The Beginning

by Catherine Coulter

  “Then what happened?”

  “Belinda cries out.”

  “Is she having a climax?”

  “I don’t think so. She rolls off the chaise onto the brick balcony. I hear her crying, then she stops.”

  “Why?”

  “Douglas tells her that if she cries anymore someone might hear her and he won’t like that at all. In fact, if she keeps whining, he just might throw her off the balcony.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Nothing. Belinda’s quiet. After a few minutes, they make love again. Douglas tells her she’d better moan because if she doesn’t moan, he won’t believe she really loves him. She moans really loudly then and he says more really dirty things to her. He keeps telling her that she owes him, owes him but good.”

  “Do you know what he means by that?”

  She shook her head.

  “What happened then?”

  “Douglas goes out, and I go to their bedroom and call out her name. She wants me to go away but I refuse. I walk in. She’s standing in the middle of the room, naked. She grabs for her jeans and puts them in front of her. I ask her if Douglas hit her and she says no, that’s ridiculous. Douglas wouldn’t hit anybody. But I don’t believe her. I think I saw a bruise below her ribs when she raised her hand to wave me away. But I don’t leave. I can’t.”

  “Had this happened before, to your knowledge?”

  She was shaking her head. “Oh no. I’m certain. I thought they loved each other. Douglas was always so light and caressing with her, so tender. They were always laughing and hugging, kissing when they didn’t think anyone was looking. But not now. She can’t stand up straight. I want to kill him. But she says no, if anyone kills him it’ll be her. She tells me to go away, that she doesn’t want to see me, I’m a pain in the butt. She had a miscarriage that night.”

  “You never told anyone about this? Not even the police after she was murdered?”

  She didn’t say anything. She was frowning again. “She must have had a miscarriage because Douglas hit her. I’d forgotten all about that.” Suddenly, her eyes opened and she stared blankly ahead of her. She looked bewildered, then frightened. He began to massage her hand, closing his fingers over hers. “It’s all right, Sherlock. I’m here. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

  She started to cry. She stared at him, made no sound, but tears streaked down her pale cheeks. Her lips were chapped.

  Dr. Bowers wiped the tears away with a Kleenex. “Now, Lacey, that’s enough. I want you to wake up now. I’m going to count to three. On three, you’ll be awake, smile at Dillon here, and remember everything we talked about.”

  On three, Sherlock, her eyes still open, came back into herself. “Why am I crying?”

  She rubbed her fingers over her eyes. “Oh, I remember now. It was—”

  “It’s okay,” Savich said, pulled her against him, and began stroking his big hands up and down her back. “You don’t have to talk about it right this minute.”

  She grew very still in his arms. Her heart was against his. He could feel the slow, steady beat. He kissed her hair. “You okay?”

  She nodded against his shoulder. “I miss Belinda so much. She was more my mother than our real mother was. Our real mother stayed in her room all the time. She loved to eat Godiva chocolates. And she was so beautiful—both Belinda and my mother. I was the plain one, but neither of them held it against me; well, maybe Belinda didn’t like me so much when I was older. I don’t know why.

  “I know Douglas had never hit her before; she told me he hadn’t. I asked her why he’d hit her this time, why he’d humiliated her.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me. She stood there, shaking her head. She told me I wouldn’t understand. That it had nothing to do with me, that I was to forget it.

  “I was confused, then angry. I told her I was nineteen, that I wasn’t a kid anymore, that I could play the piano and she couldn’t. She laughed at that, but it hurt her rib to laugh, so she stopped really fast. She told me to forget this, that it wasn’t important in the scheme of things. She told me to go away. I went to Napa Valley with some friends. I never saw Belinda again.”

  “How did you know that Belinda had a miscarriage?”

  “I don’t remember. Someone must have told me. But no one seemed to know about it. It isn’t in the medical reports or the autopsy report. I don’t remember.”

  “But somehow you followed her through the warehouse, followed her to her death, saw everything she saw, felt her terror, felt her die.”

  Dr. Bowers looked as if she wanted to leap on Savich, but he shook his head. Sherlock was stiff now, withdrawn from him, but he didn’t say anything more, just held her, rocking her slightly, back and forth.

  “How could I have possibly been there? It doesn’t make any sense. I was in St. Helena when my father called me. I left San Francisco that very day I’d spoken to Belinda.”

  “What did your father say when he called you?”

  “He said that Belinda had been killed by the String Killer. He told me to come home. I went. There wasn’t anything more.”

  “Did your father tell you about her miscarriage?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “When did you have the first dream?”

  “Six weeks later. He was stalking me, and I knew he was there, only there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t get away from him. I yelled at him, ‘Why are you here? What do you want?’ He didn’t say anything. He just kept coming closer and closer. I knew he would hit me on the head but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t get away from him. I felt helpless, and I was. He was right there, over me. The dream ended.”

  “When did you come to realize that he picked women because they cursed and put down their husbands?”

  “The dreams got longer, more detailed. Later, he told me, told me over and over. That began maybe three months later. He said in my ear just after he struck me, ‘You’re a filthy-mouthed little bitch, aren’t you? You curse and say all those bad things you shouldn’t be saying and you blame your husband and call him bad names. I’ve got to punish you.’

  “I’ll never forget that, never. The dreams continued, got more and more involved until the one last night when I woke up just the instant before he killed me. I honestly don’t know how much effect the profiling papers influenced me, and all my studies. There was a lot of gruesome stuff in the courses and I thought about him all the time, read all the big-city newspapers, studied other serial killers. But I don’t understand where this dream came from.”

  “It’s there, Lacey. We’ll get it all out. It will take a bit of time.”

  “Dr. Bowers is right. It’s all there in that magnificent brain of yours, somewhere. We’ll unlock all of it, but no more today.” He kissed the top of her head, then said in that calm unhurried voice, “Do you remember if it was Marlin Jones speaking?”

  He held his breath. She was perfectly silent, perfectly still. Finally, she said in a voice muffled by his shirt, “No, I can’t be certain.”

  Or she couldn’t bear to remember. It was enough for now, more than enough. He said aloud, “I think we should pack it in for today. What do you say, Lauren? Has she had enough of the wringer?”

  “I’d say so. Go watch the Redskins play ball. Eat popcorn. Forget it, at least for today. She’s still recovering. She needs rest. We’ll get at the rest of it in a couple of days.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Jimmy Maitland chewed on an unlit cigar, wrote two words in his small black book, then looked back at Agent Sherlock, who was sitting on the edge of Savich’s sofa, looking pale as death. Savich was across from her in his favorite leather chair, his legs crossed at the ankles. He was, as far as Maitland could tell, looking at Sherlock’s hands. He hadn’t said a word. Jimmy Maitland, who’d known Savich since he’d become a special agent eight years before, said, “I don’t like any of this, Savich. I got a call from Crammer’s section supervisor, telling me Sher
lock here had been attacked and that Crammer had stayed outside her hospital room. I’d like to know why you didn’t bother to tell me about this.”

  Sherlock looked up. Her eyes were very bright and very blue. “It’s Sunday, sir, and we were going to watch the Redskins game. I’d prefer the San Francisco 49ers but you don’t show them here unless they’re playing on Monday Night Football.”

  Before Jimmy Maitland could leap on Sherlock, Savich said, “I wanted her to rest today, sir. I’d planned to speak to you about it tomorrow. However, it’s kind of you to have driven all the way over here.”

  “Why is she here?”

  “She was attacked in her town house. I didn’t think it was safe for her to remain there.”

  Maitland grunted at that. “So what’s going on here? It’s about Marlin Jones, isn’t it?”

  She knew if she told him she had no idea what it was about, he’d probably have a coronary, so she said simply, “Yes, sir. I don’t think our job is quite done yet. I’m going back to Boston to talk to him again. There are some loose ends, some things that don’t fit together. The last thing we want is any uncertainty. Remember Richard Jewell and the Atlanta Olympic bombing? We looked like secretive, cover-your-behind boobs in that deal. We were heavy-handed, let the media in on everything before we had anything conclusive, and then we left the guy twisting in the wind. We took his reputation, his good name. Sir, we even took his Tupperware. Let me finish properly with Marlin Jones. Just this week, sir. That’s all I need, just this week.”

  Reference to the long ago Richard Jewell fiasco made Jimmy Maitland nearly chew clean through his cigar. “You mean we could get burned in this?”

  “It’s possible, sir. As I said, I’ll be going up on Tuesday and get everything settled. Maybe stay until the end of the week. Please, sir.”

  “Who tried to whack you, Agent Sherlock?”

  She should have known he would home in on that. Mr. Maitland was a very tenacious man. “I don’t believe it was a whack job, sir, more like a threat, but it is one of the loose ends.”

  “I don’t like my agents getting whacked, Agent Sherlock.”

  “No, sir.” As the whackee, she hadn’t liked it either, but she didn’t think Mr. Maitland would laugh if she said that. She moved even closer to the edge of her seat. Her head was aching. Her shoulder throbbed. She felt mildly light-headed. She wanted Dillon to kiss her. She saw him naked over her and choked on the sip of water she’d just taken.

  “You okay, Sherlock?” Savich half rose in his chair, then at her look, he sat down again. What would he have done anyway? Hugged her? Yeah, that would have been a real treat for Maitland. He might have stroked out on the spot. Savich prayed he wouldn’t ask any more questions about her attacker. He didn’t have any convincing answers made up yet.

  She said, “Yes, sir, I’m fine.”

  She was red in the face; she wouldn’t look at him. She was staring at the black toes on her Bally loafers. If his boss hadn’t been sitting six feet from him, he might have thrown her over his shoulder and carried her upstairs. He smiled really big at his boss. “I’ll go with her to Boston. We’ll get it all wrapped up.”

  “Marlin Jones is in jail. Who attacked Agent Sherlock? Why?”

  “We don’t know yet, sir, but we’re betting the answer lies with Marlin Jones.”

  “You don’t know that, Savich. It might be entirely unrelated.” No one said a word. Jimmy Maitland sighed and pulled himself to his feet. He was tired. He’d had too much beer to drink the night before at a retirement party for Stu Hendricks, an old New York agent who’d been a terror in his day. Even the Mob had sent him a gold watch. He wanted to go home and watch the Redskins too. He said, “Go on to Boston, then. I see you don’t want to tell me you really have no idea if Marlin Jones is connected with this attack on Sherlock. There is one thing though, Savich. The young cop who messed up and let two of the old people go in that Florida nursing home murder—he has no idea. We were right—all old people look the same to him. Oh yeah, there’s been a spate of murders in South Dakota, right in Elk Point, then the guy went over the border into Iowa. Nasty business. The police chief in Sioux City is frantic.”

  “I’ll deal with it tomorrow, sir.” Savich rose and walked Jimmy Maitland to the front door.

  “This place,” Maitland said, taking one last sweeping look. “I remember one night when your grandmother came down those stairs wearing this lemon yellow chiffon gown. Lord, she must have been at least seventy-five then but she was a queen. You’ve done well with it, Savich. Your brother the artist still pissed at you that she gave you the house?”

  “Not too pissed now. He got over it.”

  “I hate that modern stuff. Tell Ryan to go Impressionist, can’t go wrong there. As for that dolphin of yours I bought, I still like it. Nice work. Oh yeah, take care of Sherlock.” He paused a moment, carefully wrapped his unlit cigar in a handkerchief and slid it into his jacket pocket, then walked to the front door. He lowered his voice. “I suppose you know what you’re doing.” He nodded toward the living room where Sherlock was sitting still as a stone, still staring down at her shoes.

  “I sure hope so.”

  “It’s been what? Five years since Claire died?”

  “Nearly.”

  “Sherlock is getting high marks in the Bureau.”

  “She deserves them. I’m glad I was bright enough to latch onto her right out of Quantico. She’s a plus to the Unit.”

  “I imagine she’s also other things to you, but that’s none of my business. Make sure it remains none of my business. You take care of her, all right, Savich? And yourself. And call when you need backup.”

  “Yes, sir, I will.” Savich paused just a moment, then turned, smiled, and strolled back into the living room, whistling.

  She said immediately, “What dolphin was Mr. Maitland talking about?”

  “I told you I whittled. The dolphin was a piece my sister stole out of here and put on consignment in the Lampton Gallery. She was all over me to quit the FBI when the piece sold. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my boss bought it.”

  “I see,” she said slowly. “Do you happen, by any chance, to have any more whittled pieces around here?”

  “A couple.”

  He was clearly uncomfortable. She smiled at him. “Have you ever carved teak?”

  “Oh yes, but my favorite is maple.”

  “You’ve been doing it a long time. Some of the scars on your hands look very old.”

  “Since I was a kid.”

  She said nothing more.

  IT was chilly in Boston, the sky a dull gray, the clouds fat with rain. The buildings looked old and tired, ready to fold in on themselves. Sherlock shivered in the small interrogation room, waiting for them to bring in Marlin Jones. She would have given about anything to be in San Francisco at that moment, where everything was at least two hundred years newer and the chances were really good it was sunny. Then she remembered what was in Boston and shook her head. Where was Marlin Jones? Naturally his lawyer, Big John Bullock, would be with him. She hoped she could talk him into leaving her alone with Marlin. Five minutes; that’s all she wanted. Dillon was close by, speaking with the two homicide detectives in charge of Marlin Jones’s case. Lots of people behind the two-way mirror would be watching and listening.

  She heard leg shackles pounding hard. She looked up. Marlin stood in the doorway. He looked hard and tough, all gentle edges carved off him. He stared at her for a very long time, not moving, not saying a word. Then, finally, terrifyingly, he smiled. He lifted his shackled hands and waved his fingers at her. “Hey, Marty, how’s your arm? I remember how that felt, throwing that knife at you, watching it hit you, dig right into your skin. It went in so easy. Still hurt from my knife, Marty?”

  “No, Marlin, I’m just fine. How’s your belly? Can you stand up straight yet? You got a big scar to show for my bullet?”

  He grew utterly still. The vicious light in his eyes went out, leaving th
em dark and opaque. “You’ve still got that smart mouth on you, Marty. That wasn’t an act you put on for me. You need a man to teach you how to behave.”

  “Be quiet, Marlin,” Big John said, lightly touching his fingertips to Marlin’s forearm. Marlin shook him off.

  Big John never stopped looking at her. “Forget it, Agent Sherlock. There’s no way I’ll leave you alone with him.” He sat down.

  “You sit down now too,” a sergeant said, shoving Marlin into a chair. “Don’t move or I’ll shackle you to the arms. I’m standing right behind you, boy. Just keep your hands on the tabletop. Don’t even let your hair grow, you got that?”

  Marlin didn’t say a word. “He’s got it,” said Big John. “Don’t worry, Officer.”

  “You and I did a lot of dancing when I was last in Boston, Marlin. You remember our last tango through your little maze, don’t you?”

  “I thought you were so pretty, so precious, but then you started saying those bad things. But you don’t even have a husband, do you?”

  “Nope, no husband.” She was holding her ballpoint pen, lightly tapping it on the tabletop. She said, “You never saw me before I came into the lumber store, did you, Marlin?”

  “Me? See you?” He paused a moment, then smiled at her. “You think maybe that’s possible?” Then he shrugged and looked down at his dirty fingernails, ignoring her.

  “I don’t think I ever would have dated you, Marlin. You want to know why? Even though you look pretty interesting on the outside, you look dead on the inside, really dead, like you’ve been dead for a very long time.”

  “I’ll ask you that question on the witness stand, Agent Sherlock,” Big John said as he laced his fingers over his stomach. “Good stuff. To think I nearly refused to let Marlin say anything to you. Do keep talking. No juror will convict this poor fellow. Talk about not responsible—”

  She ignored Big John. She sat forward, laid down the pen, and clasped her hands on the table in front of her. It was Formica, scarred, stained. She wondered briefly when it had last been cleaned. “Have you ever seen me before, Marlin?”