She looked up in time to see Carla smiling and nodding in her direction. She leaned over and whispered something in the businessman’s ear, and he grinned and reddened slightly. Then the two of them got up, and, hand in hand, they approached Purdue.
“I’d like to introduce you to someone very special,” said Carla. “This is Sam Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins is a banker.” She giggled as she added, “I don’t know when I’ve met anybody more captivating!”
Carla gave a little smirk when she said the last word, and Purdue looked startled, thinking of the handcuffs stashed in her evening bag, but a glance at their prospective victim reassured her. Mr. Jenkins suspected nothing but a unique and delightful evening of fun. Well, it would be memorable, they’d guarantee him that.
“It is indeed a pleasure to meet you,” said Purdue, extending her hand. “My name is Hill. A. P. Hill. I’m an attorney from Virginia.”
“She’s a criminal lawyer,” said Carla Larkin, and they laughed merrily at the wordplay that Mr. Jenkins would come to appreciate only later.
Chapter 5
“Elves are one of the things they
give you
When you go mad.
They come on the Welcome
Wagon,
Sit in your mind,
And tell you what sane people
are up to.”
—Sign on Emma O.’s door
Group therapy at Cherry Hill was held in a sunny first-floor room whose curtainless windows overlooked an expanse of green lawn. Metal folding chairs stood in a semicircle, facing a chalkboard mounted on one cinder-block wall, while above it a plate-size Seth Thomas clock measured the minutes of the session.
Following her new friends into the room, Elizabeth chose a seat near the window with a good view of the flower beds, in case listening to other people’s troubles became tedious or threatened to distract her from her own sorrow. Elizabeth did not plan to contribute anything to the afternoon’s discussion herself. She felt that since bereavement was an indisputable, incurable fact, it did not qualify as a mental imbalance. Besides, her grief was too private to be shared, but she congratulated herself on being a good sport by coming along to group therapy to provide an audience for the others.
She counted the chairs. Judging by the number provided, twelve people would be participating in the session, which would practically guarantee an argument. Even among sane people, in a group of that size at least one person always takes the outrageous position just to antagonize the rest. Elizabeth already knew four of the other six women present: Rose, Emma, the beautiful Seraphin, and the fidgeting, still hyper, Lisa Lynn. One by one, four men straggled in and took their seats, leaving one empty chair.
One trim, dark-haired young man in jeans who appeared to be in his mid-twenties sat down next to Elizabeth. “Hello!” he said with a shy smile. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“No. I’m new here.” Elizabeth smiled back at him before she remembered that this was not the place to cultivate new male acquaintances. For all she knew this personable young man could be a recovering ax murderer, or a raving psychotic. Still, she thought, looking at the other three patients, he seemed the most agreeable one of the bunch. Besides him, the other men in the discussion group were: an elderly fellow in a bathrobe who stared at the floor; a portly, red-faced man who kept beaming at everyone; and a scowling young man who kept tapping the floor with his foot. Given the choices, Elizabeth decided that on first glance she could consider herself lucky to be sitting where she was—later on, she thought, as details of the men’s individual disorders were disclosed, she might revise both her opinion and the seating chart.
“Name’s Matt Pennington,” the young man was saying. “First time in group?”
Elizabeth nodded, wondering what sort of small talk one made when all you had in common was insanity. “First time. Yep. It’s a little unnerving, the thought of opening up to strangers.”
Matt smiled. “Who else can you open up to?”
“I don’t know,” murmured Elizabeth. “I’m of Scottish heritage. With us it isn’t encouraged at all. Ever.”
“I’m having electric shock treatment.”
Elizabeth gasped, picturing lurid Hollywood scenes of snake-pit asylums. “Is it voluntary?” she asked. Because if electric shocks were a standard, compulsory part of treatment at Cherry Hill, she would go to her room right now and start packing.
“Did you come here voluntarily? I mean, the cops didn’t drag you in here for assaulting somebody, or anything?”
She shook her head. “I checked myself in for depression. Situational depression, that is. I mean, things are really as bad as I think they are. It’s not all in my head.”
“Oh, well, ECT—that’s what we call shock therapy these days—is certainly used to treat depression, but it wouldn’t be done without your permission. Might help you, though. You should consider it.”
Elizabeth shuddered. “I did,” she said. “For a tenth of a second. No way.”
“It isn’t too bad,” Matt insisted. “You’re not awake for it. You’ve probably seen the old snake-pit movies about mental hospitals, but ECT is certainly not torture. The way my doctor explained it to me is: your brain gives off electrical waves, and shock treatment is one way of trying to stabilize those waves. The funny thing about it, though, is that it plays tricks on your memory. Short-term memory, I mean. Like—I cannot for the life of me remember what I had for breakfast.”
“Oatmeal, I expect,” murmured Elizabeth, turning away. All but one of the patients’ chairs were now occupied, and the clock said 1:29. Class would begin at any moment.
As promised by Emma O. and Rose, Nurse Warburton appeared presently, clipboard in hand, and took her place as the mediator of the discussion group. She began by introducing Elizabeth and prompting the group members to call out a greeting to her in discordant unison. That alone would prompt one to feign a recovery, Elizabeth thought. She managed a feeble smile and a stifled wave in response to the halfhearted chorus of hellos.
“Tell us about yourself, Elizabeth,” Warburton prompted. She didn’t sound very interested, but apparently a novice speech was expected of newcomers to the group.
Elizabeth wondered whether she ought to stand. No, she decided. If you can’t dispense with formality even when you’re crazy, what’s the point of it all? Still sitting in the metal folding chair, she said, “I’m Elizabeth MacPherson. I’m a forensic anthropologist, and I’m here for depression.”
“No wonder,” said the old man in the bathrobe. “A forensic anthropologist—ycch! You work with human remains, don’t you? That would send anybody up the wall.”
Elizabeth stared at him openmouthed. She hadn’t expected such rudeness, even if the man was crazy. He looked seventy, and there was an unnatural smoothness to the skin of his face which suggested that at some time in the past he had undergone skin grafting operations, probably as a treatment for burns. He was not badly disfigured, but he did look unusual enough to warrant curious stares from strangers.
“Have you ever thought about teaching kindergarten instead?” the old man was saying.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. “I like my work,” she said. “I’m only here because my husband died.”
The man in the bathrobe shrugged. “I hope you buried him.”
Warburton felt the discussion slipping from her grasp. Before Elizabeth could frame a blistering reply, she said, “I’m sure we’ll learn more about Elizabeth in the days to come. Now before we get down to business, why don’t the rest of you make her feel part of the group by telling her who you are.”
With varying degrees of reluctance, the adults-turned-kindergartners mumbled their set pieces.
One of Elizabeth’s lunch table partners went first. “Rose Hanelon, journalist and alcoholic.” The middle-aged woman smiled. “The two are not always synonymous. In my case they are.”
Seraphin, the waiflike beauty, gave Elizabeth a tentative wave. “Sarah Findlay. Depression, I gu
ess.”
“And liar,” put in one of the men. “She doesn’t eat enough to choke a cat.” A warning look from Warburton silenced him.
Emma O. held up her white-scarred wrists. “E. O. Kudan. Technogeek. Escape artist.”
“Matt Pennington. Architect—um … currently unemployed. I suffer from depression.”
“Or, an acute perception of reality,” said the scarred man in the bathrobe.
“Wait your turn, Mr. Randolph,” said Warburton, putting an edge in her voice.
“It is my turn, O Elephant Bride. Hillman Randolph. What am I here for? Perhaps because I annoy the oafs in the outside world. Or because my countenance mars their pretty little world.”
Deciding to let that one pass, the discussion leader turned to a faded older woman who had been staring at the floor. “Mrs. McNeil?” she said. At once she corrected herself: first names only in group. “Beulah?”
A colorless woman in a worn sack of a dress looked up shyly as she spoke. “I’m Beulah. My son and daughter-in-law insisted I come here for a while. I’ve been active in church all my life, you see, but just lately I’ve been called to go and preach the word of God to strangers.…”
“At the top of her lungs. On street corners,” Matt whispered to Elizabeth, who nodded in sudden comprehension.
“It just embarrasses me so much to make a spectacle of myself like that, but they tell me I must. They keep at me until I do it. The voices, I mean.” Her own voice trailed off into an anguished whisper. “The voices.”
“We’ll get back to the voices later, Beulah,” said Warburton. “Clifford, you’re next, please.”
The scowling young man rubbed his stubble of beard and flashed an unpleasant smile. “Cops put me here,” he said. “Evaluation-before-trial kind of crap. Street cops risk getting their heads shot off for twenty grand a year, and they’re trying to tell me that I’m crazy.” He leaned back in his chair and shot a triumphant glance at Hillman Randolph, who pointedly ignored him. “ ’Course if it keeps me out of prison, I’ll give ’em all the crazy they want.”
Warburton simply stared at him and waited. Finally the young man mumbled, “Clifford Allen. Alleged burglar. That’s all I’m going to say.”
“All right.” Warburton nodded to the portly man with the beaming smile on his round face. “Steve?”
The portly man upped the wattage of his grin, and said, “Steve Monroe. Attorney at law.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s curable,” said Emma O.
Warburton glowered, as only a plain fat woman can. The badinage stopped.
Elizabeth felt an odd sense of detachment from this assembly of strangers, as if she had wandered into an audience participation play whose plot she could not fathom, but she was prepared to be entertained. She drifted away into contemplation of her own situation and missed the rest of the introductions. Perhaps the medication was working. She was still aware of her grief, and the fact that it ought to cause her pain, but there, too, the detachment made her feel as if she were observing someone else’s troubles or remembering the emotions generated by a favorite book or film. Her bereavement was still there in the forefront of her mind, but it wasn’t personal just now. She knew it, rather than felt it.
Elizabeth wondered if a dulling of the emotions helped one to get over a death or merely postponed the grieving. Sooner or later she would have to stop taking sedatives … wouldn’t she? And when she did, would the sorrow flow back undiminished from the first pang of loss, or would the passage of time have distanced her beyond its reach? She decided that worrying about future emotions was borrowing trouble. Just get through today, she told herself. Eat, and sleep, and take your pills.
In the kitchen of the newly purchased mansion/office of MacPherson & Hill, the previous owner, the notorious Jack Dolan, was nodding happily over a cellophane-wrapped chocolate brownie. A steaming mug of sugared tea sat on the table within arm’s reach. Edith had made it for him, when on thirty seconds’ acquaintance he told her plaintively that he hadn’t had any breakfast. He was counting on her not noticing the paper wrappings from his fast-food breakfast biscuit in the trash can. He liked this new visitor. When he said he was hungry, he thought he saw tears in her eyes. With a horrified squawk and a reproachful look at poor old Bill, the lady had searched the refrigerator, and, while the selection was meager, she’d managed to rustle him up a snack, promising to bring proper groceries the next time she came. Yep, she was a keeper all right. He hoped she could cook.
Now fortified with his makeshift meal, Mr. Jack had returned to his nap. He hoped these people would be gone by four, when the pizza delivery boy was due to arrive with his dinner. While he dozed, his visitors discussed him in anxious whispers.
Edith hissed, “What do you mean, the old man came with the place?”
Bill motioned her into the dining room, letting the swinging door to the kitchen close silently behind them. “Keep your voice down!” he said. “I don’t want to upset him.”
“You’re upsetting me,” said Edith. “Is he starving?”
“No. I am. I notice you didn’t offer me any tea.”
“It’s not in my job description,” said Edith, waving aside his hunger as a minor point. “You bought a house with an old man in it … like a … like a garden gnome?”
“All right, I admit that it’s a bit unusual as real estate transactions go, but I did save us a lot of money. And I thought it might be the best thing for him, really.” He explained about Mr. Dolan’s children who lost the house in a land deal, and how the old man had refused to be moved from his home. “He has no place to go,” said Bill. “And I felt so sorry for him. Poor, helpless old man, well past ninety. He doesn’t want to go into a nursing home, and who can blame him? How could I turn him out of the house he built?”
Edith sighed. He couldn’t. Of course, he couldn’t. He was Bill, the ultimate soft touch. She and Powell Hill would probably have to send him to the beach before they called in the termite exterminators. “So instead of a guard dog, you have an elderly tenant in your Tarafied law office. How do you see this working?” she asked.
“Well, I don’t know. Mr. Jack seems pretty happy on the sunporch, and the offices will be in the front parlor, so he won’t be in the way.” Bill was giving her that he-followed-me-home-can-I-keep-him look. “There are extra rooms upstairs, and I wouldn’t mind giving him one of those, but I don’t want to take a chance on his falling down the stairs and getting hurt. He’s pretty feeble. I don’t think he can handle stairs anymore.”
“I just hope he’s housebroken.” Edith sighed again. She supposed that her law-firm duties had just been enlarged to include nurse/caretaker for an elderly man. Still, the place was magnificent, she thought, looking around at the golden oak paneling and the high ceilings of the elegant dining room. It would cost millions to build such a house from scratch today.
Another thought occurred to her. “You’ve checked this out, haven’t you? Structurally, I mean. Somebody has made sure this house isn’t built on a landfill or an earthquake fault? Quicksand? Anything like that?”
“All clear,” said Bill. “Outside inspector. Seller’s guarantee.”
Edith shrugged. Miracles do happen, she thought. Perhaps Bill had made a sensible buy, after all. She hoped that A. P. Hill would see it that way.
“Mr. Jack has had a really interesting life,” Bill was saying. “The Realtor told me that back in the forties he got into trouble with the law. He may even have been in prison.”
“Oh, fine,” said Edith. “Dream houses always have some kind of a catch to them. The problem with this one is it comes with a little old convict. We’ll all be murdered in our beds.”
“No,” said Bill. “I got the impression that Mr. Dolan was a white-collar criminal. Not violent. Anyhow, I doubt if he could even lift an ax any more.…”
Edith was unimpressed. “Let’s hope you don’t have to be his lawyer as well as his landlord.” She sniffed.
A. P. Hill sat at the
desk in her hotel room, going over the papers for the case that had brought her to Richmond, but she was unable to concentrate on the details because her thoughts kept straying to memories of her conversation with P. J. Purdue. Should she report the call to the police? She sighed. Why bother? Purdue had given her no idea of her whereabouts, and the call would not be traceable. Was there anything she could have said that would have convinced Purdue to give herself up? Again, no. At the time of the call, Powell had not even known that her old classmate was a fugitive from justice. There isn’t much you can do when you don’t know what’s going on.
She tried pacing up and down in the hotel room to clear her head. Then she began her exercises. Twenty sit-ups later, she turned the television on for noise. The problem with exercising alone is that there’s nothing to do with your brain, and it goes on in third gear while the rest of your body struggles along in first. Purdue and Larkin would not be evicted from her brain.
She sighed and pulled out the case folder she had started on the PMS Outlaws. Might as well consider the case. She wasn’t going to get anything done otherwise. She read a summary of the escape and an account of the first robbery. The state had plenty of witnesses, that was certain. The guard who had been disarmed at the doctor’s office had been frightened and humiliated when two women handcuffed him to a doorknob and made their escape. No doubt he had endured a considerable amount of ridicule back at the department for letting a couple of “ladies” get the best of him. He would be only too eager to testify for the prosecution, and there could be no question of mistaken identity with that particular witness.
The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel Page 7
