I couldn’t leave Paul, though. I doubted he could keep up and he’d be like a little, lost gazelle for the lionesses to feast on. With Lachlyn at his back, he crowded up on me, stepping on my heels three times before we reached Clotilde’s office. Lachlyn, still silent, watched us take our seats, then pointedly left the door standing wide open as she left.
Surprised she wasn’t going to take a sentry stance outside the door, I barely waited for her receding footsteps to reach the group room before turning to Paul.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Despite the circumstances, a happy grin flashed out. “I’m going to intern here. Cool, huh?”
“What …” I stopped talking and mashed my palms against my eyeballs. I knew Paul wasn’t stupid, but he was one of those common-sense deficient people who make you want to issue helmets and guardian angels at birth. “Paul, this was not a good idea. They’re going to think that I—”
The group door banged open. Clotilde strode into her office, circling her desk like a panther on steroids, and slammed an armful of folders and paperwork down. The pile teetered precariously, then slid sideways knocking a recycled play dough cup full of pens over the side with a clatter.
Paul stopped grinning.
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
Clotilde glared at us over the desktop. Turning to Paul, she said, “Spell your name.”
He paled, mouth agape as though coming face-to-face with his worst show-up-naked-to-class-and-take-a-pop-quiz nightmare. “My name?” he said. It took longer than two syllables normally would because a stutter stretched it to twelve.
Clotilde sat motionless, glaring with flat, unblinking steadiness.
Eventually he managed to connect a series of letters that sounded like P-p-p-p-pee, a-a-ay, yu-yu-yu-l. He waited as though hoping that, as in A.A., first names would suffice.
It didn’t. Clotilde maintained her dead-eye stare and Paul embarked on his last name. It was a long name, too, or seemed like it. Sweat beaded across his forehead, then trickled in salty, erratic paths down his face. Because of A.A.‘s first-name-only policy, I couldn’t even help him, making my stomach cramp with a bilious mix of fear and frustrated enabling tendencies. Eventually, utilizing Miss Marple-like decoding skills (which involved dropping a letter if he repeated it multiple times,) I came up with “Paul LaFontaigne.”
I was so relieved, I almost clapped when he finished. Paul slumped back in his chair and we beamed at each other.
Clotilde remained unimpressed. She was a hard-hearted little cookie. If anything, she looked even more malevolent.
“Paul LaFontaigne,” she said in a flat, monotone.
Paul nodded.
She repeated it, quicker this time, and that’s when I understood.
“You thought he was a girl,” I said. “Paula Fontaigne. That’s why you accepted him as an intern.”
“I didn’t accept him. Astrid did. Over the phone, I might add, and as a favor to Kaylee Schroeder at the college. They’re sending the paperwork over today. Nobody else wanted him.”
Paul gulped. He bowed his head, staring at the cheap carpeting. I watched a red stain creep up the back of his thin neck.
Now I was pissed.
“A favor to the college? Really? Because I doubt you had a lot of interns lining up to get in here. In fact, the board said you didn’t have any. What’s the matter, Clotilde? Are people hearing what it’s like to work here? It can’t be fun. The pay sucks, the building is decrepit and falling down around your ears, you’ve got practically no funds, and frankly, the staff are a bunch of mean, bitter zealots who have lost sight of what it means to help others.”
“Lost sight?” she hissed. A teensy arc of spittle made me grateful for the desk between us. “Just what is it you think we do here? We’re here, every day, day in, day out. Every day!
These women come to us because they know that we’ll—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Warrior women on a mission. I’ve heard all that. And you do help. I never said you didn’t. I said you’ve lost sight of what it means to help others. You and your minions have gotten so caught up in making this a war that you’ve turned the rest of the world into an enemy.”
We’d locked eyes and were both leaning forward as though ready to launch ourselves across the desk at each other. She gripped the arms of her chair so hard I expected her fingernails—short and stubby as they were—to snap off.
“You’ll never understand what we’re doing here and you never will. But if you think you’re going to stack the deck with all your friends, you are sadly mistaken. I will not tolerate it. You will never be—”
“It’s just for a semester,” a tiny voice next to me said.
Startled, we broke the stare-off and turned toward it.
Paul. I’d forgotten about him. I realized I’d gone too far, disclosed too much. Lost control. Maybe Clotilde thought so, too, because just then we seemed to share a disturbing moment of synchrony as each of us sat back, took two cleansing breaths, and willed our muscles to relax. Therapists are so predictable.
“If you think we’re so misguided, why are you here?” Clotilde finally asked. Control had descended like a shroud, enveloping her features with a veil of inscrutability.
A multitude of answers flooded my brain. Exhausted, I reverted to an AA basic: K.I.S.S.— keep it simple, stupid. “Because Regina needed me to be.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“Because I’m not done.” Technically, I was done with the original task, but Regina still needed me. “And despite what you may think, Paul has nothing to do with this.”
Silence descended. Clotilde’s jaw muscles pulsed and she shifted her eyes away, thinking. After a few moments, she said, “I will not have the women upset by his presence.” She refused to look at Paul. “Since you’ve forced yourself upon us, you can be his internship supervisor. If you screw it up, he flunks. He can help you with the efficacy study paperwork, and he can observe the group counseling sessions provided he says nothing, sits in the back, and only if either you or Lachlyn are in attendance. If I get any complaint, even one, he’s out. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said.
And she was out the door.
CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
As soon as I was sure she was gone, I scurried around her desk and started yanking open the drawers.
Paul was horror-struck. “Letty, should you be doing that?”
“It’s okay, Paul. I’m just looking for a file I’m supposed to have.”
I glanced up. His face was a strange conglomeration of bewilderment and despondency. “Letty, I can’t just sit there in groups. I won’t pass my internship if I can’t say anything. I’m not supposed to just observe. Plus, I’ll look stupid.”
“I know, Paul. Listen, don’t worry about it. I’ll think of something. I promise.” The drawer that Clotilde had pulled Karissa’s file from was locked. I jiggled it in frustration.
Paul sniffed. As soon as he saw me looking at him, he ducked his head, but not before I saw the tears welling up in his eyes. Unexpectedly, he dropped to his knees and started crawling around on the floor.
“Paul, what the hell are you doing?”
“She dropped her pens.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re picking up her pens?”
He set the cup on the desk and stuffed a handful of pens and pencils inside. “Good thing, too. She dropped her keys.” He plunked them on top of the pile of folders that Clotilde had brought in.
Halleluiah.
My hands were shaking so bad it took three tries before I found the right key.
“Letty, I don’t think you should be doing this.”
“Keep watch,” I said.
“What?”
Good lord, hadn’t he ever played cops-n-robbers? I shooed my hand at him, pointing to the open door. “Go watch out for people.” I started pawing through the drawer, unearthing legal pads and stationery and the various office flotsam that peopl
e end up stuffing in a drawer instead of filing it.
Or things they want hidden.
I pulled a file out—Karissa Dillard’s—not the one I had, but a duplicate. Or rather—the original. The door to the group room opened and a mishmash of women’s voices floated down the hall to us.
Paul squeaked. His version of “hssst!” I supposed. He had the door cracked an inch or so and was peeking out from it. Because a lone eyeball staring out at the hall from Clotilde’s office wouldn’t be the least bit suspicious, would it?
In three strides I was at his side, the file clutched in my sweaty little hands.
“You can’t take that,” he said. His face was ashen and he was shaking so bad I thought he would fall down.
“I know I can’t,” I said. “I don’t have anywhere to put it. That’s why you’re taking it.”
I grabbed his belt, spun him around, and stuffed the folder down the back of his pants. His suit jacket—worn to impress his internship supervisor, I was sure—covered the bulge well enough that I was sure we could get out the door.
“I c-c-c-c—”
“Yes, you can, Paul. Otherwise they’re going to find you with a confidential file stuck down your shorts, you’ll flunk your internship, never graduate, and end up on skid row talking to dumpster rats. Just follow me and stop sweating so much.”
And I whisked his poor, tremulous self right out the back door and straight out to our cars.
We fled to a nearby Mickey D’s and grabbed a booth back in the children’s playland section—a cross between an aquarium and a hamster trail composed of red and blue tunnels and slides. Privacy was practically guaranteed given the fact that no one could hear anything over the shrill shrieks of an assortment of excited toddlers turned loose. Sanity was not so assured.
Paul hadn’t quite recovered from our “adventure,” as I was choosing to call it. He’d been hiking back and forth to the bathroom every five minutes, growing paler with each trip. We each reacted to stress in our own ways—I had both hands wrapped around a bucketful of peppermint mocha coffee with extra whip cream, and Paul had a small diet Sprite. We were both shaking so hard that our drinks had ripple effects going on, suggesting that either Wisconsin was experiencing a slight earthquake or Paul and I were experiencing stereo-palsy.
Paul had used the first of his emergency bathroom trips to remove the file, bringing it back to me with a reproachful look plastered on his face. My head throbbed. Avoiding his eyes, I dug through my purse looking for Tylenol.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” he said.
“You mean, I shouldn’t have done that, Paul. I didn’t give you much choice in the matter.” I finally met his eyes. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
He didn’t argue and he didn’t look any happier with my admission. I was so used to Paul’s abject adoration that I almost felt a pang at its loss. It looked like I was going to have to tell him everything.
He knew about Regina’s “accident” and my suspicions that files had been tampered with, but I went back and told him everything I suspected.
Paul darted to the bathroom twice more during my little recitation. Apparently the news that Regina had been murdered and I’d been attacked the night before last wasn’t soothing his intestinal discomfort. But at least he’d stopped looking at me as though he’d caught me shoving bamboo shoots up Mother Teresa’s fingernails.
“So what do you think is in here?” he asked, tapping Karissa’s file.
“Good question.” I pulled it over and began paging through it. I’d have to compare it page by page to the file I already had at home, but I’d been over the information in that one so many times I was sure I’d catch any obvious discrepancies.
And, of course, there were. Two, in fact. The first was the discovery of the original contact information form—the one I’d previously discovered had been copied. When Clotilde or whomever duplicated the file, she must have accidentally switched the two. The second discrepancy was more interesting.
A discharge summary.
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
I’d assumed the absence of the discharge form from the file I’d reviewed at the shelter was due, in part, to Karissa’s taking off the morning Regina’s body was discovered. It would be an easy thing to overlook since the therapist, Regina, obviously wasn’t available to complete it. It was one of the things I had planned to address in my review.
But one had been filled out—by Lachlyn, no less, who certainly should have noticed that it was missing when she’d been supervising my review. There was no question in my mind now that she’d known about the duplicate file.
I skimmed the page, then went back and re-read it more carefully. Although Karissa had agreed to meet with Lachlyn before leaving, she refused to let her talk to the kids. Lachlyn had noted “permission withheld” and underlined it twice. Irritated, perhaps?
The information was sparse, but the sight of a forwarding address made my heart pound briefly. Briefly, because directly underneath a different hand had scribbled ‘nonexistent’ in blue ink. So much for that.
Apparently someone had tried to follow up … and failed. Had Karissa given a false address on purpose? Actually, remembering her cantankerous personality, I could see her withholding the information just on general principles. She didn’t strike me as someone who tolerated others messing in her business. Grandma Crazy-Pants would certainly agree with that.
That got me wondering again about where the two had run off to and why? Who had been out to the trailer that Saturday and subsequently scared off both Karissa and her feisty grandma? A tall, professional woman with short hair, Tallie had said.
I’d been assuming it was Lachlyn. But what about Clotilde? The two could be sisters. Astrid, too, as far as that went. Hell, maybe it was Bob in drag.
I needed to find Karissa.
I turned my attention back to Paul. He hadn’t made a bathroom run in the last ten minutes and his shaking had calmed. He looked better.
Color flooded his face when he saw me studying him. “Find anything?” he asked, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
“Maybe. A discharge summary that didn’t exist in the file I saw, for one thing. Listen, Paul, this isn’t going to work. You need to get transferred to a new internship. This shelter, it’s not a good place. It would be wrong for you even if… Well, even if there wasn’t some crazy person running around killing people.”
“People? You mean, more than one? More than just Regina?” Whatever color he’d managed to regain evaporated. This could not be good for his blood pressure.
“Anything’s possible,” I said. “Regina might have been killed for, well, personal reasons, for lack of a better term. Like if she pissed somebody off all on her own, which she was certainly capable of doing. But something weird is going on with the shelter’s files. Why bother duplicating this one? That’s illegal, for one thing, so why do it if not to keep me or others from seeing it? And why did Regina snatch the others? What was she looking for?”
Paul tapped the file between us. “If it’s just the discharge summary, why bother creating a whole ‘nother file? Why not just keep that one page out?”
“You’re right. I haven’t looked at the other forms. I’ll have to do a line by line comparison for that, but it makes sense that there’s something hinky about them as well.” I sighed.
“So, let me get this straight. You think Regina was killed because she knew something. Something about other people getting killed. And those files she took, those are the people you think were killed?”
“I looked them up on the Internet. They’re all dead. Of course, they all returned to their abusers, but the coincidence of Regina having those particular files and all the women being dead has to mean something.”
“That’s something I don’t get. Why would anyone go back to someone who hurts them? That’s crazy.”
Eyebrows raised, I gave him my professionals-don’t-use-the-word-crazy look and then said, “It’s a lot more complic
ated than that, Paul. Sometimes a woman isn’t as weak as we’re stereotyping her. Sometimes she’s warm, loving, and just wants so badly to change her guy. It’s her very strength and compassion that snares her in the abusive relationship. Sometimes it’s about money—not about wanting more, but about not having enough. One of the first things a dominant personality is going to do is tie up the money, keep the victim dependent. It’s all fine and dandy to say ‘Well, money doesn’t matter. If it were me, I’d just pack up and go,’ but the truth is money has to be considered.
“Has the woman been allowed to have a job?” I continued. “A credit card? Access to the marital accounts? Did she finish school, get a degree? What will she have to give up? A house? The car that’s in his name? What kind of life will she be dragging the kids into? Will he come after them? Are they going to have to switch schools or towns or states to get away from him? And will the courts even allow her to take them that far anyway? There are tons of considerations. Now, I’m not saying she should stay with him, but nothing is black and white in this job, Paul. Nothing.”
His forehead furrowed, and I could tell he was trying to take it in. “You would think getting away would just be simple, survival instincts, but I see what you’re saying. If I was the one trying to help that would make me crazy. I bet the burnout rate is pretty high in this field, huh? I guess that’s one reason everyone is so cranky at the shelter, huh?”
No denying that. The “why doesn’t she just leave him” question is one that rankles everybody faced with domestic abuse. Family and friends aware of the situation often get so frustrated with the victim’s supposed inaction that they heap their own kind of abuse—shame—which only makes a bad situation worse. Even experienced professionals fall into the trap, especially, as Paul said, when burnout clouds the issue. It can be so frustrating, make you feel so helpless, that it becomes easy to strike out at the very person you want to help.
An idea stirred in the back of my brain.
Paul sucked the last of his pop from his cup, then burped quietly. “Excuse me.”
Whittaker 02 The One We Love Page 19
