The Reporter (20 page)

Debra’s heart sank at the finality in her tone. She could not disagree. Everything the principal said made dreadful sense.
“Please, Mrs. Daugherty,” she implored. “It’s so soon after Gia lost her father—all I ask is one more chance.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “We’ve had complaints from other parents.” With that, she turned her attention to some papers
on her desk. Debra was dismissed. The doyenne kept her stolid gaze riveted on her paperwork. Debra straightened, scooped up
Gia’s hand, turned, and slammed out the door with her daughter.

In anger and frustration, she propelled Gia toward the parking lot and ushered her into the Jeep. Mother and child drove through
the long canyon to the beach without speaking. When they emerged at the coast, the sight of the rolling ocean waves and the
briny smell of the salt air restored Debra’s spirits, as they always did. Looking over at Gia sitting silently, studying her
own hands twisting in her lap, thoroughly ashamed, she knew it wasn’t her baby’s fault. Children are given to us as so much
clay, she reflected, and this, sadly, is what she and Jack had molded. When Jack died, she’d committed herself to do whatever
it took to repair the damage.

* * *

At home, Debra found a message from Maxi on her answering machine. She reached her at her house, and Maxi filled her in on
the bloodcurdling events of the night before. And she told her about the tests that the police technicians had done on Yukon’s
grisly gashes.

“Meg Davis has been released; they couldn’t hold her,” Maxi went on. “The investigators have put a gag order on the crime-lab
information, but Detective Cabello told my boss the results off the record, and Pete told me off the record, to warn me—and
now I’m warning you, Debra. The stab wounds that nearly killed my dog were made with the same weapon that killed Carlotta—
Meg Davis’s
Black Sabbat
cross!”

M
eg, Sally, and Alex were silent on the drive home from Sybil Brand. As the sun lightened the early-morning sky, Sally felt
that it heralded a new dawn for her small family. She and Alex would not remain separated; they loved and needed each other.
And Meggie would get the help she needed—Sally was prepared now to have her legally committed.

Alex had guided the two women through the clamoring crowd of media at the jail to his waiting car. All the while the cameras
followed them, Meggie was chanting the doggerel that Sally had heard her droning since the morning of Jack Nathanson’s funeral.
When they were at last alone in the safe haven of Alex’s BMW, she’d gently told Meggie to stop it, stop the chanting, and
she did. Her daughter sat quietly now, staring out through the windshield at the blurred lights of moving traffic on the Santa
Monica Freeway, clearly in another world.

Sally prayed for strength to wade through the medical and legal morass she knew was requisite to getting Meggie into treatment.
Once they were through it, the chaos that ruled their lives would subside. Meggie would thrive in an atmosphere of healing—they
would be able to look forward to a happy, healthy future for her.

She refused to allow herself to think about the criminal charges—
murder
charges, Neil Papiano had said. Her fragile child was not capable of violent behavior; they would find that out. They had
made a terrible mistake.

It was nearly seven in the morning when they once again walked through the doors of their apartment tower in Century City.
Sally’s mind flashed back to the night before, when she and Alex had approached the same doors arm in arm, enveloped in love
and hope, only to be met by two policemen waiting for them in the hall. And so the nightmare had begun.

They had been gone from the apartment for about eight hours, but it seemed like days. On the table in the entry hall there
was a copy of the search warrant, along with a handwritten list of the items that had been removed from the premises.

Meg disappeared into her room and closed the door, as Alex scanned the list. He read aloud:

1. Straw tote bag

2. Contents of above:

Billfold, ID Meg Davis

Key ring w/ five keys

Journal notebook w/ attached metal pen

Case containing makeup products

Multicolored fabric scarf

Paperback book,
Black Sabbat

3. Pair women’s black Reebok leather shoes, size 8

4. Pair black fabric gloves

5. Pair black leather gloves

“What does it mean?” Sally asked.

“It’s pretty obvious,” Alex responded, concerned. “They’re looking to match Meggie’s shoes and gloves with garments that the
intruder wore.”

“I saw the cross in her room,” Sally said, glancing up at the
closed door to Meggie’s bedroom, from which drifted the incessant sound of the incantation. “I don’t know if it’s still there.”

“Darling, of
course
it isn’t still there,” he said. “The cross would have been the key piece of evidence they were searching for. Obviously they
didn’t find it, or it would be on this list. They searched her car, too, it says on the warrant, and they didn’t find anything
they wanted. Be thankful she didn’t have drugs,” he added, “or they’d have had reason to hold her.”

Neil Papiano had warned Alex that if they held Meggie they’d probably put her in the “ding tank,” which, he explained, was
cop talk for the Constant Care Section, the holding cell for inmates who are mentally unstable. Throwing her in with the criminally
deranged until her arraignment might well have pushed her over the edge. If she had to be in custody, Alex thought, let it
be later, after a trial, after sentencing, and after psychiatric evaluation dictated that she serve her time in a clinic.

“You don’t believe that she could have hurt anyone, or
killed
anyone, do you?” Sally asked.

Alex put his arms around her. “I’ve been away from the two of you,” he answered. “I don’t have a feel for how she’s been.
I don’t know what to think.”

In truth, Dr. Alexander Shine did indeed believe that all signs pointed to Meggie, but he would indulge his wife’s fantasy
that no charges would be filed against her daughter, and that Meg would soon be safely settled, not in state custody, but
in a private facility.

Deriving strength from her husband’s presence, Sally steeled herself for the onerous task she faced. She would call Dr. Cohen
now, she told him, and they would do what had to be done to get Meggie into a hospital.

“Wait awhile,” Alex protested. “We’ve been under terrible strain, we’re exhausted, we haven’t slept all night. I’ve canceled
my morning appointments. Please, darling, let’s get some sleep. Then later, with clear heads, we’ll decide what to do.”

“No, I’ve already decided what to do. I couldn’t sleep now, Alex. I have to call Angela before she leaves for the office.”

She wouldn’t be dissuaded. She reached Dr. Cohen, who, of course, had seen the news. Angela would drop everything and be at
the apartment within a half hour, she said. Sally sighed with relief.

She had to talk to Meggie now. She knocked on her daughter’s bedroom door. No response, but she could hear the faint undertones
of the rhythmic chanting from within. Slowly, she turned the knob; the door was unlocked. The curtains were drawn against
the morning light. Sally peered into the semidarkness illumined by candles.

As her eyes narrowed to adjust to the gloom, she saw Meggie sitting cross-legged on the floor, her arms raised in supplication
toward the improvised shrine atop her dresser. The cross was gone, but the Bible, the candles, the flowers were there. Meggie
was chanting in low tones, the glint of candlelight revealing her eyes glazed in an unearthly stare, transfixed, unseeing.

Something in Sally snapped. “Stop it, dammit! Stop that, Meggie!” she cried.

Meg continued chanting, without hearing, without seeing. Sally barged across the room, tore apart the heavy drapes, threw
open the windows, then strode over to the makeshift shrine and blew out the candles. She dropped to her knees in front of
her daughter, took hold of her by the shoulders, and shook her. She had to quell the urge to slap her, to wake her up from
her stupor.

“What is it, Mother?” Meg spoke as if from a far-off place.

“Come with me,” Sally said. “I’ll make coffee. We have to talk.” Taking Meg by the hand, she led her, like a submissive child,
into the sunny kitchen, and seated her at the glass-topped table.

“How do you feel after that frightening ordeal?” Sally attempted gingerly, as she measured coffee into the basket.

“I’m tired,” Meg whispered.

“Why do you suppose you were arrested, Meggie?”

“I don’t know,” came the meek response.

Sally set two steaming mugs on the table and sat down opposite her. “Meggie,” she questioned gently, “where is that cross?”

“I don’t know,” Meg said. That’s what she’d told the detectives at Sybil Brand this morning. Just “I don’t know.”

Sally reached over and took both her daughter’s hands. “Listen to me, Meggie,” she said. “Angela is coming. She’s going to
arrange for you to go to a care facility where you’ll get well.”

Meg’s eyes came alive with sudden fury.
“No!”
she shouted. “I’ve told you, Mother, I will
not
go away! I must complete my mission!”

Dear God, what mission?
Sally wondered, but didn’t dare ask. “You no longer have a choice,” she told her. “You’ve
got
to go. You’ll be helped, Meggie. Angela is going to make the arrangements. It has to be done today, darling.”

“No,” Meg bellowed, in control now. “If you do this to me, Mother,” she said in menacing tones, “you’ll be very, very sorry.”

Sally was horrified to see naked hatred in her daughter’s steely gray eyes. Her mind flashed on yesterday’s news coverage
of the brutal slaying of Carlotta Ricco. This time she had to stand up to her. She leaned in, hardening her expression. “Don’t
threaten me, Meggie,” she said. “Don’t ask, don’t beg, don’t demand, and don’t threaten me. You’re no longer able to make
decisions for yourself. You’re going to a hospital, today, and you’re going to get help.”

“No!”
Meg shrieked, and she leaped out of her chair, knocking it backward to the floor. She picked up the cup of coffee in front
of her and hurled the scalding liquid at her mother.

As Sally screamed and clutched at her face, Meg burst out of the room, colliding with Alex, who had come bounding through
the kitchen door at the sound of his wife’s screams. Seeing what had happened, he pushed Meg out of the way, rushed over to
the sink, grabbed a towel and doused it with cold water, then quickly
applied it to Sally’s skin. Sally was sobbing, as much in shock, hurt, and fear as in pain.

“I’m going down to my car to get my case,” he told her. “Don’t move!”

“Don’t let her leave!” Sally pleaded, holding the wet towel to her face. Alex turned and ran out of the kitchen into the living
room, but he was too late. The entry door was open, and Meg was gone.

He raced down the hall to the elevator. The light indicated it was on the sixteenth floor and descending. He knew Meg didn’t
have her car keys with her because they were listed on the search warrant form. She couldn’t get far, and he had to treat
Sally. He leaped across the hall to the stairway entrance and vaulted down the steps three at a time.

Dr. Angela Cohen maneuvered her car through the streets of Beverly Hills toward Century City. She had been gripped with dread
since she saw the story about Margaret’s arrest on the morning news, and she was shocked at the videotape of the emaciated
figure walking in a trance and chanting something about witchcraft. Sally’s frantic call had come shortly after, and Angela
canceled her appointments. She’d long been fearful that Margaret’s fragile center wouldn’t hold, that something horrible would
happen. And now it had.

Margaret.
Angela had gained her confidence immediately, it had seemed—from the moment they’d met, doctor and patient had struck an
instant rapport. What did she want to be called? Angela had asked her—
Meg,
as she was known professionally, or
Meggie,
the name her mother always called her. She was surprised when the young woman asked to be called Margaret, her given name.

Angela had thought a lot about that. Margaret had perceived, on some level, that for the doctor to rehabilitate her, she had
to bring her back to the person she was before she had been
in
Black Sabbat.
And as her therapy progressed, Dr. Cohen came to understand why.

As she pushed through the double doors that led into the apartment building, she was stunned to see Margaret running through
the lobby, still dressed in the wrinkled, faded yellow dress she’d had on in the news reports from Sybil Brand earlier this
morning. She had no shoes, no purse, no sweater or wrap. She was clearly agitated—people had to move out of her way as she
bolted toward the front doors.

“Margaret! Margaret, it’s Angela,” the therapist called out, hurrying to catch up to her. Meg stopped and turned around. She
hesitated for just a moment, then ran into the doctor’s arms.

“Come on, dear,” Angela murmured, as her patient broke down and wept against her shoulder. “I’m going to take care of you,
I promise. Everything’s going to be all right.”

At that moment, the door to the stairwell was thrown open and Alex burst through, red-faced and out of breath. Angela looked
up. “Dr. Shine!” she cried.

“Sally’s been hurt,” he gasped, relieved to see that Dr. Cohen had stopped Meg. He loped past them toward the door to the
parking garage. “I’m getting medical supplies,” he called over his shoulder. “Take Meggie upstairs.”

As people turned to stare, Angela propelled Meg into the elevator and up to the nineteenth floor. The front door to the apartment
was still ajar. With her arm around Meg’s shoulders, she found Sally in the kitchen pressing a cold compress to her red-blotched
face, her clothing drenched and stained with coffee.

“Good Lord, what happened?” she cried. Sally held a hand up to stop her. Angela deduced immediately that she’d been burned,
and that Meggie was responsible.