The Vigilante

by Ramona Forrest

  “What’s the hurry? Got a date?”

  Jeannie giggled and followed her mother out to her car. Martha felt a heated flush rising up her neck as she waved Jeannie away and drove off.

  ***

  Ryan sat at his desk, thinking about the visit to the Moulton’s. “Something about that woman tells me she knows more than she’s saying. Could she have something to do with all of this? Why was she so evasive when I got into the farm area?” He picked up the phone. “Harris, got a minute?”

  “Be right there.” True to his word, he hurried over to Ryan’s desk. “What ya got?” By the look on Ryan’s face, he realized something had happened. “Come on, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but we need a tail on a woman I spoke with today. Something about her...” His voice trailed off as he gave more thought to his interview with Martha Lavery. He shook his head. “Naw, couldn’t be, a woman like her, a grandmother and all. But then again, she has a hell of a lot of anger pent up inside her. Makes you wonder how much and why. She’s like a damned volcano, or could be—I had that feeling.”

  “What the hell you going on about, man?” His curiosity vividly aroused, Harris stood in front of Ryan’s desk, staring at him expectantly. “What woman?” ’

  Ryan went into detail about his interview with Martha Lavery then asked, “How about your interviews, anything?”

  “Nothing to get my shorts knotted up like yours.” Harris replied. “Are you saying you’ve got a suspect or an idea about one, or what?”

  “Not sure yet, but this woman is hiding an unusual amount of deeply-held anger. On the other hand, she’s a professional nurse, with an unblemished record, far as we know. It wouldn’t do to make a misstep with someone like her. She’s a widow and a grandmother to boot. I plan to order a very discrete surveillance on her for a while.”

  “He grimaced, his gut churning with worry. “It’d be pure disaster for our department to have our perp be someone like her, driven to malignant violence because we can’t keep our kids safe from bastards like Callahan and Garver. We wouldn’t get any sympathy, but we’d sure as hell be vilified by the public for prosecuting their heroine. You know damned well, they’d hold her up as a hero, and a long overdue one.” He winced. “Hell, so would I.”

  “You’re right. I’d agree with them, too, but we have our duties, don’t we? She’d be a real life superwoman to a whole lot of folks, not just around here, but all over the damned country.” Harris broke into a grin and stuck his chin out. “So, Ryan, how you planning to handle this one?”

  “Dunno. Let’s go for coffee.” The men left the office, heading to the nearest coffee shop.

  ***

  Martha had been looking forward to her next appointment with Dr. Carton. She entered his inner office and sat down, feeling stronger than usual and less fearful of learning more nasty details of her early childhood.

  “All this hypnosis has to come to an end,” she told him. “I’d like to ask you to move this along a bit faster.” Anxiously awaiting his reply, she believed she’d crossed a barrier of sorts and was ready for the next steps, whatever that might entail.

  “I think you may be ready enough. Your willingness to face what happened to you as a child is the real key here.” His tone became increasingly serious as he explained. “You must realize it takes time for complete integration with an alternate personality. It won’t be like switching on a light. In so many ways, she is stronger than you, though that part has remained quiescent for all this time. What we don’t know is what brought Serena out just a few months ago. It had to be a recent, severe trauma, but you haven’t mentioned anything like that in this office.”

  “The most recent trauma in my life has been the attack upon my grandson, Will. I’ve been incredibly angry about that, Doctor, in fact, extremely so. That isn’t like me at all. Would that bring about anger of this magnitude, nearly a state of rage?” At that moment, Martha realized it had to be related to Will’s attack by a sexual predator. “It happened more than six months ago.”

  “Will’s attack was of a sexual nature, and as you know, so was your own childhood trauma. There’s almost certainly a strong connection. Serena is the one who knows—if she’ll tell us.” Dr. Carton smiled at that. “She’s been reticent, to say the least, of telling us about her activities or feelings.”

  “We must give it a try.” Martha took a deep breath. “I am as ready as I’ll ever be, Doctor Carton.” She realized her renewed inner strength had come about partly because of Bob’s caring and love, and partly from the wearing nature of her affliction. She looked her doctor in the eye. “I want an end to it. The mystery, the lost time periods, cigarette smoke in my hair and clothes, and the extreme fatigue. And those damned, sexy high-heeled boots lying in the closet that I don’t remember buying, and never would!” She shrugged in hopeless confusion and disgust. “But they’ve definitely been worn!”

  Dr. Carton asked Dr. Schoenfeld to join them. As they had previously discussed with Martha, the two doctors had awaited this particular time, a time when she felt ready to know her other self.

  The three of them sat in Carton’s quiet, dimly-lit office and began. When Martha was under, Dr. Schoenfeld requested, “Serena, come out please.” They waited.

  Serena wore a suggestive half-smile across her lips. She sat, posed, ready for anything. “Yeah, Docs, what ya need from me?”

  “Martha would like to meet you, Serena. Would you care to do that?”

  “No sweat, doc.”

  They heard a slight hesitation in her voice.

  “Just wait, stay here with us,” Dr. Schoenfeld turned slightly to Martha’s sleeping form, sitting upright in her chair. “Martha, do you hear me?”

  “Yes,” her lips barely moved as she replied in a low voice.

  “Serena is here. Come and meet her.” He saw Martha twitch.

  “How can I do that?” An anxious, fearful look, moved across her face. “She knows everything that happened to me! I can’t face her!”

  Serena scoffed, her voice slightly harsh. “Yes, you can, you ninny, I handled that business, not you! And I’ve taken care of a few more things for you lately, too,” she added quietly. “Had a bit of fun while I did.”

  “I see you now, Serena. Come together with me. I want to handle things for myself and with your help, I know I can. I have to. You must let me try,” Martha said with a plaintive note in her voice.

  The men waited for a while. Martha moved about, made expressions of distaste, even disdain, smiled grimly at something, and then sat quietly for several moments.

  “I think we can bring her out now,” Dr. Schoenfeld said. “We may have succeeded in beginning the integration. Time will tell. It’s hard to know in these cases—they differ so widely.” His heart raced in his excitement at dealing with the rarity of this type case.

  Martha came awake. “What happened?”

  “We believe we’ve begun your fusion, or integration with Serena. You’ll know better about that than we will. You’ll learn about the lost year, and we believe you will be able to face what happened then. It takes some time to fully integrate, but we hope you have begun that process.”

  “I think—I know she’s with me. How do I explain that feeling? I just know. Will I suddenly know what things I’ve been doing as Serena recently, and will I know why I smell of smoke some mornings?”

  “Let us know everything you feel, know, learn, or experience. We confess we are learning from you, from this case. Dissociative Identity Disorder is very rare, and few psychiatrists ever have the good fortune to see it or treat it,” Dr. Schoenfeld explained.

  Dr. Carton nodded. “That’s right, Martha.”

  “Okay, Docs, I’ll give it a go.” Martha thought her voice sounded a bit flippant. Is that you talking, Serena? She picked up her purse and started for the exit door. Her movements felt stronger and more certain.

  Dr. Carton looked at his compatriot, his eyes narrowed slightly. “I think she’
s begun. Didn’t we hear Serena, just then?” Schoenfeld smiled and nodded.

  Leaving the doctor’s office, Martha had no reason to notice a non-descript old maroon sedan parked across the street as she hopped blithely into her car and drove over to see Will. “Time to take the little tiger out for lunch again—sick to hell of those damned, greasy burgers, though.”

  Martha felt lighter, and no longer alone. “Is my imagination working overtime?” She knew it wasn’t. Her heart rate increased. She tried to worry about this new situation, but found at the moment, she could not.

  Jeannie came to the door. “Hi, Mom, Will’s ready and waiting.”

  “Great! I’ll just pop in and visit a bit before we go. What did you think of that detective, Mapus, coming here?”

  “It burned me and I hated it! That’s how I felt about it. Haven’t we suffered enough over this mess? It’s like rubbing their failures in our faces. Imagine, his coming here to solve their vigilante mess.” She huffed. “Like we’d know anything about it.”

  Martha realized she did know! Deep inside of herself the acts her alter, Serena, had committed had already insidiously seeped into her consciousness. Some of the same activities had crossed her mind, and more than once. At this moment she realized that as Serena, she had the ability to act upon those thoughts, but as Martha, she did not.

  She needed to have an in depth conversation with Serena, but didn’t know how. I think I’ve done things! Terrible things! No way could she let Jeannie know about them. Could she tell Bob?

  “Mom, you’re so quiet. What are you thinking?” A look of alarm crossed Jeannie’s pretty face. “What’s going on in that mixed up mind of yours?”

  “Jeannie, I’ve had a big breakthrough in my treatment. I can’t spell it out, but I am dealing with my alternate personality now—Strange? Oh yes, it’s so very, very strange. They told me it takes a good while to complete the process. Let me have the time I need and I’ll tell you everything—maybe.” She managed a short chuckle. “What I learn may be too hard to tell anyone. I’ll have to let you know on that.” Martha looked around and changed the painful subject. “Where is the little guy, anyway? We need to get going.”

  Jeannie called Will, and he came running. Martha settled him into the safety seat. “So, my little man, what’s happening with you?” she asked in a chirpy voice that sounded nothing like her.

  Jeannie wrinkled her brow in a frown. “Mom, you don’t sound quite the same today. Is this part of what’s going on?”

  “I suppose so—but I’m still me, Jeannie, don’t ever lose sight of that.” Mumbling under her breath, she added, “I think.”

  She drove blithely away with Will, and several cars behind her an old maroon sedan followed.

  CHAPTER 26

  Ryan sat across from Officer Art Jarvis. “Anything on the Lavery woman yet? How’s Sammy doing with the surveillance?”

  “She sees a doctor,” Jarvis replied. “We don’t know which one, yet, several specialties are located in that complex. She took her grandson to Biggie’s Burgers. Sammy Gill had that stake out, had a burger himself while in there. Said it all looked routine to him. The kid played and ran around for quite a while before she took him back to his mother and went home. Her activities look normal in every way. We haven’t done a wiretap. You want that?”

  “Hell no. If that ever got out we’d be cooked, you know—up shit creek a whole damned mile.” Ryan scratched his thick mop of hair. “These things take time. Let’s see where the surveillance takes us before we do anything more. Patience, Jarvis, it’ll take us a while and she’s not going anywhere.”

  “Yeah, if she did the deeds, she’s got a damned good reason anyway, at least in Callahan’s case.” Jarvis grinned. “Made her fuming mad at you, eh? I’d like to get a look at this woman, myself. Works at Mercy, you say?”

  Ryan smiled. “Why? Going to check her out? Might be a good idea, just to get a close up look. How you planning that?”

  “Not sure yet. I’ll run it past you when I sort it out. I know one of the aides, Jake Collins. He’s too big a talker for confidences. Might drop around to see if he wants to hit a night spot after he gets off—think I will.” Jarvis looked relieved with his idea. “I’ll ask the tail to tell me if she goes to work. Might just hit it lucky if they’re working together.”

  He left Ryan’s office, his paunch shoving his shirt apart in the front. Jarvis always looked rumpled that way.

  “Damn, what a dilemma if she turns out to be implicated some way. Hell, there’s only one way anyone could be guilty!” Ryan shoved his hand into his hair, pushed his sleeves higher on his arms, and reached for the phone.

  “Hey, Dick, get me everything on a woman of interest. Go way back and dig deep. We need everything on her.” He gave the info he had on Martha Lavery. “And what do we have on Callahan? He came here for a reason. We’ve only scratched the surface on that dude. Find out. Okay?”

  ***

  Martha took a shift, hoping to work with Bob. She wanted to see him later, and realized all too well that a part of her had the major hots for the man. With a bit of disgust, she knew it had to be her other self in addition to her own feelings.

  “I’ll not give into that. She’ll just have to live with it!” Martha said, talking to Serena. Is this the way I’ll get to know who and what she is and what she’s done? She wondered. “Maybe I’m stronger than her now, though she must have been strong for me back then. What a dilemma!” She shrugged, and got ready for work, wondering when she’d know what had happened to her as a child.

  “Ye Gods, I don’t wear that much make-up!” Martha carefully re-adjusted her make-up to reflect her nurse persona and went to work.

  When she got to the desk, Angelina, the staffing clerk for the evening, looked up from her paperwork with her lovely dark, expressive eyes. “I put you in med-surg this evening, okay? You wanna sign up for a few more?”

  “Thank you. I’ll be glad to work there this evening,” Martha replied. “But let’s leave it at that for now. I never know when I’ll have enough time.”

  She entered the staff room, stowed her stuff, and took up a report paper. As she headed for the report room she saw Bob putting his jacket in his locker. She smiled and felt the heat of a flush when he gave her a lazy grin.

  “Hi, lady, how you doing?” What he really wanted to ask was, Now what’s going on in your crazy mixed up life? And she knew it.

  Martha nodded and saw his interest spark. He’d be close behind when she left the hospital at eleven. She knew that, and was eager for it. She wanted to tell him the latest developments, hoping the information wouldn’t scare him away. She felt sure it wouldn’t. After all Bob was a nurse. He’d understand these things. Wouldn’t he?

  The evening wore on, and during that time she noticed a new presence on the floor chatting with Jake. He was an officer she’d met once. She knew him by his unkempt appearance and big protruding paunch. Sergeant Art Jarvis had suddenly appeared on the floor, and though no overt action on his part told her, she knew it was her they discussed.

  She gave no sign of her knowledge, but suddenly realized her interview with Ryan Mapus had gone against her, and part of that was because of her reluctance to discuss her farm background. The Serena part of her knew they looked for evidence regarding the emasculation of two pedophiles. Why me? She asked herself.

  Smiling, she went on her casual way, attending to her nursing duties, charting, calling doctors, and tending the sick. “I refuse to fear those fools who protect child predators but never the young innocents destroyed by them.”

  She talked to calm herself, sorting things out in her mind. “If I had to spend the rest of my life behind bars, I would bear no regrets for what I’ve had to do.” She shook her head. Where had that come from? Suddenly, Martha became cognizant of her acts as Serena. Holy Mother of God, what have I done?

  Reeling from this most recent shock, she disappeared into the nearest room. Looking at the patient, she realized it w
as Sykes, lying in his bed, groaning with pain, writhing in his dying misery.

  The form of this miserable wretch stretched out before her, brought back the memory of him pulling her into the barn when she was six years old. Her past was now laid bare to her completely—in all its ghastly horror—every hideous detail of the tortures this ugly man had inflicted upon her as an innocent little girl.

  Martha suffered again the pain, fear, and agony of those dreadful hours. Gasping in pain and disbelief, she understood what this man had done to her, not once or twice, but repeatedly over the course of a year. She ran to the sink and vomited forcefully all she’d eaten during the day, though it seemed to contain every bite of food she’d eaten in her entire lifetime!

  “Hey, what’s going on in here?” Dimly, she heard Bob’s voice calling. “Darling, what’s happened in here? What on earth has made you this sick?” Worry tensed his fine features as he grasped her shoulders, held her out from him to look into her face—a face, she knew, had to look as stricken as she felt.

  “Oh Bob, I’ve got to get out of this place—and now! I know everything. I’ve just realized...oh God! See that man lying on the bed? I’ll tell you all about him when we’re alone. I’m integrating with this other person inside of me, and it’s almost too much to bear.

  “I’ll tell you everything, though, you’ll never want to hold me in your arms again.” Martha bit her lip, hoping the pain would stop her tears. “You won’t believe what I’m about to tell you.”

  He grasped her shoulders. “Listen, Martha, can you make it to the end of the shift? It’s only another hour. Darling, I have the feeling you wouldn’t want to let anyone else in on what’s happening.” He shook her gently. “Here now, get hold of yourself. You can fall apart later. I’ll be there to catch you. I won’t let you down. I said that, and I meant it.”