Impulse (13 page)

25

“
S
o,
how did things go with Bridger?
"
Mike asked Faith when she arrived at the station.

“Fine.”
Feeling the heat flooding her face, Faith glanced around the small break room trying to remember having driven here. She’d been operating on automatic pilot ever since leaving that elevator.

“So what did he say?” Mike was sprawled out on a bark-brown leather couch that had definitely seen better days. “Did he give you anything that’ll make a splash?”

“Actually, he didn’t give me much more than we already knew.”
Faith crossed the room and took an Earl Grey tea bag from a green plastic basket that had once held take-out fries from The Branding Iron cafe.
“The body has been tentatively identified as Erin.” She turned on the tap at a small sink, filled a red-and-white KWIND mug with water, and stuck in into the microwave on the counter.
“The autopsy is being held in Jackson, and so far nothing that Sam Charbonneaux found in her apartment suggested a reason for anyone to kill her.”

“So it was a random murder?”

“It ap
pears so.
The sheriff did reveal that Erin’s throat was slit.” She had to push the words past the lump that had risen in her own throat. “And that it appeared to have been done by someone who knew what he—or she—was doing.”

“So he thinks it could be a woman?”

“I don’t believe he has any ideas at this point. And although the violence points to a man, I suppose he’s not going to rule out a female killer.”

“Christ.” Mike shook his head. Scrubbed a hand down his face. “What a mess.”

“That’s putting it mildly.” The microwave dinged. “He hasn’t located Erin’s parents yet.”

“She never did talk much about them. At least not to me.”

“Me neither. Did she ever mention her mother being dead?”

“Nope.”

“She did to me. Just in passing; it wasn’t like she made a big deal of her having died.”

“That’s freaking strange.”

“Do you think so?” Faith paused from dunking the tea bag into the water to glance back over her shoulder.

“Well, sure. Having your mom die would probably be
rough on anyone. But from what I’d read in that
Sports Illustrated
cover story, Erin and her mother were like this.” Mike crossed his fingers. “Seems if she’d died, it would’ve been a big deal.”

“I suppose so.” This was a subject Faith could not relate to.

“Specially given that girls tend to be so connected to their mothers. Hell, my older sisters are thirty-eight and forty, but they were both emotional wrecks when Mom went in to get what turned out to be a benign lump removed from her breast.”

“Really?”

“My brother-in-law Dave said Melody kept bursting into tears at the drop of a hat, even a week after the surgery. And Meredith lost ten pounds because she was too nervous to eat.”

“That’s
…
”
Faith paused, looking for the proper word. “Surprising.”

“Not if you knew them.”
He was looking at her a bit curiously. A look she remembered all too well from childhood. A look that revealed he’d pegged her as an alien outsider. Like a pod person. Someone who may look human, but wasn’t quite.
“Guess you didn’t exactly have that same relationship with your mother, huh?”

“No.” Her fingers tightened on the mug as memories of cruel hands and hurtful words washed over her. “I didn’t.”

She went over to the window and looked out over the rolling fields of white. The s
un glancing off the fields of
snow was blinding.
“It’s so beautiful out there, isn’t it?” she murmured in an attempt to shift the conversation before Mike got it into his head to ask any more questions.

“That’s what you say now. Let’s hear if you feel the same way come March.”

“I made it through last winter okay.” If you discounted jumping every time the phone rang or a strange car pulled up outside her apartment. “Besides, you can’t appreciate spring without going through winter.

“It seems it would have to be a man,” she said, returning to their original topic. “Will—the sheriff—said she was attacked from behind and didn’t put up any struggle, which suggests either she knew her killer, or he was a great deal taller and stronger.”

“The girl was no bigger than a minute,” Mike pointed out. “Hell, you’re what, five-six?”

“Seven.”

“See? That’s nearly half a foot taller than Erin was.
I’ll bet you could’ve taken her.”

“I suppose so. Physically. But there’s no way I could ever kill anyone.”

Unless, perhaps they were trying to kill her. A possibility Faith had been forced to consider. Which was what had brought her to Wyoming.

“I didn’t mean you had it in you to do murder. I was just stating a possibility. Like they do on
CSI
.”

He pushed off the couch and poured a mug of coffee
from the carafe and snagged a sugar-frosted donut from the pink cardboard box in the center of the table.
“So, since Bridger hasn’t found her parents, I guess we’re still holding back her name.”

“No. He was pragmatic enough to realize news travels like wildfire in a town this small.”

Immediately after that breath-stealing kiss, he’d shifted immediately back into cop mode and given her permission to tell that much about the case.

“He’s decided at this point, perhaps going public might result in some people coming forward with information.” She glanced down at her watch. “In fact, I suppose we shouldn’t be waiting for the top of the hour if we want to be first with the facts.”

Mike jammed the donut into his mouth. “I’ve already asked Marty to give you some airtime,” he revealed around the sweet, fried dough.

Marty McBride was the morning man who hosted
Trash to Treasure,
a popular barter show drawing callers all the way from neighboring Idaho and Montana looking to swap everything from antique tractors to kitchen- sink plungers. Last summer two callers had even traded a two-bedroom, 1960s ranch house for a motor home.

White confectioners’ sugar drifted down to the vinyl floor like falling snow as Mike brushed his hands together. “Let’s go scoop the big guys.”

26

W
ind Riv
er college was an eclectic
collection of block and frame buildings dating back to the school’s founding in the late 1970s.

The ten-acre campus might not be as famous or as visually appealing as some of the Eastern Ivy League colleges, or Vanderbilt in the South or Stanford in the West, the fraternity and sorority systems were pretty much nonexistent, and the sports were nothing to shout about, but thanks to endowments from local oil- rich sponsors, the administration could afford to bring in high-caliber professors, which, to Will’s mind, was what college should be about, anyway.

The Social Sciences department was housed in a two-story, rectangular frame building that someone had decided to paint an unfortunate shade of yellow. While it would never win any awards for architecture, north- facing windows offered a million-dollar view of White Owl Mountain.

Although he'd learned early in his career the dangers of pigeonholing people, if asked, Will would’ve had to
admit that in his mind he was picturing Dr. Drew Hayworth along the lines o
f Freud, A small, rather fussy-
appearing man with a tidy goatee wearing a three-piece tweed suit. Or perhaps a sports coat with leather patches on the elbows.

The office would be minimalistic, the upholstered pieces wrapped in a pewter gray suede; the art on the wall would be stark black-and-white, perhaps with a few shades of gray, framed in narrow, black metal. Nothing that could be recognized as anything in real life, but more like a Rorschach inkblot test.

He would’ve been wrong on all counts. The man who greeted him was about his own height of six feet two inches, with blue eyes and an open, almost boyish grin. Rather than a suit, he was wearing a navy cashmere, V-neck sweater worn over a blue oxford-cloth shirt, perfectly creased jeans, and hiking boots, which, from the scuffs, appeared to have actually been worn for hiking.

He looked younger than Will’s own thirty-six, but Will figured the guy must be at least that old to have written as many books as he had. There were two bookcase shelves of them, all, from what Will could tell at a glance, clinical studies of psychological disorders.

Including, he couldn’t help but notice, anxiety attacks. A couple had the bright and flashy look of commercial self-help books—one, as Faith had mentioned, on moving past grief; the rest appeared to be more scholarly.

The furniture—the requisite shrink couch and a grouping of wide-armed, oversize leather chairs—appeared comfortable and designed to invite patients to put their feet up on the heavy wooden coffee table.

Rather than inkblots, the wall was covered with Western oil paintings and old sepia photographs, including one Will recognized from the late 1800s, of Arapaho women doing the Ghost Dance. A Native- painted rawhide drum depicting a buffalo hunter on horseback claimed the spot of honor atop a low bookcase.

An eight-foot, perfectly shaped native blue spruce, adorned with white lights and hand-beaded native art, took up the far comer of the room.

“You’ve certainly settled into the spirit of the valley,” Will observed after they’d shaken hands.

Drew Hayworth put his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, rocked back on his heels, and swept a satisfied glance around the office that could’ve been lifted from the State Art Museum in Cheyenne.

“I’m a psychological anthropologist,” he said. “As such, my work seeks to understand the relations between personal and sociocultural phenomena—between such things as innate personality and mind on one hand, and society and culture on the other.”

“I knew a professor of cultural anthropology at Savannah State University,” Will said. “Her work was certainly eye-opening.”

It had also, in a way, helped him fit into the underworld culture where he’d lived and worked for months at a time.

“Cultural anthropology is very close to what I do. But
psychology brings in the additional question of how our minds are involved in the world we live in.
As for my collection, I’m a greedy man,” Hayworth divulged easily. “If I were to analyze myself, I’d describe me as a classic overachiever, competitive, compulsive, with a driving need to experience all life has to offer.
Given that we’re only granted a finite number of years to experience our mortal existence to its fullest, I enjoy a change of scenery every few years.”

“I suppose there’s something to be said for change.” Wasn’t that what Will had enjoyed about working vice?

“Absolutely. And whenever I move to a new location, since I know I won’t be staying all that long, I enjoy immersing myself fully in the local culture.”

He’d definitely done that. Will was drawn to the tree. “This is an impressive collection.”

“Isn’t it?” Lines crinkled around the doctor’s eyes when he smiled.

His all-American looks resembled Redford back in his Sundance Kid days. His skin was deeply tanned, the better to showcase eyes as clear and blue as a Wyoming sky, and his body was lean, but built. If you didn't know better, you might actually believe the shrink was a native. Even his gravelly, Western voice was pure cowboy.

“The Native American culture is so rich, so filled with marvelous tradition and symbolism, it was difficult to choose what to focus on. But after some study, I decided to concentrate on the Plains tribes’ spiritual beliefs in the magical properties of herbal medicines and hallucinogenics.”

He opened the cabi
net and took out a long, soft
leather bag depicting a beaded turtle.

“I’m particularly pleased with this medicine bag,” he said. “I suspect it could have been used to carry the red mescal bean that was used for ceremonies.
“We know it belonged to a woman, given the Arapaho creation story that tells of a turtle diving to the bottom of the ocean and retrieving a mouthful of clay from which the earth was created.”
He traced the orange-and-green, geometric turtle design with a fingertip, the gesture almost reverential. “Although I haven’t acquired one yet, I’m told the boys received lizards.”

“A symbol of long life and wisdom,” Will said.

Will’s grandmother had made him a lizard amulet to take on his vision quest when he’d turned twelve; twenty-four years later, he still carried it with him.

“Exactly.” Hayworth seemed pleased to have someone to share his new interest with. He skimmed a glance over Will’s face. “But of course you’d know that, being of Arapaho descent.”

“I didn’t realize it showed.”

“Oh, it does if one knows what to look for—the faint epicanthic fold to your eyelid, the aquiline bridge of y
our nose, your broad chest…
But to be honest, I already knew from stories I’ve heard about you.”

“All lies.”

The doctor’s laugh was so warm and genuine, Will understood why students, most importantly Erin Gallagher, had been drawn to him. Had he, Will wondered, been the older man in her life?

“And as much as I’d like to spend the rest of the morning admiring your collection and
discussing Na
tive American art, I’m here in an official capacity.”

“Of course.” The smile instantly disappeared from the doctor’s face. A line furrowed between his brows. “You’re here about poor Erin.”

“You know?”

“I heard Faith Prescott break the news on the radio a few minutes ago.” He shook his head. “What a tragic thing to have happened to such a sweet, lovely young woman.”

“Death is always a tragedy.”

“Of course,” Drew Hayworth agreed swiftly. “But she was just a child, Sheriff. It just seems particularly sad to have her life cut short just when she’d starting living it.”

“That’s pretty much what Ms. Prescott said.”

“Did she now?”

“She mentioned everything seeming new to the girl.”

“That’s exactly right.” Hayworth nodded in confirmation. “She was like an eighteen-year-old toddler. Drinking in all the sights and sounds and tastes of her world.”

“Would that include sex?”

“I wouldn’t know, although it certainly wouldn’t be unexpected. College is a time of discovery. Of experimentation. Which would undoubtedly include sexual experimentation.”
Hayworth turned thoughtful. “Are you suggesting if
she did have a lover, h
e—or she—might be the one who
killed her?”

“I'm not suggesting
anything. I'm just collecting
names of people she knew; friends, acquainta
nces, en
emies—”

“Erin didn’t have any enemies,” he said quickly. “Although she hadn’t had the opportunity to make any close friends yet, she was uniformly liked, which, when you think about it, was a bit surprising, given her fame and looks. A lot of people would have generated jealousy among their peers. Or at the very least envy.
However, as I said, everyone who knew her loved her.”

“Including yourself?”

“Of course.”

“What was your relationship to Erin Gallagher?”

“Employer, friend, and, more recently, her therapist.”

“Not her lover?”

A muscle jerked in the psychologist’s tanned cheek. His formerly friendly eyes hardened to stone.

“Because I want you to find her murderer and understand how important it is not to overlook anything or anyone in your investigation, I’m going to resist taking offense at that suggestion, Sheriff,” he said stiffly.
“I’m a licensed psychologist. It would be both illegal and unethical for me to have sex with a patient.”

“Yet some doctors have been known to do exactly that.”

“Unfortunately, that’s true. In fact, there was a study
that found eighty-seven percent of therapists reported sexual attraction to a client.”

“That’s quite a high percentage.” Surprisingly high, Will considered, which had him rethinking turning his son over to a shrink.

“Granted.”

“Have you? Been attracted to a patient?”

“I’m a man before I’m a psychologist, Sheriff. I have desires just as any other male and can’t always prevent having feelings for a female patient. I can, however, refrain from acting on that attraction.
Particularly since that same study indicated that ninety percent of pati
ents who engaged in sexual rela
tionships with their therapists ended up being emotionally harmed.”

Hayworth folded his arms across the front of the sweater. “I have never had sex or engaged in any other untoward sexual activity with a patient. And I’m more than willing to take a lie detector test, if necessary.”

“I’ll let you know. So, this attraction thing,” Will pressed on. “Were you attracted to Erin Gallagher?”

Unlike the earlier friendly smiles, the one Hayworth offered Will was brittle and false. “If I had been, it would certainly be a mistake to tell you, when you’re obviously trying to decide whether or not to put me at the top of your suspect list.”

He drew in a breath seemingly meant to calm the irritation Will's question had stirred. “But the answer is emphatically no. Erin was a lovely, bright young woman. Anyone—man, woman, or child—couldn’t help
be attracted to her enthusiasm and zest of life. But there was absolutely nothing sexual about my feelings.”

“What about her parents? What do you know about a them?”

“I’m uncomfortable discussing what she told me in confidence. There is such a thing as doctor/patient privilege, Sheriff.”

“I understand that, Doctor. But withholding personal information only makes sense if the patient is alive. Which the victim isn’t.”

“Point taken.” Hayworth blew out a long breath. “Her parents divorced several years ago. Apparently over an ongoing disagreement over the emphasis Mrs. Gallagher put on their daughter’s skating. Her father remarried, and from what I gathered, he’s chosen to remain out of her life.”

“How did she feel about that?”

“How do you think she’d feel, Sheriff?”

Will remembered the former stripper turned shrink’s trick of always answering a question with another question. He hadn’t liked the technique then and he damn well didn’t like it now.
“Lousy.”

“That’s pretty much how she felt.”

“Is that why she was on mood-altering drugs?”

“Part of the reason, I suppose. The mind is very complex, Sheriff. We hadn’t known each other long enough for me to get to know her very well, but apparently she’d been on a fruit cocktail of medications for several years.
I was hoping, with time and proper therapy, to wean her off them.

“It’s very difficult for athletes,” Hayworth said. “Especially female athletes. We put them up on gleaming pedestals, where they’re expected to be poster children, while at the same time they’re facing so many difficult issues. Like self-esteem problems, eating disorders, depression, the constant need not only to succeed, but excel. They live with pressures we adults would find difficult to handle day after day. Which is why so many attempt to self-medicate with drugs, alcohol, and sex.

“And while the athletic community is very proactive when it comes to handling physical problems, they’re often far less knowledgeable about emotional and psychological problems.
Coaches expect athletes to be able to tough things out. Which is, of course, impossible when you’re talking about profound clinical depression.”