The Deadly Neighbors (The Zoe Hayes Mysteries) (32 page)

Susan was agreeing with Nick, urging me to pamper myself, get massages, take naps. When my cell phone rang, I was grateful. It gave me a chance to look away before they could see me cry.

T
HE PHONE CALL WAS
from Harrington Place. My father had gone missing again. Not for the first time, he’d apparently wandered off the premises without signing out, and the administrator who called was not amused. My father hadn’t been seen since the night before; his bed hadn’t been slept in when Leonard looked for him at breakfast time.

Okay, I thought. Maybe he’d slept out. Maybe this time he was with a lady friend.

But he hadn’t shown up for his dental appointment, either.

So what, I thought. He was having fun. What man wanted to go to the dentist when he could hang out with a babe?

And he’d not shown up to meet several men friends for a card game.

Now I knew it was serious. Dad had gone missing. Oh, God. Had the people who’d killed Beatrice and Stan gotten to my father?

In minutes, Nick had paid the check and popped the three of us into his unmarked police car. He put the light on the roof and, siren blaring, we went searching for my dad, finding him at the first place we looked.

He was in his kitchen, going through cabinets. When we walked in he looked surprised.

“Where were you?” he asked me. “I was worried.”

Oh, God. He’d slipped again; he thought I was my mother.

“We’ve been worried about you, too, Dad. Nobody knew where you went.”

“Me? I was on vacation. It was nice, but enough is enough. Time to come home.”

Lord. What could I say to him that would make him understand?

“Walter.” Nick stood beside Dad, leaned on a counter. “What are you doing?”

“Somebody’s been in the house while I was gone. Damned thieves and punks in this neighborhood. I’m checking, figuring out what all they took.”

“I’ve been here, Dad. My friend and I have been cleaning the place.”

“You? You emptied out the kitchen? What the hell for?”

Susan tried to look innocent, as if she hadn’t the slightest idea why his cupboards were bare.

Again, Nick stepped in. “Your doctors want you to move, Walter. They want you to stay at Harrington Place where you can get medical attention when you need it.”

My father gaped at him. “What?”

“It’s not just a vacation spot. It’s where you live.”

My father’s lips trembled. “Hell if it is. This is my place.”

Nick tried to explain that he’d pulled strings, helping Dad avoid legal entanglements regarding the deaths of Beatrice and Stan by placing Dad in an assisted living unit for his medical conditions. As I listened, though, tightness grabbed my abdomen, and I actually swooned.

Susan grabbed my arm. “Are you okay?”

I held on to her, steadying myself, sitting down at the table, unable to talk.

Dad was unimpressed by Nick’s comments. “Those bastards.” He shook his fists. “They think they can run me out? Hell if they can. I’m not going. They’ve been in the house, dammit.” He headed out of the kitchen into the study across the hall. “Look— I’ll show you. They’ve gone through my desk.” His voice trailed after him, as did Nick and Susan. “The bastards have drilled holes in the walls and pulled up the flooring. I know how to protect myself, though. I’ve got plenty of tricks of my own.”

“Nick?” Susan’s voice was soft, urgent. “Zoe might need some attention.”

While my father droned on about his house and what had been done to it in his absence, Nick left him in the study and came back to me, knelt beside me, putting a tender hand on my cheek.

“Zoe? Are you all right?”

I nodded, exhaling slowly through my mouth, waiting for the contraction to run its course.

“Oh, Jesus—a contraction? Can you get in the car? I’ll take you to the hospital.” His face blanched. I shook my head, telling Nick and myself that it was all right; I’d only had two other contractions that day, while across the hall my father cursed his neighbors and shuffled through his desk drawers, growing more angry and agitated.

Susan stood at the doorway, halfway between crises, watching my father on one side, Nick and me on the other. I couldn’t get any air. I grabbed Nick’s hand and watched Susan’s face. “It’s really all right,” I managed.

Maybe it’s not all right, I thought. Admit it. This one was more intense than the others. “Actually, I think…” I began.

I was about to say, “we should go to the hospital,” but I was interrupted by a loud explosive bang.

Instantly, we all ran to my father. He was in his study, seated at his desk, gripping a shiny, still-smoking handgun.

M
Y FATHER SEEMED AS
startled as we were at the noise. He put the gun down as if it were burning his fingers. “So? What are you looking at?” he scolded us. “It’s old. I wanted to know if it still worked.”

“Walter, exactly how many guns do you have?” Nick was obviously concerned.

My father shrugged. “A man’s allowed to have firearms.” That was all he would say. Nick locked the gun in its box, replacing it, for now, in the locked bottom drawer of the desk, keeping the key. By the time I’d assured Nick and Susan that I was better and that, if I had another contraction that day, I’d call the doctor immediately, Dad had finished surveying his study, and he accompanied us without resistance out of the house. Somehow by the time Molly came home from school, we’d delivered Dad safely back to his suite at Harrington Place, where he was welcomed like a returning celebrity.

Somehow the day passed without further upheaval. After the monster contraction that I’d had at my father’s, my body quieted down. Nick and Susan made a fuss, but for some reason I was confident I didn’t need to rush to the doctor. I insisted that the baby and I were fine, and repeated the promise that I’d call Dr. Martin if the contractions began again. But they didn’t, not that night. For the first time in weeks I went twenty-four hours without gasping and cramping and contracting, and I couldn’t help wondering what had happened, if anything was wrong.

The next morning, soon after Molly’s school bus left, while Susan and I were sipping coffee, six-foot-five-inch Rudo Bachek reported for work, ready to guard my body. He was a burly, hairy Eastern European who spoke little English but knew his job. I couldn’t open a door without him checking first what was on the other side, couldn’t even drive a car or open my own mail. At work, as I conducted therapy sessions, he positioned himself so that he could see the windows as well as the door, and he wouldn’t leave my side even to go to the bathroom while he was on duty.

Rudo’s presence, of course, did not go unnoticed among patients. Some were bothered, others merely curious. Finally I gave him an easel and a stick of charcoal as camouflage, making him seem like a new patient. Besides, if he got bored, he could pass the time by drawing. Even so, with Rudo there, the dynamic was different.

In my morning group, Hank Dennis was disturbed at the introduction of a new person. He paced, wringing his hands, fretting that the balance was off, that there was now an odd number of people in the room, that Rudo was infringing on his share of personal space. Kimberly Gilbert, however, seemed delighted with Rudo; to her, he was a new surface to decorate, and she began dabbing her acrylic vermilion onto Rudo’s arm or pant leg whenever she could. After four or five dabs, Rudo, irate, jumped up, cursed, and dragged his easel away. Kimberly followed, and, before I could intervene, he growled at her, teeth bared, eyes bulging, and grabbed the brush from her hand. Hank was mortified, gaping at Rudo as if face-to-face with his greatest fear. Samantha Glenn ran from her own easel to cower behind Frank DiMarco, coyly nuzzling her breasts against his back. Only Jeremy Wallace seemed unfazed, only vaguely aware of his own behavior, much less anyone else’s. Finally, I moved Kimberly to the other side of the studio, where her paintbrush drifted off her paper onto the wall and the closet door instead of onto people.

During my private session, Rudo’s presence seemed even more intrusive. Evie Kraus refused to draw or participate at all, and I assumed she was reacting to Rudo. It took a while for me to realize that Rudo wasn’t the problem, that, in fact, Evie had taken no notice of him, had taken no notice of anyone. I finally understood that Evie was slipping away again into her catatonia, not talking, not singing, not drawing or responding. I talked to her softly, touching her hands and arms, but she gazed past me into space with unfocused eyes.

I tried to reach her. “Evie. Don’t drift away. Come back. Be with us.”

I put a CD on, playing music I knew she liked. Jack Johnson. I sat with her, singing along. “Please please please don’t pass me, please please please don’t pass me by…” But Evie didn’t blink. She sat expressionless, a hollow hull. For whatever reasons, at least for now, Evie was gone; her spirit had clearly abandoned ship.

Evie was on my mind during my lunch break. Absorbed in thought, I was startled when Bertram landed at my table with his egg salad platter. Wearing an incongruously rumpled Armani suit, he sat beside Rudo, breathing quickly, even more intense and desperate than usual. When I asked how he was, he complained that research funding had almost run out and that he still hadn’t been able to find a new source, even temporarily. Besides that, his wife had made it clear that money was the reason she’d left and, if he could only make more of it, she’d consider coming back. Bertram gazed sadly at the saltshaker, then, suddenly changing the subject, he asked how I was doing and suggested conducting a hypnosis session with me that afternoon. I declined, saying I had plans, but he became oddly persistent. “But you need to. You have to continue and keep up the rhythm of sessions or you could have more problems. No question, Zoe. For your own sake, come by. I can do one or two o’clock.” His voice seemed shrill and a little frantic.

I wasn’t in the mood to be hypnotized, didn’t want to wake up crying without knowing why, and I didn’t want to explain myself to Bertram, either. But Bertram wouldn’t give up. He urged me to come by, almost insisting, even stating that if I didn’t let him hypnotize me, if I stopped at this stage, something awful could happen to me. With that, Rudo stood to his full height and, glaring down at Bertram, asked me, “Is problem here?”

Bertram hadn’t paid attention to Rudo until then. His neck craned, taking him in. “Who’s he?”

“He’s with me.” I felt kind of smug.

Taking his tray of egg salad with him, Bertram slunk away, muttering that he was only trying to help, and that nobody better blame him if my pregnancy ended badly. Rudo sat down, beaming, pleased with himself. He’d guarded me successfully.

The week passed without major incident. Molly went to school and swim club and gymnastics. I went to see Dr. Martin, who proclaimed the baby healthy, reminded me to take it easy and count contractions, and increased my dosage of medicine. Rudo tailed after me like a silent shadow on steroids, but to his credit, when he was around I felt safe.

Nick left in the evening and came in early in the morning, crossing my path only for dinners, which were his breakfasts, and breakfasts, which were his dinners. We talked more on the phone than in person and seemed to avoid topics that were stressful or, for that matter, important.

I didn’t visit my father for a few days, but I received two more phone calls about him. He was still insisting that he was merely on vacation, going home soon for good, and twice more he was stopped while trying to leave with a full suitcase.

Susan did some research on ADA Douglas Morrison and found that he was newly divorced and deeply in debt, information not inconsistent with his involvement in gambling and dogfights. She was beginning, finally, to believe me.

And despite Rudo’s presence, Bertram continued to nag me, sending e-mails and leaving phone messages, seeming too interested, too eager to continue our hypnosis sessions. Nevertheless, I wanted to do whatever I could to minimize the contractions, so I finally relented, meeting him in his office on Thursday afternoon while Rudo waited in the hall. As in earlier sessions, I had the sense that I was there for only a few minutes, but when we finished an hour had passed of which I’d been unaware. I wasn’t crying this time, but I was drained. Depleted, as if I’d run a marathon. When I asked why, as always Bertram assured me that I’d remember as much of the session as I wanted to whenever I was ready.

The week passed without more burglary, murder or tortured animals. But, day after day, I felt more removed from my life, distant from everyone. Molly was in first grade. She was in school all day now, had her own activities and friends. She was developing her own life, away from me. And Nick was gone most of the time, too. My professional contacts had been reduced, might soon disappear altogether. In the uneasy calm following the recent upheaval I felt lost, unsure of my identity and purpose. I didn’t return phone calls, didn’t want to talk to friends or hear chatter about daily events. I was surviving tentatively, hanging on to a routine that was about to end, following a dead-end path.

Increasingly, though, even when I was alone, I felt the presence of another person with me. The baby. A stranger, unknown yet already familiar, growing within my body, fluttering around behind my belly button, riding me like a bus to life on earth. A few times a day, I tried hypnotizing myself, not only for the contractions, but also to relax. I closed my eyes and pictured the baby’s cells dividing: two became four; four became eight and so on, and I listened, straining to hear them multiplying behind the rush of my blood and the beating of our two hearts. Let your muscles float, I told myself, hoping that by relaxing my body I might relax its passenger as well. At night, alone in bed, I’d think about the baby, tried to imagine who it was, what life would be like after it arrived. And inevitably, thinking of the baby and parenting, my mind would wander to my own childhood. How handsome, how clever and slick my father had been. How troubled, how desperate my mother. And, drifting off, I’d wonder about Nick and me, and, years from now, what memories of us would haunt Molly and our fluttering, precious, still unborn child.