The Delilah Complex (15 page)

“Martha?” I looked at her.

“What is confusing about this is that, while I know we have rules that dictate we only deal with the men at the society in a sexual manner, they are people, too. And two of them are dead. And they knew us. And we knew them. And one of them is having a memorial service and I want to be there.”

“Oh, isn’t that sweet,” Cara spat out. She hadn’t spoken at all before, neither in the last session or the present one. She had dark olive skin and flashing black eyes and wore an elaborate Hérmes scarf tied over her hair.

“Comments like that are not really helpful,” I said. “Tell us how you feel.”

“This is ridiculous. We use these guys. They are hard bodies, willing hands, they are a way for us to finally get what we want with no strings. We work damn hard at making sure the men we let in want to be treated the way we want to treat them. This is not about feelings.”

“You know, that is such a stereotype that it’s almost laughable,” Davina said. “Just because we use them doesn’t mean we can’t have feelings for them.”

“Whether I should have feelings or not—the point is I do,” Anne said to Cara. “And I am not embarrassed to say I do. And I want to go to the service being held for Philip and pray along with everyone else that his body is found and that he can be put to rest. I think it’s horrible what’s happened to him. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about
him laid out somewhere, dead. How was he killed? Why was he killed?”

“Jeezus,” Cara muttered.

I looked at her. “Cara, what is wrong with Anne caring about what happened to Philip? Did you know him?”

“No, but I fucked him.” She glowered at the rest of the room. “You know what is so damn hypocritical about this is that we are all consenting adults who belong to a goddamn fuck club. It’s not a dating service. Most of these guys are married. We are not their mistresses. If anything, they serve us. They have crushes on us. We do not have feelings for them.”

“Don’t you have any feelings for any of the men you have been with at the society?” I asked her.

“No.”

“How long have you been a member?” I asked her.

“Nine years.”

“How often do you go to the society?”

“About two or three times a month.” She leaned back in her chair.

“And do you always spend time with different men?”

“No. I have preferences.”

“Based on what?”

“Based on their performance.”

“Do you talk to the men you are with?”

“With the men I choose?” she corrected me in a clipped tone.

“All right. With the men you choose.”

“Yes, I talk to them.”

“What do you talk to them about?”

“What is the point of these questions?” she asked venomously.

“Why are you here if you have so much disdain for the
process?” Shelby asked. “I made it really clear when I suggested that we come to Dr. Snow that only those of us who thought that Philip’s death was an issue for them should come.”

Cara didn’t answer her.

“I think that’s a fair question, Cara,” I said. But it was also too direct a question. I could have guessed as to what the problem was. But my being blunt wouldn’t help anyone.

“I think that what Cara is feeling is confusion,” Davina said, with amazing perception.

This wasn’t the first time that she had tried to explain how someone else was feeling. My guess was that she was either a lawyer or had some kind of psychoanalytic training herself. All her responses and questions and reactions to what went on in the group so far seemed impersonal, as if she were looking at the proceedings from a distance that no one else but Liz exhibited.

“Cara, are you confused?”

“Only about why we are even questioning our original decision about not breaking our rules. They are very clear. We do not communicate with other members. We do not engage in social activity with other members. We don’t try to contact any of the men or have any kind of relationship with them outside of the society.”

“And have you kept to those rules over the entire time that you have been in the society?” I asked her, hoping that my instincts were right. While she’d been talking she’d uncrossed her arms and seemed to stretch them out, palms open to the room, almost in supplication. It had been a small movement but I’d noticed it.

“And have you kept to those rules during the time that you have been in the society?” I asked again.

She didn’t answer. But Liz did.

“No, she hasn’t.”

Cara turned and glared at her. The look was vicious. Violent. Her eyes narrowed to slits, flashing even more brightly.

No one said anything for a minute.

“Cara, is there something you’d like to tell us?”

“No. Liz is lying.”

Liz was smiling in the way a small boy does after he’s put a frog in his teacher’s pocketbook. There was something between these two women that we would have to deal with eventually. But for now, the group had other issues that I felt were timely.

“Cara, are you angry?”

“You’re damn straight I am angry.”

“At whom?”

“At her.” She pointed to Liz.

“Why?”

“For lying.”

“I am not lying. I saw you and—”

“Shut up, you fucking bitch. You’re just jealous. You’re jealous of every one of us and you know it. It’s not easy for you anymore. You’re always saying it. That age is a terrible thing. You can’t exercise enough. You can’t figure out how to stop the process. You don’t like how the men react to you anymore and—”

“Cara, this isn’t helpful. Throwing accusations across the room isn’t going to do any good. Let’s try to get back on track and deal with how you feel. About what you are going through.”

“I don’t feel anything right now except anger at the mistake that we are all going to make if any of us shows up at the memorial service.” She’d crossed her arms over
her chest again. There was not going to be any way to reach her now. My guess was that she had seen someone outside of the club, but I couldn’t confront her about that until there was another opening.

For the rest of the session, Cara stayed silent and the rest of us talked about the service that was going to be held at the end of the week. In the end, everyone agreed that as much as some of them wanted to go, it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t do Philip any good, and ultimately they were honor-bound to uphold the commitment that they had made to him. And to each member of the group.

“We only have one thing that binds us to one another and allows us to be part of this, and that is our oath not to put any of us in jeopardy of our activities being divulged,” Shelby said toward the end of the ninety minutes.

It had been a good session. They had talked about their sense of loss and worked on their confusion about how to deal with a man they had been intimate with in one sense but knew nothing about in another.

By the time they left, I believed that they would all keep their word, stay away from the service and keep silent.

B
y 7:00 p.m. on Monday night, Jordain and Perez’s office was littered with used foam coffee cups and takeout food wrappers.

“Why the hell don’t we have anything? How can you kill two men and hide the bodies for this long? And now a third? Shit. Where are they?” Perez said as he poured himself yet another cup of the strong chicory-laced coffee that Jordain had just made. It was their fourth pot that day.

“You really asking that?” Jordain asked.

Perez shot him a look. Obviously, it hadn’t been an actual question. The two detectives were frustrated, tired and angry with the killer, who was so elusive.

“How much you think Delilah would hate it that we’ve given him a woman’s name?” Perez asked.

They’d taken to calling the anonymous killer “Delilah” because of the locks of hair that had been sent to Betsy Young, along with all three sets of photographs.

Yes, three. The third had come in early that morning.

“He would despise it. An affront to his power. To his masculinity. We’re really getting him but good by calling him that.”

For the second time in less than five minutes, Perez shot his partner an exasperated look.

The phone rang, as it had been doing all afternoon, but all calls were being intercepted. Half of them were from the managing editor of the
New York Times
, who was waiting for the police to give him the go-ahead to run the next story in the series, which announced that there was a third victim. Grant Firth. Forty-two. Doctor of orthopedic surgery at New York Hospital. Father of three girls. Husband of Donna Firth, who was a medical reporter for the
Wall Street Journal
.

“You know that’s Hastings on the phone,” Perez said.

“Of course it’s him. He can’t stand it. Every minute that goes by is one more minute lost. And if he loses too many of them, he loses his lead story for tomorrow.”

There was nothing about this case that pleased either detective, except perhaps watching Harry Hastings wait and beg. The paper could run the story when they said so. And not before.

The lab reports had all come back without a single break. The envelopes were a mess since they’d been through the postal system. There was no saliva on the inside flap or under the stamps. There were no stray hairs inside. Just the clippings put there on purpose.

There was one fiber in the second envelope. A small white thread, no more than an eighth of an inch long. Frayed at the end. Meaningless on its own.

The paper that the photographs had been printed on was standard and sold in almost every photography-supply store in the United States, as well as hundreds of stores online. Even if they found out where it had been bought, what were the chances that the photographer would have used a credit card?

It didn’t matter. They had experts working on tracing the stock.

The nine-by-twelve manila envelopes were even more common than the photo paper. The postmarks were at least interesting. The first envelope had been sent from midtown Manhattan. The second from Port Chester, New York, about a half hour away from the city. And the third had been mailed from Harlem.

They were working on finding the pattern to those three locations. But it was too early for them to lock in on it.

The footsteps were light, but since both men were waiting for her they looked up even before Officer Butler walked in.

She was smiling, which Jordain thought was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in at least thirty-two hours. “What do you have?” he asked.

“The hair sample on Firth.”

Both men had leaned forward and were listening hard. “Yeah?”

“There was some blood on it. And in the blood are traces of Thorazine. We checked with Firth’s wife. No history of any prescription drugs. No antidepressants. No mood elevators. Nothing.”

“Which means that he was drugged before he was killed,” Jordain said. “Or the drug killed him.”

Butler nodded.

“How hard is it to get Thorazine?” Perez asked. “And how hard is it to OD on the stuff?”

“I’m ahead of you on that,” Butler said. “As soon as I saw the report, I put in a call to the M.E.”

“And?”

“And I’m waiting for him to call me back.”

“More waiting,” Jordain said.

“There’s something else,” Butler said.

“Yes?” Both men looked back at her.

“There’s another substance on one of the hair samples. The lab guys aren’t sure what it is. A chemical. They’re running more tests now. Should have some information in a few hours, if we are lucky.”

“So far there hasn’t been any luck on this case,” Perez lamented.

“Maybe that’s about to change,” Jordain said.

Perez smiled at his partner the way a parent smiles at his child on Christmas Eve when the kid is putting out cookies and milk for Santa.

“It’s nice that you can still dream.”

“If you stop dreaming, you might as well stop living,” Jordain said.

It was true. He believed that. Even doing what he did every day, even seeing what he saw, even knowing what he knew about the human psyche and the ability man had to be evil.

“It’s that damn piano,” Perez said. “You’re a fucking romantic because of that damn piano.”

In answer, Jordain put his hands on the edge of his desk as if it were a keyboard and moved his fingers up and down, miming playing. He scatted along with the action, his voice giving real life to a jazz riff that he’d written. Perez had seen his partner do this a hundred times, and so had Butler, but they still stared in wonder at the way Jordain’s hands moved with a grace that wasn’t expected, and the way his voice moved them even though they were tough cops and should know better.

M
y last patient on Tuesday left at 4:55 p.m.—ten minutes late because we had broken through a major issue and I was loath to rush her out. I hurried to the staff meeting in the upstairs conference room that usually began on time.

There were eight therapists at the institute, all of whom specialized in sex therapy, and our weekly conclaves gave us a chance to talk with one another about our patients and their treatments. Nina—and her husband before her—believed that one of the strengths of the Butterfield Institute was the combined expertise of several doctors and therapists under one roof. Indeed, for me, being able to consult with others had proved preferable to working alone, as most members of my profession did.

That night, the discussion was focused on one of Nina’s patients whom she thought needed to begin working with a sex surrogate. She wanted our opinions—surrogacy being the last resort.

We’d been going around and around about whether there was any other impotency treatment Nina might try first, but no one offered any options that Nina hadn’t already
exhausted. She looked at me and said, “You haven’t had much to add, Morgan. No ideas?”

“It sounds like you’ve covered pretty much everything but the surrogate.”

She nodded but was frowning. “We moved off of that about five minutes ago.”

I stared at her.

“We’ve been talking about which surrogate would be best in the situation.”

“Sorry.”

“What’s going on with your caseload?” she asked.

It wasn’t required, but it was expected that at some point in the meeting we’d each do an update on some of our most complicated cases. But the only thing I needed to discuss was the one thing I didn’t want to discuss. I tried to think of every other patient I was seeing, to dredge up some valid question and get a conversation going and move Nina’s attention—and her fierce eyes—off me.

“Morgan?”

I still hadn’t said anything and she was waiting. This wasn’t like me, I knew. Anxiety was making my blood race. I forced myself to just say it.

“I need to talk about going to the police,” I said.

Nina’s eyebrows arched. “I thought we covered that.”

I shook my head.

“Going to the police about what?” Simon Weiss asked.

There were no windows in the conference room. Just dark green walls, comfortable black leather chairs, a verdant marble table, and antique prints of maps on the walls. From where I was seated, I could see a line of etchings of Europe on maps from the seventeenth century. The blue of the ocean was slightly faded, but the reds, browns and yellows of the countries were still fairly intense. I couldn’t
keep staring at the prints. Taking a breath, I launched into an explanation of what had been going on with the Scarlet Society, what I had seen at the police station, and what I felt I needed to do.

“The only thing Morgan hasn’t mentioned,” Nina said in a tone that was harsher than normal, “is that we already talked about this and I advised her not to talk to the police again.”

“You did. But I just don’t think that’s the right decision.”

“It’s the only decision that you can make under the circumstances,” she countered.

Around us, Simon and the rest of the staff must have been aware of the subtext of the conversation. Everyone knew of Nina’s overdeveloped and irrational anger at the NYPD.

“Please, Morgan, can’t you just trust me on this?”

I looked at Simon, my closest friend at the institute, imploring him with my eyes to step in. He did. Of course he did. I could always count on him, and I gave him a half smile before the fact to thank him.

“Nina, what’s your objection? If the women in the group haven’t given Morgan this information, if it’s something she saw on her own, there’s no reason she can’t go to the police.”

There were murmurs and assents from two other therapists.

“I don’t think you can, Morgan,” Helen Grant said. She was one of the older members of the staff and had been handpicked by Sam, even before he married Nina, to work at Butterfield. She was elderly then. Now she was approaching ancient, but she still came in five days a week and saw patients. “No. Morgan can’t go to the police. She has a commitment to her group. There is nothing she can
offer up that will help, if the society is as secret as she says it is.” Her white curls bobbed with the intensity of her next words. “It is not our job to solve crimes. Haven’t we gone through enough of that around here?”

Nina was looking at me sternly, differently from how she looked at any other member of her staff. She was frowning the way I’d frown at Dulcie when she pushed me to the point of exasperation.

“I am not a child,” I said more stridently than I’d wanted to. “I am not unaware of the boundaries. I don’t have any reason not to tell detectives Jordain and Perez what I saw in those photographs.”

“Well. We’re done for tonight,” Nina said as she put her mug down on the table.

The crack was not as loud as it was unexpected, and everyone stared at the shards of white china and the tea that pooled on the table. No one moved except for Nina, who leaned over and started to pick up the broken mug.

“Don’t do that—” I started to say, about to warn her of exactly what happened. She cut her forefinger on one of the slivers of porcelain. A droplet of bright blood appeared. She stared at it as if it were an intruder. With the blood starting to drip off her finger, she looked up and over at me.

“You understand that I believe you are about to make a serious mistake.”

I turned and picked up a paper napkin from the sideboard where the coffee, tea, cups and a plate of cookies were. “Here,” I said as I reached her side. “Your finger is bleeding.”

She took it from me without thanking me. Suddenly, I became aware that the room was too quiet. I looked around. We were alone. The other members of the institute had slipped out.

“Why are you so dead set on doing exactly what I don’t think you should do? Why would you bring that up here? It was between us.”

“No, Nina, it wasn’t.”

“I told you the other day that—”

“This isn’t a decision about me personally that I talked over with my godmother. This is about a therapist, a group of patients and two murders. I brought it up in front of the members of the Butterfield Institute because the institute needs to make a decision about it.”

She looked stricken. As if I’d pushed her off a narrow parapet and she was afraid that she was falling.

“It isn’t about the institute. It’s not about your patients. You know it isn’t.” She then walked out, slamming the door behind her and leaving me by myself in the conference room.