Gaits of Heaven

by Susan Conant

  “I’m running out to get food for dinner. I thought we’d have a big salad with shrimp, if that’s okay.”

  “Anything is fine,” she said. “I think I might take another shower, if that’s all right. It might help me wake up. And I need to check my e-mail.”

  “Whatever you want. Leah has gone running, so she’ll want a shower, too, but she can use the bathroom on the first floor. If you want to use your notebook, there are a lot of phone jacks. Help yourself. Or you’re welcome to use my computer, but it’s in my study, which is where my cat, Tracker, lives, so please be careful not to let her out.” I explained about Rowdy and Kimi, showed her where my study was, and warned her about Tracker’s sour disposition and tendency toward aggression. “And our friend Rita will be here for dinner. She lives on the third floor. I’ll be back in no time.” I paused. “And you should know that Ted is planning a memorial service for tomorrow evening. Eight o’clock.”

  Caprice made a face. “I don’t believe in death parties. And at eight o’clock? I’ll tell you what he’s doing. He’s trying to drum up business for himself. Referrals.”

  “You don’t have to go.”

  “I do.”

  “For what it’s worth, I said I’d go. We can go together.”

  “Thank you.”

  I left for Loaves and Fishes, did the shopping, and returned to find that Leah and Caprice weren’t going to be home for dinner after all. A friend of Leah’s who was staying in Cambridge for the summer had called for help in moving to an apartment, and Leah had not only volunteered but was taking Caprice along. Pizza was part of the deal. Out of Caprice’s hearing, I protested: “Caprice is in mourning.”

  But Leah said, “What do you want her to do? Hang around with you and Rita? Stay in her room? She needs to get out. It’ll be good for her.”

  In fact, the prospect of doing anything seemed to energize Caprice, who helped Leah to move the crates out of my car, which Leah was borrowing to help with the move. Soon after Leah and Caprice left, Rita showed up. I had just finished emptying the refrigerator, freezer, and cupboards of ice cream, cookies, chocolate, and other horror foods that I didn’t want Caprice to know I was purging. I supplied Rita with a gin and tonic and myself with a glass of Australian Shiraz, and worked on the salad. Rita sat at the kitchen table with her feet propped up on a chair. She’d even taken off her bone-colored pumps. She wore a linen outfit in a shade of rose that brightened her cheeks. At my request, she was reading the note from Anita.

  “Gabrielle got one, too,” I said. “She thinks that the apology and the stuff about amends means that Anita is in some twelve-step program.”

  “A good guess. Or maybe she’s in therapy. It does read as if someone told her to write it.”

  “I just can’t imagine what she’s supposed to be recovering from.”

  “It could be anything. The recovery movement covers a lot of ground. I think you should forget all about the note.”

  “Speaking of recovery,” I said, “I could use some advice about Caprice.” Rita already knew that Caprice was staying with us. I’d filled her in when we’d arranged dinner.

  Rita sipped her drink. “Ethical considerations have arisen,” she said. “I really can’t say much about that family.”

  “No one has mentioned you,” I said. “Caprice’s therapist is Missy Zinn. You said she’s good. Eumie told me the names of a lot of others. Ted has mentioned some. They were seeing Vee Foote, and she’s seeing Ted now. It’s exactly like her to do couples therapy with one person.”

  “He may need…why am I defending her? With someone else, there might be a good reason to see the surviving spouse, but knowing Vee, she’ll probably keep on seeing him for years if he’s willing to pay. Anyway, the reason is that I’ve just started supervising a young psychologist, Peter York, who’s connected to the case, and this is a new patient of Peter’s. I’m far from sure that I’m the best supervisor for Peter. He’s more interested in families than in individuals.”

  I set the kitchen table, put the salad bowl on it, told Rita to help herself, and then resumed my badgering. “Rita, you aren’t Caprice’s therapist, so you have to listen. Her mother has just died. Either she committed suicide or she was murdered. The police are investigating her death. And even when Eumie was alive, Caprice was in trouble. She is horribly overweight. She’s so overweight that her face is disfigured. If she were thirty, okay, then it would be her choice and so on, but it’s simply a fact, whether we like it or not, that at her age, she cannot be obese and have any kind of half-decent social life. And she sleeps…it’s normal for adolescents to sleep a lot. Leah used to, and she’ll still sleep late sometimes, but this is different. It’s not just how long Caprice sleeps, but when she wakes up, she seems drugged. Rita, look how Eumie died! And Ted and Eumie used to help themselves to each other’s medications. For all I know, their medicine cabinets were open to the whole family, like refrigerators. What if…Rita, all I’m asking for is ordinary advice. There’s nothing unethical about giving me that.”

  “Use your own judgment. Do what you’re doing. She’s seeing Missy. You are not her therapist. This is a good salad.”

  “Thank you. I’ve decided that salad is the new pizza. Almost. For women, anyway. Steve considers it a side dish.”

  I was interrupted by Kevin Dennehy’s signature rapping on the back door. When he’d greeted both of us, I set a third place at the table and asked whether he wanted a beer. For once, he refused, but he did take a seat.

  “Women and vegetables,” he said, eyeing the salad I’d put on his plate.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “And you’re welcome to pick out the shrimp and just eat those. And you have some hot dogs in the refrigerator, and there’s some of your hamburger left, too, but it’s turning strange colors.”

  “That’s mold,” Kevin said. “Excellent source of penicillin.”

  “Are you feeling sick?” I asked.

  “In the head.” Smiling at Rita, he added, “Not you, Rita, you’re an exception, but I’ve got this theory about your profession. All it takes is one of you. And that one drives someone crazy. And then the victim goes to another one of you. And that one gets driven crazy and has to see another one. And so on. Like rabbits. Two of them are all cute and fluffy, and then a month later, it’s thousands. Except with rabbits, you gotta start with two. With shrinks, all you need is one, and before you know it, there they are, all getting their heads examined, all stark raving mad.”

  Pointing to the lettuce on Kevin’s plate, Rita said, “It’s possible that the rabbit food is affecting your brain, Kevin. Maybe you should have some of that penicillin after all.”

  “Dogs,” Kevin said. “You’re not off the hook, Holly.”

  “Dolfo,” I said, “is not my dog.”

  “Peed all over the scene. And did the first officer on the scene, O’Brien, remove him? And protect the scene? He did not. And did he permit Dr. Green, who was having quote-unquote an anxiety attack, to raid the bathroom and help himself out of the same medicine cabinets that should’ve been sealed up? He did. Is O’Brien an idiot? He is.”

  “Well,” I said, “at least he’s one of yours and not a shrink or a dog. Kevin, I am sorry. Your mother said you were being driven crazy by psychiatrists. I didn’t realize it was this bad.”

  “And then there’s my mother. And you.”

  I rounded up most of the shrimp that remained in the salad bowl and put them on Kevin’s plate. “Protein may help,” I said.

  “Not according to Jennifer.”

  “Well,” said Rita, “the theme for today is that the world is lined up on two opposing teams. One team consists of Kevin. The other consists of everyone else.”

  “You got it,” Kevin agreed. “And guess who’s winning.” He paused to eat. When he’d swallowed, he asked, “Caprice Brainard is staying here?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s why I left all those messages for you. But she isn’t here right now. She and Leah have gon
e out.”

  Turning to Rita, Kevin said, “And you’re in on this, too, aren’t you.”

  “Indirectly,” Rita conceded.

  “The memorial service,” I said, “is tomorrow.”

  “First I’ve heard,” said Kevin. “The body hasn’t been released.”

  “That’s okay. It’s not a funeral. It’s a memorial service. No body required. We’re supposed to share memories. And lessons Eumie taught us.”

  “Yeah. Don’t get your head shrunk.”

  Sherlock Holmes fan that I am, I said, “As you value your life and reason, stay away from the shrinks. That’s from The Hound of the Baskervilles. More or less.”

  “Enough, both of you!” Rita was genuinely put out.

  “We don’t mean you,” I said.

  “Do I make hostile jokes about cops and dog trainers?”

  “There aren’t any,” I said, “or maybe you would.”

  “What’s happening here,” Rita announced, “is that the toxic environment of this horrible event is affecting all three of us. Harry Stack Sullivan had what’s really a contagion theory of emotion. He said—”

  “Something about mothers,” Kevin finished. “That’s what they all say.”

  “Actually,” said Rita, “now that you mention it, he was talking about mothers. ‘Anxiety in the mother induces anxiety in the infant.’”

  “Thus Caprice,” I said. “Maternal overdependence on prescription medication induces—”

  Kevin suddenly turned serious. “It’s a homicide, you know. It’s a homicide. Nobody could’ve taken that much by accident, and this crap in the refrigerator was loaded with it. You know stuff comes in liquid form? It was mixed with all this soy stuff and vegetable juice that no one else drank but her. It’s gawdawful is what it is. I’ve been a cop a long time, and I’ve seen a wicked lot of drugs, but I gotta tell you, even after Dr. Green had been in that bathroom, there was so much there that I…it was…honest to God, it was like finding a meth lab on Avon Hill. It’s a wonder there’s anyone in that house still left alive.”

  Kevin likes exactly the kinds of heavy, creamy desserts I’d tossed out. When I offered raspberry sorbet and fresh strawberries, he looked disappointed but accepted anyway. As I was scooping the sorbet and hulling the berries, a phrase he’d spoken kept ringing in my head: still left alive. Maybe what triggered the ringing was the sight of the bird feeders outside the window over the sink.

  When I was again seated at the table, I said, “This probably has nothing to do with anything, but, speaking of substances, there’s one really odd thing at Ted and Eumie’s.”

  “Yeah,” said Kevin. “Ted.”

  “Kevin, you were in the backyard. When you talked to Caprice. I don’t know whether you noticed, but there are a lot of bird feeders there.” I ate some sorbet and continued. “And no squirrels. And the feeders aren’t damaged. Squirrels will wreck feeders. They chew wood, and they ruin plastic perches. Those feeders are not damaged. And they don’t even have squirrel baffles.”

  Rita cast a professional eye at me. “Are you suggesting…?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. It’s just that when I told Steve that there weren’t any squirrels there, he said it was impossible. And then he said something about…he said that it was impossible unless someone had killed them. But I’m not sure he was serious.”

  “Steve,” said Rita, “isn’t given to jokes about cruelty to animals.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “He just meant that it was impossible. But it isn’t. There are no squirrels there. No gray squirrels, no black squirrels, no squirrel damage. Period. No squirrels at all.”

  “Got it,” said Kevin.

  “Got what?” Rita demanded.

  “The point Holly’s making is that the place is some kind of Love Canal. It’s polluted with shrinks and drugs and dog urine. You gotta wonder why anyone’s left alive.”

  CHAPTER 16

  When Steve got home that night, he was unhappy to find that I’d thrown out all the ice cream, and the next morning, he was even more unhappy to discover that I’d also tossed out all the bread and English muffins.

  “Why stop there?” he asked. “Why didn’t you get rid of all the butter? The jam?”

  “Because there’s nothing to put them on,” I said.

  “All of sudden we’re becoming vegans?”

  “We are not becoming vegans. It isn’t what we are becoming. It’s what we’re not becoming. And that’s enablers. If we have fattening food in the house, that’s enabling Caprice to eat food she shouldn’t eat.”

  “What about the rest of us? Are we supposed to starve?”

  “Fasting is au courant these days,” I said. “You subsist for days at a time on water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and hot peppers. Or maybe it’s chili powder. It’s supposed to cleanse your system.”

  “Are the dogs being subjected to this regimen, too? They—”

  “Of course not. All I did was remove temptation, and dog food isn’t exactly tempting. Except to dogs, of course. Look, Steve, it’s temporary. And it won’t hurt us. If we took in a stray dog, we’d do everything possible to meet the dog’s needs. This is exactly the same principle.”

  Leah’s response was identical to Steve’s. They made do with scrambled eggs and fruit. When they’d left for work, I reluctantly awakened Caprice. As I’d told her the night before, Kevin was going to arrive at nine o’clock to talk with her. That’s how I’d phrased it. The whole idea was that she wouldn’t be interrogated. When I’d broken the news that her mother’s death was being treated as a homicide, she hadn’t quite come out and said, “I told you so.” But she’d come close.

  Today, instead of staggering into the kitchen in her nightclothes, she first took a shower and got dressed, and when she came downstairs, her eyes were clear and focused. Without asking, I served her the same breakfast that Leah and Steve had had. As usual, she drank her coffee black. When Kevin rapped at the back door, she was still at the kitchen table.

  “Hi, Lieutenant Dennehy,” she said. “I’m glad it’s you.”

  “You make it sound like I’m gonna take out your appendix,” Kevin said.

  Caprice looked astonished. After a second, she laughed.

  Kevin informs me that modern guidelines for interrogation emphasize the importance of making the witness comfortable. In Kevin’s view, the authorities in the field have now acknowledged what he knew all along, namely, as he phrases it, that nervous people clam up. So, confident that I was contributing to the relaxed atmosphere advocated by law enforcement experts, I dug out the Dunkin’ Donuts coffee that Kevin likes, made him a cup, and served it with milk and sugar. The cream and the half-and-half had gone down the drain. As I was fixing coffee, Caprice asked Kevin whether he wanted to tape the interview.

  “I got a whatchamacallit, audiographic memory.” The smile on his big freckled face made it hard to tell whether he was or wasn’t lying. “But thanks for asking. Holly, you out of cream?”

  “Yes,” I said flatly. Then, having refilled my own cup, I took a seat at the table.

  “You out of dogs, too?”

  “Me? Never.”

  “Where are they? Or maybe Caprice is kind of fed up with them.”

  Caprice protested. “No! I like them.”

  “Leah and Steve took India and Sammy with them,” I said. “Rowdy and Kimi are in the yard. Lady is around somewhere.”

  “On my bed, I think,” Caprice reported. “She was the last time I saw her.”

  Our dogs are not allowed on beds unless they are explicitly invited. Unfortunately, they are astute about guessing who will or will not enforce the rule.

  “Hey, good going,” said Kevin. “It’s not everybody she trusts like that.”

  Nonsense. How much trust does it take to sleep on someone’s bed? Besides, what Lady mistrusted was life itself and not particular individuals. Exception: Anita. Lady was frightened of Anita—for good reason.

  “Trauma history there,�
� Kevin remarked. “You think so?”

  It was a matter that Steve and I had discussed at length. Although environment had undoubtedly played a role in Lady’s fearfulness, both of us thought that it had a strong genetic component as well.

  “Have you been reading Ted’s book?” Caprice asked.

  “No. Just listening to him.”

  “Have you talked to Johanna yet?”

  “That’d be Johanna Green. The ex-wife.”

  “Ted divorced Johanna to marry my mother. Johanna was insulted. She still is. She hated my mother. She believes everything Baby Boy Wyeth tells her.”

  “Your stepbrother.”

  “My mother’s husband’s son. That doesn’t make him my anything.” Her face was expressionless. “We’re not done with Johanna yet. One thing you might notice about her is that she kept Ted’s name. Johanna Green.”

  “Some women do.”

  “Johanna is a feminist linguist. Supposedly. And she took her husband’s name to begin with and then kept it after the divorce?”