The Delilah Complex (11 page)

O
ut on the street, the wind swirling around us, pushing us toward each other, I dreaded how we were going to say good-night.

“Is Dulcie home?”

Surprised by Noah’s directness, even though I shouldn’t have been, I shook my head before I could stop myself.

“So you don’t have to go right home?”

“No, but I should. I have an early patient.”

“Too early for you to come to the station and look at the photographs that we asked the
Times
to withhold?”

Then his mouth moved, the corners going up, and his eyes twinkled in the light of the street lamp and he smiled. All-knowing and seductive. A laughing smile without any sound. He’d got me. And he knew it. He’d probably done it on purpose. Teased me into thinking he was asking one thing but offering something else entirely. Was he getting me back for not returning his calls last July?

Torn between wanting very much to see the photographs and being embarrassed, I took a deep breath and inhaled the crisp night air. In it, I smelled something familiar. But what?

And then I knew, it was Noah’s cologne: rosemary and mint.

Looking away from him so he couldn’t read what I was thinking or feeling, I told him yes, I’d like to see the pictures.

It could have been 10:00 a.m. instead of 10:00 p.m. at the station. We walked through the busy lobby and crowded halls, up the stairs, down the hall, around a corner and into the office Noah shared with Mark Perez.

The room was unexceptional. Institutional, well-used furniture, windows that needed to be washed, scratchedup tables, worn wood floors. But despite the drab anonymity, the room crackled with the detectives’ energy. A row of jade plants and ivy in colorful pots sat on the windowsill—green and healthy looking, though I couldn’t imagine much sun made it through those windows. There was a Mardi Gras mask hanging from the silver lamp on Jordain’s desk.

But the focus of the office was the south wall. It was covered with photographs, notes, maps and reports: a collage of images and papers, some sections enlarged so much they were just patches of color, mosaics without meaning.

But they did mean something.

Noah took my arm in an impersonal way and led me to the far right section of the wall.

“Start here.”

Two shots were side by side, each taken from an identical angle. It appeared the photographer had stood about two feet in front of the bodies. This specific point of view distorted the perspective of the corpse so the feet were larger than normal, as was the penis, but the chest and the head were diminished.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded but wasn’t sure; these men had not just been killed, they had been sexualized. The bruises around their wrists, necks, ankles and testicles, which Betsy Young had described to me, were vivid purple, black and blue. Shades of violence and abuse. For relief I looked at the background, which was plain gray and smooth. Not a wall. There were no bumps or cracks, no suggestion of windows, doors or ambient light. I thought that I should know where they were but I couldn’t focus.

“Where are they?” I asked Noah.

If he thought it was strange that my first question was about the walls, he didn’t say so.

“We don’t know yet, but we think that gray expanse is a studio backdrop. Many photographers have rolls of different drops in their studios, and depending on what they need, they just pull down the effect they want.”

I nodded. I knew exactly what he was talking about. When Mitch was starting out he’d worked as the assistant to a director who shot food and tabletop commercials. I’d seen backdrops like that.

“By pulling it down and all the way out he’s covered the floor, making sure to conceal any clues,” Noah continued.

“It would be far too obvious to assume the killer is a photographer, right?”

“No. Nothing is ever too obvious. But we had a professional look at the shots, and he said the exposures are somewhat amateurish and the developing is uneven. He feels that whoever took them is at ease with a camera and understands composition but isn’t someone who shoots for a living.”

I sat down in the chair opposite his desk, facing the collage, unable to stop staring at the pictures.

“That means the photographer is self-taught or someone who studied photography somewhere. After all, he’s developing the shots himself.”

“That last part fits the profile,” Noah said. “Serial killers are loners. They feel isolated, disconnected from society. Misunderstood. The killings can even be a misguided way to connect to people. Either to the victims or to the people who are going to be distraught over the deaths. They work alone, and I’m pretty sure that this guy didn’t take these shots into the corner One-Hour Photo. He’s probably got his own darkroom.”

“Can you say that’s he’s a serial killer with only two victims? Maybe there was a reason he needed to kill the two of them and now he’s finished. It might be all over.” I was still staring, riveted to the images of the pale corpses.

Noah answered me, but I didn’t hear him; I’d noticed something in one of the photographs.

T
he coffee was extremely hot, but Paul Lessor wasn’t paying attention and burned his tongue so badly he slammed the cup down. The liquid flew up in an arc and splashed down on the front page of the
New York Times
, just missing the article he was reading. The coffee seeped into the paper and spread. Was it an omen that the stain stopped just at the edge of the story about Timothy Wheaton?

The pain inside his mouth was intense, but Paul couldn’t be bothered with that now. He read every word and thought about all the men from the Scarlet Society who were also reading this at their desks, at their breakfast tables, on the subway, in their chauffeur-driven cars, in their taxis. They were probably shitting in their pants.

Two men. First missing. Now lifeless bodies with pathetic numbers on the soles of their feet. Number 1. And now number 2.

For the first time in his life, Paul Lessor understood the expression “rubbing your hands together with glee.” This was the best feeling he’d had in a long time. This was revenge. This was comeuppance. Ha. If he couldn’t come
anymore, at least he could get gratification thinking about how this was screwing with the head of every man who ever visited the society and every man who had ever looked at him with pity.

So what if he couldn’t get it up? They wouldn’t be able to get it up anymore, either. Thorazine wasn’t the only thing that made you impotent. Fear did it, too. Every one of those men must be choking on their croissants, spilling their orange juice, breaking out in a sweat, feeling a cramp in their stomachs or a loosening of their bowels. They were questioning their little hobby, now weren’t they? Wondering what they could do differently from Philip and Timothy so they could go back to the society but escape the fate of these two. Except even if they braved it, overcame their fright, how good would the sex be now, really?

Under his robe, Paul put his hand around his penis. Squeezing, rubbing, hoping that the elation he was feeling at seeing the article and thinking about the other men suffering would translate into another kind of elation.

If he could be this happy, wouldn’t he be able to get hard?

Nothing was happening.

He tried harder. His mind focused on the image of a woman demanding he undress for her. Of a woman pushing her breasts into his hands and telling him how to touch her. Of a woman standing over him and shoving her pussy into his face.

His flaccid dick betrayed him, and as if it were burning his fingers the way the coffee had scorched the inside of his mouth, he jerked his hand away.

Think about something else, anything else
.

He looked down at the newspaper and started to read the article again, savoring the picture of the man’s feet. And
the number 2. Envisioning another photograph of another man’s feet with the number 3 on them. And then another with the number 4 on them…

There was no telling how many would meet their fate this way.

He smiled, knowing even if he couldn’t get every kind of pleasure, at least this pleasure was not being denied him.

Picking up the cup of coffee, he drank from it. Bitter, black and lukewarm. It didn’t matter, the only thing he tasted was the sweetness of revenge.

N
ina and I were walking up Fifth Avenue on the west side of the street, where there are still cobblestones and if you wear high heels they can get trapped in the cracks. We took walks often during lunch, most of the time without a destination, just a direction. The object wasn’t where we would wind up, but the excursion itself.

“I saw the article in the
Times
this morning about Timothy Wheaton, with your quote in it,” she said.

“I think he might have also been involved with the Scarlet Society.”

“Why do you think so? Have you met with the group again?”

“Not until Monday. But there are marks on his body that are exactly the same as those on Philip Maur’s. Marks that aren’t mentioned in either article.”

“Did the reporter tell you about them? Why would she?” Nina asked, confused.

“No. The reporter didn’t say anything.”

“Who did? Who told you about the marks?”

Damn, I never should have said anything. Now I would have to explain to Nina that I’d seen Noah the night before, and she didn’t have any faith in the police.

In 1996, when her husband Sam was Butterfield’s director, the NYPD suspected the institute was a front for an illegal prostitution ring. They had placed a detective inside who posed as a sex therapist and who found enough evidence to put Sam in prison. The case was under appeal when Sam died of a heart attack.

Rather than blame Sam, who had indeed been guilty as charged, Nina used the NYPD as her scapegoat, insisting that their undercover sting had been too much of a shock for him and that if they had been aboveboard he wouldn’t have died.

I’d experienced Nina’s irrational anger at the police for the first time when I’d gotten involved with the Magdalene Murders and met Noah. Now I braced myself for another explosion of it.

“Noah Jordain called me. He told me about the photos.”

“Oh?” She didn’t look at me, but I could sense the barely perceptible cooling of her tone.

“He saw this morning’s article yesterday before it went to press, read my quote and called to find out what my involvement was and why the reporter had interviewed me, out of all the therapists in the city.”

“What did you tell him?”

“There was nothing to tell him. I don’t know why the reporter called me.”

We’d reached the Metropolitan Museum on Eighty-first and Fifth. There were always food carts on the street and it was our lunchtime habit to stop and indulge in a New York City delicacy: Sabrett hot dogs with sauerkraut and mustard, enveloped in warm buns.

We got our food, sat on the wide stone steps leading up to the museum, ate and talked about a therapist we both knew who wanted to come to work at the institute. I was glad Nina had dropped any discussion of Noah.

Except she hadn’t. We stood up, and as we brushed the crumbs off our clothes, she asked, “You didn’t say anything to imply to Detective Jordain that Philip Maur belonged to any kind of group, did you?”

“How can you ask me that?”

“The rules get murky sometimes.”

“Not for me. And you know it.”

“No. Not for you. Not yet. But sweetie, you’re human. You went through a traumatic experience last June and Noah Jordain came to your rescue and you might—”

“He didn’t. I was not in any danger by the time Jordain showed up.”

“Okay.” She didn’t sound convinced.

“None of that has anything to do with anything, Nina. This is one of those times when you are getting mixed up, not sure if you should be my boss or play mother. You are confusing your roles. What are you really worried about? Me? The institute? Our clients?”

We walked to the bottom of the steps and headed back down Fifth. Neither of us said anything.

“You’re right,” Nina finally offered.

I smiled at her.

“It would just be easier if you didn’t see the detective again. It’s a loaded situation. It’s too tempting.”

“He’s not married, you know.”

She laughed. “I didn’t mean that kind of temptation. But it’s interesting to note where your mind went.”

I didn’t think it was funny at all. “Don’t shrink me, Nina. Just tell me what you want to tell me.”

“Okay. Fair enough. What I meant was that if you get involved with the detective, then when it comes to telling him something that might make his job easier, even if it means compromising your own professional ethics, you
will feel tempted to do the wrong thing to help someone that you care about.”

“Haven’t I proved myself?”

“None of us is made of steel. We don’t face every situation the same way. What happened last summer was one thing. What happens next time will be something else.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about it. I’m not getting involved with him.”

“Okay. So this is settled?”

“Yes,” I said. And at that moment I was sure that it was. Nina was right. She had to be.

I
don’t make house calls except in very unusual circumstances. Since Nicky’s estranged wife was suffering a severe case of agoraphobia, I’d made an exception and had agreed to see them at her house in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Nicky said his wife, a painter, normally spent long periods of time alone and so he hadn’t noticed the phobia creeping up on her, neither did he know what had triggered it. But since he’d moved out to an apartment in the city, he didn’t believe she had left the house. Forty minutes away from Manhattan, she’d imprisoned herself on a twentyacre estate that had been in her family for three generations.

Once a week, my colleague Simon and I drove to an upstate New York prison to work with incarcerated prostitutes. Usually he drove us, but if I was going to help Nicky and his wife, the best time to do it was on Thursday after my stint at the prison. So I’d rented a car, done my work with Simon, and then driven to Fairfield County.

A black mailbox identified number 26 Pondview Avenue. As per Nicky’s instructions, I made a right and drove
for five minutes on a road that had been cut through a forest. Tall weeping pine trees on both sides cast a dark bluegreen shadow that blocked the sun and created a sudden evening, although it was only midafternoon.

After twisting and turning for a few hundred yards, the road ended in a clearing. The house was directly ahead of me, and in every direction there were fields and more forest.

I pulled into a parking area where two other cars were parked. The silver Mercedes SUV didn’t have a speck of dirt or dust on it, but the celery-green Jag looked in need of a good wash.

Getting out, I stretched my legs and looked around. The grounds were meticulously cared for and picturesque. In the distance was a pond and beyond that were rolling hills as far as I could see.

The scene dictated quiet, but there was work being done somewhere on the property, and the drone of a mechanical monster was out of place and annoying. If birds were chirping, as I was sure they were, I couldn’t hear them, and the bucolic view was marred by the sound. The air was filled with the perfume of the pungent pine trees and scents of fall. Somewhere close by, wood was burning in a fireplace.

Living in a very crowded city for my entire life, the idea of so much space and such solitude seemed both an enviable luxury and a frightening prospect.

The uneven stone path to the front door was edged on both sides with an English cottage garden. I noticed how many of the plantings were popular with butterflies: bee balm, violets, English lavender, passionflower, columbine, asters and buddleia bushes. Except for the purple, white, and lavender buddleias, the flowers were all past bloom. I
had some of them growing in the planters on my own small balcony. It had been a warm fall and there were likely still some butterflies that came to feed in this garden, but I didn’t see any as I walked by.

I rang the bell and heard a long chime sound inside. Footsteps followed and then Nicky opened the door. He was wearing a pale blue shirt, black cashmere V-neck sweater and pressed jeans. He smiled warmly, shook my hand and told me how grateful he was that I’d agreed to come all the way out there.

“Daphne is inside,” he said as he led the way through a main hall, the living room and out onto a patio that had been enclosed as a sunroom. Majolica cachepots graced the end tables. The couch and chairs were oversized, deep-cushioned and covered with a cabbage-rose chintz. The walls were pale, pale blue with white trim. The tile floors were partially covered with almost threadbare, but exquisite, Oriental carpets. Everything bespoke old money. And a lot of it.

As I entered, Daphne stood and extended her hand.

I knew better than to think that something like agoraphobia would show on someone’s face, but I didn’t expect the woman who greeted me.

She was blond, long and lean, and offered a strong, firm handshake. An elegant neck supported a heart-shaped face that was well tanned. From the Cartier watch to the tweed slacks, leather boots, lemon-yellow sweater set and the string of lustrous pearls, everything fit the image of a Junior Leaguer.

I looked into her eyes as I introduced myself. They were a pale green-gray color, intelligent but stormy and defiant. Not the eyes of a woman afraid of going out of the house. Or afraid of anything else, I thought.

And then she gave me a soft smile that defused her hardness. “It’s so nice to meet you, Dr. Snow. Nicky’s told me a lot about you. He’s very enthusiastic about this process. Would you like some tea or some coffee? Something cold?” Her voice matched her prettiness, not the defiant eyes, and sounded like honey and silk.

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

She motioned for me to sit, and as I did, she did, too. “I really appreciate that you would come out here to work with us. It won’t be for long, though. I’m working on the agoraphobia with my own therapist and we both feel I’m getting close to a breakthrough.”

The chair was too big for me; I felt lost in it and missed my own office. The estranged couple sat on the couch facing me. It was a good sign that they had chosen to sit together.

“Who are you working with?” I asked, in case I needed to consult with her therapist at some point.

She hesitated. Was she apprehensive about telling me for some reason? A breeze blew in from an open window. It carried Daphne’s fragrance toward me. Lilies of the valley. Fitting. But the perfume wasn’t the only thing I smelled; suddenly, there was something else in the air, too. Clean, sharp and astringent. But I couldn’t place it.

“His name is William Klein. Here in Greenwich. I’ve gone to him on and off since I was a teenager.”

I wanted to ask her why she’d gone to a therapist when she was a teenager, but it was too soon. I filed the fact away. “How long have you and Nicky known each other?”

She looked over at him before she answered. I couldn’t see her face and so couldn’t read her expression. I asked a few more questions that didn’t matter very much except to get the session started and establish a rapport.

“Do you want to work out your problems with Nicky?”

Her answer was quick, and extremely vehement. “Yes. More than anything I have ever wanted. I’ll do anything to make our marriage work.”

“Well, not anything,” Nicky countered.

“Anything that I’m capable of doing.”

“Daphne, can you tell me about the problem the two of you are having?”

“Didn’t Nicky tell you?”

“Yes, but that was his version. I’d like to hear yours. And then I’d like you to tell me what you think the problem is, Nicky.”

“We already went through that at your office,” Nicky said impatiently.

“Yes, but I want each of you to hear what the other thinks.”

“The only thing standing in the way of our having a good relationship is Nicky’s fucking inability to leave the Scarlet Society.”

Her use of that one word seemed out of place in this genteel house. Was she being rebellious or angry?

“He’s told me three or four times that he’s quit, but he can’t stay away. I’m willing to accept that he has an addiction and work with him on it, but I can’t just shrug my shoulders and let him go there two or three nights a week, play the pussy pansy and look the other way.”

If she wanted a reaction to that expression, I wasn’t going to accommodate her. “Do you think shrugging your shoulders is a solution?”

“It’s Nicky’s solution. He wants to be married to me and have a family with me, and on the side get naked and be treated like a—”

“Let’s focus on you and what you want,” I said. “We’ll let Nicky speak for himself when it’s his turn.”

In her lap, Daphne fussed, clasping and unclasping her hands. Her nails were short, unpolished, not manicured. The skin was rough and red. Seeing me look, she smiled and held up her hands to make it easier for me to see. “Painter’s hands. The turp does damage.”

That must have been what I’d smelled.

“I’d like to see your work.”

“Are you an art lover?” she asked.

“I am, albeit an uneducated one.” That was true, but it wasn’t why I wanted to see her paintings. I was curious about what they would reveal about her.

“That’s the best kind. Someone who just looks at the work and decides if she likes it or not based on how it touches her, not based on what some asshole professor or critic tells her to think.”

Hostility now. I was curious to pursue that line, but couldn’t afford to go that far afield from Daphne and Nicky’s relationship in the first session. I turned to him. “Nicky, would you tell me if you agree with Daphne’s assessment of what’s going on between the two of you?”

He nodded. “I can’t give up what she wants me to.”

“Do you want to?”

“I can’t.”

“Are you willing to try?”

“I have.”

“Are you willing to try again?”

Before he could answer, Daphne did. “No—he’s not. He thinks it’s up to me to change. He thinks that since I was once part of that vile club, I should be understanding. But I want my husband to be faithful.”

“I am faithful, Daphne. What goes on there is not about love or even affection.”

“What is it about?” I asked him.

“Sex.”

“Sex isn’t about love?”

“It can be. But it can also just be sex. It’s a physical activity. Like playing tennis, or going swimming.”

Daphne let out a long peal of laughter that surprised me with its nasty edge. “He is so full of shit. I know what he wants and—”

“Time out,” I interrupted. “I don’t want either of you to assume what the other wants. Just answer for yourself. Daphne, tell me about the Scarlet Society. How long ago did you join?”

“Years ago. A friend of mine was a member and she told me about it.”

“How often did you go?”

“About once or twice a month. Usually with her.”

“What did you enjoy about it?”

“I don’t see why this shit is important to—”

“Because it has to do with your marriage. The society is what you say is getting in the way of you and Nicky having a good marriage. I need to find out more about that.”

She thought for a minute, and in the quiet of the room I heard the steady drone of machinery along with the beat of a hammer, hitting its mark every five to ten seconds.

“What did you ask me?”

Was she buying time or had she really forgotten what I’d asked?

“I asked you what you enjoyed about being a member of the Scarlet Society.”

“It was like painting in another artist’s hand. I do very realistic paintings. It was as if suddenly I could paint like an abstract expressionist. I wasn’t myself there. Or at least not the self I’d always known.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“It was exciting…also confusing. For the first time in my life, I was in an environment where no one knew who I was, who my parents were, what kind of life I had. We don’t talk about ourselves. You know that, right?”

I nodded.

“There was a real sense of freedom. Until then, I’d only known a world where there are right ways of behaving. And wrong ways. Everything about the Scarlet Society was the wrong way of behaving. It was the best damn thing that ever happened to my art.”

I hadn’t expected that. “What do you mean—the best thing that happened to your art?”

“My father was a Supreme Court judge. My mother was a member of the Junior League and the DAR. I am one of three sisters. By the time I was twenty-five, they were both married with kids. And they’re younger than me. My painting was an indulgence that my parents thought I’d outgrow. It was fine that I studied art—as long as I did it at Radcliffe. It was all right that I painted as long as my studio was in the apartment they’d bought for me on Park Avenue. The society was something that would have freaked them out. They would never have approved.”

“And you only did what they approved of?”

“It never occurred to me to cross them. You just didn’t do that.”

“When you were very young, how did they handle it when you did something that angered them?”

Her answer came fast, delivered in a low voice that was almost a whisper. “They stopped talking to you. Completely. Depending on your crime, for hours or for days. You were treated like you were invisible. Until you apologized. Until you repented.”

“Did you feel guilty about what went on at the society?”

“No. I wasn’t me there. I didn’t even use my real first name. It was totally separate from the rest of my life.”

“Some people might find that difficult. To balance two such different lives.”

“Really?”

There was something very naive about that question, which alerted me to watch out for other instances of an ability to distance herself from reality.

“For some people it might be.”

“Well, it wasn’t for me. And it was good for my art. That was the best part.” She clasped her hands tightly together.

“How so?”

She smiled and her face was transformed from a serious, troubled visage to a child’s face, full of wonder. “It would be easier to show you.” She stood.

I wasn’t sure we should interrupt the session at that point, but her enthusiasm was important.

“Is that okay with you?” I asked Nicky.

“Hell, yes, it’s fine. I told you I wanted you to see Daphne’s work.”

I followed Daphne as she led me around the sunroom, showing me four still lifes of flowers and fruit that she said she had done in her early twenties. They were bright and bold and very well done. A combination of Matisse’s colors and Cézanne’s blocking but without either’s originality or verve. So unremarkable that I hadn’t even noticed them while we were sitting and talking.

“This was the kind of work I was doing after college. Competent. Uninspired. I couldn’t get the attention of any serious downtown gallery. A safe, old-fashioned Madison Avenue gallery took me on.” She laughed. “But that turned out to be because my parents had guaranteed the sales for each of my shows.”

“When did you find that out?”

“A few years ago. My mother died and I inherited this house. All of the paintings that I thought had sold to clients from all of my shows were still in their shipping crates in one of the rooms in the basement.”