Salter, Anna C (3 page)

Willy had a gift. Dealing with Willy was like dealing with an emotional chameleon. He knew, as though he had radar, just what kind of emotional tone people wanted to hear, and he could produce it unfailingly. I had studied Willy for countless hours, but I still didn't know how he did it. Something in me couldn't grasp it.

Slowly, I walked back to the office. Just to reassure myself of my own sanity, I opened the drawer with my Willy-tapes in it. With his permission I had audiotaped some of my interviews with him —getting a sadist to really talk was such a rare thing I had decided to tape so I could go back over them. I could learn a lot from Willy although what he had to teach was pretty depressing.

I thumbed through the cassettes until I found the one I was looking for: the label read "Ways to Con Adults." Willy had signed permission for me to tape his interviews with the written stipulation that I could never share the tapes with anyone else. Just like Willy to tantalize me with something and then make sure I couldn't use it.

I pulled out my tape recorder and popped the tape in. I had left the tape set at the section it seemed to me was the most important. "It's very simple, Dr. Michael," Willy was saying. "Simply find out what people need. What do they need? Do they need money? I'll loan it. Do they need a listening ear? I'll be there. Do they need reassurance? I'll supply it. People are full of needs." He had laughed.

"The only difficult part is figuring out what they need most. What do they need badly enough that they will sell their firstborn, so to speak. What do they need badly enough that they will ignore what is right in front of their eyes? I have molested kids in the backseat of a car with their parents in the front seat."

I had been floored by that and hadn't spoken for a moment. Willy had laughed again. "Indeed, I have. I'd simply pull a blanket over a sleepy child and fondle them with their parents in the front seat. They'd wake up, of course, and that trapped look they'd give their parents was so satisfying. They knew they wouldn't be believed. Somehow they knew. And they were right. Their parents wouldn't have believed them if they had reported me on the spot.

"There are subtleties, of course, which I can't expect you to grasp. You are really such a limited student." Which, I thought every time I heard the tape, was true.

"Like what?"

"What they need. What they hunger for. Ultimately, it's never anything concrete. Oh, sometimes it starts with money, a loan to get them out of debt or something, but it always turns out that the money represents something else — importance or support or something—something that turns out to be much more addictive than money.

"The highest level" —and I could still remember Willy's eyes starting to shine —"is to supply something crucial that the person is not even aware of needing, something completely unseen that they become totally dependent on my providing. Then you can take chances, which of course intensifies the excitement."

"Like what?"

"Oh, you can make the abuse of their child a little more obvious and a little more obvious until they have to work not to see it."

"And what is it that people need badly enough, even unconsciously, to tolerate your molesting their child? Friendship? Self-worth? What is it you supply, Mr. Willy, that is worth so much?"

"Well, Dr. Michael, no good cook shares all the ingredients. Really, you don't expect me to do all the work for you, do you?"

And what was it that Willy had supplied me with, that kept me coming back to see him? Willy didn't want to talk about that, but then again, neither did I.

I popped the tape, picked up the newspaper, and stared glumly at the article. A taint hearing. The case was over. There wasn't any way to prove something didn't exist. It was like trying to prove a white elephant wasn't in the room. Some misguided fool had asked a leading question somewhere along the way, and after that, anything the children said would be considered tainted.

Never mind that the children disclosed abuse in the interview with the county social worker —otherwise, there wouldn't have been an interview. Never mind how many symptoms the children had —and Willy had described to me their deterioration in gloating detail.

The bottom line was simple: One thing people surely needed was to believe they could tell who was safe and who wasn't, and a whole lot of people had trusted Willy. He looked good; he talked good; he was a popular minister in his community who had regularly visited the sick and the elderly. A lot of people had been devoted to him. If there was any way to explain away the accusations against him, people would take it. And now they had one.

By noon, Sweet Tomatoes was in high gear. Non-traditional pasta dishes are their specialty, and nobody can cook pasta like Sweet Tomatoes. The area is too small for the restaurant to have any serious competition, but it would have held its own anywhere. I have tenure at Sweet Tomatoes.

I was led to the last table by the window, and waved to Harvey, one of the owners, as I sat down. He came over and joined me. "Got a minute?" he said.

"Probably more than a minute," I answered. "I'm waiting for Carlotta to get out of a hearing." Prosecutors don't control when hearings end so Carlotta might or might not show up in the foreseeable future. Harvey sat down, and I resisted the temptation just to close my eyes and listen. He had that kind of deep, snuggle-up, male voice you can't hear without thinking about climbing into bed. He was a teddy bear of a man, a big guy carrying a little extra weight around his middle. You could easily overlook the extra weight. That voice would sound very good about an inch from your ear. But I swore off married men. I did.

"Still making the world safe from child abuse?" he asked.

"Nah, I switched. I testify for the perps now. More money in it."

Harvey looked taken aback. "Just kidding," I said. "I almost got in trouble in court with my sick sense of humor, though. A prosecutor asked me why I was charging so much less than the defense expert, and I almost said, 'Costs more when you sell your soul,' but I didn't."

Harvey laughed. "Why not?"

"Too risky," I answered. "I've already had one judge recluse the jury in the middle of my testimony and say to the prosecutor, 'Your witness has come perilously close to calling the defense a flim-flam.'"

"You can't call the defense a flim-flam?"

"Nope. Not even when it is. You're supposed to be respectful. What's up with you?"

"Nothing really. We're going to Italy again. Testing new wines for the restaurant."

"Tough life," I said.

"I wanted to ask you something, about a neighbor of mine. . . ."

"Shoot," I replied. I hated this. People always want me to diagnose their spouses, their children, even their cats. But you have to listen. At least you do if you want the last table by the window.

"I have this neighbor with this vicious-looking dog, and I'm a little worried. ..." My ears perked up. Could it be? Small areas are like that: You run into all kinds of crossovers —once my dentist turned out to be the battering husband of a new client. But even in small areas, I reminded myself, there is more than one neighbor with a vicious-looking dog.

I didn't get to explore it because at that moment Carlotta walked in. Heads turned discreetly. No one actually stares at anybody in New England. Charles Bronson could —and did — walk down the street in the town where he had a vacation home without a single fan drooling on him. But people do notice interesting folks, and Carlotta had been six feet tall and interesting-looking since she was twelve.

Harvey saw her too and stood up. "Never mind," he said. "I'll catch you later."

"Give me a call," I said with, I hoped, nothing in my voice but ordinary friendliness. Sexy men always pull me off center.

Carlotta may have just rushed out of the hearing, but no one in the restaurant would have known. She walked unhurriedly to the table and sat down. She was dressed very simply in black crepe pants, a black matte blouse, and a black blazer. Around her neck she wore a handmade Native American beaded necklace. It was exquisite, and the simple black surrounding it set it off like a frame. If Calvin Klein had walked in, he would have put Carlotta on a runway just as she was. Well, actually, he had, once upon a time.

Carlotta looked worried. "Case go okay?" I asked when she sat down.

"Fine," she said, looking at me carefully. I realized I was the reason she was worried, and it hit me that Carlotta had probably chosen Sweet Tomatoes over my office because she knew I wouldn't yell there. Jesus. I've become someone other people have to manage. Maybe I ought to tone down my temper a bit.

"I'm all right," I said. "I don't like it. I think it's bullshit. I think it's worse than bullshit; I think it's criminal. I think every single judge that voted to put him on the street should be shot, but what can I say, every day somebody gets off who shouldn't."

There was a pause. What was bothering Carlotta? I was calm. Neither of us could do anything about Willy. "Well, what are you going to do?" she asked.

"Do? As in do what? There isn't a whole lot I can do."

"Michael, I don't want to remind you of anything you're trying to deny." Great. Now Carlotta's a psychologist? "But Alex Willy is a very dangerous man."

"So?"

"So, if I understand this right, he has told you things that no one else knows about him."

"So?"

"So, maybe I'm missing something, but isn't that likely to worry him?"

"Maybe," I admitted. "But how much harm can I do him? Obviously I can't put it in the paper. What's he got to worry about?"

"Is he going to quit molesting children?" Carlotta asked me directly.

"No, he isn't."

"What are the chances he'll get caught again?" she pressed.

"Eventually it's likely," I said. "But probably not soon. Willy controls kids with a combination of getting the kids to fear him and the parents to trust him, and the things he does to the kids are so extreme. The kind of abuse he inflicts doesn't sound plausible to most parents."

"So why is he going to get caught again?"

"He's too active," I answered. "He just molests too many kids, and he loves to take chances. He'll push the envelop until eventually he's caught."

"And when he is, what about you?"

"Carlotta, what do you mean what about me? What about me nothing."

"Are you or are you not a threat to Willy?" Carlotta said as though she were cross-examining a hostile witness, which she was, sort of. "Given how much you know, wouldn't you be a very effective witness for the prosecution?"

"You forget, counselor. Everything Willy has told me is considered 'hearsay' by the courts, and it is not admissible."

"There are twenty-four exceptions to hearsay. I won't bore you with the details, but the bottom line is I've gone over this carefully and checked it out with my boss —without any names, of course," she added hastily, "and I think the stuff he's told you would be admissible."

"Jesus." Willy wouldn't like that. And he would surely check it out. Willy counted on the fact that any abused child who reported him would not have any corroboration of what he was saying. And regardless of what happened to the current case, there would surely be abused children reporting him in the future.

"Patient/doctor confidentiality?" Carlotta asked. "What about that?"

"I don't think so," I had to answer. "He was never a client of mine. I never provided any services."

We were both quiet for a moment. "Michael, anything he's confided in you might even be admissible if he's ever tried again for the current offense."

"He won't be."

"True."

Silence fell. This conversation was not going anywhere I wanted to go. I picked up my menu and got very involved in the choices.

"Michael, you're going to have to deal with this."

I put the menu down. From her artful makeup to her tastefully streaked hair, Carlotta looked like a woman whose chief concern in life was not breaking a nail. Not exactly. I knew Carlotta well enough to know once she got her teeth in something, there wasn't going to be any way to ignore it.

"Deal with what, Carlotta? Look. He's not really interested in adults sexually, so he wouldn't go after me just as a straight victim. And remember he's been away from kids for years now, and he's built up a lot of fantasies. He's going to set himself up somewhere and start ingratiating himself in the community.

"I don't think he'll want to take a detour to come after me just to keep me quiet. He can solve his problem with me by moving as far away as possible. I'll never know if he gets caught for something new. And the old case isn't going back to trial. You know that."

We sat in silence again. I went back to the menu, although not very hopefully. "Is it likely?" Carlotta asked. "Would he just move away? And could you live with it if he did? Knowing that he would still be out there molesting kids?"

"No" to everything, I thought. In my heart of heart I knew Willy was too thorough to leave loose ends. And part of it was he'd know that even if he left me alone, I wouldn't leave him alone.

"Sure," I lied. "Why not? Look, do you know how many people there are out there molesting kids? I can't make myself crazy with it. I do what I can do." And, I thought, Carlotta was right. I needed to do something about Alex B. Willy.

But there was no way I'd tell Carlotta that. She would hover and scold and act like a mother hen. Worse, she'd tell Adam, the town's full-time police chief and my part-time lover, who would get protective and make me crazy with it, and then I'd lose the relationship with him and the friendship with Carlotta, and it would all be because I had told Carlotta the truth. So, really, I was just protecting my relationships with both of them by lying, through my teeth, to Carlotta.

Mama wouldn't have done it. Mama likes to let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes Mama throws the chips. But I wasn't Mama. Definitely. I wasn't Mama.

"Ummmm," Carlotta said, and I saw the indecision in her eyes. She should know better than to believe me. And then a chill went up my spine. I was selling Carlotta safety. She wanted to believe I was safe so she didn't have to worry about me, and she'd go against her own best judgment to believe it. Maybe, I had learned something from Willy after all.