by Polly Iyer
“Harris will be over to watch out for you. Until then, there’s a man with your parents. Let him know you’re back.”
“Thanks for the ride.” She closed the door, flashed a brief smile, and hurried into the hotel.
* * * * *
Lucier watched Diana disappear into the hotel. He clamped his hands on the steering wheel to keep them steady. It took the willpower of Hercules to keep from chasing after her and admitting what a fraud he was—how much he had wanted her when she kissed him. How much he still wanted her. It had been an eternity since he’d experienced a woman’s touch, her scent, the sheer bliss of having her near. Every logical thought told him he had done the right thing. But that emotional thread that runs through all but those poor passionless, bankrupt souls cried out that he had missed his chance. How could he forget his parents’ tragedy? Diana Racine would be gone before he even had a chance to lose his heart.
Well, he’d made himself clear, hadn’t he? She won’t come on to me again. Is that what he really wanted? Did he call himself a fraud? More like a fool.
Chapter Fourteen
Daddy Dearest
Diana, still stung by Lucier’s rejection, forced herself to put the encounter out of her mind. He’d made himself clear, put her in her place, dammit. Still, she’d felt his vibes. The soft touch of his lips. The accelerated breathing. Was he lying to her or to himself that he wasn’t interested?
Well, she couldn’t dwell on it. She had things to do. She stopped by Jason’s hotel room and told him what happened.
“I need your special expertise to compile my own list of known psychics and clairvoyants. This goes back a long time, Jason, to when I was a kid.”
“I’m a little ticked, Diana. All this time you let me think you needed my information, and you didn’t need me at all.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself. I used your material or else I would have given myself away. Besides, you came up with gems. The early days were plain tap dancing—people wanted to hear what they wanted to hear. I was a kid, so it worked. Later, the act got serious. That’s when you came into the picture, and Donny Harwood before you, and a few before him.”
“Does Galen know?”
“He does now, but he still thinks you’re a genius. So do I.” She patted his tangled mop of hair and watched his face brighten.
“Wish you’d told me. We could have worked together. I’d have kept the secret until the day I died.”
“I couldn’t take the chance. Besides, I wasn’t always on target. Some people fed me nothing. No sensations at all, but the show must go on. Your material was especially important then. Other times I flew by the seat of my pants.”
“Jeez,” he said. “That’s why some of your revelations threw me for a loop. You came up with an explanation and I believed you. And all this time I thought you needed me.”
“I did need you, Jason, and now I need you more than ever. How about it? Will you work on getting me that list?”
“You know I will, but do you have any idea how many of these people exist?”
“Twenty-five years’ worth. We can eliminate most of them—women, old men, short men, etc. My man is tall, American, and good-looking, or he couldn’t attract women so easily.”
“What if this guy’s working with someone else, someone who has the power and he’s the hook? He snags the girls, kills them after he gets a little pu―um, I mean after he does his thing, but the other guy’s the one controlling the show.”
Diana smothered a chuckle. “No, I don’t think so. His touch electrified me; it has to be him. Make the list, then we’ll go through it to see who I might have pissed off.”
“How could anyone have it in for you, Diana?”
Oh, Jace, if you only knew.
Next she called home and asked the housekeeper to overnight the meticulous scrapbooks Blanche had kept since the beginning of her career. She’d comb through every page, make notes, and hope something jogged her memory.
She found Galen and Blanche in their suite playing poker with their police watchdog, a bulbous-nosed, pudgy cop named Mickey Halloran. The largest pile of money on the table was stacked in front of Galen. “You better watch out, officer,” Diana said. “He’ll clean you out.”
“I’m down but I’m making a comeback,” Halloran said. “Sly dog, but I’ve got his number now. You’ll see. I’ll win my losses back.”
Diana refrained from telling him that wasn’t going to happen. Galen would fleece him of whatever cash was in his pockets and then some.
“I wanted to let you know I’m back. And Blanche, I’ve asked Maddie to overnight the suitcase with all your scrapbooks. It’ll be here at 8:30 in the morning. There are some things I need to check on.”
“Finally, someone’s interested in my scrapbooks.” Addressing Mickey Halloran, Blanche said, “There’s even a picture of Diana with Phil Donahue and one with that guy who used to be on Sixty Minutes. Oh, what’s his name?”
“Mike Wallace,” Diana said.
“Yes, that’s him.”
“I promise I’ll take good care of the books, Blanche. Sorry for the interruption.” Diana started for the door.
“Can I speak to you for a minute, honey?” Galen asked. “In private.” He beckoned Diana to follow into the bedroom.
“Now don’t you go nowhere, Mickey. You ain’t broke yet. I’m comin’ right back.”
“I bet I can guess what this is about,” she said under her breath. Once inside the room, she crossed her arms over her chest, thrust out her leg, and shifted her weight onto the other hip. Her posture dared her father to initiate the conversation she knew was coming.
Undaunted, Galen began, answering her attitude with his own. “You know how I feel, Diana. It ain’t natural, a white with a colored. It just ain’t natural.”
Diana felt the heat rise inside to cover her face. Even after the country elected an African-American president, Galen was Galen, and he wasn’t going to change. “No more, Galen. I don’t want to hear another word, especially words I don’t like.” These conversations had been going on for years, with no change of view on either side. “Let’s cut to the chase. You’re afraid I’m going to hop in bed with a black man, excuse my euphemistic substitute for your favorite word. Isn’t that what this is all about?”
“That’s the gist. Life’s got too many problems without addin’ one more.”
“Well, don’t you worry your lily white head, because Lieutenant Lucier isn’t interested in having anything to do with a white woman. Lucky you, because I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. And to tell you the truth, I’m disappointed. He’s the first man in a while I’ve found remotely interesting. Not to mention attractive. Yes, Galen, I think he’s one damn good-looking man, no matter what color he is.”
Galen’s jaw dropped and he stood speechless, an unusual state for someone always in control of the conversation.
“Oh, and by the way,” Diana added, “if you’re in his company, I expect you to act respectful. Otherwise, I’ll be very angry. And you don’t want that, do you, Galen?” She followed her subtle threat with a stare, turned, and walked out of the bedroom and out of the suite.
Once Diana got back to her room, she reached for the scotch and poured a drink, a habit she’d better control before she couldn’t. It’d take a minute to unwind from the nasty confrontation with her father. It always did. She loved him and knew he loved her and Blanche more than anything in the world, but they had major differences. Diana often wanted to crawl into a hole when one of his incendiary remarks punctuated a conversation. This time he wouldn’t have the ammunition to go much further. Ernie Lucier told her point blank to keep her distance.
And she would.
* * * * *
The next morning, after the suitcase with the treasured scrapbooks arrived, Diana settled on the sofa, pad of paper and pen readied, and began the task of reliving her life from her mother’s carefully preserved mementos. She hadn’t looked at them in years. Tattered
edges of yellowed newspaper inched from between the pages of the over-stuffed leather-bound albums; old photos curled from age resurrected her professional history—every performance, every story of success.
No one remembers life at age six, let alone the people involved. A wave of nostalgia came over her as she read the clippings, remembering the first episode that caught everyone’s attention, and how the local police were so astounded they actually considered her a suspect. Kidnappings, suspicious disappearances, murders. Crime comprised a major part of her childhood. She continued to amaze, to defy the odds over the years, but she was an after-the-fact element. Now she was an integral part of the crime—an unwilling participant.
B. D. Harris showed up about an hour after she started her research. He asked what he could do, and when she said that Jason would be along shortly to help, he sat in the easy chair, put his feet on the ottoman, and pulled out a detective novel. A thin, unassuming man not prone to conversation, he offered no distractions as she pieced together her life from rarely remembered snippets.
Jason brought a printout of individuals compiled from his search and matched it with names Diana had written down. They checked and crosschecked, eliminating everyone who didn’t fit the profile. Some from twenty years ago were dead, and Diana never knew the remaining few on Jason’s list. They called room service for dinner, worked for another hour, then called it a night when they came up empty.
Harris made sure she locked her door before retiring to the adjoining room. “If you need me for anything, I’m right here. If not, I’ll see you at eight,” he said.
Diana tossed and turned when she got into bed, her whole life in stationary pictures unraveling before her. On the verge of falling asleep, an idea flashed into her exhausted mind and triggered renewed energy. She jumped up, rummaged through her purse to find Lucier’s card, and punched in his home number written on the back.
“Ernie, I’m sorry it’s so late, but I had an idea.”
“What’s wrong?”
From the sound of his voice, she’d interrupted a deep sleep. Knowing his long hours of late, she felt a pang of guilt but forged ahead with her brainstorm. “Jason and I spent the whole day studying all the material from my mother’s scrapbooks: every psychic in the world, I think, including names from the computer we’d never heard of. Then, when I got into bed my mind started to wander. I think we’ve been on the wrong track. We need to think outside the box. Cyrano’s not another professional, although he might very well be psychic, and he’s not someone I worked with or performed with or did a television show with. What if he’s someone who was caught because I found his victim?” She could tell from the sounds that Lucier had changed positions.
“And he’s been in jail all this time.”
“Right. I led the police to some crime when I was a kid—when, where, I don’t know—but it had to have been at least twenty years ago. Now he’s out of prison and out for revenge. Possible?”
“Definitely worth exploring. In the morning have Harris bring you to the station. And don’t forget those scrapbooks. We’ll go through them again, only now our focus will be on the crimes. If you’re right, he’s there somewhere. Then we’ll run everything through our computer. Good thinking, Diana. Now, go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
“I feel this one. See you in the morning.”
“Diana, about yesterday, I—”
“Not now, Ernie. Let’s not talk about it now.”
Chapter Fifteen
Obsession
He woke with a start, as if some ear-splitting alarm had pierced his sleep. Covered in sweat, sheets soaked, he knew what caused the rude awakening. He’d seen it all in his dream, or was it a nightmare? Had she figured out something? He wouldn’t put it past her.
He couldn’t ignore the small measure of admiration he had for Diana Racine. She’d been good. Maybe the best. But he was good too.
He’d followed her career for years, watched her grow up through every city paper he could get his hands on. Access to computers made tracing her easier. From the child psychic to the adult entertainer. How many of her revelations had put men like him behind bars? Did any of the others harbor the same resentment as he? For twenty years, he’d thought of nothing else, and now it came down to this moment in time―the final test.
Was it worth it? Had his blazing obsession for vengeance controlled his life? Then he thought, no, it saved his life, kept him going and gave him a purpose. He wouldn’t have made it all those years otherwise. Now that he was out, was it too late to stop? He could be over the border before they linked him to the two dead women.
No. The die was cast. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, turn back now.
He knew he was twisted. He didn’t want to be, but he was. Something evil inside him needed to escape now and then. The forbidden fruit of temptation was an addiction he couldn’t resist. In spite of understanding himself, he knew how it would end. And he still couldn’t do a thing about it. They should never have let him out. But they had.
Cramped from the confines of the rickety cot, he stretched, then shuffled groggily into the sparse kitchen and opened a jug of spring water. Finding this old cabin was a stroke of luck. Amazing it survived the hurricane. Few remained in habitable condition, and this one even had a couple of cots and a few chairs. He guessed an occasional outdoorsman took advantage of the place. He hoped no one showed up while he did the same. Didn’t matter there was no electricity or water. He’d purchased a few oil lamps, a small butane stove for coffee, and a cooler for perishables. Extra jugs of water took care of washing up. That’s all he needed. He could adapt to anything. He’d spent the better part of his life adapting. Another week or two wouldn’t matter.
Sweat evaporated cold on his skin. How could his body be so damp and his throat so dry? He poured a glass of water and drank it without taking a breath, then walked into the second bedroom poured. His mouth twisted into a lopsided smirk at the sight of the other cot. Yes, this secluded place was perfect. He’d have all the time in the world to play his game.
Chapter Sixteen
A Who’s Who on Murderers’ Row
Harris knocked on Diana’s door at eight sharp. She greeted him dressed and ready.
“I thought you were a late riser,” he said.
“I am, but not this morning. This will be a busy day, and I wanted to be up bright and early.” The idea of dredging up her childhood depressed her at first, but if she was right, finding the man who murdered two women to get at her awakened a determined curiosity.
Galen and Blanche had protected her childhood whenever possible from media news of the murderers who committed the grisly crimes she assisted in discovering. In spite of all their efforts, she knew what was going on. A child isn’t immune to the ugliness around her. But in the natural process of self-preservation, she tucked those memories in the furthest reaches of her subconscious and kept them there. Time now to unlock them.
When Diana and Harris arrived at the station, they found Lucier mired in paperwork. He motioned her to the visitor’s chair while he carried a stack of papers to another desk, presumably to delegate daily tasks.
“Good morning,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to be on time.”
“Why, didn’t you think I could function at the crack of dawn?”
“Dawn cracked hours ago. I’ve been here since…” He stopped at the sound of her laugh. “Oh, I catch on. A little humor.”
“Tit for tat,” she said. “You’ll be surprised to know I was ready at seven. How’s that for a start?” Neither showed any discomfort over their last meeting, and Diana was grateful for that.
Pointing to the large suitcase Harris pulled behind him, Lucier asked, “Scrapbooks?”
“They came yesterday morning. Help me lift this onto the desk.”
“Help you? The suitcase is bigger than you are. Let’s use that table over there. My desk is cluttered enough.”
“Done,” Harris said after positioning the luggage on
the table.
“Great. We’ll go over your list of dates and victims, then research everybody accused or convicted of any of the crimes to see what happened to them. Then we’ll run them through ViCAP, the FBI’s database. That’ll also give us a list of crimes with the same or similar signatures. How’s that sound?”
“You’re the boss. I have to slip away for two appointments later. In light of what’s happened the last few days, if I cancel there’ll be talk, but I’ll do my best in between. All this took place so long ago I don’t remember a great deal.”
“Maybe your parents might remember something if we come up with names.”
“Galen’s an encyclopedia of my career. He followed the stories after I was well out of it.” She glanced at Lucier. “He used them for publicity. You know, how I helped put away another violent criminal. I noticed a few articles relating to some of the cases.”
“He certainly knew how to mine you for all you were worth.”
This time she didn’t look up. “Yup, he sure did.” The comment stung, but she wasn’t as oblivious to her father’s machinations as he was to her anxiety during those times. He made her famous and never saw the cost.
She fingered through almost three hundred articles, not all complimentary, that spanned the seven years she assisted the police and captured the attention of the world. Pictures of a tiny girl holding various articles of clothing, children’s blankets, or toys. A smile never brightened her face, although her parents’ pride leapt from the faded pages. It hurt to read articles from early in her career that pronounced her a hoax, perplexed why anyone would write such mean words about a child. The unrelenting criticism cut deep whenever a particular editorial expounded on a rare failure, as if no successes existed. Later, when her accomplishments couldn’t be ignored, the tone changed.
Not every discovery involved a murder or a body, and not every search reaped success. Some children had lost their way, found by Diana alive and well; others weren’t so lucky and succumbed to the elements. A few people took their own lives, still others remained mysteries, their disappearances unsolved.
