Salter, Anna C (18 page)

For a moment there was silence, and the atmosphere started to pick up a charge. I remembered Hawaii and the feel of the sand on my bare back. I remembered my loft and the moon shining through the skylight across his bare chest. I remembered his fingers sliding between ... I looked at him. I saw the look in his eye and knew he was remembering something too, whatever it was.

"Don't start," I said.

Adam didn't speak.

"I'm here on business," I said.

Adam still didn't speak.

"Look, if you're going to — " But Adam interrupted.

"Michael," he said, "I haven't said anything."

"Oh," I said. "That's right. . . . Never mind."

How could this man discombobulate me like that? I shouldn't let myself get in the same room with him.

"Just projection," I said, sighing. "I'm talking to myself."

"Keep talking," he said.

"Never mind," I replied.

I started to tell him about Camille. Adam didn't seem to be paying that much attention—whether he admitted it or not, he had a look in his eyes I knew pretty well —until I started talking about why I was no longer sure she was having flashbacks. A lot of cops would have dismissed what I said —I had zero for hard evidence—but Adam wasn't a lot of cops.

He got very focused, and wherever he had been, he wasn't anymore. I told him about Chris, and he got even more interested. He knew as well as I did that sadists could and did return. If there was a way to get around Keeter, then what Camille was saying wasn't all that improbable.

"How sure are you?" he said, finally.

"That they're not flashbacks? I don't know. They just don't sound like flashbacks. How do you have a flashback to something that never happened? I guess I'd have to say pretty sure."

"How do you know she isn't making it up?"

"The whole thing? From the beginning? As in Munescheusen? Oh, I'd stake a lot on that. You can't fake the way she was in the hospital. Pupils dilated, shallow, rapid breathing, skin color changes. She was in a full-blown panic attack."

"Crazy?"

"Crazy? As in paranoid? And has panic attacks because she believes what she says?" Actually, I hadn't even thought about it, but it didn't sound right.

"I don't know. The content of her delusions isn't right. I don't know why, but paranoids all have the same kinds of delusions: People are broadcasting through their teeth; aliens have planted a transmitter in their skulls. This isn't anything like any paranoid delusion I've ever seen."

"Yeah, but they do have a thing about people going after them."

"True," I had to admit. "I guess I can't rule it out completely, but I don't buy it. I'd have to think about why." I paused while I tried to figure out why I was so sure it wasn't paranoia.

"Paranoids have this suspicious way about them," I said finally. "They check your office. They decide you're one of them. They keep looking for hidden recorders. I don't get any of that from Camille.

"But it's all the more reason to check with the original cops on the case. I can't say it's impossible. But I'd say if the original incident happened like she said, there's not a lot of reason to think she's making this one up." I knew that was where Adam would start anyway. He'd want to get the original crime reports and find out how far the Boston cops had gotten on solving the case.

"Now, Michael, don't get upset. False Memory Syndrome?"

I rolled my eyes. "Adam, we've gone through this. The false memory zealots have zero —and I do mean zero —evidence there is any such thing. And there is a whole lot of evidence — as in tons —that there isn't. But even if you were a died-in-the-wool false memory crazy, you wouldn't apply it to this case. This is out-of-family-stranger attack. Not exactly the kind of case that's a candidate for the false memory bullshit.

"Besides, I really don't think the issue is going to be the original attack. I have a feeling Boston will confirm that she was found just like she said. I think the issue is going to be whether that attack did something to her so profound that this guy is back only in her head. Even by the backlash's reckoning, that wouldn't be a false memory issue."

"I'll check it out," he said, "and call you."

I gave him what I had. Bit by bit, I had gotten little pieces of what happened from Camille. She knew the exact date that she had been abducted, and, of course, she knew the name of the hospital where she had worked. She wasn't as sure where she had been found. Everything immediately after the attack was hazy, but she remembered one of the detective's names very clearly. She had dissociated by focusing on his name badge when he was hassling her.

I left reluctantly; I just felt like hanging around. A part of me wanted to say, "So your lover is a porcupine. So?" Maybe I wanted to say, "All right, so you could find a less prickly lover. But could they hit the jumper from the corner?" Maybe most of all I wanted to just say, "Dinner?" But I didn't say any of it. I just said, "See ya." I figured he knew what I meant. No sense in belaboring things.

On the way out I thought about it. Once in a while I used to pick up those books that said things like "Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus." They always made me feel like I was from Pluto. I didn't seem to fit.

Things were fine up until fifth grade. Then all the other girls started sitting on the rocks at recess and combing their hair. Boring, boring, and more boring. I couldn't cope with the rocks, so I played tight end on the football team. Needless to say, there weren't a lot of other girls playing.

I knew what I was doing. I was rationalizing the fact that it would kill me to sit down and talk to Adam about our relationship. Some part of me knew I should, but I just didn't want to. And Adam was only slightly better than I was at that sort of thing. Although, come to think of it, when a hard-nosed police chief was better than I was at talking about feelings, it could be I was pretty far out there. Well, somebody had to hold down one end of a continuum. Otherwise the normal curve wouldn't work.

I glanced at my watch. I was running a little late for Marv. As in hours late. It was getting on in the afternoon, and late afternoon is prime time for therapists to see clients. Adults work and kids go to school, so the late afternoon hours are usually the busiest.

Marvin was booked, his secretary told me when I arrived. That didn't surprise me, but the note on my desk did. "I'm seeing clients till eight. Please don't come over to the house afterward or any time during the weekend. I don't really want to talk on the phone about this either. I think it best to wait until Monday and talk to you at work. Could we meet early Monday? Name a time and I'll reschedule whatever I have to. Give the message to Rochelle."

Don't come over to the house? Name a time and he will reschedule? Reschedule a client for the sake of a meeting? That just didn't happen. Don't call. Something pretty serious was going on, but I couldn't think of any scenario that would have Marv telling me not to come by the house to talk about it. Did he have a lover I didn't know about who didn't want company? Domestic problems?

But Marv didn't have a lover except for his paintings — I was pretty sure of that—and try as I might, I couldn't think of a single painting that would object to my dropping by.

And Lord, it could not be, no, it could not be somehow that Ginger was staying at his house. Even if Marv had a psychotic break, he wouldn't permit such a thing ... I hoped. I reminded myself of the numerous times I'd been in cases where people were astonished at some of the things their friends or family members had done. Nobel prizewinners and rock stars molested kids. Presidents of universities made obscene phone calls. And every one of those people had other people who loved them and absolutely could not believe they would do such a thing.

Almost 10 percent of male therapists get sexually involved with clients. It isn't like it is even that uncommon. But not Marv. If Marv had made a mistake anywhere near that serious, I was going to set records for astonishment.

But if it wasn't that, then what? Why didn't Marv want me over to his house? The world was making less and less sense every goddamn day.

As long as I was at Psychiatry I might as well tie up some loose ends. I called Toby and caught him between power lunches. His secretary put me through right away. Amazing how accessible he was when you were doing him a favor. "Toby," I said. "This is Michael. I can't tell you any of the details because I don't have permission, but things worked out pretty well in that case you referred me. You might want to give Lucy a call."

"I'm very glad to hear that," he said, and his voice sounded genuinely relieved. "I'm very appreciative of your help."

"Happy to," I said, and I meant it. Toby was rarely on the side of the angels, but when he was, I didn't mind hanging out with him.

And I wasn't sorry to have Toby owing me. In the world of faculty politics, people pay their debts. In fact, Toby did almost nothing but. He generally paid more attention to whom he owed and who owed him than whatever issue was under consideration.

No doubt I'd be in trouble again, and no doubt there would be a time I needed support from Toby, and almost always when that happened, I was on the low end of the power continuum and not somebody Toby would get a lot of points out of supporting. I didn't mind at all having a chit from Toby in my pocket.

I stayed and worked for a while, and it was dusk when I finally strapped on my fanny pack and walked out to the car. My head was full of lying fraternity rapists and eavesdropping sadistic ministers, and most of all my head was full of worry about Marv and Camille.

What was it Stevens wrote, "We must endure our thoughts all night until the bright obvious . . ." Stevens, master of the midway zap. In the beginning, he was talking about a snowstorm, and by the end you realized the snowstorm was inside his head and not outside. Maybe someday all of this was going to turn into the "bright obvious," but right now a snowstorm was an understatement. It was more like swimming in mud.

Dusk settled in all around me as I drove home. I hate dusk— for the same reason I hate snowstorms — inside or out. I can't see. I can see more at night once my eyes acclimate than I can when everything is betwixt and between.

There is, I admit, the occasional splashy sunset at dusk. But it is only occasionally that dusk has a little glory to it. Nine-tenths of the time it is just a messy transition. Now, if day just went whap, like a light shutting off, and there you were, in the sparkling night sky, that would be a transition. But every single goddamn day, you have to put up with this lingering, slow, death-of-the-light business. Thank goodness, by the time I got home the day had finished falling apart and night was blooming.

I walked out onto the deck with my solace glass of ice tea just as the full moon slipped from behind some clouds. Looking up I remembered being five years old and riding home in a car with the moon following us all the way. I remember how amazed I was: Everywhere we went, there it was —no matter how fast we went the moon always seemed to keep up.

I used to talk to the moon, sitting at the window of my bedroom. I didn't understand that the half moon and the full moon were the same thing, and I waited and waited until the full moon came back.

When it did, I wouldn't throw my usual fit about going to bed: I couldn't wait till Mama closed the door and I could drag a chair over to the window. I talked, and the moon listened. Mama wasn't exactly the listening type, and if she did listen, she was likely to say something warm like, "Don't talk foolishness, girl," or she would just snort. Mama had a snort that said "bullshit" better than "bullshit" said it. The moon never said anything like that.

I remembered sneaking out and swimming under that moon when I was older. I always have liked being outside at night —most of all when the moon was shining like it was tonight. I looked at the stream below the deck: In the moonlight it had a vibrancy that hurt your eyes it was so intense, nothing like the ordinary stream it became during the day.

But then the moon gives everything a kind of grace. What doesn't look good under a full moon? Old cars look good. Junkyards look good. Shopping malls look good.

I had the feeling, suddenly, of being watched, and at first I thought it was the moon. I shook my head and smiled, thinking how easy it was to slip back into that five-year-old person—but I stopped my head in mid shake.

The feeling of being watched wasn't benign. It wasn't a feeling of being looked after or watched over: It was something different. I looked up at the moon one last time, and then I looked at the trees across the stream.

I'd chalk it up to paranoia if, oddly enough, I hadn't seen the research. The research said people could tell when somebody was staring at them although nobody knew how. Besides, if it was paranoia, I reasoned, it wouldn't have happened in the middle of my basking in the full moon, which was one time I hadn't been worrying about Willy at all. Likely, the opposite was true. If I was being watched, it probably had taken a while for it to get through my moon-soaked brain.

I sipped my ice tea and thought about it. I didn't have my fanny pack on the deck, and it was probably not a very good idea to be out here like some kind of sitting duck. What was going on? Was this the night Willy was making his move, or was he here just to scout the terrain?

Thinking about it, I felt the bitter taste of fear in my mouth, and then I got mad. Seriously mad. I just couldn't live my life sitting around waiting for someone to torture and murder me. Willy hadn't laid a finger on me, and already he had stolen just about everything I cared about. I couldn't even sit on my goddamn deck in the moonlight without worrying about him.

I got up abruptly and walked back into the house and picked up my fanny pack where I had dropped it. Goddamn it. This was totally and completely ridiculous. Who knew these woods better than me? Willy? I don't think so. Who was used to being in the woods at night? Willy or me? Ten to one Willy wasn't sneaking out of the house at fifteen to swim under the full moon, although, come to think of it, he probably was sneaking out of the house to play Peeping Tom at that age.

What the hell. You place your bets. If Willy and I were going to duke it out, I probably had more advantage in my own woods at night than I'd get anywhere else.

I ran up to the loft and stared at my clothes hanging in my closet. I didn't exactly have a lot. A limit of 250 things in my life total somewhat limited my wardrobe. Surprise, surprise, I didn't have an official night-creeping outfit. Everything had to be black —I knew that from all the rapists I had interviewed — so what could I put together?

I didn't have any black sweatpants. My two pairs of blue jeans were blue. But I did have one pair of black dress pants. I grabbed them, pulled off my clothes, and put them on. I looked for shoes. I could wear the one pair of flat black pumps I used for work, but they would be awful in the woods. I sighed as I saw my black, high-top basketball shoes. I'd never worn them off the court before, but I guessed I could make an exception. At least, I wouldn't be on concrete.

I found a black turtleneck in the drawer and pulled it on and then a black sweater over it. I rummaged around until I found a navy blue knit cap. It wasn't black, but it was close. I strapped on my fanny pack. I looked pretty funny with my basketball shoes and my dress pants. As if I cared. This goddamn thing was going to be over tonight one way or the other.

I strapped the fanny pack on my hip and ran down the stairs from the loft and headed for the back door. Just before I reached it, I screeched to a halt. Nobody who had ever seen Silence of the Lambs could even think about a perp at night without wondering if he had night goggles.

What if he did? Did he know what I was thinking when I looked up at the woods, got up abruptly, and went back inside? Which door was he watching, the deck door or the back door? Even without night goggles, he could see me come out of the door in the moonlight if he was watching it. How smart was Willy? Smart. But he couldn't watch both at once, so which door would he watch?

I paced around the room thinking and saw I hadn't locked the deck door in my haste. Absentmindedly, I locked it. I was going to have to place my bets. Which door would he be watching? There just wasn't any way to know, and I could be in big trouble if Willy saw me coming out of the house and ambushed me.

I turned from the deck door—goddamn it, I didn't want to make a random choice, but I wasn't staying inside —and my eyes fell on the wood box. The wood box. I had one of those wood boxes that's cut right through the wall of the house. To load it with firewood, you had to go outside, remove a two-foot insulated plug from the side of the house, and load the wood. It was set up so you never had to drag wood inside the house.

I threw the top of the wood box open and started pulling firewood out, throwing it in all directions on my precious hardwood floor. The plug was only two feet or so wide. Good thing I was skinny. I could fit through two feet, at least on the diagonal. I got the last of the wood out and stood up. I looked around. What had I forgotten? The lights. I walked over and turned off the living room lights. I should have done it before, but the wood box was off to the side, hidden by a sofa from the huge A-frame window that fronted the deck. Nobody could have seen me unload the wood box, but now I was about to open it. I didn't want the light to shine through the open wood box door and give me away.

The wood box wasn't big enough for me to get in completely, so I leaned in as far as I could and brushed off the wood dust from the plug. This was the tricky part. The plug couldn't be pulled inside; it would only go out. The only way to get it out was to push it out on the ground, and I didn't want to make a lot of noise. If I didn't alert Willy by making noise, he really couldn't see me slipping out of the side of the house no matter which door he was watching.

I pushed on the plug gently, and nothing happened. I pushed again and got nowhere. Finally, I started hitting it with my fist with short jabs until it started moving outward. The plug was insulated, and my fist didn't make any real noise on the insulation.

I got lucky. One side of the plug opened up first, and I was able to reach my hand around it and grab the edge before the whole thing fell. I eased the plug out the rest of the way and at least broke its fall to the ground.

I stuck my head out and just waited. It would take two or three minutes for my eyes to acclimate, and there was no point in going anywhere until they did. Soon the darkness in front of me turned into trees and a woodpile, and I put my arms over my head and started to wiggle out. I wiggled out as quickly as I could and quietly replaced the plug. It wouldn't be good if Willy found it and went in while I was out.

I crouched down for a moment to get oriented. The opening was near the woodpile, and the woodpile was high enough to provide cover, so I was okay where I was for a few minutes. I was beginning to regret the full moon. The night was too bright. Anybody could see anybody in this light, and I had several feet of clear moonlit ground to cross before I could get to the shadow of the trees.

I could hear my heart beating while I waited, but it wasn't exactly fear, it was more like exhilaration. I have always felt invisible in the woods at night, although God knows that is a myth. Every woods animal within forty miles knew there was a human about, but people didn't expect anybody to be in the woods at night, certainly not without a flashlight. If you wanted to hide, the woods at night were the place.

Something was bothering me, nagging at me, but I was getting a taste of the exhilaration I had on the cross-country course, and I ignored it. I'd think about it later. First, I had to get to the cover of the trees. I crouched and duck-walked along the edge of the house, looking for the place where the distance to the trees was the shortest. I found the closest place and got ready. I knew I'd be faster standing up but a lot more visible, so I took a deep breath and wiggled across the moonlit ground on my belly.

I made it to the edge of the trees, then stood up and ran some distance through the trees before I crouched down and listened. Nobody shot me; nobody even shot at me. In fact, I didn't hear anything unnatural. Nothing big and awkward was moving in the woods. The crickets were still holding forth. I was surprised they hadn't piped down. I could hear an owl in the distance screeching—nature was having its nightly orgy of death and destruction.

A whole lot of me didn't want to go looking for Willy, gun or not. A whole lot of me just wanted to melt into the shadows and feel that nobody and nothing could find me. I was tired of being alert, of waiting for trouble, of having the rhythm of my life dictated by a goddamn predator. I did not like feeling like a goldfish in a fishbowl with a cat's face pressed up against the side. I could climb a tree right now, right up to the top like I did when I was fifteen, and the moon would blaze down on me like grace. Nobody would find me there.

But if I did, Willy would still be there when I got down —if not tonight, then tomorrow night or the next or the next. I started to move through the trees. I just couldn't live like that. I'd parallel the road and go down far enough that when I turned back, I'd come up behind him, no matter where he was watching the house from. There was a small hill across the stream from the house. Willy would be somewhere on that hill, looking down, if he hadn't left by now.

Then I stopped. I knew what was bothering me. Funny thing to think about at this late stage, but exactly what was I going to do when I got there? Was I actually planning on shooting him? In cold blood? In the back? Or was I planning on letting him shoot at me first? In which case what I would do might be a moot point.

But what if he didn't have a gun or didn't pull one? Was I going to march him down to my house and call the police? The very thought of Willy inside my house made me completely crazy. Also, what would they have him on? Trespassing. Big deal. He'd be out in two days and more clever the next time.

I started moving again and thought of all the things Willy had done to children and would do to children in the future, and the thought of him dead had a lot of appeal. I didn't mind him dead. I didn't have a problem with his being dead. But the truth was I didn't even like to shoot silhouettes of people. So I was not going to be happy shooting at a real person. Much less if he didn't try to shoot at me.