Season of Storm (28 page)

Fell in love. A woman prison officer had developed a romantic and sexual bond with her prisoner captor, and ended up dead.
No. Oh, please God, no. Oh, don't let this be true!
 

"Stockholm Syndrome," repeated Staff Sergeant Podborski in a bored tone, as though he hadn't noticed her discomfiture and didn't care. "One of the hallmarks is a sense of alienation from family and friends. The hostage feels that no one at home cares enough to work or pay for her release, that she has been abandoned to her fate with her kidnappers." He smiled and looked round his notebook at her. "Did you feel that alienation, Miss St. John? Did you feel your father would not care enough to give in to their ransom demand?"

She stared at him. She had lost the power to think.

"This sense of abandonment would be followed by a growing sense of identification with the hostage-takers' cause. A feeling that because of society's refusal to right the wrongs it has committed, the kidnappers have a right to the course of action they are pursuing."

He paused. She said nothing. The sound of a page flipping in his notebook punctuated the silence.

"Often a female hostage becomes the sexual victim of one or more of her kidnappers. Sometimes willingly, as a result of her identification with their cause. Sometimes she is repeatedly raped first, and the sense of identification with her abductors may then arise as a form of self-defence. The woman shouldn't be blamed for this. Psychiatrists say a hostage shouldn't fight against the mutual emotional attachment because it operates as a form of protection. Since the hostage-taker also feels an emotional attachment to his victim, he is reluctant to harm her or kill her."

Smith sat in silence, getting back to her mental feet, marshalling her forces. Podborski was looking at her as though he expected her to burst into tears, as though this sudden revelation would cause the scales to fall from her eyes. Yet she felt not the faintest sense of relief, nor any touch of a desire to weep in his presence. What she felt was that she was looking at a deadlier enemy than any she had met so far.

"My father's been talking to you, right?" she asked coldly.

"Not to me, ma'am," he said apologetically.

"To your colonel," she said.

He looked at her. "Everybody hates the police," he observed mildly; but she thought that underneath he was angry, that whatever bored cynicism he felt for his work did not extend to his status. "But we're only trying to help you. This Stockholm Syndrome will wear off sometime," he pointed out reasonably, "and then you're going to be pretty angry at yourself if it's too late for us to complete an investigation." He paused, but she said nothing. He shook his head. "You should take us on faith," he said. "Your father, anyway. He's the one who knows you aren't acting normal. He's the one who knows about this sudden interest in Indian land claims."

"Look," she said. "My father has a bee in his bonnet. I don't know what happened to him, and I don't know why. But I do know this: I was not kidnapped. I was on a holiday with a friend. You are wasting time, money and manpower on pursuing this."

She stood up to end the interview, and Staff Sergeant Podborski followed suit.

"Would you be willing to be interviewed by a psychiatrist?" he asked.

She breathed in exasperation. "The one who fed you all that information?" she asked dryly. She saw that in spite of his intelligence, the staff sergeant had the same limitations as Sergeant Rice. He was more cynical, which made him seem less rigid, but he shared a lack of imagination. She wondered if it was the training.

"No. I would not be willing to see a psychiatrist," she replied levelly. "Nor am I willing to be interviewed by any more police officers. In the future, if you want to talk to me, you will have to arrest me."

She showed him to the door and locked it after him. She felt calm and in control for the first time in days. What Staff Sergeant Podborski had said was wrong: even if she was a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, and even if it wore off, and even though she didn't really love him, she would never regret not having sent Johnny Winterhawk to prison.

That's that,
she thought, wiping Staff Sergeant Podborski from her field of consciousness. She looked at her watch. Just before seven. Time for a couple of phone calls before she went to visit her father at the hospital. The courage that had failed her before was with her now.
 

"Rolly?" she said. "I'm sorry to bother you at home, but I wanted you to know that I'm quitting. I won't be coming into the office anymore, except to clear up a few things and clean out my desk. Sorry to drop it on you like this." After a year abroad she had scarcely made herself indispensable in the short time she'd been back, and although Rolly was considerably taken aback he did not try to change her mind.

"You've been saying for years that he pushes her too hard," said Valerie when he had hung up. "It's about time she broke."

But Smith didn't know about that conversation. Her ears weren't even burning. She was too busy on the phone.

"Mel?" she said. "Smith. Listen, Mel, I've got a song, a good song, I think. Would you have a look at it for me and tell me what you think?"

***

"Well, at last!" exclaimed Valerie the next day, enveloping her in an embrace that was a little too bony to be maternal. Valerie was long, thin and chic, and she had worn pregnancy rather like an unusual fashion that only she knew how to wear. "Let me look at you," she commanded now, stepping back to arm's length and giving Smith a searching look.

Valerie had been one of Canada's leading models at the age of nineteen. At twenty she had gone to New York. When she was twenty-one she and the famous photographer who was her lover produced a nude art calendar of her that left the world breathless. In the next ten years she made her name and her fortune, and after a failed attempt at movie-making she had retired in Vancouver, her hometown. She had met Rolly there.

Now the faint lines forming around the beautiful, pale green eyes that searched Smith's face only seemed to enhance their beauty. "The secret of Valerie's beauty," the photographer-lover had said on the calendar, "is that it is not attached to her ego. She offers you her beauty in the same way an art connoisseur might show you a great work of art he is lucky enough to have hanging in his home." And, "Valerie is the only beautiful woman I have known whose beauty has not impoverished her personality."

The subject of that essay drew in a breath through the small, perfect O her lips formed and let it out on an enlightened sigh.

"My God, where
were
you?" she demanded with a knowing smile, as though Smith might just have been in utopia.
 

"On a b—"

"Or should I have asked,
who with
?" she interrupted gaily.
 

"Why?" Smith was feeling the strangest urge to laugh, as though truly she did have a delightful secret to share.

"You know, I told Rolly it wasn't true. I was sure you hadn't been with friends. I thought you'd been kidnapped."

"No."

Valerie took her hand and led her to a seat in the comfortable sitting room. "All right, now, tell me all about it."

She did not like lying to Valerie. "Well, it was a nice holiday, we had good weather... " she began.

"I'll just bet you did—if you noticed it," Valerie put in dryly. "Come on, Smith, you can't fool me. You've fallen in love, and it's about time, and I want to know who he is!"

If her jaw fell any farther it would be in China. Smith goggled helplessly at her friend and groped for recovery. "I…what makes you think that?" she asked weakly.

"Isn't it true?"

"No...no. At least...I...."

"Oh, my God, Smith, he's not
married?
"
Valerie said with all the dismay of someone who has suddenly added two and two. "Oh, don't do it, honey, don't get involved." The sudden switch in her tone from gaiety to deep concern shook Smith deeply. She realized how desperately she wanted to confide in Valerie. Impossible. She reached for her handbag and groped blindly in it.
 

"I've never given you the present I got you in Zurich," she said brightly. "I've been carrying it around with me all this time!" Her fingers closed gratefully around the little jeweller's box, and she passed it over. Valerie took it in a long elegant hand and did her best to forget what had just passed.

"I borrowed it last week," Smith smiled. "I needed it. I hope you don't mind."

"Of course I don't—oh, Smith, how lovely. Oh, it's so delicate! Look at the workmanship—it's gorgeous!"

If I'd ever wondered why you're my best friend,
Smith thought gratefully,
I'd have my answer now.
 

Valerie fastened the bracelet on her wrist as if the previous minute hadn't happened and lifted it for inspection. Valerie collected bracelets, ancient and modern, from all over the world. She had begun the collection during her days as a model, when she had travelled literally everywhere, and now she had over a hundred. Each one had its own story and memories, and Valerie wore them in combinations only she could have carried off.

This one had memories and a story, too, one Valerie would never know. It was the first time Smith had looked at the gold bracelet since her wedding day, and her throat constricted unbearably. She had been so happy that day. It had been the most serenely happy day of her life since early childhood. What had possessed her? Was it Stockholm Syndrome, the thing that had made her believe she was so deeply in love with Johnny Winterhawk?

***

We didn't wait to fall in love

We loved and then we met

No promises

No thought of time

And no room for regret

I feel you watch me in my sleep

It's time for you to go

Already you're a memory

No one will ever know

So wake me up to say goodbye 'cause now it's over

I feel it in my heart and in your eyes....
 

"It's a winner," Mel Ruff said, as Smith's scratchy voice sang through to the end and faded on the last note. "'Wake Me Up to Say Goodbye.' Yeah, we can go places with this. Are you happy with your own music?"

Shulamith had sketched out a sort of a melody as she sang, but it would need an expert to make it real, and she was no composer.

"I thought you might know someone," she said.

"Sure. I've got someone good right here in town, if you think you'd like to collaborate in the process. Or I can send it to a pal in L.A."

"The someone here in town wouldn't mind collaborating with a beginner?"

"Let's just see," he said, picking up the phone.

Mel dialled a number and spoke to a man named Lew. "I've got a hot new lyricist with me, name of Shulamith and..." he broke off and laughed. "You got it. We've got a song and some idea of a melody..." After some discussion Mel looked at Smith. "Are you free to go tonight, Lew wants to know?"

Her heart hammering with excitement, Smith could only nod. When he hung up, Mel scribbled an address on the back of his own business card and slid it across the desk to her.

"Lew's good," he said, and named two songs by a hot Canadian artist that even she recognized. "I think you'll be a good fit, but if it doesn't work we'll find someone else."

"Okay," Smith whispered.

"Don't give me that wide-eyed babe-in-the-woods face," Mel laughed. "You've been hanging around this office every spare moment you had for years. You know all about it. I've missed you this past year, but if it took a year in Europe to wake you up, I'm glad you went."

It wasn't the year in Europe, but she certainly had finally wakened up. Smith clutched the card with Lew's address on it as though it were a lifeline and stood to go.

"Thanks, Mel."

"You'll like Lew. Call me. Let me know how it goes," he said.

It was raining when she came out. Smith slid Mel's card into the back pocket of her jeans and settled herself behind the wheel of her car.

"Can I buy a red car, with my hair?" she had laughingly asked Valerie, and Valerie had said, "You can do anything as long as you can carry it off." Whether she could carry it off or not, Smith had wanted red, a bright, fire-engine red, and that was what she had bought. And it did her lots of favours, as now, when she was negotiating the heavy rush-hour traffic near the hospital, because male drivers usually let her in for the pleasure of watching the low-slung, growly sports car go by.

She was nervous about telling her father of her decision to quit. It had been hard enough telling Rolly, and Rolly hadn't spent his whole life grooming her to take over. And she had something else to tell her father, too—she was going to look for a place of her own. She had meant to tell him last night, right after talking to Rolly, but she hadn't found the right moment. Today she would
make
the right moment.
 

Smith walked along the hall to her father's room, screwing up her courage. The worst of it was, her reasons were a confused jumble in her mind, and incoherence would look to her father like indecision. He would see that as weakness and try to make her change her mind.

She squared her shoulders and opened the door to her father's room. He was sitting upright in the bed, holding a few sheets of typed paper in his left hand. His right, on the white sheet, was clenched till the knuckles were nearly as white.

There was a bald man standing beside him, a stranger whose face was somehow familiar.

Her father looked toward her with a hard steady gaze as she entered. He lifted the papers fractionally. "All right," he said. "Maybe you'll tell me now. Who the hell is John Winterhawk?"

Twenty-six