Bad Girl and Loverboy

by Michele Jaffe

  “Professor Kidd, this is Benton Arbor.”

  Benton wasn’t sure what the protocol was in a situation like this. Imogen and Curtis had both told him not to get close enough to touch Martina, so he couldn’t shake. And he wasn’t sure “It’s a pleasure to meet you” was quite right. He said, “I’ve heard a great deal about you, Professor Kidd.”

  “Please, call me Mother, everyone does,” Martina said. “Everyone but our Imogen. Benton Arbor. What a treat to meet you in person.”

  “That is very kind of you,” Benton said.

  “Handsome and with manners. Arbor, like tree. You’re a member of the family tree. What a delightful name. I love names with double meanings.” She turned back to Imogen. “What have you done with your hair, Imogen? Are you still going to Supercuts? I told you last time we got together, it is worth the extra money to have a style, not just a cut. I wish you’d let it grow out a bit more. A slightly longer look would be so much more flattering. Don’t you agree, Mr. Arbor?”

  “I think Special Agent Page’s hair is fine.”

  “Special Agent Page. We’re so formal. He says your hair is ‘fine,’ Imogen, but from a man with his manners, you know that means it needs work. You could be such a pretty girl if you just kept your bangs out of your face and let the sides grow longer. Do you ever use those barrettes I gave you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Fanny Fib-Teller! You know you can’t lie to Mother. Now, dear, tell me about your poor brother’s passing.”

  “Why don’t we talk about why we are here first?”

  “Please? Humor an old woman. Just a little about it. You know how I love all the little rituals and goings-on associated with death.”

  Benton was surprised when Imogen nodded and said, “The funeral was very simple, nothing fancy. Just Sam’s friends.”

  Martina put up a hand. “No, no, no, my dear, that’s not what I meant. Tell me from the beginning. Go back to his bedside. When he died. You were right there when he died, weren’t you?” Clapping her hands over her mouth like a gleeful six-year-old on Christmas morning when Imogen nodded. “I knew it. Oh, I envy you.” She leaned close, through the bars. “Did you hear that last gasp of breath?”

  Benton felt like he was watching a prizefight, Martina circling around Imogen, trying to unsettle her, establish some kind of dominance by jabbing unexpectedly. Imogen taking a few hits but offering no defense, nothing. Holding back? Watching her swallow hard now, Benton felt himself gearing up to take over. Winging it was not working. He opened his mouth to step in, but Imogen spoke first.

  She said, “Yes, I heard his last breath,” her voice a bit shaky.

  That was it. Benton cleared his throat and started to say, “I really think we should—” when Martina turned to look at him.

  “Yes?” she said, giving him a smile. “What do you think, Mr. Arbor? Is it something about what Imogen was saying? Do you have any little comment to add?”

  Her smile started to give him the creeps. He glanced at Imogen, clenching her jaw, remembered that he’d promised not to interfere. To Martina he said, “I—no.”

  Martina said, “As you like,” then looked back at Imogen to say, “It really does rattle, doesn’t it, that last breath? Tell Mother, has it been haunting you? Oh dear, I knew it would. You poor thing. Keeping you awake at night. Taunting you. Saying if you had only done more he’d still be alive.” Pressing her sweet grandma face between the bars.

  “Not exactly.” Imogen cleared her throat. “Professor Kidd, we’re here because—”

  “Such a hurry, Imogen. You need to learn to take things more slowly. Not skimp on ceremonies of politeness and civility. Tell me, dear, did you find, as I always have, that the moment of death is a letdown? It’s the rest of it that is pleasurable. But then they are gone and there’s nothing else you can do to them. Or, in your case, for them.”

  Martina turned her old little-girl eyes on Benton. “You know, Mr. Arbor, Imogen saw her parents die too. Well, not die, probably, but she was the one to find their bodies. Weren’t you, dear? Did you get to hear their last breaths? I can’t remember.”

  “Maybe we can talk about this another time,” Imogen said, sounding really rattled now.

  “You did, that’s right, I remember now. At least your mother’s. When you cut her down. That image of you, poor sweet little girl, dragging a big heavy bar stool across the floor just to be tall enough to reach on your tippytoes up with the scissors to cut the cord your mother hanged herself with, try to save her. It’s positively heartwarming. What a family scene. How long that must have taken, a little girl with only her blunt school scissors. Maybe if you’d been faster you could have rescued her. Or your father. The sound of a chair scraping across the wood floor, the sound of futility. I imagine it would be almost indelible. Do you ever hear that? Late at night? Sometimes wake up to it?”

  “We’ve talked about this before, Professor Kidd.”

  “Yes, but my mind is so unreliable these days, I can’t remember a thing.” She leaned to one side to confide to Benton, “It’s a touchy subject with her because she thinks she killed them. They would not have committed suicide if you’d been a better daughter, isn’t that what you think, Imogen? Is that true about your brother too? Really astonishing when you think about it. So many people die on your watch. You remind me so much of myself, in my heyday.”

  “That’s why I’m here. To try to stop another person from dying.”

  “Ah, making it all about work. I see the bloodhound is back on the scent. That is what they call Special Agent Page at the Bureau, you know, Mr. Arbor. The Bloodhound.” Martina beckoned Benton forward. “Shall I tell you a curious thing? They seldom give nicknames to agents—they usually reserve them for killers. Do you suppose that means something? Do they know something we don’t know?” Swiveling to Imogen. “I’m sorry. Remind Mother what you were saying. My mind strays so these days. I hope I didn’t upset you, dear.”

  Imogen said, “No, you don’t.”

  That made Martina laugh. “I’m glad you’ve still got your sense of humor. Lose that and where are you? Too much repression will hurt you. Don’t you think so, Mr. Arbor? Can’t you talk some sense into her?”

  Benton, thinking there was maybe more going on here than he’d realized, looked at Imogen and said, “I’ll try, Professor.”

  “Mother, dear. Call me Mother.” Shaking her head now. “I do worry about her. Every day. Anyway, where were we?”

  “I wanted to ask you about the case we are working on,” Imogen said.

  “The Hide-and-Seek Killer? I’ve read all about that in the papers. Delightful the way he has you on the run.”

  “We’re calling him Loverboy now.”

  “Ah, you’ve found one of his secrets. That must please you. Why would you think I have anything to do with him?”

  Imogen said, “We believe he’s been in touch with you.”

  Martina pursed her lips together and cocked her head to one side. “Well, I will tell you, dear, it’s possible he has been, but I get so much correspondence I might not even be aware of it. Did you know that a letter from me, to a stranger, sold on Ebay for four thousand dollars? Yes! It was one of the ones in which I describe a dream I had about you. Since then people write to me constantly. And they send me the sweetest things. I’ve begun making a scrapbook. Would you like to see it?”

  “Perhaps another time.” Imogen’s shoulders sagged, her posture suddenly dejected and tired. She looked at Benton. “I told you it would never work to come here. That she wouldn’t tell us anything.”

  It was on the tip of Benton’s tongue to ask her what in the world she thought she was doing, did she think they were just going to leave, was this her idea of an interrogation, but then he saw something in her eyes. Something behind the dejection. He said, “I guess you were right.”

  Now she was talking to Martina. “Thank you for your time, Professor. Sorry to have bothered you. Good-bye.” She reached into her bag lik
e she was looking for something, and the magazine she had in there fell out, hitting the pavement with a thud.

  Martina went very still. She whispered, “I-is that Vogue?”

  Imogen picked it up and held it in her arms, mostly covering it. “Yes. British Vogue.”

  Martina said, “Oh my dear,” and Benton was almost sure she had tears in her eyes. “Is that for me?”

  “Would you like it? I just got it to read on the plane.”

  That was a lie, Benton knew, but it had an incredible effect on Martina. As though Imogen had just scored a direct hit, Martina’s eyes glazed over, her mouth sagged, and she whispered, “The plane. Read on the plane.”

  What the hell was going on here? Before he could even finish the thought, Martina snapped out of her trance and shot Imogen a coy smile, saying, “Well, aren’t you Miss Sneaky Snake? I didn’t think you still had it in you, my dear, but you do. You definitely do. You become more like Mother every day, knowing just how to gouge a person in the guts and laugh about it. I commend you. And”—she paused for effect—“that will stand you in good stead with Loverboy. He is a boy with a divine sense of humor.”

  Imogen didn’t pause to savor what Benton felt was a victory. She said, “Why does Loverboy even need you?”

  “Because I have certain expertise.”

  “In what? Scrapbooking?”

  “Imogen, I believe you are making a joke. No, my dear, in you. In how to hurt you.”

  “So he’s just milking you for information. That means you probably don’t know anything about him.”

  “I know more than you do.”

  Imogen shifted her hold on the magazine so a bit more of the cover was showing between her coat sleeves, under the headline, Have Yourself a Micromini Christmas! “Prove it.”

  “Give me the magazine,” Martina said.

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “Did you bring the barrettes? I would love to see your face more. Can’t you tuck your hair behind your ears? Very well. You only want to talk about Loverboy. Well, he’s handsome. Has lovely penmanship. Smart. Fun-loving. And the first killing you know about—that isn’t his first murder. He killed when he was younger.”

  “And?” Imogen said.

  “Don’t be greedy, my dear. He’s a bit greedy. Or actually, more jealous. He doesn’t like to share. Finding him won’t be enough. You’ll have to find her on your own. He would rather have her die than share her with you.”

  “Who?”

  “Look who’s being a coy carrot! Why, Imogen, the woman he’s taken. Mr. Arbor’s friend. Why don’t you tuck your shirt in? I know it’s the fashion to wear it out but you have such a nice tiny waist. Well, never mind. Do you have a photo of the woman?”

  Benton looked at Imogen for instructions.

  Martina tapped the bar of her cell impatiently. “You do. Come on, let me have a looksie, Mr. Arbor. Be a good boy. Surely you don’t suspect I’ll do anything vulgar with it? What if letting me see it will save her life?”

  Benton took the photo from his jacket pocket and held it toward the bars. It was a picture he’d shot the previous summer. Rosalind and Jason had been visiting Julia and Cal on Nantucket, and Benton had flown up for the weekend. White-tipped waves mirrored the few clouds in the sky. Rosalind’s eyes and Jason’s were the same color as the sea as they squinted smiling into the lens.

  Imogen had chosen the picture, she told him the night before, because it did not show any distracting body parts.

  Martina tilted her head back so she was looking through the bottom of her bifocals and held the picture out straight in front of her, moving it back and forth until she got the right distance. She studied it for a moment, running her fingers over the glossy surface, and said to herself, “She has a son. Of course, of course.” She stopped moving and stared into space, her head going slightly to one side in a way that made Benton think of a bird as she murmured, “Oh my, my, my. I am impressed.”

  Then she handed the photo back to Benton and said, “I can tell you one more thing. He likes to keep secrets. He was even keeping one from me.”

  “What?” Imogen asked. She moved her arms apart slightly so the cover model’s legs were showing.

  Martina’s eyes were riveted. “Do you like her, Imogen? The woman he’s taken?”

  “I’ve never met her.”

  “I wonder, does that make it better or worse? Knowing her death will be your fault? Well, her torture and then, later, her death. I always liked to know the people I killed. It made it more . . . satisfying isn’t quite the right word. Transcendent.”

  “Did he tell you he was going to torture her?” Imogen asked.

  “At your brother’s funeral, did everyone crowd around you, try to touch you? They did, didn’t they? That must have been awful for you. I hope you wore a dress. With a smart hat. Although of course you didn’t. Now, dear, if you please, I’ll take the magazine.”

  “What did you mean when you said you were impressed?”

  Martina stared at the magazine for a long few seconds, then dragged her eyes away. Covering a yawn with the back of one hand she said, “You’re asking all the wrong questions today, Imogen. I find it wearing. I’m sorry, children, it has been a delightful interlude, but since it is clear you have no intention of giving me that magazine, the time has come for my confession. The truth is, I’ve just been playing with you. I don’t know anything about him, this Loverboy. But a girl’s got to have her bit of innocent fun. Plus, Loretta needed a little more time before she was done with her drawing of your ass, Imogen. She’s been looking forward to this visit of yours for weeks. You have no idea how much.”

  Imogen said quietly, “For weeks? You knew I was coming?”

  Martina tilted her head to the side, gave a tinkling little-girl laugh, and moved backward, toward the table in the middle of her cell. “Did I say that? You always put words in my mouth, my dear.” She picked up a pencil and adjusted her glasses to focus on what looked like a book of puzzles lying open on the table. “If you are so eager to cram me full of words, why don’t you work on this? I need a six-letter word for ‘plagiarize.’ ”

  “Good-bye, Professor Kidd,” Imogen said, and started walking.

  Loretta’s voice chanting, “I love you, Imogen, I loveyouIloveyouIloveyou,” followed Imogen and Benton out of cell block K.

  At the guard station, Curtis and his partner grabbed the British Vogue the fed woman had dropped on a chair as she left and started flipping through it. Man, those women were hot. They were so distracted that they did not notice on the closed-circuit camera when Martina Kidd shoved a piece of paper into her bread roll before her tray was taken away. The tray was wheeled away on the orderly’s cart to the kitchens, where it was picked up by a woman in a hairnet wearing pink lipstick and dumped into the garbage.

  The roll went into her pocket.

  That was what Imogen Page got for bringing last month’s Vogue, Martina thought pleasantly to herself.

  CHAPTER 18

  They rode out of the parking lot in their rented car about a mile in silence until Imogen said to Benton, “Pull over. Now.”

  She was out the door before they stopped moving, skidding down the embankment away from him, toward a chain-link fence that separated the road from a neighborhood of houses. She kept going until she couldn’t see the car anymore, and stood with her mittens looped through the links of the fence, watching her breath condense in the cold air and staring at the backyard of the house in front of her. Woodpile, birdbath covered in snow, garden gnome with a chipped hat, shovels lined up against the side of the house to dig the path out, doghouse with a broken roof. Signs of normal life. Normal people. She stuck her tongue out to let it get cold and numb and hopefully stop tasting like chlorine, desperation and fear with just a hint of metallic triumph mixed in.

  What a great talent she had where loneliness was sour cherry, perfectly pleasant, but triumph, something you’d want to savor, tasted like rebar.

  After
a longer time than she’d expected, she heard Benton’s footsteps behind her. He looked almost embarrassed approaching, and stopped a yard away, extending his hand, holding a napkin from the coffee place they’d pulled into that morning.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as she took it from him, looking like he really meant it, but Imogen had no idea why. “This was the only thing I could find.”

  “Why would I want a napkin?”

  “I thought—I don’t know.”

  “You thought I would be here sobbing? Or throwing up my breakfast?” She could see she had guessed right the second time. “You don’t have a very high opinion of women, do you, Mr. Arbor?”

  “That has nothing to do with it. It would be a common reaction to a stressful encounter with an adversary.”

  It was funny how puffed up he got when he was challenged, Imogen thought. “It’s not my reaction.”

  “I see that now.” He paused, unpuffing. “Look, I know why you are mad at me. I owe you an apology. In there with Martina Kidd. I—at first I didn’t see what you were doing and I was skeptical. That’s why I started to butt in. I shouldn’t have.”

  “That is okay. I expected it.”

  “What?”

  “You are not exactly the Enigma Code, Mr. Arbor. You believe that no one can do a job as well as you can. You were bound to question me, so I counted on you interfering. It made Martina feel like she had an ally. Like your doubt would help slice through any self-assurance I might have had left when she was done with her little walk through Imogen Page’s memory morgue.”

  “You played me. You weren’t really winging it.”

  “That upsets you? That I knew what I was doing?”

  “No. Of course not. But you could have told me. We could have worked it out together.”

  “Why? I knew what I wanted to do and I knew what I wanted you to do.”

  “That’s not very collegial.”

  “I don’t work with colleagues.”

  “It was a risk. I could have reacted differently.”

  “No, you couldn’t have.”