Sins of the Flesh (17 page)

“Then there will be records of that with the I.N.S.”

“I have no idea how the patients were processed, but I presume they were processed. It was my understanding that they left the country a week after surgery.”

“But you didn’t follow up on that?”

“My contract was specific. Just the operation plus a very detailed description of postoperative care for six months.”

“Can you produce that contract, Doctor?”

She looked haughty. “Of course.”

“Then we require you to produce it.” Carmine paused; the more he was in Jess Wainfleet’s company, the less he liked her, but he knew Delia was fond of her, which put him in an awkward position. “Do you really expect me to believe, Doctor, that you knew nothing about the six months each of your patients spent in Holloman living quiet but normal lives?”

“I knew they would be
somewhere
, but I assumed it would be outside America. There’s no point in—er—
grilling
me, because I genuinely don’t know one thing more about these women than that each was my patient for a much-modified lobotomy of the prefrontal region of the brain. I saw each woman on the day of operation, and that is the end of the matter.”

“I need the name and location of your referring agency as well as your contract, Doctor.”

“No, I can’t give you that,” she said flatly.

“The name at least will be in your contract.”

“True, but good luck tracing it.”

“Dr. Wainfleet, you’re a medical scientist with what I gather is an unparalleled knowledge of neuroanatomy—I have your word for it that your reputation extends far enough abroad to attract foreign patients,” Carmine said, laboring to penetrate her veneer of self-righteous confidence. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that you didn’t follow up on your surgery?”

“Oh, but I did! Just not in person, as I understood my subjects had returned to their countries. The reports I received indicated recovery to the extent I had hoped for—indeed, in two cases, Silberfein and Bell-Simons, the recovery was superior to all my expectations. I think you fail to understand, Captain, that these women were institutionalized, certified insane. The legally insane have few rights and little redress. They are at the mercy of their keepers, who unfortunately tend to be unaware of emotions like compassion. I am not in the business of destroying souls, for I believe a soul is that vital spark inside the brain that makes an organism human rather than animal. To produce a zombie is an offense against Nature. It is purely a cost-effective measure, and I don’t deal in such measures. I have done nothing wrong, and I defy you to prove that I have.”

Delia had played little part in the interview, which rolled down on her like a slow landslide; a trickle of small, troubling things that kept increasing in magnitude and frequency until it swept her away, overwhelmed. How could she look at this woman who had been such a good friend in any way approaching the old way? Oh, she would try, but she was too rational not to know her efforts would be in vain. No, she wouldn’t tell Carmine, but she herself couldn’t overlook some of the conversations that had occurred between Jess, Ivy and her, Delia. The names of the Shadow Women had been spoken, she was positive of it. In which case, Jess had deliberately suppressed the fact that they had been her patients. Knowing her friend, Delia could grasp at why the secret had been kept: Jess would simply have told herself that nothing she knew or had done would advance the case. The only proof would be the production of the missing women alive and, apparently, much better than before the surgery. But that she wasn’t willing to do.
Why?
All Delia could think was that Jess herself didn’t know who they were or what had happened to them postoperatively.

It was all forgivable between true friends, but her career was affected; she was put at a disadvantage by the conduct of one who called herself a friend, and she disliked the sensation.

Carmine was speaking again. “Do you realize, Dr. Wainfleet, that you are now a suspect in a case of multiple murder?”

Jess smiled and clicked her tongue. “Nonsense!” she said crisply. “What I’ve told you should be sufficient to close your file as solved, Captain. The chances that my patients have been murdered are millions to one. Clearly they survived some kind of social adjustment test that followed my recommendations, and have returned from whence they came. To prove murder without a body is extremely difficult, but to prove six murders without one single body is so difficult it would be laughed out of court.”

“You’re quite right, Doctor,” Carmine said. “You’re free to go. However, there is one more matter I’d like to clarify, if I may?”

“You may ask,” she said stiffly, at liberty now to display her outrage at the turn events had taken, and not looking at Delia.

“Walter Jenkins. How does he fit in? Is he yet another triumph for your kind of surgery?”

She couldn’t help herself; her face lit up. “Absolutely!”

“Did he suffer the same kind of disorder?”

“The only similarity was in antisocial behavior, and even in that the differences were as many as the leaves on a tree. Walter’s syndrome was unique. I am still looking for another of his kind, but thus far I’ve had no luck. Good day.” And she swept out, taking, thought Delia, all the honors of battle.

“That taught us our place,” Delia said to Carmine.

“I’m very sorry, Deels. She’s your friend.”

“Was, more like, though I’ll persist, chief. She can’t just virtually confess to six crimes of some kind and expect us to take her word that she’s committed no crimes,” Delia said firmly. “She awed me, which means she turned me into a puppet and pulled my strings for some purpose I don’t know. Or that’s how I feel after this morning. I don’t
know
, Carmine! Do you honestly think Jess could murder six inoffensive women? And why, if she did palliative surgery on them? It doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t. Except that she’s a fanatic of some kind. For all our sakes, I hope it’s the legal kind. She’s going to go back to HI and dig out the contract, plus operation reports on six women. All aboveboard, try to prove otherwise.”

Carmine ejected the tape from the recorder and tucked it into a special pocket in a cardboard file folder he proceeded to label
WAINFLEET, DR. JESSICA
with a felt marker; the result was so neat and regular that it might almost have been machine done.

“Your first conflict between duty and friendship,” he said.

“One expects a first for that, does one?”

“One should, but never does,” he said gently. “That’s why it hurts so much. If you want off the Shadow case, Delia, then all you have to do is say so.”

“No, boss, I’m not as wimpy as that. If she has done anything wrong, she’ll be very hard to catch out, I can tell you that. I think I’m developing an aversion for people whose professions start with ‘p’—psychiatrists, priests, paper-pushers, politicians.”

His mouth twitched. “What about police? Starts with a p!”

“It’s c for cop,” she said gruffly. “I forgot to ask her about the studio pictures of the women.”

“Immaterial,” he said. “You may be a little stiff with Jess for a while, but you’ve still got Ivy.”

Delia brightened. “Yes, I do. But she’s terribly troubled, Carmine, and I don’t know why. In all honesty, neither one may prove a lasting friend.”

He frowned. “Well, you’ve got family, and family never ever changes. The pains in the posterior continue to be pains in the posterior, and the gems shine as bright as your eyes.”

Said eyes glowed at him; he was right, as always. What she really needed was tea with Aunt Gloria Silvestri.

W
hen the spirit moved her, Ivy could cook very well; the trouble was getting her into the right spirit. The heat wave had broken in a terrifying cluster of storm cells that hung over Connecticut for two days, unleashing their fury one by one, and making the inhabitants wonder how any place this hot could possibly get that cold in winter. For Ivy, the proper stimulus for an orgy in the kitchen—just not her Little Busquash kitchen. If she cooked, she used the stainless steel perfection of Rufus’s home next door. All of which was well and good, though none of it answered Ivy’s moving spirit.

The real cause was her worry about Jess, who had gone for an interview at the Holloman PD on Tuesday morning and refused to discuss it in any way. She wouldn’t even tell Ivy who had been present!

Therefore, a dinner at Busquash House on Saturday with a severely limited guest list: Rha, Rufus, Jess and Ivy. Not a handsome waiter or assistant in sight. Extreme privacy and three loyal, loving friends ought to do the trick, especially if the food were out of this world. Oh, gastronomy didn’t work on
Jess
, but it set a mood, and it certainly worked on two of the most charming men in existence; if Jess could resist Rha and Rufus combined and properly briefed, then it would be a first, even for Jess. No one knew better than Ivy how a united front of several intelligent, resourceful people could bolster the efforts of a lone fighter. Time that Jess was made to see that she wasn’t as solitary as she imagined. The specter of Walter Jenkins rose before Ivy’s mind as she busied herself in the kitchen, and she had no idea whether to laugh or to shiver: Jess’s relying on Walter as sole ally was both brilliant and disastrous, but it was definitely, definitely inadequate. Jess needed allies—allies in the plural.

For a first course Ivy was serving a seafood salad of small pasta bows, chunks of lobster and chunks of jumbo shrimp, all mixed in a pink mayonnaise and horseradish cream dressing; she garnished it with tissue-thin slices of varicolored bell peppers and tendrils of crab. After it would come something that looked dull and boring: a steak-and-potato casserole whose appearance belied its stunning taste.

As she worked, Ivy thought, trying to see a way out for all of them. The trouble was that no one could accurately see what the future contained, even though at the time the future had loomed ahead unmistakably, couldn’t go anywhere else. Then you found that it did go somewhere else, despite its looking identical on the surface—it was the layers, and how they tilted the planes into geometrical shapes that were not what they seemed at all—looking straight and perfect, but up close and in reality skewed, twisted, jumbled. Like getting old, thought Ivy, who was getting old. Her eyes were the perfect example of how one looked at the future: everything looked perfect because her lenses didn’t focus as well as they ought anymore. When a merciless magnifier was put on what seemed smooth, it was a lava field of obstacles.

Rha and Rufus, Ivy noted when she came in at six o’clock Saturday night to add the finishing touches, were looking more cheerful than they had in some time; both were wearing black trousers, but Rha was sporting a blue lamé pullover shirt, and Rufus a magnificent pirate’s shirt in dark red silk, its extremely full sleeves pulled and gathered into long, tight cuffs.
King Cophetua
must be okay.

“What’s happened on the
King Cophetua
scene to make the pair of you look like cats in cream?” she asked.

Rufus eyed his surrogate sister affectionately. She was in fine form herself tonight, he was thinking—who would ever guess her real age? Her dress was a simply cut reddish-purple tunic under a gauzy tabard of paisley droplets in toning colors; its resemblance to a chasuble gave her the air of a priestess, an image he knew she enjoyed giving. Not a line on her face, even at the corners of her eyes or her lips! Whatever the genes Ivor Ramsbottom had owned, they were youthful ones.

“We dragged Roger Dartmont up from the Big Apple, kicking and screaming the whole way—he actually accused us of kidnap! Darling, we should have done it weeks ago!” Rha said, handing out drinks. “It’s a flimsy plot, but aren’t they always? Writers live in lofts, darling, what do they know about
life?
The good part turned out to be Roger’s age—we decided to play Cophetua as a silly old sugar-daddy, and Servilia as a KGB major rather than as a consumptive Bolshoi ballerina.
Silk Stockings
gone wrong. The librettist is coming up this week to make the changes.”

“Will he buck?” Ivy asked.

“Thetford Leminsky?” Rha laughed. “He’s a pussycat.”

“What’s with tonight, Ivy?” Rufus asked, settling in his favorite chair with a glass of red wine.

“I suspect Jess is in trouble with the cops.”

“Ohhh!” said Rufus, grimacing. “What do you need from us?”

“We have to make her see she has friends over and above that awful monster Walter Jenkins. She’s so alone in the world!”

“How do you know that, sis?” Rha asked quietly.

“From what she doesn’t say. I have never heard her mention her family, where she comes from, even which medical school she graduated from,” Ivy said. “We all have secrets, and I’m not trying to dig up any bodies she may have buried—”

“Unfortunate metaphor, Ivy,” Rufus said dryly.

Ivy went on as if Rufus hadn’t spoken. “I just want her to know some of the security I feel every day of my life because I have two brothers on my side no matter what. Jess isn’t as tough as she makes out she is, and those psychiatrists of hers I would
not
call friends. Ari Melos wants her job, and the Castigliones—well, maybe they’re not cruising sharks, but they could well be the scouts for a school of piranha. We three rejoice in each other’s successes, but I don’t get those vibes from Jess’s shrinks. As for Walter Jenkins—he literally
is
a monster.”

Rha got up and went to kiss his sister’s brow. “For what it’s worth, Ivy, we’ll try to help.” His head tilted. “There goes the doorbell. I’ll be back.”

Jess arrived in a black pantsuit and black cotton sweater, her body more an adolescent boy’s than a mature woman’s, though privately Rufus considered it devoid of any sex, and wondered if perhaps when intellect was poured out in such huge quantities, one of the penalties might be dehumanization. With a different personality, Jess Wainfleet had Audrey Hepburn potential—that gamine face, those alluring dark eyes … Instead she repelled, she repulsed. Taking her to bed would be like coupling with a hybrid of Medea the sorceress and Medusa the stonifier.

Rufus adored Ivy, one of the truly stabilizing influences in a strange life, but gazing at Jess, her friend, he admitted yet again that she impaled him on the horns of a dilemma, for he just couldn’t like her. How then could he do as Ivy wished, support her? And support her in what? A general, moral support, apparently.

For Rha, Ivy’s blood brother, it was simultaneously harder and easier than it was for Rufus. Understanding the lyricism and romance in Ivy that she was utterly unable to bring to the surface, he knew too that Ivy was in love with Jess, though she experienced no sexual desires. What grieved Rha was Jess’s unsuitability as an object of love; feeling no soft emotions herself, Jess never saw them in others. If only Delia had been there all those years ago! But she hadn’t, it was Jess at the center of Ivy’s dreams. Juggernaut Jess, said Rha to himself, rolling and grinding over everyone she encountered on her voyage to fulfillment.

So, as the four of them sat down in comfortable tub chairs to enjoy a superb meal, Ivy had no idea that her brothers didn’t like Jess, and cared not a scrap for her welfare. It was Ivy whom they set out to protect and cheer up, not Jess.

The conversation was merry and appreciation of the food in center stage as the meal progressed; no one had yet mentioned Jess’s visit to police headquarters, Rha and Rufus content to leave the broaching of that subject to Ivy or Jess.

“Let’s stay here,” said Ivy when the remains of the casserole were cleared away. “Anyone for coffee?”

No one was; out came the cheese board, fresh fruit and the after-dinner liqueurs, while a curious tension began to steal into what had been a pleasant, satiated, relaxed mood.

“What happened when you saw Captain Delmonico?” Ivy asked.

“Oh, I see! I have to sing for my supper,” Jess said.

“You won’t turn me off with answers like that, Jess, and you know it,” Ivy said sternly. “Everyone at this table is a friend of many years, and friends confide in each other, stick together, circle their wagons when they have to—but
never
split their own ranks. As a psychiatrist you know better than most that it’s not wise to bottle up your feelings. As a person you know perfectly well that no one here tonight has a prurient interest. So cut the injured innocence crap and tell us.”

A silence fell; Jess studied the bubbles in her glass of sparkling mineral water, her wide mouth compressed, hooded lids down to hide her eyes. After a while she shrugged.

“Why not?” she asked, but to whom she put the question, not one of the other three knew, for each felt it was directed at someone else. “Why not? Has anybody got a cigarette?”

Rufus stood, went to the sideboard and returned with a box. He opened it for her to take a cigarette, then lit it.

“That’s better. Sometimes a cigarette helps my thought processes. She lifted her eyes, gleaming derisively. “It appears that I am the main suspect in a series of six murders.”

“Delia’s Shadow Women?” Ivy asked, astonished but not surprised.

“Yes.” Jess blew a stream of smoke.

“But why on earth would they think that?”

“Because I performed neurosurgery on each of them.”

Three pairs of eyes were riveted on her, though only Ivy spoke.

“You operated as a group? Or one at a time?”

“One at a time, over a period of six years.”

“Were they inmates at HI?”

“No, private patients. I saw each one only when I operated.”

“Why do the police deem you a suspect?”

“Because they’re desperate, and I link the six missing women together. Unfortunately my professional ethics don’t permit me to give them an A to Z of each woman, and it’s police mentality to assume guilt from refusal to answer all questions. Delmonico won’t believe that I saw these women only for surgery, and genuinely know nothing else about them. He thinks I must be lying, whereas the truth is that I have no more to tell him. That’s why I never spoke up about the Shadow Women. I knew speaking up would achieve only one thing—my own obvious guilt,” Jess said, her voice calm, quiet and matter-of-fact.

“Are they going to
charge
you?” Ivy asked, horrified.

Jess looked scornful. “Of course not! They have not an atom of proof that I did murder, and since I didn’t, nothing can come of their suspicions. What’s more, I was absolutely open and candid about operating on the women—the police had no idea until I told them that the women were psychiatric cases. In reality, I imagine each woman is, at this moment, alive and well, and mentally calm enough to enjoy some kind of ordinary existence.”

Rha spoke. “The cops had no idea you operated on them?”

“None,” said Jess. “To me, it was no concern of the police’s or anybody else’s that I had performed surgery on their brains—
before
their renting Holloman apartments and then disappearing, I emphasize. I’m innocently entangled, as I knew I would be if my involvement were to become known.”

“Can they prosecute you for withholding information, or else contempt of court or obstruction of justice?” Rufus asked.

Her cigarette finished, Jess Wainfleet got up. “Let them try!” she said militantly. “However, I might need a good attorney.”

“Anthony Bera is the best,” Rha said. “He could get you off if you shot your husband dead in a very public arena, so I guess your case would be a sinecure.”

“Then I shall retain him.” She smiled. “Thank you for a magnificent dinner, but even more for your obvious concern.”

Ivy conducted Jess to the front door. “I wish there was something positive I could do,” she said, on the verge of tears.

Jess’s face softened. “You’re here, Ivy, and that’s a huge comfort. It’s nice to know I’m not alone.”

Rha and Rufus sat wordless until Ivy returned.

“A great dinner, but the offer of help went down like a lead balloon,” Rufus said. “She’s Kipling’s cat, if ever I saw one.”

Ivy sighed. “She won’t confide in us, will she?”

Rha laughed wryly. “She leaves me in the dark, does Jess.”

“What we do know is that she’s suspected of six murders, and that’s
serious
,” Ivy said. “Poor wretch! If only she weren’t so proud! Chin up and face the world, that’s Jess.”

“Don’t cry, Ivy darling,” Rufus said, fluffing out his handkerchief and giving it to Ivy. “The slur will be hard to get rid of, but the charge will never stick. I think Jess knows that too. She’s no dummy, guys, never forget that!”

“You’re right, Rufus love, but there’s even more,” Rha said. “All that really matters to Jess is her work, and she sees the cops as imperiling her work. That’s bad—for the cops.” His voice became musing, as if he were dredging up his thoughts from buried layers of his mind. “Psychiatrists are like the Catholic confessionals or the tribal shaman—a receptacle of secrets. Things that weigh on the spirit have to be confided to at least one other person, and if there’s no family to listen, then he who is weighed down will seek a trusted confidant. In the old days these confidants swore sacred oaths to keep the secrets—priests still do, and I think psychiatrists do as well. And if Jess keeps secrets, nothing the cops can do will force them out of her.”

“You mean she might not be the murderer, but she might know who the murderer is?” Ivy asked.

“Exactly!” said Rha.

“Do you mean that Jess can’t tell us anything because the cops might question us at some stage?” Rufus asked.

“Think about it! We’re not professionally bound by any oath of secrecy, but we are bound to answer cop questions truthfully. Jess
can’t
confide in us, and that doesn’t make her guilty.”