experiment.
“The patient for the morgue,” Molly clarified, trying to ignore the long-suffering look of Lewis's teammate, an overweight, undermotivated guy she'd never been overly fond of.
Lewis straightened to attention. “Oh, yesch, ma'am. Isch that your patient?”
“Yeah, Lewis. I'll be in in a minute.”
Sasha leaned over so that only Molly could hear her. “You just seem to inspire all men to poetry, don't you?”
Molly glared, but Sasha was looking away toward room three, into which Lewis had disappeared. “What did you do for him, teach him to use a pocket comb?”
Molly deliberately refocused on her work. “He's one of the morgue techs at the office.”
Sasha nodded. “He'sch in love,” she said, neatly mimicking Lewis's lisp.
Molly laughed. “He's …”
What? Semiliterate? Semisocialized? Semitidy?
“In
love
,” Sasha repeated. “Just like Frank. And Rhett. And at least one of those poor housekeeping dweebs who keeps asking to pull time down here so he can gaze rapturously at you. You do have the most interesting impact on men.”
Molly was quickly losing her sense of humor. “Frank considers me a challenge. Rhett is …” She shrugged. “Rhett. As for Lewis, I don't kick him like an oversize poodle, which Winnie has been known to do. I don't have a clue what the housekeeping guy's problem is.”
“You're nice to him.”
“Well then, I'll stop. Right now. Just point him out to me and I'll sneer at him. I'll sneer at them all. If this is just a reaction to my being a nice person, I'll show them my true colors.”
Sasha nodded. “I see. It's not love. Just blind devotion. No wonder you have somebody sending you body parts.”
A week ago Molly would have at least attempted a laugh. But this time she grabbed her paperwork and stalked off, figuring silence would be better than an anatomically impossible suggestion.
“Molly Burke, outside line one. Molly Burke …”
Molly grabbed the phone next to the copy machine. “This is Molly Burke.”
“Ms. Burke, this is Sheila, Mr. Phillips's secretary?”
Molly almost said, “Who?” It took her several long moments to pull the name out of her memory banks. But then, she shouldn't have been surprised.
Mr. Phillips was Molly's investment broker. The investment broker who took Sam's suggestions and put them to such solid use for her retirement account. In the five years Molly had been home, Mr. Phillips had never once found need to call her at work. Molly forgot the chart she was copying.
“Yes, Sheila?”
There was a little nervous silence, a brief clearing of the throat. “I thought … that is, Mr. Phillips wanted me to call you. The … the
police
are here, Ms. Burke. They want to look into your
finances
.”
Molly shut her eyes, tried to block out the sounds in the work lane. Retirement accounts were not a normal part of victimology—at least not any she'd ever studied. Which meant that somebody suddenly considered her more than a victim.
“Who's there?” she asked. “Detective Butler?”
“Uh …”
“Cute, puppy dog kind of guy, blond?”
“Oh no. This man is … well, he's, uh …
black.
” Whispered, as if she should have been embarrassed to notice. “He says he can come back with a court order.”
Which meant he didn't have one yet. Molly could stand on her rights and dick the guy around. She should, damn it. He shouldn't think he was dealing with an amateur here.
“Let me talk to him.”
It took only a nanosecond for the change of voice. “This is Sergeant Davidson. Miss Burke?”
Davidson. Aw, hell. Molly did not like Sergeant Davidson, a toohandsome, too-groomed, too-controlled cop with a gleaming bald pate and the kind of tailored suits that cops only wore on TV.
“What are you doing?” Molly demanded.
“Using my best judgment in investigating this case, Ms. Burke. The major asked me to take over.”
Molly's blood pressure skyrocketed.
“And Rhett?”
“If you have any problems, you can come to me.”
“Problems like you investigating my finances without a court order?”
“Problems like that.”
Well, at least he didn't play any games with her.
“Have you even bothered to talk to Rhett, who already has my financial information?” she demanded.
“He has the information you gave him.”
Her field of vision was going red. She was shaking. For the first time since this whole mess started, she was beginning to feel violated. Donna Kirkland was going to leave her bleeding. This guy was going to tear apart what was left.
Molly swore she hadn't been really mad until then. Which was undoubtedly why she almost broke the phone in half.
“So what do you think?” she snapped. “That I'm working with somebody else to create a sensation in my backyard, from which I collect cash and the other person collects … what? Notoriety? A souvenir concession? And I get my shot at Larry King as the only recorded serial killer who's left body part trophies to
herself
?”
Oh, great. She was so mad, he'd made her say the word. Which made her even more furious. “If I wanted to do that, Sergeant Davidson, I probably would have manufactured miraculous visions of the Virgin Mary in my fishpond. No need for evidence at all, ya know? Not to mention having to deal with all that Soilex and paint.”

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