Shakespeare's Counselor (10 page)

“I was a little worried about Saralynn having such a close relationship with Melanie, how that would impact the group, and we talked about that a little bit.”

“You didn't hear anyone else in the building?” Firella asked.

“I may have. Now, I think I did. But it could have been someone staying late, or coming back in after something he'd left…anything.”

“The end door was locked?” Sandy wanted to be sure.

“No, the end door wasn't locked.” Tamsin flushed red. “I knew you guys would be coming in. So I didn't lock it behind her.”

“Did you hear the door while you talked?”

“No. I don't think so.”

When I looked skeptical, she said, “That's the most normal noise in the world, to me. I'm not sure I would have noticed!” She was getting angry.

“So there was a reason you had to leave Saralynn in your office?…” Melanie said, to get Tamsin back on the track.

“Yes, I'd left the group list on the table in here, and I had to get it to enter Saralynn's name—just her first name—and phone number. You remember, I took that information from all of you in case we had to cancel sometime.”

“So while you were in the therapy room…?” Melanie prompted.

“Okay, while I was in there I dropped everything. I spilled all my papers from my notebook and knocked my pop over.”

After a brief vision of Tamsin pushing down an old man with white hair, I realized she meant she'd spilled a soft drink. Maybe it was a northern or midwestern thing? We all waited, watching her. Janet's mouth was pulled tight against her teeth. Anger? Skepticism?

“I started picking everything up, and while I was doing that I heard someone going into my office.”

“Did you hear this person pass the door of the therapy room, or come from the direction of the end door?”

“I don't remember either way,” she admitted. “I've tried and tried, but I don't remember.”

Sandy interrupted. “What difference would that make, Lily?”

I shrugged. “The difference between someone hiding in this building until he was able to catch a woman alone, and someone coming in from the parking lot—maybe after Saralynn—on purpose.”

An interesting difference, their faces said, and they turned to Tamsin again. She shook her head. “No use, I just can't recall it. After I heard someone go into my office, I heard Saralynn say something, but I couldn't make it out. She sounded surprised but not scared. But after that, she said, “What?” and she made an awful sound. Then there was a lot of scuffling and grunting, and I knew what was happening. I was so scared. I know I should have gone to help her, but I was so scared. I crawled over to the door to the therapy room. It was shut, you know how it falls shut? So as quietly as I could, I locked it.”

She got a chorus of sympathy from everyone in the room except me. Her eyes traveled around the group of women, coming to stop at my face.

“Lily, I think we have to get this out in the open. Are you blaming me for not going to Saralynn's aid?”

“No,” I said. “I think that was good sense.”

“Then are you angry I let Janet come in without warning her?”

“No. If you don't go help one, why go help another?” She winced, and I knew that had sounded as if I thought her callous. “I mean, if you expected to be killed when he killed Saralynn, you would still have been killed if you'd tried to help Janet, I guess.”

“Then what issue do you have with me?”

I thought for a minute. “You seem…already scared,” I said, picking my way slowly. “Don't you think you should tell us the rest?” I could see the fear in her face, read it in the tightly drawn line of her mouth and the way her shoulders were set. I know a lot about fear.

“That don't make a lick of sense, Lily,” Carla said.

“Well, yeah, it does,” Janet said in her unnaturally husky voice. “Like Tamsin's already been a victim and she's anticipating being a victim again.”

“The therapist isn't supposed to talk about her own problems,” Tamsin reminded us. “I couldn't, even if I wanted to.”

“And why wouldn't you want to? We share our big problems with you,” Carla said illogically.

“This is where you come to get help,” Tamsin began.

“Oh, yeah, like the help we got Tuesday night?” Sandy's voice was bitter and shrill. The rest of us tried to look at her without actually turning our heads to stare, because Sandy was the least forthcoming of the group by far. We didn't want to startle her, or she'd run; it was like having a wounded deer in your backyard, a deer you felt obliged to examine. “Seeing that dead woman in your office was the scariest thing that's happened to me in a long time, and if you know anything about it or if it happened because of you, I think we have a right to know that. Because what if it's connected to one of us?” I exchanged glances with Janet, not quite following Sandy.

“Sure,” said Carla, who evidently hadn't had the same problem. “Think about it!” I was hopelessly confused.

“You're saying,” Firella clarified, “that maybe if Saralynn's murder ties up with something in Tamsin's past, it hasn't got anything to do with us. Maybe we'd all been scared it did? Like maybe one of the bikers who raped Lily following Lily here and killing Saralynn as a lesson to Lily?”

“Right. Like that.” Carla sounded relieved that someone understood her.

“Or like whoever raped Sandy, not that Sandy has chosen to reveal that to the rest of her sisters in the group, which every one of the rest of us has,” said Melanie, and I thought through that sentence for a moment.

Sandy flushed a deep red. “Well, then, missy, I'll just tell you that it couldn't be connected to me because the man who raped me was my grandfather, and I'll tell you what I did about it. I put rat poison in his coffee and that son of a bitch died.”

We all gazed at her with our mouths hanging open. In a million years, not one of us could have predicted what had come out of Sandy's mouth.

Firella said, “Way to
go
, Sandy.”

So I had a sister under the skin. Another killer. I felt myself smile, and I was sure it was a very unpleasant smile to see. “Good for you,” I told her.

Tamsin's face was a sight. A professional excitement that Sandy had spoken up was mingled with subdued dismay at Sandy's revelation, and concern over Tamsin's own situation.

“Didn't expect that, did you?” Carla jeered.

“No,” Tamsin admitted readily, “I never suspected Sandy would share with us, especially to this extent. Sandy, do you feel good now that you've told us what happened to you?”

I observed that attention had turned away from Tamsin, which was undoubtedly what Tamsin had wanted.

Sandy looked as though she was rummaging around inside herself to discover what was there. Her gaze was inward, intensely blue, blind to all around her.

“Yes, I feel pretty good,” she said. Surprise was evident in her voice. “I feel pretty
damn
good.” She looked happily shocked at herself. “I hated that old man. I hated him. I was eighteen when it happened. You'd think an eighteen year old could fight off a grandfather, wouldn't you? But he was only fifty-eight himself, and he'd been doing manual labor all his life. He was strong and he was mean and he had a knife.”

“What happened afterward?” Tamsin asked. She kept her voice very even and low, so Sandy's flow would continue.

“I told my mother. She didn't believe me until she saw the blood on the bed and helped me clean up. He'd been living with us since my grandmother died. After my mom and dad talked, they took Grandpa to a hospital. They told him he had to stay in the mental hospital till he died, or else they'd tell what he'd done to me and he'd have to go to regular jail.”

“Did he believe them?”

“He must have, because he agreed. Oh, he tried to say no one would believe me. That was what I was afraid of, but then I turned up pregnant and of course,” and Sandy's face was too awful to look at, “I would have had the baby to prove the paternity with.”

I felt nauseated. “What happened with the baby?” I asked.

“I lost the baby, but only after Granddaddy was committed. And I thank God for that every day. Two days after I lost the baby, I visited Granddaddy in the hospital and I took him some coffee. It was spiked, so to speak. I was scared he'd talk his way out if he knew I wasn't pregnant any more.”

Telling the bare and horrible truth takes its toll, and I could read that in the woman's face.

“You weren't prosecuted?” Firella, too, was keeping her voice very even and low.

“It's funny,” Sandy said, in an almost detached way. “But though I wasn't trying to sneak in, no one saw me. Like I was invisible. If I'd sat and planned it a week, it couldn't've gone like that. No one at the front desk.” She shook her head, seeing the past more clearly than she could see the present. “No one at the wing he was in. I pushed the button that opened the door myself. I went in. He was in his room alone. I handed him the cup. I had a plain one. We drank coffee. I told him I'd forgiven him.” She shook her head again. “He believed that. And when the coffee was all gone—the tranquilizers had pretty much destroyed his sense of taste—I got up and left. I took the cups with me. And no one saw me, except one nurse. She never said a word. I just didn't register.” Sandy was lost in a dreamlike memory, a memory both horrible and gratifying.

“Have you ever told your husband?” Tamsin asked, and her more recent world came crashing back to Sandy McCorkindale.

“No,” she said. “No, I have not.”

“I think it's time, don't you?” Tamsin's voice was gentle and insinuating.

“Maybe,” Sandy admitted. “Maybe it is. But he may not want someone who's been through something so…sordid…my sons…the church…” And Sandy began crying, her back arching with huge, heaving sobs.

“He really loves you,” I said.

Her head snapped up and she gave me an angry look. “How would you know about that, Lily Bard?”

“Because he called me into his office yesterday to ask me if I could tell him what was wrong with you. He doesn't know why you're in therapy, and he doesn't have the slightest idea how to help you.”

She stared at me, stunned. “My husband is worried about how to help me? My husband wonders why I need therapy?”

I nodded.

Sandy looked intensely thoughtful.

Tamsin glanced down at her watch and said, “This has already been a big night. And our time is up. Why don't we save the rest of this discussion until next Tuesday night?” She'd escaped from any further questioning, and her whole body relaxed as I watched.

With some grumbling, the rest of the group agreed. Sandy hardly seemed to be in the same room with us any more, her thoughts were so distant. As we left the building, I saw Sandy go to the end of the parking lot and slide into the car, where Joel sat in the front seat, waiting for her. I saw him lean over to give her a kiss on the cheek, and when he did, she gripped his arm and started talking.

Some days everything just works out wonderful. I didn't have many of those, and I enjoyed one when I got it.

I got two phone calls the next morning before I started for Little Rock and the stakeout. One was from Mel Brentwood, the owner of Body Time, who asked if I would work that day. I tried explaining to Mel that since the thief had been captured I had moved on to another job. Mel replied that he hadn't been able to find anyone to fill my position and if it was at all possible, he really wanted me to come in for my former shift. It would be worth the extra pay to not have to worry for one day.

“It might be a little awkward, Mr. Brentwood, having me back now.”

“Oh, they don't know you were there as a private eye,” Mel reassured me. “As far as they're concerned, you're a regular employee who had another job offer. I told Linda to put you on the substitute list.”

I wished Jack were there to advise me. I didn't want to alienate an important client of Jack's, but I didn't want to miss a day watching Beth Crider, either. Perhaps it might be good to lull her into security for a day? Maybe she'd been feeling watched; a day free from observation might make her careless. “Okay, Mr. Brentwood, I'll be there,” I said. I laid down the phone and it rang immediately.

“Yes?” I asked, a little apprehensive.

“Babe, it's me,” Jack said.

“How are you? Where are you?”

“Still at the hotel, but we're about to leave for the airport.”

“We?”

“He's agreed to come with me,” Jack said in a low voice. “He's in the bathroom right now, so I can talk for a minute.”

“He just caved?” I asked, incredulous.

“He's sick and scared,” Jack said. “And a trick beat the shit out of him two nights ago.”

If the boy had been fated to be beaten, this was the right time for it to happen, I thought, but I kept it to myself. I wasn't always sure if I believed in fate or not, but sometimes it was comforting to believe in something.

Jack went on to tell me he planned to drive the boy home after they landed. Then he'd come to Shakespeare. “No matter how late it is,” he said.

So I was already feeling unusually chipper when I parked my car at Marvel, even though I was back to wearing the loathsome leopard-print unitard. As I slung my purse and lunch bag into my locker, Linda Doan, wearing a zebra-striped workout bra and puffy black shorts, asked me if I'd had a boob implant. Since she was pinning on her “Manager” label at the time, I was tempted to ask her what she'd leak if she stuck her breast, but I abstained, which made me proud of myself.

“No, just me in here,” I said so cheerfully that I checked the mirror again to make sure I was myself.

Even Linda looked surprised.

“You musta gotten some last night,” she observed. “You're mighty perky today.”

I sure was. Perky. Lily Bard, perky?

As long as I was being such a cheerful team member, I asked, “Did you get any feedback from the calisthenics class?” That had been my idea. I got tired of the cute little classes taught in the aerobics room; they all pivoted around some gimmick. The set of calisthenics we did before karate class had seemed exotic to this bunch. And extremely painful.

Linda's face took on a reserved expression. Linda was brown from the tanning bed, streaked from the hairdresser, and hard bodied from exercise. She was a little cautious, too, when she perceived that her interest was at stake. “A couple of the women said it was the hardest workout they'd ever had,” Linda said. “And at least one of them wanted to try it again.”

“Great.”

“Byron was telling me you know Mel?” Linda was striving to keep her voice casual, but I could tell we'd come to the crux of the conversation.

I nodded.

“Did he send you here to keep an eye on me?” she asked, abandoning all pretense of having a normal conversation.

“No,” I said. My shoelace was loose, so I squatted down to retie it.

“You stop trying to dodge me,” Linda said in a furious whisper.

“I'm not. I'm just tying my shoe.”

“Well, I don't believe that you're just here to work this job.”

“Believe what you want,” I said. I picked up the bottle of spray cleaner and the paper towels and went over to the nearest mirror to begin my cleaning round. I glanced at Linda's reflection while I worked, and when I saw her expression I knew that she really hated me. I didn't particularly care, but it would have cleared the air if I'd been able to tell her why I'd really been hired. Mel Brentwood had been clear about that point, though. He wanted me to remain just an occasional employee to the staff at Body Time.

One of the regular clients, Jay Scarlatti, a tall, lean, bony man, had taken a shine to me. He came in every morning after his run to lift some weights; afterward, he'd shower and go to work in a suit his wife had brought in the afternoon before.

Jay was interested in me physically. He had no idea what my character was like. Today, as always, he saw the body in the unitard and not the person who was wearing it.

“Hello, you beautiful thing,” he said this morning, coming up behind me while I was spraying the upholstery of one of the weight benches. “How are you today?”

I wasn't supposed to beat on the customers, so I replied mildly that I was fine, and I hoped he was well.

“And Mrs. Scarlatti?” I asked.

“Katy's fine,” he said stiffly.

“That's good. She seems like such a nice lady, when she brings in your clothes in the afternoon. It's really too bad you never have time to do that yourself.”

Jay Scarlatti was scowling.

“Being a little emphatic, aren't you?” he asked, biting the words out.

“Seems like I need to. Are you going to try calisthenics today?”

He looked startled. “Sure, I guess so.”

“Then let's get into line.”

I stowed away my cleaning things, blew my whistle, and collected a small crowd right away. Linda and Byron got in line, too, since I'd told Byron he might have to lead this exercise when I was off.

“You'll see,” said a young muscle-builder to his pal. “This is gonna make you sore in places you didn't even know you had muscles.” He looked excited at the prospect.

So we began, and the first time I asked them to touch the floor right in front of their toes, I heard a chorus of groans and cracking joints. But gradually they improved, and since I'd insisted on discipline from the beginning, I heard no complaints. Linda and Byron were red and panting, but they made it through the rest of the class.

Now that I wasn't watching for a thief, I actually enjoyed being in the gym all day. And I was so thankful not to be loitering in Beth Crider's neighborhood that I was extrafriendly all day.

 

Jack had thought he'd get home about ten, so I left some food out on a microwavable plate for him. I got ready for bed and read for a while, then heard the familiar snick of the key in the lock of the front door.

While Jack ate and brushed his teeth, I kept him company. He talked a little about the boy he'd found, about how halfway home the boy had decided he felt a little better and wanted to go back to the streets. He and Jack had had some conversation, and the boy had decided to stick to his original plan.

“What did you say to him to persuade him?” I asked.

“I just told him I'd carry him home, kicking and screaming if necessary. When he told me I wasn't capable of that, I pinched a nerve in his neck for a minute.”

“I bet that shut him up.”

“That, and me telling him I'd found and shipped plenty of runaways—just like him—home in coffins. And they never came back from
that
.”

“You've seen a lot of runaways.”

“Yeah. Starting back when I was a cop, I've seen way too many. The ones like him, the ones that started selling their butts, didn't last three years. Sickness, or a client, or self-disgust, or drugs…mostly drugs.”

Every time Jack tracked a runaway, he went through a spell of depression; because the fact was, the kid often ran off again. Whatever grievance had led a child to leave home was seldom erased by life on the streets. Sometimes the grievance was legitimate; abuse, mental or physical. Sometimes it was based on teen angst; parents who “just didn't understand.”

Catching a runaway often led to repeat business, but it wasn't business Jack relished. He'd rather detect a thieving employee or catch someone cheating on a disability claim any day.

“Did you get a chance to call anyone about the new detective here?” I asked, as Jack slid into bed.

“Not yet. Tomorrow,” he said, half asleep already. His lips moved against my cheek in a sketchy kiss. “Everything tomorrow,” he promised, and before I switched off the lamp by the bed, he was out.

 

The next morning when I returned from cleaning Carrie's office, Jack was in the shower. He'd already worked out, I saw from the pile of clothes on the floor. Jack didn't believe in picking up as he went, a tenet that my mother had instilled in me when I was knee-high. I took a deep breath and left his clothes where he'd dropped them.

When he came out of the steamy little bathroom fifteen minutes later, vigorously toweling his hair, I was working on a grocery list at the kitchen table. He was well worth the wait. I sighed when Jack pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and began to brush through his long hair.

“When I got up, I called this woman I know on the force in Memphis, and she knew someone on the job in Cleveland,” Jack said.

“And?” I said impatiently, as he paused to work through a tangle.

“According to this detective in Ohio, Alicia Stokes was a rising star in the office. Her clearance rate was spectacular, she handled community appearances well, and she was on the fast track for promotion. Then she got involved in a case she couldn't solve and it all kind of fell apart.” Jack frowned at the amount of hair that came off in his brush.

“What was the case?”

“One she wasn't even the primary on,” Jack muttered, still preoccupied by his hair loss. “That is, she wasn't the detective in charge. She did some of the related interviews, that's all. No one knows what set her off the deep end about this case. Which,” he added, seeing the exasperation on my face, “involved a woman who was being stalked.”

I felt a deep twinge of apprehension. “Okay. What exactly happened?”

“I heard this secondhand, remember, and I don't know how well my friend's source actually knew Detective Stokes.”

I nodded, so he'd know I'd registered the disclaimer.

“In Cleveland, this woman was getting threatening letters. Stuff was being nailed to her door, her house got broken into, she got phone calls, her purse got stolen three times, her car was vandalized…everything happened to this poor gal. Some of it was just annoying, but some of it was more serious, and all of it was scary when you added it up.”

“What about the police?”

“They were onto it right away. But they couldn't catch anyone. This guy, who was like Stokes's mentor, was the primary, and he pulled her in to do some of the questioning of neighbors—had they seen someone they didn't know hanging around the neighborhood? Which of the neighbors had been home when the incidents happened? You know the kind of thing.”

“So she got wrapped up in it, I gather?”

“More so than was healthy. She began to spend her off time watching the house, trying like hell to catch the guy. She was so furious about what was happening to this woman…”

“I can understand why.” How would it feel to think that someone was watching your every move? Someone was waiting for you to be alone, your fear his only goal.

And that someone was able to get away with it. The police couldn't stop him; the officers who had sworn to protect you couldn't do their job. Despite everything, he would get you eventually.

Shaking my head, I leaned forward to rub my aching back. “So she got as obsessed about finding the stalker as the stalker was about his victim?”

“Yes, that's about the size of it.”

“So, what happened?”

“She was warned off three times. The department gave her a lot of slack, because she was a good detective, she was a woman, and she was a minority. They didn't want to have to fire her. After a while, when she seemed to be watching the victim as much as the stalker was, they gave her a long leave of absence so she could get her head on straight.” Jack looked disapproving; no one had suggested he be extended the chance of a leave of absence when he'd misbehaved. They'd wanted him gone. If he hadn't resigned, he would've been fired.

“So, no matter what Alicia Stokes told Claude, she's really still an employee of the Cleveland Police Department.”

“Yes,” said Jack, looking surprised. “I guess she is. Surely Claude called up there when she applied for a job here; that's one of the first steps, checking references. You call and get the official story. Then you use the network of cops you know to get the real story, like I did this morning. So Claude must know about her problems.”

But I wondered if Claude, chronically understaffed, had taken the extra time.

I shook my head free of problems that really didn't concern me and returned to work on my grocery list. It was taking me an awfully long time to finish my task. I couldn't seem to concentrate. Truthfully, I was feeling less than wonderful. When Jack showed signs of wanting to make up for his inattention the night before, I had to wave him off. It was the first time for that, and when he looked surprised I felt obliged to tell him I was about to have my monthly time, and that somehow it felt worse than usual. Jack was quite willing to leave our discussion at that; I think he feels it's unmanly to ask questions about my femaleness.

After thirty more minutes, my list was complete and I'd figured out the weekly, menu. Also, I was in pain. Jack agreed to go to the store for us, and when I saw the worry on his face, I was embarrassed. I was seldom ill, and I hated it; hated going to the doctor, spending the money on prescriptions, not being my usual self.