Sacred Sins (12 page)

“She looked good too,” Ed commented. “Great legs.”

“You're in a rut.” He turned the heater up as the air coming in through the crack of the window cut like a knife. “Anyway, she looked as though she could freeze a man at twenty paces.”

“Clothes send out signals. Authority, indecision, composure. Looked like she was shooting for aloof authority. Seems to me she had those reporters in hand before she opened her mouth.”

“Somebody should cancel your subscription to
Reader's Digest
,” Ben muttered. The big, old trees dotting the sides of the road were at their peak of color. Leaves were soft to the touch and vibrant in reds, yellows, and oranges. In another week they would be dry, littering the sidewalks and gutters, making scratching, empty sounds as they trailed along the asphalt. Ben pushed the cigarette through the crack, then closed it tight.

“Okay, so she handled herself. Problem is, the press is going to have this meat to chew over for days. Media has a way of bringing out the loonies.” He looked at the old sedate buildings behind the old sedate trees. They were the kind of buildings she belonged in. The kind he was used to seeing from the outside. “And damn it, she does have great legs.”

“Smart too. A man sure can admire a woman's mind.”

“What do you know about a woman's mind? The last one you dated had the IQ of a soft-boiled egg. And what is this crap we're listening to?”

Ed smiled, pleased to have his partner back on track. “Tanya Tucker.”

“Jesus.” Ben slid down in the seat and closed his eyes.

“Y
OU
seem to feel much better today, Mrs. Halderman.”

“Oh, I do. I really do.” The dark, pretty woman didn't lie on the couch or sit in a chair, but almost danced around Tess's office. She tossed a sable coat over the arm of a chair and posed. “What do you think of my new dress?”

“It's very becoming.”

“It is, isn't it?” Mrs. Halderman ran a hand over the thin, silk-lined wool. “Red is so eye-catching. I do love to be noticed.”

“You've been shopping again, Mrs. Halderman?”

“Yes.” She beamed, then her pretty, china-doll face drew into a pout. “Oh, don't be annoyed, Dr. Court. I know you said maybe I should stay away from the stores for a little while. And I did really. I hadn't been to Neiman's for almost a week.”

“I'm not annoyed, Mrs. Halderman,” she said, and watched the pout transform into another beaming smile. “You have wonderful taste in clothes.” Which was fortunate, as Ellen Halderman was obsessive. She saw, she liked, she bought, often tossing it aside and forgetting it after one wearing. But that was a small problem. Mrs. Halderman also had the same routine with men.

“Thank you, Doctor.” Like a little girl, she twirled in a circle to show off the flare of the skirt. “I did have the most marvelous time shopping. And you'd have been proud of me. I only bought two outfits. Well, three,” she amended with a giggle. “But lingerie shouldn't count, should it? Then I went down to have some coffee. You know that marvelous restaurant in the Mazza Gallerie where you can look up at all the people and the shops?”

“Yes.” Tess was sitting on the corner of her desk. Mrs. Halderman looked at her, caught her bottom lip
between her teeth, not in shame or anxiety, but in suppressed delight. Then she walked to a chair and sat primly.

“I was having coffee. I'd thought about having a roll, but if I didn't watch my figure, clothes wouldn't be so much fun. A man was sitting at the table beside mine. Oh, Dr. Court, I knew as soon as I saw him. Why, my heart just started to pound.” She put a hand to it, as though even now its rhythm couldn't be trusted. “He was so handsome. Just a little gray right here.” She touched her forefingers to her temples as her eyes took on the soft, dreamy light Tess had seen too often to count. “He was tanned, as though he'd been skiing. Saint Moritz, I thought, because it's really too early for Vermont. He had a leather briefcase with his little initials monogrammed. I kept trying to guess what they stood for. M.W.” She sighed over them, and Tess knew she was already changing the monogram on her bath towels. “I can't tell you how many names I'd conjured up to fit those initials.”

“What did they stand for?”

“Maxwell Witherspoon. Isn't that a wonderful name?”

“Very distinguished.”

“Why, that's just what I told him.”

“So, you spoke with him.”

“Well, my purse slid off the table.” She put her fingers to her lips as if to hide a grin. “A girl's got to have a trick or two if she wants to meet the right man.”

“You knocked your purse off the table.”

“It landed right by his foot. It was my pretty black-and-white snakeskin. Maxwell leaned over to pick it up. As he handed it to me, he smiled. My heart just about stopped. It was like a dream. I didn't hear the clatter of the other tables, I didn't see the shoppers on the floors above us. Our fingers touched, and—oh, promise you won't laugh, Doctor.”

“Of course I won't.”

“It was as if he'd touched my soul.”

That's what she'd been afraid of. Tess moved away from the desk to sit in the chair opposite her patient. “Mrs. Halderman, do you remember Asanti?”

“Him?” With a sniff Mrs. Halderman dismissed her fourth husband.

“When you met him at the art gallery, under his painting of Venice, you thought he touched your soul.”

“That was different. Asanti was Italian. You know how clever Italian men are with women. Maxwell's from Boston.”

Tess fought back a sigh. It was going to be a very long fifty minutes.

W
HEN
Ben entered Tess's outer office, he found exactly what he'd expected. It was as cool and classy as her apartment. Calming colors, deep roses, smoky grays that would put her patients at ease. The potted ferns by the windows had moist leaves, as though they'd just been spritzed with water. Fresh flowers and a collection of figurines in a display cabinet lent the air of a parlor rather than a reception room. From the copy of
Vogue
left open on a low coffee table, he gathered her current patient was a woman.

It didn't remind him of another doctor's office, one with white walls and the scent of leather. He didn't feel the hitch in his gut or the sweat on the back of his neck as the door closed behind him. He wouldn't be waiting for his brother here, because Josh was gone.

Tess's secretary sat at a neat enameled desk, working with a single-station computer. She stopped typing as Ben and Ed entered, and looked as calm and easy as the room. “Can I help you?”

“Detectives Paris and Jackson.”

“Oh, yes. Dr. Court's expecting you. She's with a patient at the moment. If you won't mind waiting, I could get you some coffee.”

“Just hot water.” Ed drew a tea bag out of his pocket.

The secretary didn't show even a flicker of reaction. “Of course.”

“You're a constant embarrassment to me,” Ben muttered as she slipped into a small side room.

“I'm not pumping caffeine into my system just to be socially acceptable.” With his bag of herbs dangling from his hand, he looked around the room. “How about this place? Classy.”

“Yeah.” Ben took another look around. “Fits her.”

“I don't know why that gives you such a problem,” Ed said mildly as he studied a Monet print, sunrise on the water, all softly blurred colors with a touch of fire. He liked it as he liked most art, because someone had had the imagination and skill to create it. His views on the human race were pretty much the same. “A good-looking, classy woman with a sharp mind shouldn't intimidate a man who has a strong sense of his own worth.”

“Christ, you should be writing a column.”

Just then the door to Tess's office opened. Mrs. Halderman came out, her sable tossed over one arm. Seeing the men, she stopped, smiled, then touched her tongue to her top lip the way a young girl might when she spotted a bowl of chocolate ice cream. “Hello.”

Ben hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “Hello.”

“Are you waiting to see Dr. Court?”

“That's right.”

She stayed where she was a moment, then let her eyes widen as she studied Ed. “My, my, you're a big one, aren't you?”

Ed swallowed a small obstruction in his throat. “Yes, ma'am.”

“I'm just fascinated by… big men.” She crossed to
him, letting her eyes sweep up and flutter. “They always make me feel so helpless and feminine. Just how tall are you, Mister…?”

Grinning, with his thumbs still hooked in his pockets, Ben walked to Tess's door and left Ed to sink or swim.

She was sitting behind her desk, head back, eyes closed. Her hair was up again, but she didn't look unapproachable. Tired, he thought, and not just physically. As he watched, she lifted a hand to her temple and pressed at the beginnings of a headache.

“Looks like you could use an aspirin, Doc.”

She opened her eyes. Her head came up again, as though she didn't find it acceptable to rest except in private. Though she was small, the desk didn't dwarf her. She looked completely suited to it, and to the black-framed degree at her back.

“I don't like to take pills.”

“Just prescribe them?”

Her back angled a little straighter. “You weren't waiting long, were you? I need my briefcase.”

As she started to rise, he walked over to the desk. “We've got a few minutes. Rough day?”

“A little. You?”

“Hardly shot anybody at all.” He picked up a chunk of amethyst from her desk and passed it from hand to hand. “I meant to tell you, you did good this morning.”

She picked up a pencil, ran it through her fingers, then set it down again. Apparently the next confrontation would be postponed. “Thanks. So did you.”

He hitched himself onto the corner of her desk, discovering he could relax in her office, psychiatrist or not. There were no ghosts here, no regrets. “How do you feel about Saturday matinees?”

“Open minded.”

He had to grin. “Figured you would be. They're playing a couple of classic Vincent Price films.”

“House of Wax?”

“And
The Fly
. Interested?”

“I might be.” Now she did rise. The headache was only a dull, easily ignored throb in one temple. “If it included popcorn.”

“It even includes pizza after.”

“I'm sold.”

“Tess.” He put a hand on her arm, though he still found the trim gray suit she wore intimidating. “About last night…”

“I thought we both already apologized for that.”

“Yeah.” She didn't look weary or vulnerable now, but in control. Untouched, untouchable. He backed off, still holding the chunk of amethyst in his hand. It matched her eyes. “Ever make love in here?”

Tess lifted a brow. She knew he wanted to shock, or at the very least, annoy her. “Privileged information.” She plucked her briefcase up from beside her desk and headed for the door. “Coming?”

He had an urge to slip the amethyst in his pocket. Annoyed, he set it down carefully and followed her out.

Ed stood beside the secretary's desk, sipping tea. His face was nearly as red as his hair.

“Mrs. Halderman,” she said to Tess, sending Ed a sympathetic look. “I managed to nudge her along before she devoured him.”

“I'm terribly sorry, Ed.” But Tess's eyes glistened. “Would you like to sit down a minute?”

“No.” He sent his partner a warning look. “One word, Paris.”

“Not me.” All innocence, Ben walked to the door and held it open. As Ed walked by, Ben fell into step beside him. “You are a big one, though, aren't you?”

“Keep it up.”

M
ONSIGNOR
Timothy Logan didn't look like Ben's childhood conception of a priest. Instead of a cassock, he wore a tweed jacket over a pale yellow turtleneck. He had the big, broad face of an Irishman, and dark red hair just beginning to go wiry with gray. His office wasn't like the hushed quiet of a rectory with its somehow sanctified fragrances and old dark woods. Instead it smelled of pipe tobacco and dust, like the den of an ordinary man.

There were no pictures of the saints or the Savior on the walls, no ceramic statues of the Virgin with her sad, understanding face. There were books, dozens and dozens of them, some on theology, some on psychiatry, and several more on fishing. Instead of a crucifix there was a mounted silver bass.