“But what about Ray? What else did she say about him? She must have said something, didn't she?”
“No, not specifically anyway, and that's what was so confusing. In our last session, it came up that Loretta felt her family had done something very bad. She said someone had been hurt. She revealed this to me in a very slow, calculating way. Like she was testing me. Like she knew I knew the person whom she was talking about. Of course I didn't, not absolutely so, but the only person we knew in common was Ray Preston. All this came up at the end of the session, but I clearly got the impression that Ray was the one she was talking about.”
“What did she say specifically?”
“Nothing more than that, that her family had done something very bad and someone had been hurt.” Maddy started biting the tip of one of her fingernails, then said, “We ran out of time, unfortunately, but I was planning to make that the focus of our next session because suddenly everything was clear. You know, sometimes it takes awhile to get to the heart of the matter, to peel away the layers that a client has used to disguise an issue. And in a flash I suddenly understood the crux of why she had come to see me.”
“Which was?”
“Well, it wasn't about leaving the house or being fearful of crowds. Yes, that was a problem, but she didn't want to deal with that, she wasn't prepared to. It wasn't why she'd gathered her energies and courage and come all the way downtown to see me specifically. No, it was about this something that her family had done. She had to tell someone, it was burning inside her, and somehow she had decided that the someone she was going to tell was me.”
It didn't take a genius to understand why Maddy had progressed no further in untangling Loretta's riddle. Sometime between that session and Loretta's next scheduled appointment, Maddy had been struck by that bus, which had automatically curtailed her practice and sent her clients scurrying to a smattering of other therapists. All her clients but one.
“Loretta didn't see anyone else after that, did she?”
“No. Afterward, a few weeks after the accident, that is, I found out that one of my associates had contacted her and encouraged Loretta to come in, but she wouldn't. Loretta just kept saying I was the only one she could talk to and that now she'd never talk to anyone else.”
How pitiful, I thought. A grown woman who was afraid to venture farther than her neighborhood library finally did just that. She reached out for perhaps the first time in her life, found someone to trust with a long-buried secret. But then that someone was literally plowed over by the harsh city. Poor Loretta, I thought. It was no wonder she refused to come out a second time.
But it didn't take a genius or a shrink or a psychic to deduce how Loretta and her family might be tied to Ray Preston. If, as Loretta had said, her family had truly done something bad, there was only one horrible thing that had happened in Ray Preston's life.
“So you assumed,” I postulated, “that someone, although you didn't specifically know who, in Loretta's family, was responsible for the car accident that killed Ray Preston's daughter, Lisa.”
“Of course I did.”
Which wasn't so very far off. In the week that I had been down in Chicago prior to Helen's death, I'd learned that and much more.
I turned to my sister, said, “So you were aware of Ray's anger?”
“Of course.”
“And when you received Loretta's letter and learned she was potentially in danger, you—”
“I assumed either she was contemplating suicide or someone was indeed threatening her.”
“Someone like Ray Preston.”
“Exactly.”
“Which is why you sent me to see him—to see if he'd gone off the deep end.”
“Correct again.” Maddy slipped off her sunglasses, laid them in her lap, and began massaging her pale and naked eyes. “I didn't think Ray was a violent man, but I wanted you to go see him just to check it out.”
“I wish you'd told me all this. It would have made things a little bit easier and a whole lot clearer.”
Plus a lot less crude. I'd felt like such a thug handing over that picture of Ray Preston's little girl. But it had worked. When he'd broken down upon seeing the photo, it had broadcast to me loud and clear that he was still in deep pain, a message that I could easily relay to Maddy.
“I would have mentioned it,” said Maddy, “but once again it was the issue of confidentiality. How much of what I was told in the privacy of my office could I in turn tell you? And, anyway, it was just a wild guess that he might be the reason Loretta had written to me.”
A wild guess that now, in retrospect, was pretty damn accurate.
Maddy asked, “So does all that make a bit more sense?”
“Sure.”
“Are you ready to get back to it? Can we go on?”
“Yeah.”
I guess I understood why Maddy had done what she had. Or at least she had me believing her rationalization. And like Pavlov's dog, I began to relax. I knew what was ahead. I sensed myself breathing in and out in longer, deeper breaths as I turned from the French doors and started for the recliner. Just the sight of the comfortable slope of leather, the knowledge that within a few moments I'd be slipping back into trance, sent an addictive sense of eagerness up my spine. I didn't want Chicago, necessarily, but I always wanted the rush of mesmerized tranquillity.
Maddy sensed me crawling onto the recliner, said, “That's it, Alex. Get comfortable.”
I would and I did, stretching out, placing my hands first by my sides, then mummylike over my chest. I rolled my neck from side to side, heard it crack slightly. Took another breath.
“You obviously know what this means,” I said, as I beckoned my body to relax, relax, relax.
“In… out.” She said, “Of course I do.”
“And now I understand why you doubt Loretta's story so much, why you don't believe she killed her stepmother.”
“Roll your eyes up, Alex: One.”
As I followed her command, I said, “Doesn't it mean both you and I know something the police don't even have an idea of?”
“Yes. Now while still looking up, slowly lower your lids. And: Two.”
“But isn't withholding information illegal, Maddy? Shouldn't you have told them?”
“Told them what, that I had a devastated client who might have known Loretta? Should I have sicced the police and all their detectives on that ruined man?” She was breathing loudly and clearly like a yoga master imparting a great lesson to a student. “Besides, I can't tell them. I have an obligation to maintain.”
As I hovered on the edge of trance, teetered right there as if ready to plunge into some black bottomless pit, I understood why Maddy had pulled me into all this and why she was now pushing me on. She might not be able to tell the police that Ray Preston should be considered a prime suspect in the death of Helen, but I most certainly could.
Maddy called to me as I stood on the brink, saying, “Now, relax your eyes, and—”
“Wait,” I demanded. “Suppose it was Ray who killed Helen. If it was, then why in hell would Loretta try to cover for him? Why would she try to take the blame for killing her own stepmother?”
“That's for you to find out,” she replied from a distance. And then in a simple few words, my sister blew me away, flicked me off that cliff and back into the abyss, just by saying, “And: Three.”
Chapter 15
I was swept away, carried off on some magic carpet, and I tumbled back into suburbia, which now more than ever was my kind of nightmare. Suddenly I found myself by a fountain in a mall, and I glanced around. Where the hell was I? I'd seen dozens of malls, this one just as bland as all the others, and I couldn't figure out what I was doing there until I glanced around, first saw a standing carousel of phones and then a store called CM Fashions. Of course.
I glanced at my watch, saw that it wasn't quite six in the evening. Only minutes ago I'd overheard Loretta's sister, Carol Marie, making plans. And if I'd understood correctly, Car
ol Marie would be at her store at least until nine-thirty when the mall shut down for the night. I had no idea what would transpire after that, but I had every intention of finding out. In fact, I didn't think I had any other choice.
I took my chances and left for a while, exiting the mall and crossing the freeway to a chain restaurant, where I experienced another powerful, albeit false, sense of déjà vu simply because I'd eaten in the identical restaurant in, if I remembered correctly, Florida. Or was it Nebraska? I checked out the soaring ceiling, the yellow booths, the plastic-coated menus. The layouts of both restaurants were identical and I was quite certain that in the other restaurant I was seated at the same table, one in the corner that overlooked the parking lot.
I stretched my time at the restaurant, ordered a seafood salad, and spent the next hour eating as slowly as I could and reading each and every page of the Chicago Tribune. Shortly after seven, I drove back to the mall, tried to guess where management would ask workers to park, assumed it would be the rear, and pulled into a spot that I hoped wouldn't be too far from Carol Marie's car.
She could have changed her plans. She could have cut out early. As I dove back into the mall, those and more worries began to cloud my thinking. I feared that I'd done it all wrong, that I shouldn't have left the mall at all, but in the end I had nothing to be concerned about. I circled the fountain, peered across the jets of water, and spied CM Fashions. Carole Marie was in there, now the only one working. It was almost seven-thirty.
Trying to kill time, I visited a few stores, pretended to be interested in their merchandise. I was careful, however, to check back every ten minutes or so, ascertaining that Carol Marie was indeed still there, and as it approached nine, I found a bench up on the second floor and sat down. From up there I had a clear view all the way across the courtyard and into CM Fashions, yet I was far enough away to be confident that even if Carol Marie noticed someone sitting up there, she wouldn't be able to recognize me.
It turned out to be a good thing that I'd taken up an observation post, too, because Carol Marie closed up shop early. I watched as two women drifted out of the store about ten after nine; before anyone else could enter, Carol Marie came out and pulled a grilled gate across the front of the store. Less than two minutes later she reappeared, a blue purse over her shoulder, and locked up.
I didn't expect her to get out of there quite that quickly, and I had to bolt from my position, take the escalator two steps at a time, and then hustle down one of the long, tunnellike corridors. Carol Marie had just reached the exit when I spotted her, and I slowed, pleased that I'd been right, that she had evidently parked behind the mall. Once she was outside, I hurried to the doors and spied her as she walked off to the right, her stride direct and brisk.
My car was parked to the left, in an area marked with a lime-green monkey bolted to a post, and I wasted no time dashing to it, bringing the engine to a solid rev, and then swinging around, up one lane, then back down another. I entered a zone identified by a red zebra, and a large light from atop a huge pole flooded everything with an odd tone. I peered down the row of angle-parked cars, saw nothing, no movement of any kind. Just bumper after bumper after bumper.
Way up ahead I saw something bob. A coifed head of hair. Someone moving quickly through the vast sea of automobiles. I hung on to the steering wheel, pulled myself upward. Yes. It was Carol Marie, making her way past the zebra zone, past the pelican zone, across one of the mall's winding inner roads, and to the most distant parking area, which was undoubtedly for employees. Then she stopped, turned slightly. I assumed she was unlocking a car door, and just as quickly as I saw her, she disappeared.
I pressed on the gas, went racing up the aisle. At the end I turned right, and looking across a small berm of dirt and the inner drive, I noted the white taillights of a car as it backed out of its spot. A small blue car. Nothing fancy. In fact, much less than fancy. It was an old car, quite battered with dents and huge blistering scabs of rust. The driver turned the vehicle straight at me, headlights ablaze, and I got a clear view of the driver's seat. Oh, shit. My heart pinched up. There were two people in the front seat, both young and laughing, probably just off from work, but neither one of them was Carol Marie.
I searched all directions, spotted a car approaching me as it wound down the drive and toward the main road. It was a white auto, a Ford Taurus, and as it quickly cruised past I spotted Carol Marie in the driver's seat. I couldn't help but panic. She was going one way, I the other. Plus I was still in the parking lot, while she was over there, across the small earthen berm and on the mall's drive. Shit. I rammed the car in reverse, backed up and around, then sped past the mass of parked cars. I looked to my right. Carol Marie was turning toward the main road.
There wasn't enough time for me to leisurely follow the exit signs that would eventually lead me out of here. I'd have to go another hundred yards or so to do that. Instead, I turned sharply to the right, hit the curb, then pressed on the gas as my rental car heaved itself up and onto the small berm, squashing several bushes in its path. On the other side I dropped onto the pavement with a clunk and steered around the drive and toward the main road. Carol Marie was there, stopped at a light and just three cars ahead of me. I took a deep breath, told myself to chill out.
From then on it was easy. Following someone who didn't suspect or even consider the possibility of being tailed made it simple. Still, as Carol Marie passed down the broad, four-lane road and off into the night, I was careful to keep my distance. I tried to keep at least two or three cars between us, which didn't prove to be that difficult, and I switched on the radio, squirmed in my seat until I was comfortable. This, I sensed, was going to be a rather long ride.
And it was. From the Glendale Mall, Carol Marie cut over about a quarter of a mile to the freeway, which she turned onto, heading south on 294. She swerved quickly across the bands of concrete, settling on the farthest and fastest lane, and I knew then that we'd be going into the city. I steered over, stayed behind a van that was in a parallel lane, cranked up the radio still louder, and kept a close eye on her.
A few minutes later the monotony of the suburbs began to melt away. The highway snaked around, we cut onto 90, which resurfaced as the Kennedy Expressway, and soon the lights of the Loop, pushing into the navy blue sky with its glistening towers, rose like Oz in the night. A city at night, sparkling like this, was one of the few, perhaps the only, man-made thing that I thought was truly a marvel, a thing of inspiring beauty. As the freeway curled through the neighborhoods of brick apartment buildings and old, grimy factories, the skyline beckoned like a dream, a piece of Utopia right here on earth.
We didn't make it that far, however. Just past Irving Park, Carol Marie signaled and began to cross to the next lane. She hesitated there, then moved over to the next. And then the next, until she was speeding down the far right lane, ready to exit. I thought she might turn off at Belmont, but she sped past that. Then I assumed she might exit on Diversey. Two cars behind her, I gripped the wheel tightly, ready to swerve off. She similarly bypassed Diversey, though, hurrying on until she finally exited on Fullerton.
Still careful to keep my distance, I followed her, and pulled off with a single car between the two of us. At the bottom of the ramp, she turned left, passing under the freeway, and I wondered if we'd be heading all the way over to the lake. Perhaps Carol Marie was to meet someone in the tony Lincoln Park neighborhood. But who, someone of power and wealth? And what for? I tried to pull this together, to imagine what it could all be about. I suspected but wasn't sure.
“So even before you got there, you thought it might be him?”
There was only one person so darkly cloaked. It couldn't have been anyone else, really, given what I'd overheard Carol Marie say on the telephone.
“Did you notice at all that you were followed? Did you think it a possibility?”
All my attention was ahead, focused on Carol Marie, as I tailed her down Fullerton. I didn't notice anything else,
didn't even think that anyone else would be interested in Carol Marie's evening trip into the city. I just kept my eyes straight ahead, trying to see what she was doing, where she was going. And about a mile, maybe less, after the freeway, I saw her blinker go on. She was turning right at the next street, turning past an old car wash with a huge octopus—buckets and sponges hanging from its tentacles—atop the roof. I glanced around the neighborhood. The Octopus Car Wash had long ago gone bust, had obviously not been used in years, and the other small buildings and warehouses in the area appeared similarly neglected.
When Carol Marie rounded the corner, I slowed, pulled over on Fullerton. I couldn't just continue right behind her. The street she was turning onto was small, not much more than an alley. I let her disappear from sight, then pressed on the gas and slowly moved on. When I steered around the corner, though, her car was gone. The white Taurus had disappeared. I could see a block or two ahead, but there was nothing, only a couple of old parked cars. It was just a street of abandoned warehouses, buildings left by companies that had fled to distant industrial parks.
On my left stood an old brick building, a one-story structure with a few punched-out windows and graffiti sprayed all up and down. Nothing there. Just a locked building, no parking area. I looked to the right. At the rear of the Octopus Car Wash I saw something move. Not much. Just the last of a tall wooden gate being slid shut. I drove past, continued on another hundred feet or so, and parked. I got out, locked my car.
A van and a couple of other autos passed me as I walked through the dark and up to the rear of the car wash's large lot. I came to a chain-link fence that had big sheets of plywood bolted to it. I peered through a crack, and in the dim light glowing from the alley, I saw the white Taurus now parked behind the car wash, right behind the garage door that had once opened and sucked dirty cars in. At first I didn't see Carol Marie, but then I heard the rustling of keys, the clicking of heels on concrete. I followed the sounds to the faint image of Carol Marie standing in a shadow and unlocking a door. The next instant she disappeared, stepping into the main building of the car wash.
Blood Trance Page 11
