Self-Defense (8 page)

“No, nothing like that, I didn’t mean to
alarm you. We just need to rule out a sleep disorder that responds to
medication. It’s unlikely, but I want to be careful, so our road’s clear.”

“Our
road.
Sounds like some kind of
journey.”

“In a way it is, Lucy.”

She turned away from me. “I don’t know any
neurologists.”

I gave her Phil’s name and number. “It
won’t be intrusive or painful.”

“I hope so. I hate to be pawed. I’ll call
him tomorrow, okay? I’d better get home now.”

“Why don’t you stay here and relax before
you set out?”

“I appreciate the offer, but no, thanks.
I’m
really
tired, just want to crawl into bed.”

“Want some coffee?”

“No, I’ll be fine—it’s more emotional
fatigue than sleepiness.”

“You’re sure you want to go right now?”

“Yes, please. Sorry for the hassle.”

“It’s no hassle at all, Lucy.”

“Thanks for your time—we’ll figure it
out.” Looking to me for confirmation.

I nodded and walked her to the door. She
opened it and thanked me again.

“I don’t want to add to your load,” I
said, “but you’re going to see it on the evening news. A body was found today
that matches the Bogeyman victims. There may be a copycat out there.”

“Oh, no,” she said, leaning against the
doorpost. “Where?”

“Santa Ana.”

“That’s Orange County—so Milo won’t be in
on it. Too bad. He could solve it.”

Phil Austerlitz called me the following
day at five.

“Clean bill,” he said. “Healthiest person
I’ve seen in a long time, except for her anxiety. Even with that, her blood
pressure was great. Wish mine was as good.”

“What kind of anxiety did you notice?”

“Jumpy. Nervous about being
touched—wanting to know exactly what I was going to do to her, how, when, why.
Want to know my guess? Extreme sexual inhibition. Is that what she originally
came to you for?”

“I’m not dealing with her sex life right
now, Phil.”

“No? What kind of shrink are you?”

She didn’t call for an appointment that
day, or the next. The murder down in Santa Ana was a page-ten story, the victim
a twenty-one-year-old prostitute named Shannon Dykstra who’d grown up a couple
of blocks from Disneyland and had gotten addicted to heroin while still in
junior high. The media had fun with that—lots of ironic comments about the
Magic Kingdom gone wrong.

That night I cooked a couple of steaks and
made a salad, and at seven Robin and I sat down to dinner, with Spike begging
for sirloin. When we were through, Robin said, “If you’ve got no big plans, I
thought I might do a little work. The time I’m spending at the house is
crimping me.”

“Want me to take a shift?”

“No, honey, but if I could catch up, it
would help.”

Spike watched her depart with longing, but
he decided to stay and finish his table scraps. He hung around as I washed the
dishes and followed me to the couch when I played guitar, settling next to me,
loose lips blowing out B-flat snores that missed harmony by a mile.

Shortly after nine, Milo called and I
asked him if he was involved in the Dykstra case.

“Involved but not committed—know the
difference? In a ham-and-egg breakfast, the chicken’s involved, the pig’s
committed. Santa Ana called me to compare notes, and they’re driving down
tomorrow to look at the Shwandt file.”

“Is it that similar?”

“Damn near identical. Body position, wound
pattern, decapitation with the head put back in place, shit smeared all over
the body and stuffed in the wounds. But all that came out at the trial; anyone
could have copied it.”

“Another monster,” I said.

“The press made such a goddamn celebrity
out of Shwandt, they pump this one up as Bogeyman Two, we’ll really have fun.
Anyway, glad I’m not on it. Keeping busy with some nice old-fashioned
drive-bys.... So how’s Miss Lucy?”

I cleared my throat.

“I know, I know,” he said. “You can’t get
into clinical details. Just tell me she’s basically okay. ’Cause she left four
messages at my desk today. Called her back but got some lazy-sounding guy on a
machine.”

“That’s her brother. I haven’t heard from
her for a couple of days. When’d she call you?”

“This morning. I was just wondering if
some problem had come up—you
are
still seeing her—no, scratch that, you
can’t even tell me that, right?”

“Let’s put it this way,” I said. “If a
patient’s in imminent danger of self-injury, it’s my ethical duty to call the
police and/or appropriate medical personnel. I haven’t called you or anyone
else.”

“Okay, good. So I’ll try her tomorrow.
How’s everything by you?”

“Rolling along. How’s Rick?”

“Cutting and suturing. With our schedules,
there ain’t much quality time. We keep talking vacation, but neither of us is
willing to make plans.”

“Commitment,” I said. “Men have such a
problem with it.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “I’m totally
committed. I’m a pig, right?”

She called on Friday morning. “If you have
time today, I could come in.”

“After work?”

“Any time. I’m home.”

“Sick?”

“No, I haven’t gone back since the...
fall. Dr. Austerlitz
was
very nice, by the way. He says I’m fine.”

“I know. I spoke with him. How’ve you been
sleeping the last couple of nights?”

“Pretty well, actually, since I spoke to
you. No dream, and I wake up in my bed, so maybe it was just a short-term thing
and I needed to get things off my chest.”

I recalled the last session. Lots of
questions, no answers. “Did you ever reach Detective Sturgis?”

“He told you I phoned?”

“He called me last night wanting to know
if some sort of emergency had come up. Said he hadn’t been able to reach you.”

“The two of you are close friends, aren’t
you?”

“Yes, we are.”

“He talks about you as if you’re some kind
of genius. Did you tell him I was okay?”

“I didn’t tell him anything.
Confidentiality.”

“Oh. That’s okay; you can talk to him any
time. I give you permission.”

“There’d be no reason to, Lucy.”

“Oh. Okay. All I’m saying is I trust him,
and after what I’ve been through, I’m a good judge of men. Anyway, I reached
him. The reason I wanted to talk to him is just, I’ve been getting some phone
calls over the last few weeks.”

“What kind of phone calls?”

“Hang-ups. I’m sure it’s no big thing.”

“How many?”

“Couple a week, maybe four or five in all,
mostly when I’m cooking dinner or watching TV. For all I know it’s some
screw-up with the phone lines. Milo didn’t seem that concerned. Said I should
hang up right away, and if it didn’t stop there was a machine I could get from
the phone company that would record the caller’s number.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I said, keeping
my voice calm. The killer who’d burned down my house had worked up to it with
harassment. “Would you like to come in at noon?”

“Oh,” she said, as if she’d forgotten
she’d called to make an appointment. “Sure. Noon would be perfect.”

She was five minutes late and breezed in
wearing a snug white cotton turtleneck and red bandanna over jeans, white
socks, and moccasins. Tiny ruby studs in her ears and her hair was loose. First
time I’d seen it that way. It flattered her.

She said, “Everything’s really pretty
fine.”

“Glad you’re feeling better,” I said.

“I really am. Maybe it’s taking a break
from work. I always thought my job was so important to me, but after being away
from it for a couple of days I don’t miss it.”

“Are you thinking of quitting
permanently?”

“I’m not much of a spender, so I’ve got
enough saved up to last awhile.” She gave an embarrassed smile.

“What is it?”

“I’ve also got a trust fund—not enough to
live rich, but it
is
a thousand a month, so that’s a pretty good
cushion. That’s what I meant by others having things a lot worse.”

“Are you uncomfortable having a cushion?”

“Well,” she said, “I didn’t do anything to
earn it. And it comes from
his
side of the family—his mother. A
generation-skipping thing, they call it. To save taxes. I generally give a big
chunk of it away to charity, but if it can help me mellow out a little now, why
not take advantage of it?”

“I agree.”

“I mean, I’ve got nothing to prove. In
three years I’ve never taken a sick day—do you think it’s irresponsible?
Quitting, just like that?”

“Not at all.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“So... like I said, everything’s fine....
I also talked to Milo about the new murder. The Santa Ana police are consulting
with him, which is smart. I remember how impressed I was when he testified. All
those details at his fingertips, he never let the defense lawyer intimidate
him—I guess his size helps; what is he, six-four?”

“Six-three.”

Her color was high and her fingers were
knitting an invisible sweater.

“There’s something I want to tell you,”
she said. “I’m highly attracted to him.”

Keeping my face neutral, I held eye
contact.

She crossed her legs and touched an
earring. “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way about a guy.” Looking
away. “Except for a few mistakes, I’m basically a virgin.”

I nodded.

“Big mistakes,” she said, “I grant you.
But I’ve put them behind me.”

“Is that what you meant this morning when
you said after what you’d been through you were a good judge of men?”

She muttered something I couldn’t make
out.

“Lucy?”

Another mumble that sounded like “Take a
look.”

I leaned closer.

Her mouth continued to work. She closed
her eyes.

“I
hooked.
Okay?”

I didn’t answer.

“Just for a summer,” she said.

Remembering the ulcer, I said, “The summer
you taught in Boston?”

“I was a bona fide virgin. Then I met
someone at Head Start, the uncle of one of my students. Gorgeous, very
charming, bright black guy. He used to come and pick the little boy up, and we
started talking. One thing led to another. I thought I was in love. After we were
together for a while, he asked me to be with a friend of his. I didn’t like the
idea but I agreed. It ended up not being as bad as I’d thought—the friend was
okay and he gave me a gift, some shampoo. L’Oreal. I still remember that.”

Her eyes opened. Tears filled them.

“I was able to put myself in another place
and get through it. And Raymond was so proud of me. Telling me he loved me, I
was showing real love for him. Next week he brought another friend over.”

She threw up her hands.

“It was bad, but it could have been a lot
worse. His other girls were all working on the street. He let me work out of a
room. Clean, warm, color TV. He made sure I didn’t get any violent ones. The
men came to
me.
It was almost like being popular.”

She let out a dead laugh.

“That’s it. My sordid past. Ten weeks of
white slavery and mortal sin, and then I went on to Belding and Raymond found
some other gullible idiot.”

Pushing hair away from her face, she
forced herself to look at me. “I haven’t been with a man since then. Do you think
I’m still too sullied for your best friend?”

“It took courage to tell me,” I said.

“Don’t worry about my having evil designs
on him or being some freak-case co-dependent. When I say I’m attracted to him,
I mean
psychologically.
His kindness, his solidity. I’m working up my
courage to let him know how I feel. Is that okay with you?”

“You don’t need my permission, Lucy.”
Thinking of the complications that were sure to come.

She stared at me.

“You
don’t
approve, do you?”
Snapping her head down, she studied the floor. “Big mistake to tell you.”

“Lucy, it’s not—”

“I should have known,” she said softly.
“You’re entitled to your feelings. I tell you I was a whore, it’s only natural
you wouldn’t want me near your friend.”

“It’s not that at all.”

“Then
what
? Why does your face
change when I talk about liking him?”

“There’s nothing terrible about that, or
you. What goes on between you and Milo or anyone else isn’t any of my
business.”