by Sarah Lovett
"Dupont White's psychotic girlfriend?" Kove ran a hand across his wiry sandy hair, rolled his round eyes, and remained silent. Not for the first time, he reminded Sylvia of her terrier, Rocko. They were both resolute, unflappable, determined.
"You really think she can tell you anything?" He frowned.
Sylvia swung around on the stool. "Maybe she can show me something about Dupont's dynamic with his followers. I won't know unless I take the trip. This whole thing—Chaney, Dupont, the murders, Kevin Chase, it's messing with my mind, and it's ruining my credibility."
"But Sylvia—"
"I mean, I feel like some sort of contagion is affecting me. Until I know what's going on, it won't get better." She pulled away from her associate.
During the last half hour, the crowd in the restaurant had thinned; no one was seated next to them at the bar. Kove's voice never shifted from neutral. He said, "Sylvia, you're a very good forensic psychologist. If I didn't believe that, I would never have asked you to become a part of the unit." His eyes held the slightest glint of light. "You had a tough year, but you survived it. You did more than survive it. You thrived." He smiled now. "You're young, but you've got potential."
She rolled her eyes. "Thanks."
"If you need to go to California—go. But I want you on this team."
Sylvia kissed Kove's cheek. "Thanks." She pushed away the last of her vodka and lemonade. While Kove was busy with his wallet, she snitched a stray pack of cigarettes that had been left on the bar. Surreptitiously, she examined the occupants of the restaurant who were reflected in the mirror. Apparently, no one had seen her take the pack.
She rested her chin in the palm of one hand and let her eyes bore into Marty "the Bagman" Connor. Across the restaurant, he was gesturing, laughing, in general making a big production out of lunch with his cronies.
A lean, bushy-haired man in an expensive suit stepped next to Sylvia. He said, "Did you see a pack of cigarettes? I left them—"
Sylvia shook her head and her expression held friendly concern. "That's a bad habit. You should work on kicking it. I can recommend a counselor."
AFTER LUNCH, ALBERT Kove had to attend a meeting with the director of the state's Mental Health Services at the Pera Building. Sylvia left him outside the restaurant and walked along Palace Avenue under the portal where Pueblo artisans displayed their jewelry and craft wares. She was glad to find this pocket of time to think. Her heels on concrete clicked out irritation. The Bagman's cheap power games were disgusting. "Burt Webster claims he has seventy-five percent accuracy when he predicts future violence." A voice nagged at the back of her mind: Why didn't I see it coming with Kevin?
As she walked, Sylvia brushed her hair off her neck; the great branches of a century-old elm offered brief but welcome shade. The heat settled low on the city and applied the brakes. Activity slowed, people became increasingly punchy. It was a kind of smoke and heat craziness.
When Sylvia rounded the corner and turned onto Grant Avenue, she saw a familiar figure. Ten more paces, and she recognized Erin Tulley.
Tulley said, "I just stopped by your office, but you weren't there." She looked keyed-up and her voice was running too fast.
Sylvia did a rapid calculation and figured that she had half an hour free before her next client. She said, "I'm just back from lunch. Let's go up and I'll make you a cup of really disgusting coffee. Actually, it's high-octane sludge."
Erin smiled. It was a weak effort, but the corners of her mouth did turn up, even if only a fraction. She said, "Could we just walk for a minute?"
Erin took the lead and moved quickly, with her head down. When they were a short distance along Grant Avenue, Erin tugged on Sylvia's arm and ducked through the double wooden doors that marked the threshold of First Presbyterian Church. Intrigued and puzzled, Sylvia followed.
The church interior was filled with pastel light and shadow. Sylvia removed her sunglasses and waited for her eyes to adjust. It was years since she'd been inside the church. The first thing she noticed were the modest stained-glass windows gracing three walls. Lambs wandered beside shepherds. Women clustered together, hands clasped. Praying women. Worried women. Everything was held in those plain, devout faces: isolation, suffering, sorrow.
Sylvia saw that Erin had settled in a pew, but she didn't move. Her eyes were on the altar. It was made of wood and marble. The lines were simple and the effect was surprisingly powerful. It was designed to draw the eyes up and out, to make one feel the cross before the eyes actually registered the intersecting lines. A sleight of hand, a trick of the eye or the mind, as if God must be felt before seen. It worked, but it made Sylvia uncomfortable.
She sat down on the cool, dark bench. She heard Erin breathing beside her. She said, "Do you attend services here?"
"No."
"Matt told me you aren't at D.P.S. any more. That must be a difficult change." Sylvia leaned away from Erin so she could see her face. She found it odd that they would be sitting together in an empty church. She felt empathy for this woman, but she also felt wary.
Erin gave a small laugh. "Difficult? My dreams went up in smoke." She swallowed hard.
Sylvia didn't like the desperate look on Erin's face. She said, "Are you seeing anybody to talk this out?"
Erin clenched her jaw. "Talking doesn't help." After a prolonged silence she continued, "I was afraid I'd lose my nerve."
"Erin, are you talking about the Randall case or the Title Seven action?"
"No." Erin's pupils were fat in their surrounding green orbs. Her lipstick was worn away at the corners of her mouth.
"Then what?" Sylvia glanced at her watch.
"I want you to hear it from me, that it's over."
"What's over?" Sylvia shook her head; she was puzzled and frustrated by Erin's cryptic behavior.
A tear squeezed out from the corner of Erin's eye. It stuck to her eyelashes. "It's over between Matt and me."
Erin obviously expected a verbal response from Sylvia; when it didn't come, she continued. "I thought you should know he called it off. I won't lie to you—I still love him."
Sylvia stared at Erin in disbelief—the woman was insinuating that she'd had an affair with Matt. Then Sylvia's disbelief wavered—had Matt actually slept with Erin? She felt sick.
Erin was watching her intently. She said, "I thought you knew."
Sylvia met the other woman's gaze and held it. She said, "No, I don't think so. I don't think you're here to enlighten me." She stood and backed away from Erin Tulley. "I don't know what's going on with you, but I suggest you get some professional help before you go so far over the edge that you can't come back."
Sylvia left the church and stepped out into blinding light. She swore and pushed her sunglasses over her eyes. A homeless man scuttled toward her, but she shook her head sharply.
Dazed, Sylvia crossed the street and climbed the stairs to the offices of the Forensic Evaluation Unit.
Marjorie, the regular receptionist, had returned from her vacation the day before. She smiled at Sylvia and held out an envelope. "Mr. Chaney said you were expecting this." Her eyes narrowed in concern. "Are you okay, darlin'?"
Sylvia gazed down at the envelope and shook her head. She tore open the white seal. Inside she found a six-by-six-inch cutout of a map of California. Route 14, south of Palmdale, had been circled to indicate the approximate location of the ranch where Dupont White had spent his childhood summers. On a three-by-five file card Dan Chaney had written Roxanne White's number and address in Montecito, an area adjacent to Santa Barbara. Roxanne White was Dupont White's mother.
"Marjorie, hold my calls." Sylvia reached her office door. "And book me a flight to California tomorrow morning."
Marjorie's eyebrows disappeared under shaggy bangs. "Any particular city?"
"Santa Barbara."
"Okeydokey. Before I forget, Rosie Sanchez called you. It sounded important."
Inside her office, Sylvia sank into her chair and closed her eyes. After the co
nversation she'd just had with Erin Tulley, she didn't know where to start. She called Matt at his office, but a woman said he was out and could she take a message?
Yes. Tell him his girlfriend wants to know if he fucked Erin Tulley, or is the woman crazy. Or both?
"Thanks, I'll try him at home."
She rang Matt's trailer. No answer.
Marjorie found her a seat on Delta, departing at 9:05 A.M. Saturday.
After her last client of the day, Sylvia called Dr. Leo Carreras at his office in Santa Barbara and confirmed that she would see him within eighteen hours.
This time when she dialed Matt's number, he answered.
"Hey, I wondered if you were still at work. Want to catch a movie?"
Behind his voice, Sylvia heard the sound of running water and the chink of dishes or glass. All of a sudden, her entire body ached. She said, "Sorry, I can't. I've got an early flight tomorrow morning."
"Going where?"
"Santa Barbara."
He was silent; no sound of water, no chink of dishes. He would be standing at the sink, stock still, receiver jammed between chin and shoulder, eyes distant. Tom mewed in the background.
After a few moments, Sylvia said, "I've decided to follow up on Dupont White. I'll talk to his girlfriend in Atascadero Hospital. His mother. I want to go out to the ranch. You know . . ."
He said, "No, I really don't. I don't know if Kevin Chase worked alone or not. I trust your instincts. But that's law enforcement business; you're a shrink." His voice was level and steady, but she heard the frustration as well as the pain.
"I'll be back the day after tomorrow." She took a breath.
Finally, in a voice she hated, she said, "By the way, I ran into Erin Tulley today." By the way?
"What did she have to say?"
Sylvia swallowed. "She's having a hard time."
There was a pause filled only by the sound of his breathing, then he said, "Sylvia, I think we should get away and really talk—"
"Let's talk when I get back. I'm tired. It's been a hellish day." She felt the miles between them, a gulf that had nothing to do with geographical distance.
While she was putting together the papers she wanted to take to California, she made up her mind she wouldn't think about Dupont White, Kevin Chase—or Matt—for the next few hours. Instead, she would go home, cool down, pack. Maybe she'd put on a video: Double Indemnity or From Out of the Past. And then she'd go to bed early. She needed a good night's rest.
AT MIDNIGHT SHE made herself a cup of herbal tea, barely touched it, and then poured the rest in the sink. Half a bottle of Absolut was in the freezer. Soda and lemon were in the refrigerator. She added two lumps of ice to the highball and carried the drink to the patio.
She didn't turn on the lights. From her chaise longue on the deck she could see the flare of the distant forest fires seep around the edges of a dusky, swollen sky. The clean, simple silhouette of her adobe home was more than a hundred years old. Although her father had fixed it up years ago, the lines had remained unchanged.
Sylvia took a long drink as a jagged slice of lightning cut across the ridge behind her house. The air smelled sweet and promised rain, but the thunderstorm was high in the stratosphere, and whatever rain fell never reached the ground. She watched the sky, considered the danger of fire, and that thought led her to physical craving. She left the patio and walked through the house to her bedroom where she retrieved the pack of cigarettes from Café Escalera. She'd stashed them in the top drawer behind her lingerie. She took one cigarette—moved the pack to a kitchen drawer—and walked back out to the porch.
It was six years since she'd been a serious smoker. When Malcolm was diagnosed, she'd started in again. He'd told her it was a stupid response to a lover's cancer. Since his death, it had been the intermittent cigarette. When she was stressed.
No one knew. Not Rosie. Not even Matt. She was careful to wash her fingers and brush her teeth after her hidden smokes.
The truth was, she liked her secret. She had always liked secrets. She liked the hiding, the watching. She understood how secrets took root and grew, twisting and turning, reaching the light sooner or later. Still, she enjoyed the tension they created internally.
On her way back to the patio, she found matches in a blue ceramic bowl. Outside, she breathed in ash-tinged air and plunked down in her chair. The skin on her bare legs broke into goose bumps. She snapped a match against the flint band of the box and locked the flame in her gaze for several seconds. Its violence impressed her. A minute chemical reaction that could expand almost instantly into a combustible beast.
With her lips she drew the flame to the tip of her cigarette, inhaled, and shook the match out. Smoke made her lungs ache. She imagined twin black clouds contained within her body without any avenue of escape. When the pressure became unpleasant, she exhaled.
THE CALL BROUGHT Sylvia out of the choppy waters of sleep. Her hand found the phone before her conscious mind registered, Four thirty-eight A.M., my house, bed. God. It had to be her mother calling from San Diego.
"Dr. Strange? This is your service, it's Alberta. I'm sorry to bother you so late, but he sounds like he might do something bad to himself."
"Who might do something bad?" Sylvia snapped on the hurricane lamp beside the bed and managed to find pencil and notepad on the table. Her first thought was of Kevin Chase.
Alberta continued, "He didn't give his name—I think he could be on drugs or something because he's so jumpy. He says he was a patient of Dr. Treisman . . . I hope I did the right thing?"
Sylvia pulled back internally. In his will, Malcolm Treisman had entrusted her with all his patient files. "You did the right thing. I'll talk to him, Alberta."
A sharp hiss signaled the line transfer. There was a long silence during which Sylvia feared the caller had been cut off. But a voice finally asked, "Dr. Strange?"
He had the breathless tone of a boy. He was clearly agitated.
"Yes, this is Sylvia Strange. Who are you?"
"I should apologize—to bother you so late, I didn't know what else to do—Dr. Treisman always told me—at the end, I—" Abruptly, he stopped speaking. For several seconds, the only sound was his ragged breathing.
Gently, Sylvia said, "Can you answer a few questions forme?"
"I'm so tired—" The words almost got away from him. "But I'll try to talk about it. . . ."
"Good. I want you to do that." Sylvia kept her voice low and soothing and listened for any change in his tone. She said, "Where are you calling from?"
"A motel."
"Which motel?" Pause. "Is someone there with you?"
"I'm alone. I thought it would be all right to call. . . ."
Sylvia reassured, mirrored. "It was all right to call."
". . . when I got crazy again."
She heard a young man who was hypertense, angry, scared, but coherent. The histrionic fiber of the voice worried her the most. Drugs, alcohol, the manic phase of a bipolar disorder, roller-coaster mood swings—any of these could give him that audible edge. All of them qualified as red flags when it came to the possibility of self-destructive behavior. Sylvia guessed at least one of them applied to the person on the other end of the line.
"I need to know, have you taken something?"
"No. . . but I've got to cut myself."
When a client threatened self-destructive behavior it was the therapist's job to take the threat seriously—and then assess the risk. On the phone with a stranger, Sylvia had no personal history, no personality assessments, no one-on-one experience to draw on. She had to function under the same directive as a cop facing a suspect in a dark alley: assume there's a weapon. She said, "Did you do something to hurt yourself?"
"I need to let it out. I need air—light to burn them out."
"Who? You need to burn who out?" The sustained silence was nerve-racking.
He asked, "Don't you know who this is? We've met."
She stopped breathing.
"What do we teach you, Dr. Strange? Crazy people—what do you see in us?"
Awareness seeped through her body like cold water—she was talking to Dupont White. Her heart scudded against her chest. She tried to keep her voice calm. "Dupont? I don't think you should be alone right now. I'd like to get you some help."
He laughed softly. "So you do recognize me. I'm glad. But I don't want anybody's help. Not even yours, Dr. Strange."
Click. The dial tone jarred.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EIGHT MILES SOUTH of downtown Santa Fe, Benji Muñoz y Concha paced the yard outside Dormitory A at the penitentiary's Minimum Restrict Facility, the murf. The Saturday morning air was tepid because the sun had only been up for two hours. But already, the promise of intense temperatures was palpable.
Behind the bleachers Benji paced a small area of parched ground. In a center court two inmates were playing a game of one-on-one, and they smacked the basketball aggressively. They shouted challenges or encouragement to each other; sweat oiled their brown bodies. On the bleachers men sat in groups or alone, smoking cigarettes and talking.
Unlawful taking of a vehicle. That was why Benji had to do his time. He had taken the car—he admitted that much. But he wasn't really part of any car ring like the cops had claimed. And minimum-security time was still time, even for a first offense. He had one year, eight months, and four days to go. . . not counting good time.
Dust billowed out from Benji's feet as he paced. He couldn't find Rosie Sanchez anywhere. He needed to talk to the penitentiary investigator.
A horn honked; the perimeter patrol vehicle was bouncing over ruts and weeds next to the perimeter fence. From this distance, the correctional officer's head was the size of a pea.
On the other side of that fence, Benji could see freedom.
He couldn't stand still; if he did, he knew he'd catch fire on the inside and burn down to nothing. He had to get out—he had this bad feeling about the future. Not his future, but the future of Rosie's friend, Sylvia Strange.
