Unseen

by Nancy Bush

  The woman reporter turned to the screen and said that no one from the Winslow County Sheriff’s Department had been willing to talk to them. However, a retired detective, Mr. Burl Jernstadt, had allowed a statement. Burl Jernstadt had been a respected member of the department and Sheriff Nunce still engaged his expertise upon occasion.

  Will made a strangled sound.

  “Are you choking?” his mother asked anxiously.

  “Mom, I’ll call you right back.” He needed to hear what Burl had to say.

  “The department has several cases that it’s deeply involved with.” Burl spoke seriously. His hair was combed and slicked down, and it looked like he’d actually trimmed his ear hair for this interview. His coat was too small, however, making his belly spill forward. He looked like the yahoo he was.

  “You want me to call 911? If you’re choking I should call 911.”

  “I’m not choking! Don’t call 911!” He heard his tension and knew he was scaring her. “Okay, okay. Just hold on. Okay?” He dropped the phone and scrambled for the DVR. He needed to record this.

  “Don’t say it, Burl. Don’t do it,” he warned through his teeth.

  “The Letton case isn’t as high priority as others,” Burl said in a tone that suggested the sheriff’s department wasn’t playing fair.

  “Isn’t this vehicular homicide?” the reporter asked. “Mrs. Letton says the authorities know who’s behind the vicious attack on her husband.”

  Burl nodded. “There are several persons of interest.”

  “One in particular? The woman who was at the hospital when Mr. Letton was?”

  Burl struggled. He so wanted to nail Gemma.

  Will squeezed his hands into fists, willing Burl not to say it, though he knew the interview had been taped earlier.

  “I am not at liberty to say,” he stated primly.

  The reporter came around it another way, saying a woman who’d shown up with bruises consistent with an automobile accident had actually been one floor below Edward Letton at the same hospital. She’d been released and the authorities had seemingly moved on to other possibilities.

  Will swept up his cell phone. “Mom?” Dead air. “Mom?” Nothing. He clicked off, relieved that the segment was over and the news people had moved on to something else.

  His phone rang and he checked the number. Barb. Probably as apoplectic as he was.

  “Did you see Channel Nine?” she asked, barely reining in her fury.

  “Just caught it.”

  “I’m going to rip him a new one! What a moron. What a complete, utter moron.”

  “Maybe it’s just what we need,” Will said.

  “How so?” Barb sounded angry that he could even think that way.

  “Maybe this’ll finally cook Jernstadt’s goose.”

  Barb snorted and rolled that around in her head. “God, I hope so. You going to Clatsop to look at that body?”

  Will made a face. “It’d be great to have a first-hand look, but I’ve got to take care of a few things here.”

  “Something you’re not telling me about the Letton case?”

  “No, I’ve got to call 911 dispatch and make sure they haven’t sent someone to my house to make sure I’m not choking.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The offices of Dr. Tremaine Rainfield were in a four-story brick building in Portland’s warehouse district, which had been gentrified into condominiums and shops, and a big chunk of it was now known as the trendy Pearl District. Gemma struggled to find parking, finally settling on the highway robbery of a parking structure. She took a ticket from the machine and rattled her truck to the nearest spot, which she had to squeeze into.

  It occurred to her as she was locking the vehicle that she should have asked Charlotte what she was driving when she supposedly spotted her.

  She took an elevator to the ground level and exited through a glass revolving door to the street. The building she sought was four blocks away and she moved through an overcast day that seemed to bear down on her oppressively.

  Rainfield’s office building sported dark gray carpet and wood paneled elevator doors. Gemma punched the button for the fourth floor and rode up in silence, her arrival announced by a soft, respectful ping. She turned toward a set of glass doors etched with dr. tremain rainfield in gold, lowercase letters.

  The receptionist gave her a careful smile of greeting.

  “Gemma LaPorte to see Dr. Rainfield.”

  The receptionist gave her a nod and Gemma took a seat in the waiting room. Ten minutes passed before the inner door opened and a woman in scrubs admitted her to a short hallway that led to an office in the back. So there was a clinic somewhere, Gemma deduced.

  Tremaine Rainfield’s office itself was a study in brown tone-on-tone, with carved wooden statues of quasi-African origin and hammered pewter bowls and plates. Someone had designed it to look more like an upscale law office than a psychologist’s place of business. The one softer touch was a glass bowl filled with floating red candles cut into the shape of some spiny-leafed flower.

  “Gemma,” the doctor said, getting up from his chair and coming around the desk to take her hand. “I haven’t seen you in years. Do you remember me?”

  He was grinning and she had a flash of the boy he’d been, hanging around his dad’s offices. “I do,” she said, which pleased him enormously.

  Had he known that what she remembered was how he’d scowled and whined when he hadn’t gotten his way, his greeting might not have been as warm. He was older than Gemma by four or five years and had exhibited all the signs of extreme jealousy whenever he’d come across her with his father. Bernard Rainfield had always treated Gemma with fatherly kindness and his son, Tremaine, hadn’t liked it one bit.

  Tremaine’s brown hair was cut close and turning silver at his temples. His brown eyes were like his father’s, except Gemma didn’t detect the inherent kindness she’d found in Bernard’s.

  “I’ve been anxious to meet with you,” he said. “I’ve always thought you were my father’s most interesting patient.”

  “You talked about me with your father?”

  “More like I listened at doors when we were young. And your mother, Jean, was a colorful character. She was very worried about you. Do you still take the medication my father prescribed?”

  He said it casually, but it sent alarm bells ringing in the back of Gemma’s head. “I haven’t gotten a new prescription in years.” She didn’t tell him she still had some of the pills and only used them sporadically.

  “It was Atavan, mostly. Anti-anxiety. You don’t feel the need of them anymore?”

  “No.” Gemma was careful.

  “I understood they inhibited your psychic abilities.” Responding to her look of consternation, he said, “That’s what Jean believed.”

  “I don’t have psychic abilities.”

  Tremaine smiled. “I know. That’s just what your mother wanted to believe. But I also know you lose time. You told Jean that.”

  “Well…not exactly…” Gemma swallowed. It sounded like he knew more about her than she did herself. “I never told my mother I lost time.”

  “Didn’t you?” He cocked his head.

  “I’m missing pieces of my life but the journal I wrote helped a lot.”

  “Good. How far back does it go?”

  “Well, to when I started seeing your father. He had me start the journal.”

  “So, you don’t know anything about your past before that point.”

  “I know I was found on a ferry.”

  “But you were told that,” he stressed. “It’s not a memory. Have you thought about accessing your memories? Regression hypnosis therapy? It might explain a lot of what’s been a mystery to you far too long. We might even get to the root of this,” he added lightly.

  As if the words had actually passed his tongue, she heard his thoughts: It’s DID, and it’s a godsend! All I have to do is step carefully. Don’t want to scare her.

  She said,
“What’s DID?”

  His body jerked and his eyes widened. “You think you have DID? I didn’t know you knew…that…that’s amazing. That you have that awareness. When did you come to that? How? Did something happen?”

  His questions came thick and fast. Gemma was growing less and less interested in talking with him. “I asked you what it was. That’s all.”

  “Dissociative Identity Disorder. What was once termed multiple personality disorder. Another self. One that lives outside of your awareness, generally.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “You don’t believe it,” Tremaine said, getting all professional again. “Hmmm. Why?”

  “I don’t even think it exists,” Gemma said, staring at the red floating candles. She could see water on their fake petals.

  “Oh, it does. It does.” His smile was faint.

  “I may have some memory problems, but I’m not doing things that I’m not aware of.” As Gemma said the words she thought about Charlotte seeing her on the road, and of Letton being run down by a car. Still, she was not going to indulge Tremaine Rainfield just so he could make a name for himself.

  “Let me ask you this: what do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know. Plain old memory lapses.”

  “There are no plain old memory lapses. They have root causes. Some physical, some psychological. Yours started before you were adopted, by what I’ve learned. That’s why I’m suggesting hypnosis. Repressed memories could become recovered memories.”

  When she didn’t answer, he added, “Wouldn’t you like to know whether you’re responsible for Edward Letton’s death?”

  Gemma stared in shock.

  “Last night’s six o’clock news,” he explained. “The widow Letton said a woman who’d been hospitalized the same time as her husband was responsible. And someone from the sheriff’s office intimated the authorities weren’t doing their job by not arresting her.” He slid her a look. “I gather the police don’t have enough evidence.”

  “I’m not responsible for his death,” Gemma stated firmly.

  “But you don’t know for certain, do you?”

  “I know.”

  “Not for certain,” he said again.

  Gemma’s jaw was tight. No, not for certain. Not completely. But it just didn’t fit with everything else, and with the healing of her bruises came the conviction that she was innocent of killing Edward Letton.

  Still…there were questions. Anomalies. Coincidences.

  No, not for certain.

  Rainfield kept after her to sign up for hypnosis but Gemma demurred, having basically checked out. She didn’t know what she wanted other than she didn’t want to be Dr. Tremaine Rainfield’s show pony. Or guinea pig. Or test case.

  But he’d helped her learn a couple of things about herself that she hadn’t expected to from this meeting, things Dr. Rainfield never meant to teach. One, she wasn’t going to live in fear anymore. If she did run Edward Letton down with her car it could be proved, and as time went on she felt it was a pretty big “if”. She found it more and more likely that someone else, someone who looked like her and shared her disgust of anyone who preyed on children—maybe even surpassed it, if that were possible—had been the woman behind the wheel. So, she was going to call Will Tanninger and give him the location of her mother’s silver Camry. And she believed—well, hoped—that she would be exonerated.

  Secondly, though she’d denied having any psychic ability to the self-serving doctor, she’d finally realized that she may indeed. And though she shied away from the label itself—weren’t all would-be psychics a little crazy themselves?—by just being with Tremaine Rainfield she had realized something more about her particular ability. What she could do, to an amazing level, was read the most powerful thoughts inside a person’s head. What was uppermost on their mind. Their strongest desires, needs, fears. Dr. Tremaine Rainfield wanted to use Gemma to further his career. Milo was worried about his pregnant girlfriend, Shirl. Sally Van Kamp had wanted news on her son when she was really worried that he was an addict, no matter what she sputtered to the contrary.

  Whoever Gemma had chased out of the diner was a pedophile in his mind, if not yet in action.

  And somehow she was fairly certain she’d been chasing someone other than Edward Letton. Not certain, no. But fairly certain. Certain enough to trust the information to Will Tanninger.

  Before she left the parking garage she scrolled through her cell phone where she’d stored the detective’s number. Before she could stop herself, she punched in the call and then headed out through the garage gates to the street.

  Sheriff Nunce ducked his head inside the door and said to Will, “Can you come into my office?”

  Will looked up from his notes. Barb was on the phone but her eyes shot from Will to Nunce and back, her brows lifting. It had to be about Burl.

  “Sure.” Will followed after the older man and stood inside the office as Nunce closed his door, an action out of the ordinary in itself. Will waited, half-knowing what was to come.

  “You know I’m planning to retire, and because of it I’ve been—loose with some of the protocol.” He grimaced, and with an effort Will kept his countenance merely interested. Loose with protocol was an understatement. “Haven’t wanted to fight all the little battles that flare up. I’ve let Burl overstep his bounds and it hasn’t been right. I called him this morning and reminded him that he no longer works here. I also told Dot not to admit him past the gate.”

  Will inclined his head. “I expected something after last night’s TV showing, but wow.”

  “Burl’s a good man,” the sheriff defended.

  Not hardly, Will thought, but wisely kept silent.

  “But…” Nunce walked around his desk and sank into the chair, absently picking up a rubber band and rotating it like a wheel with the help of his two pointer fingers. “He overstepped his bounds with that damn interview. And he’s too personally involved in the case. Keeps blabbering on about his friendship with the Dunleavys and how the LaPortes are crazy, and all. Unprofessional, but then he’s no longer a part of this office.”

  Will nodded. And hasn’t been for a long time.

  “I called you in here because I’m afraid you’re going to get the brunt of it. Burl thinks you’re soft on the LaPorte woman. He blames you for not arresting her, when he knows full well we don’t have the evidence.”

  Will’s smile was cold. “I can take it.”

  Nunce nodded shortly. “Good.”

  Thinking the interview was over, Will headed toward the door. Before he could open it, Nunce said, “Do you still consider her a suspect?”

  “A person of interest,” Will clarified.

  “Anything new that would link her to the crime?”

  “No.”

  “I just didn’t want it forgotten, with this psycho-burner out there.”

  “I think about it all the time,” Will told him.

  “Okay.”

  Once in the hall Will almost ran into Barb. “Listening at keyholes?” he asked her.

  “If I have to. What did Nunce want?”

  “To make sure we haven’t given up on the Letton case, and to let me know that Burl is persona non grata around here, based on his connection with the Dunleavys, the LaPortes’ neighbors.”

  “Oh, really.” Barb’s brows lifted.

  “One less headache,” Will said.

  “What about the Letton case, though. It’s stalled.”

  Will’s cell buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket. The number looked somewhat familiar but it didn’t immediately click in his head. God, if it was about his mother again…“Tanninger.”

  “Detective? This is Gemma LaPorte.”

  Will’s steps slowed automatically, and Barb, who was keeping stride with him, slowed down as well, looking askance. He tried to wave her off but she stubbornly stood pat. “Hello,” he greeted Gemma a bit more cautiously than he would have if he were alone.

  “You told me to call
you if I remembered anything.”

  “Yeah?” His interest quickened.

  “I’d like to talk to you in person. Would it be all right if I stopped by the department after work tomorrow?”

  “Um…Why don’t I come your way.”

  “I’m at LuLu’s diner tomorrow.”

  “Peach cobbler,” he said. “I remember.”

  He thought he could almost hear her smile. “See you then, detective.”

  As he hung up, Barb said suspiciously, “Peach cobbler?”

  “Yep.” He headed toward the staff room and the locker that held his coat.

  “Damn it, Tanninger, you’re going to see that LaPorte woman!”

  “I’m going home,” he said.

  “You’re going to that diner where she works!”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Tomorrow?” When he didn’t answer, she accused, “You’re not the choir boy you let everyone believe.”

  He found himself smiling inside, his thoughts turning to Gemma. It was foolish and dangerous, but he couldn’t help himself. But Barb was bristling beside him, so he made his most angelic, choir-boy face and started in on “Ave Maria” in an off-key, warbling baritone which made Barb make a retching sound and shoot him the middle finger.

  “Hilarious,” she said, turning away from him.

  He thought so and was laughing out loud as he gave Dot the high sign and she buzzed him outside to the late afternoon shadows.

  Lucky woke with a lurch to find herself slouched behind the wheel of her truck. It was night, she was on a country road, and clouds covered the moon and stars, leaving her staring into almost pure blackness. She squeezed her eyes closed and opened them slowly. It was still night. Her last memory was of late afternoon.

  Carefully, feeling needles and pins in her right leg as she stirred, she peered hard through the windshield, trying to make shapes out of the darkness. She determined she was on that same road where she’d seen the girl who’d waved at her. She’d been obsessed by thoughts of the girl. Who was she? Why did it feel so important? Was she in danger? Lucky had incredible antennae when it came to sensing pending trouble.