Six Strokes Under

by Roberta Isleib

  I nodded. This implied threat made Detective Maloney’s desire to keep in touch after I'd found Bencher's body feel positively chummy. Evidently, the police had not been impressed with my protestations of ignorance and innocence. Although any number of people may have wanted Kaitlin Rupert dead, I looked like one of them. As I shuffled out to the vestibule, I felt scared, tired, confused, and ravenously hungry.

  Walter Moore was slumped in a chair in the corner of the entrance area. He leaped to his feet when he saw me emerge from the hallway.

  "Cassie! What's going on? Did they find the bastard who killed her? I didn't do it. I swear I didn't. Did you tell them I wouldn't hurt her?" If he'd looked wild as he shook Kaitlin on the practice range this afternoon, he'd downshifted into near-demented now.

  "Just tell them the facts, Walter." I figured that would be good advice whether he'd murdered her or not. Either way, I desperately wanted to have confidence that the authorities I'd been taught to believe in would find the truth. Doubtful, though, with Pate on board.

  I pulled my phone out to call for a taxi back to the Starlight Motel. It vibrated before I could dial the number.

  "Cassie! It's Jeanine Peters. I've been trying to reach you for hours."

  "I've been a little busy."

  "One of the golfers from your tournament was murdered!"

  "I know—" She interrupted me as I began to tell her that I'd had the bad luck to find the body.

  "There's something you should see over at the office. I went back earlier this evening to get my makeup and I overheard some stuff. Dr. Turner is clearing out his files later on tonight. You wanted me to call you if anything came up."

  "What is he clearing out?"

  "I don't know exactly. It has to do with the False Memory Consociation—Turner's been worried about their plans to teach Kaitlin Rupert a lesson. Now that she's turned up dead, that plan is going to look really bad for him."

  "How does he know she's dead? They only found her a couple of hours ago."

  "I have no idea. You told me to call if I heard something. I'm just keeping my word. If you wanted to look at any of his papers, it's now or never."

  "I'm glad you called. Let me think a minute, it's been a crazy night." I was not in any mood to snoop around someone's office. I was in deep shit with the authorities already. On the other hand, my father always said, if you're in a hole and someone hands you a shovel, shut up and start digging.

  "First problem," I said. "I'm at the sheriff's department and I don't have a car."

  "No problem there. I live right around the corner," she said. "I'll pick you up in a few." She didn't give me time to elaborate on problems two, three, four, and five, all related to reasons why I ought to just go home and mind my own business.

  Chapter 19

  "This is a big risk you're taking," I told Jeanine as she parked her Civic behind the strip mall housing Turner's office. "You could lose your job if we get caught. Or something much worse."

  "I told you I wanted out of that place anyway," she said. "Hey, if you introduce me to Rick, I'll owe you forever. This is the least I can do. And if Turner shows up early, I'll just tell him I forgot my wallet or my mascara or whatever. He has this idea all blonds are dizzy, so he'd believe anything I told him." She giggled and glanced at me. "Besides, I bet he'd be so pleased to see you here, he wouldn't bat an eyelash. He talked about you all day yesterday."

  "Talked about me how?" This did not sound like good news.

  "He seemed taken by you." She unlocked the back door leading into Dr. Turner's office. "He kept asking me questions about you."

  "What kind of questions?"

  "Just stuff about what I'd noticed when you were here. What we talked about."

  "You didn't tell him I was pretending to be a patient?"

  "Of course not!" Jeanine frowned. "I was so excited about the golf, I did tell him about your being here for the tournament and how you were going to help me meet Rick. Was that all right?" It didn't feel all right, but she looked too upset to scold.

  "Let's take a quick look around," I said. "And then get the hell out of here. What exactly do you think we'll find?"

  "I'm not certain myself. But he was talking about the Rupert suit. I heard him tell some guy on the phone that they needed to clear everything out of the office tonight. They're supposed to meet here after midnight." She looked at her watch. "That gives us almost two hours."

  "Does he make hard copies of all his documents, or should we start with the computer?"

  "Gosh, the girl who comes in on Fridays is forever filing, so I know there are records in those cabinets." She waved at the row of green metal file cabinets against the far wall. "Rupert starts with R. I'd start there, if I were you. Turner's a logical kind of guy. In some ways, anyway."

  "Great. Why don't you keep an eye out for trouble?"

  Jeanine moved to the front room and peered through the dusty slats of the Venetian blinds in the waiting area. I began to flip through the files in the top drawer of the third cabinet. Halfway toward the back of the drawer, I found "Rupert, Kaitlin/Peter." It was a thick folder, stuffed so full I could hardly pull it out, even using two hands.

  "There's someone pulling into the parking lot!" Jeanine's voice shook.

  "What kind of car?" I asked.

  "Looks like a maroon Mercedes. And a black Lincoln following. Shoot! That's Dr. Turner." All her reassurances about how she'd handle a crisis in the event Turner showed up evaporated. "Oh, my God, he'll kill me if he finds us digging through his stuff!"

  Jeanine dove into the inner office and shut off the lights. As I jammed the file I was holding back into the cabinet, we heard the scrape of the key in the front door.

  "We don't have time to get out," said Jeanine. "He'll hear us leaving."

  "Is there a closet?"

  Now mute with fear, Jeanine pointed to a door in the corner of the room. We crammed ourselves into a narrow space left between cartons of computer paper and toner. Pressed up against Jeanine in the dark, I could smell her flowery perfume and the scent of bubble gum on her breath.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered. "This was a dumb idea."

  "Shhh!" We heard heavy footsteps as Dr. Turner and another man entered the office and walked across the room to the back door.

  "Don't you think we should call the police? It looks like a break-in to me—the door open and the alarm off," cautioned Turner's visitor.

  "Nah. No cops. That dumb broad must have left the goddamned door unlocked. She's done the same thing a half dozen times. If she wasn't easy on the eyes, I swear I would have fired her long ago." I gritted my teeth. I'd been so far off with my assessment of this guy, it wasn't funny.

  We heard a door slam shut. "Why are we suddenly packing things up?" asked Turner's companion.

  "It's gotten too hot," said Turner. Now I recognized the subtle edge of urgency and panic in his voice. "With the Rupert girl dead, the cops are probably gearing up to search the place. I can't risk leaving this stuff here."

  "Somebody tipped them off?"

  "Christ, Vinnie. Everyone's gonna know we backed her father financially. It won't take a genius to make the connection. Besides, there was a girl here Monday snooping around, asking questions about the organization," said Turner.

  "So who killed Rupert?"

  "How the hell would I know?" said Turner.

  "Could it have been Atwater? I told you that guy was nuts. All those damn crazy Bible verses. I told you not to get involved with him "

  "You're a fucking genius, looking backward. We all are. Shut up and get to work."

  "We need empty boxes," said Turner's companion. "We can't carry all this out loose."

  Jeanine clutched my hand. She must have had the same thought I did: the logical—the only—place to look for boxes was in our closet. And from the general tone of their conversation, I could guess they wouldn't take discovering us in here with grace.

  "I brought a couple in my trunk," Turner said. "Take the keys
and I'll start pulling things out." I let out a long, slow breath.

  "So lay it but for me, Will," said the second man when he returned. "What's your plan?"

  "One, we need to move this stuff out. And two, shut that nosy girl up. The second job is yours."

  "You think someone sent her? You think she saw something while she was here? Why the hell did you let her in?"

  "Shut up, for Christ's sake. I'm not playing twenty questions. Do your job and it won't matter what she saw or why she came. With both Rupert and Bencher dead, the only thing that could blow us out of the water is this snooping bitch."

  "It's gone too far already...."

  "You owe me this. I've paid your inflated legal fees for years. Now I need you to come through for me or your daughter's story may find its slimy way to the newspaper."

  There was a long moment of silence. I was beginning to feel nauseated with claustrophobia, the sharp edge of a box of supplies digging into one rib, and Jeanine's heaving chest pressing in on the other side.

  "I'm sorry about the way things are turning out," said the second man. "But I won't stoop to hurting someone. I'm a lawyer, not a mobster."

  "Christ, I'm sick of your bullshit! It's a little late to be taking the high road." From the noises outside the closet, it sounded like the men had started to scuffle.

  "There's no need to get violent!" said the second man. A heavy object crashed into the closet door. Jeanine parted her lips to scream. I clapped my hand over her mouth.

  "What in the hell? Did you hear something?" asked Turner.

  "No, I didn't."

  "I think someone's in here!" insisted Turner. "We'd better have a look around." We heard him walk to the rest room and fling open the door. Jeanine inhaled sharply and grabbed my hand as the footsteps approached our hiding place. The odor of sweat expanded to fill the small space. What story could we possibly concoct to explain our position? At the exact moment one of the men rattled the knob on the closet door, Jeanine reached forward and pushed in the lock button.

  "That dumb bimbo must have locked the door again. Where the hell are the keys?" Turner moved away from our closet. I heard him opening and closing drawers and rustling through their contents. "Look at the shit she keeps in here. It's like a goddamned beauty spa. Half the time, we can't even use the copier because the paper's locked away and she's forgotten where the goddamned keys are. She'd lose her own tits if they weren't right under her nose."

  "Look, Will," said the second man in a conciliatory voice, "the place is empty: your nerves are getting the better of you. There's no one here but me and you. I'm going to do what I can to take care of the situation. I've been along for the ride every step of the way. But don't ask me to hurt someone. I can't do that."

  "No blood, pal. Just scare the hell out of her. We're in this together, buddy, like it or not. Let's get out of here."

  "One more thing," said the second man. "Do you think Jeanine would go out with me?"

  "You're joking." Turner's voice was incredulous. "That girl is an intellectual zero."

  "She has other charms." The man laughed. "Two of them, to be exact." Their footsteps faded into the distance. We heard them leave the front office and lock the door behind them. Jeanine let out a deep breath.

  "Can we get out of here? I like you and all that, but these are tight quarters."

  I flung the door open. "You were brilliant, turning the lock at just the right minute. I had no idea how we were going to explain ourselves."

  "Just sheer reflex," she said, following me out into the dim shadows of the office.

  "That guy's a pig. How long have you worked for him?"

  "He's a horse's behind, all right, but he isn't around that much," laughed Jeanine, giddy with relief. "And for the money I make, I let his idiotic comments wash right over me. I guess the trick with painting two colors of foundation in your cleavage works pretty well."

  "Disgusting pigs," I said. "Just say no, that's my advice. Do you know Turner's buddy?"

  Jeanine shrugged. "Not really. Vinnie something or other. He's come in the office once or twice, that's all."

  "Do you think Turner murdered Bencher and Kaitlin?"

  "He told Vinnie he didn't know who killed her."

  "He's no fool," I said. "He's not going to admit he murdered someone, especially not to a lawyer. We've got to look around a little more...."

  "No way!" said Jeanine. "We're out of here. I'm not spending one more minute in this office."

  "But we came all this way and had the living daylights scared out of us. I can't see leaving without looking a little further. Just give me a few minutes."

  "Absolutely not." Jeanine blocked my path to the file cabinets. "We're leaving now." Reluctantly, I agreed. We exited the building, locking the door and setting the alarm behind us.

  Jeanine dropped me off at the Starlight Motel. I raced up the back stairs and inserted my key card into its slot.

  "My God, Cassie. Where have you been? You gave us the worst scare." Laura hugged me hard, then stepped aside for Joe.

  "It's well past curfew, young lady," he said after he'd released me.

  I stood back to admire his familiar rumpled khakis and deep dimples. Other golf shrinks seemed to dress like the players they coached. Joe tended to the professorial—all he needed was a pipe and a corduroy jacket with suede patches on the elbows.

  "Laura said you were going to bed early. I figured we wouldn't see each other until tomorrow."

  I ignored his accusatory tone and ran my hand down the length of the blue sling that held Joe's left arm. "Are you okay?"

  He nodded. "Where have you been?"

  "It's a long story," I said. "Unbelievably long. First of all, Kaitlin's been murdered."

  "Kaitlin's dead? No way! What happened?"

  "I don't know what happened. Naturally, I found the body and the cops think I killed her." I explained about finding the corpse in the pit, lying next to what I believed was the illegal driver that had resulted in the elimination of So Won Lee. For a moment, I wrestled with whether I should confess about my break-in to Dr. Turner's office. It was late, I was beyond exhausted, and I knew Laura and Joe would want every detail. And then they'd pepper my narrative with horrified reprimands.

  "There's more, isn't there?" said Laura. "You've got a very strange look on your face. A guilty one."

  I sighed. "I just came from Dr. Turner's office with Jeanine. We listened to him spend the evening clearing files out that he doesn't want the police to see."

  "Who's Jeanine?" asked Laura.

  "Dr. Will Turner? Of the False Memory Consociation?" asked Joe at the same time. "What do you mean you listened to him?"

  I sighed again. I explained to Joe how I'd masqueraded as a patient yesterday. Then I described tonight's adventure—Jeanine's call and our eavesdropping on Dr. Turner from the closet inside his office. "He's working with some other guy, a lawyer. He wants this guy to scare me off the trail."

  "What trail?" said Laura. "I don't get what Turner has to do with any of this."

  "You shouldn't have gotten involved with him," said Joe. "I told you I'd look into it when I got here. The guy's a fanatic." He turned to Laura. "He's the head of this organization that supports parents whose kids have accused them of abuse. They target therapists who work with what they call memory recovery techniques. In most of these cases, the sexual contact was not recalled until the victim got into therapy. So Turner's organization attacks what they call false memories of abuse. They provide financial help, picketers, publicity, whatever's needed."

  "I guess this guy who was helping him tonight also had trouble with his daughter," I said. "Turner threatened to expose him publicly, if he didn't help."

  "Are the accusations true, then?" Laura asked.

  "Some yes, some no," said Joe. "Both sides have merit. You can't generalize about this—you have to look at the situations case by case. Real victims need permission to speak up about what happened to them. At the same time, innocent
people need protection from damaging, unfounded accusations. Turner and his crowd don't want to allow any leeway for the possibility that incest exists. Or, I should say, that memories of incest can surface in the process of psychotherapy. As a particularly vocal shrink, Bencher was a major target. That is, until he died last week."

  "But do you think Turner killed him?"

  Joe tugged on one ear. "He's driven, he's brilliant, he has a lot at stake. But on paper, I wouldn't have thought he was capable of murder. On the other hand, he's a clear link between the two deaths. And he has other people in his organization who are not nearly as smart or controlled."

  "Unfortunately, I'm a link to both the murders, too," I groaned. "Or that's what the cops see." I collapsed on my bed and pulled a pillow over my face.

  "Look," said Laura. "There are a million other possible suspects. So Won Lee had an obvious motive to club Kait-lin to death. Walter Moore did, too."

  "I saw him at the sheriff's department, waiting to be questioned," I said from under the feathers. "According to the note I saw in the Ruperts' condo, Walter was out to dinner with Kaitlin right before she died. Then there's that Leviticus guy. He was in the immediate vicinity of both the murders. And he fits into your category of a not-too-smart, but loose, cannon. Turner and his buddy mentioned his name tonight. They're worried about him, anyway, whether the cops are or not."

  "Didn't Pate tell you yesterday that one of Bencher's patients already confessed to killing him?" asked Laura. "In that case, the two murders aren't even connected."

  "Time out, ladies," said Joe, pulling the pillow off my face. "Can we all agree that you need to focus on tomorrow's tournament?" Laura and I both nodded. "As I see it, ruminating about who killed Kaitlin is not congruent with that goal. So here's the plan. Close your eyes, both of you." I shut my eyes. "Now picture carrying a heavy load, something so heavy you can hardly stand up holding it." I imagined my arms full of a large package. My thighs and forearms ached from the effort of carrying it. "Now you see me come into the picture," said Joe. "My arm is fine. I look strong and solid."