Mirror Image

by Dennis Palumbo

  “Not without a fight,” I said evenly. “Besides, what are you going to tell Sheila after I’m found dead? That you had nothing to do with that, either?”

  “Fuck Sheila!” Vehement. Bitter. “I told you, I don’t wanna talk about her.”

  I held his gaze. “I forgot.”

  He closed his eyes. “God, I’m so sick of it…Sick of her. She’s so—man, she was born blind in more ways than one, if ya know what I mean.”

  Then he gave a thick, violent laugh, and strode toward me again. Something more than rage burned on his cheeks. Something deeper. Inchoate.

  Then it came. Loud, harsh, a torrent of words.

  “You wanna know the God’s truth? I’m sick of fucking her! I’ve been sick of it for a long time. Christ, I’ve cheated on her for years. Right under her fucking nose. Stupid blind bitch…”

  “Yeah, you’re some man,” I said coolly.

  He steadied the gun. “And you’re a dead one.”

  Clarkson nodded toward the lip of the green. Beyond was a six-inch strip of gravel, then a bottomless drop to the valley below.

  “Move,” he said.

  “Peter! No!!”

  A choked female voice echoed, making us both turn.

  There, stepping awkwardly out from under the foliage of some young oaks, was Sheila. With her hesitant gait rippling the folds of her simple cotton dress, she seemed like a ghost emerging from the edge of the woods.

  “Sheila!” Clarkson stepped back, almost stumbling, but clutching tight to the gun. He pointed it surely in my direction.

  Haltingly, hands groping to feel along stems and shoots, she made her way onto the driving range, not a half-dozen feet from her brother.

  “I was worried when you didn’t come back to the car,” she said, eyes staring at the space between Clarkson and me. “I thought I heard your voice…and someone else’s…so I just followed them.”

  She seemed waif-like, fragile. But more than that. It was as though something within her was…unraveling.

  “You heard us…?” Clarkson swallowed hard, glancing from Sheila to me, then back again. “How much—?”

  It was then that I really saw Sheila for the first time, and cursed my own blindness. Her trembling hands. The anxiety pinching the edges of her blank eyes. The supreme effort it was taking merely to keep herself intact.

  I understood suddenly the psychic cost of the smooth demeanor she displayed that night in Wingfield’s hotel suite. The feigned self-assurance. The porcelain-like facade masking an unbearable agitation, anguish.

  “Dr. Rinaldi is here with you, isn’t he?” She lowered her eyes, veiled by her rich auburn hair. “I recognized his voice. You’re planning to kill him…”

  Her own voice a wisp. Disturbingly child-like.

  “Listen, Sheila, you don’t know what’s going on. This prick can hurt me…hurt us…”

  “Oh, Peter. Please. There has to be another way…”

  She drew toward him and clutched his arms. Desperate. Confused. Clarkson moaned, an intimate sound, and embraced her with his free arm, kissing her neck. The gun, in his other hand, was pressed between them.

  “Oh baby,” he said smoothly, in a voice I’d never heard from him before. Lover. Protector.

  “I love you, Peter,” she whispered, the shine of tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry…”

  Then, before I could move a muscle, the gun went off, the sound echoing off the trees. Clarkson’s arm fell from her shoulder as he staggered back, clutching his chest. Blood spread through his splayed fingers.

  Sheila, openly sobbing now, held the gun in her small white hand. With a final gasp, Clarkson sprawled onto his back on the cold ground. His legs twitched spasmodically.

  She sank to her knees next to her dying brother.

  As I moved toward her, Sheila’s face came up, stern with purpose. She held the gun tight against her temple.

  “No, Doctor!” She knelt stiffly, as a postulant might, unseeing eyes focused on the horizon.

  I froze, as the night around us filled with the sounds of slamming car doors, heavy footsteps and harsh voices. Bobbing flashlights flickering against the shadowed trees.

  I turned, shooting a warning look to Polk, Lowrey and the uniformed cops converging on the scene.

  “Tell them to stay back,” Sheila said. “Please.”

  As Polk motioned to the others to keep their distance, I looked past the circle of uniforms to see Casey just coming up, bundling a heavy parka around her shoulders.

  We exchanged looks. This would not end well.

  “Sheila.” I risked a step.

  Her face shone under the lights. “I lied to Peter. I’m afraid I heard more than I let on. Much more. You both have such strong voices. So male. So sure.”

  Grazing her ear with the gun barrel.

  “Sheila, please,” I said. “Let me take the gun.”

  She smiled. “When I’m done with it.” She drew in a breath. “The air’s sweet up here. I imagine there’s a wonderful view, too. I always appreciate a nice view.”

  She pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Detective Lowrey had stayed behind to supervise the crime scene, so I only had the faces of Lt. Biegler, Sgt. Polk, and Casey glaring down at me. We were all crammed into Biegler’s office, a chair short. The yellowed plastic wall clock read three-thirty a.m.

  “You’re one lucky bastard.” Polk sagged against the near corner like a six-foot sack of grain.

  Casey, sitting opposite me, grabbed my chair arms.

  “Dammit, why didn’t you give the code word when Clarkson pulled a gun? What were you trying to prove?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I wanted to hear what he had to say. If you guys had come crashing in right then, we’d never have learned what we did.”

  “Meanwhile, you could’ve ended up at the bottom of a hill, in a hundred pieces,” Casey insisted.

  Biegler shook his head. “I never liked the idea of him wearing a wire,” he said bitterly. “Civilians always screw things up in the end.”

  “Consultant,” I corrected him.

  Polk laughed. “Ya don’t know when to quit, do ya?”

  Casey whirled to face Biegler. “Listen, if it wasn’t for Dr. Rinaldi, we’d have nothing to give the Feds. Now we do. Evidence of federal crimes against Miles Wingfield, unearthed in the course of our homicide investigation. My guess is, a lot of what’s on the tape is inadmissible—especially with the key witness, Peter Clarkson, dead—but it lays a foundation for a full investigation. Points them in the right direction.”

  “So what?” Polk said. “The idea was to get enough on Clarkson to force him to roll on Wingfield. Right?”

  Casey nodded. “Especially now that Sinclair thinks there’s more political capital in going after Wingfield than in putting all our focus on the murder inquiry.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Why the change?”

  “Well, for one thing, we’re nowhere on finding Kevin’s killer. And Fox News just did a poll that shows public opinion’s all over the map: There’s sympathy for Wingfield’s loss, versus an image of him as a ruthless tycoon who let his kid live a semi-marginal life, versus anger at Kevin, believe it or not, for being an ungrateful child.”

  “Gotta love those polls,” Polk said. “To the press, it’s all just one big soap opera.”

  “Meanwhile,” Biegler said, “we let a murder-suicide go down while we’re parked in the trees ten yards away. We’re going to look like shit.”

  “C’mon, Lieutenant,” said Polk. “Okay, maybe we shoulda had a man watchin’ the blind girl in the car. But even so, we’d probably have let her go up to Clarkson, see what she had to say. Who figures she’s gonna whack him?”

  “It wasn’t what she had to say,” I offered. “It’s what she heard. Finding out her brother’s real feelings about her. That he’d been cheating on her for years. She must’ve decided right then and there to kill him. Yet with Peter gone, her whole world was gone,
too. So…she left it.”

  Polk’s face was grim. “Her own brother…Jesus…”

  “Forget him,” I said. “We’ve got enough to prove that Wingfield’s a real threat to any minor children with whom he’s in contact…”

  Just then, the phone rang on Biegler’s desk. “That’ll be Sinclair,” he said, sighing as he picked it up.

  ***

  “Listen,” I said to Casey, back in her office. “Thanks again for believing me when I said I wanted to go after Clarkson. Especially since all I had was a prescription bottle and a couple of hunches.”

  She yawned. “Don’t thank me. I guess something about you makes me go all soft in the head.”

  “Right.” I smiled. We both sipped vending machine coffee, watching the dawn light gleam hazily on her window blinds. The offices beyond her walls were silent, empty.

  “Still,” I went on, “how’d you get Judge Cahill to grant the warrant for me to wear a wire?”

  “I knew Sandra Cahill before she went on the bench. When we were just a couple of legal hotties trolling the bars.”

  I smiled at the image in my mind. “So you know where the bodies are buried.”

  “Better than that, I know what she’s done with hers—and with whom. But you want to know the real reason? Judge Sandy has a ton of Wingfield BioTech stock, and wants the inside scoop on whether to dump it. Believe me, she’ll want first crack at listening to the tape, admissible or not.”

  She drained her coffee and tossed the cup in the trash. I could see her deep fatigue in the pallor of her skin, the tightness at the corners of her mouth.

  “A helluva night, eh?” She kicked off her shoes and pulled her knees up to her chin, settling back against the small leather couch. Giving me a sad smile.

  I sat next to her. Threaded my hand through her silken hair. “You’re still thinking about Sheila, aren’t you?”

  Casey nodded, eyes moist. I knew I was seeing a secret part of her. Not the vulnerability a therapist sees, but what lives in that hidden chamber of the heart to which only a lover is granted access. Knowledge of the body revealing more than can be named, spoken. Pointing to where the real mystery lies.

  To my surprise, Casey reached over and unbuttoned my shirt, gently spread it open. Then she huddled close, laying her head against my skin. I drew my arms up, holding her tight. We barely breathed.

  Time was lost to me. A few minutes, maybe more.

  “How long do I get you like this?” I whispered.

  She kissed my chest. “You don’t. This isn’t happening. This is a dream.”

  I felt her hand move down my side, toward my crotch. Felt her sure fingers find me through the fabric, stroke me. Grow me in her hand.

  “This,” she whispered, face still buried in my chest, “this is real. Only this.”

  She shifted position, astride me now. She freed me, put me inside her. It was wordless. Almost without sound or breath. With glances averted.

  As though the empty offices on either side were filled with the ears of the curious, the prurient. As though we were vandals of the heart, getting away with something.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  It was nine a.m, and, over her protests, I joined Casey in the elevator up to Sinclair’s office.

  “Do you just like pissing him off, or what?”

  After locking her office door, we’d grabbed a few hours’ sleep in each other’s arms, until a phone call from Sinclair’s secretary woke us with the news that Casey was needed at once. She balked when I said I’d accompany her.

  “Look,” I’d said, “if Sinclair’s going to rake you over the coals because of last night, I want to be there.”

  I sat up, rolling the kinks out of my shoulders. I was getting too old to sleep on office sofas. “You went out on a limb for me, Casey. I don’t want you on it alone.”

  She’d made some more noises about it, but could tell I wasn’t going to budge. Then she turned away from me to straighten the collar on her jacket.

  We’d been strangely awkward since making love. Almost distant. Maybe we’d gotten too close. Or at least one of us had. I just wasn’t sure which one.

  Now, as Sinclair’s secretary ushered us into the DA’s office, the cold morning light splashing the paneled walls pulled me back into the sober present.

  Rising from the chair behind his desk, Sinclair looked wan and sallow-eyed, despite the square-shouldered posture and patrician manner he couldn’t shed.

  “Dr. Rinaldi,” he said. “It seems you can’t stay out of the news. I should get the name of your publicist.”

  “Wrong place at the wrong time. It happens.”

  “Apparently more than once, in your case.” He turned to Casey. “Look, this is official business. Unless there’s a reason you’ve invited Dr. Rinaldi to join us…”

  Before she could reply, I leaned across his desk and planted my hands on the blotter, on either side of the framed photo of his wife and kids. My eyes met his.

  “Cut the shit, okay? If you want to burn somebody for last night’s fiasco, I’m the guy. I threw out the play-book and didn’t give the code word when a weapon was displayed. Don’t blame the cops or Casey.”

  “Believe it or not, I’m not really interested in your opinion.”

  Casey touched my elbow. “I can defend myself, okay?”

  She turned to her boss. “C’mon, Lee. We got a lot more than we lost last night. I’m guessing City Hall thinks so, too.”

  “That’s because you haven’t been on the phone with them.” Sinclair was curt. “Excuse us, Doctor? Or would you rather be forceably removed? In cuffs?”

  “Been there, done that. You want to kick me out, go ahead. I’ll just go see a friend down at the Post-Gazette, give him a real scoop. About Wingfield and Adnorfex, and the murder of Terry Mavis. Hell, the brother and sister sex stuff alone will—”

  There was a long pause. Then Sinclair shook his head.

  “Doctor, your role in this investigation, such as it’s been, is over. I’m going to order Lt. Biegler to put you under house arrest, for your own protection.”

  “Do what you have to. But that’s not the point.”

  “Really? And what, exactly, is?”

  I sat on the edge of Sinclair’s desk. Nudged some kind of antique table clock. “The point is, I’m in this thing. And I’m sticking, all the way to the end. For Kevin.”

  He reached for his phone. “I’ve had enough of this…”

  I came off the desk to face him, planting my feet. Crowding his space. His hand, unmoving, on the phone. We must have looked pretty pathetic staring each other down.

  I was right. Casey gave a short laugh.

  “Christ, no matter what, it always turns into a dick contest. I’m sorry now I fucked either one of you.”

  She sat down, arms folded, and looked out the window.

  I shrugged at Sinclair. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a snappy come-back to that.”

  He waved his hand angrily and sat down again behind his desk, carefully returning the antique clock to its exact former position on the blotter. Anal prick.

  Not that I was thrilled with my own behavior. He and I were like two flints striking off each other, and probably always would be. But I had no real reason to assume he was a bad guy. At least, no worse than every other political animal with big ambitions.

  “Okay, look,” Sinclair said at last. “The fall-out on this Clarkson business has already started. I got a call from Judge Weitzel in DC. Sandra Cahill faxed him a transcript of the wire-tape, and all hell’s broken loose.”

  Casey chuckled. “I can imagine.”

  “Yeah, those pricks at Justice are just drooling at the thought of embarrassing the FDA on their fast-track procedures. Meanwhile, there’ll be an injunction against further manufacture of Adnorfex.”

  “What about a recall?” I asked.

  “Already in motion,” Sinclair said. “Justice and FDA lawyers have to agree on the wording. But we’re already
notifying hospitals and clinics. The faster we can get the damned drug off the dispensary shelves, the better.”

  “For everyone,” Casey said. “You can bet the Feds are in full damage-control mode.”

  Sinclair agreed. “This could be a PR nightmare, so everybody wants to look head’s-up on this thing. Including the SEC. Maybe even the Surgeon General’s committee on sex abuse. They haven’t had any press for a while. This is like hitting the jackpot.”

  “I was just about to ask,” I said. “What about County Child Protective Services?”

  “They’ve been alerted about Wingfield, but it won’t be easy. A full-scale investigation of his personal life and habits could take months. He’s got a firewall of lawyers, and all the money he’d need to cover his tracks.”

  Sinclair took a breath. “Speaking of which…as of right now, we don’t know where he is.”

  Casey jerked forward. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, we just learned that Wingfield checked out of the Burgoyne Plaza at four this morning. That’s why I needed you up here. His departure took his entire staff by surprise. Nobody knows where he went.”

  “How could something leak so fast?”

  “Wingfield’s got plenty of friends in high places. Wouldn’t be surprised if one or two were on the pad. Anyway, we’ve got a joint police-Justice team at the hotel right now, interrogating Wingfield’s top people.”

  “With his resources, he could be anywhere,” I said.

  “Doesn’t matter. He hasn’t offically been charged with anything. And won’t be, until the Feds can gather enough tangible evidence. Assuming they can. For now, Wingfield’s free to go wherever he wants.”

  “If I were him,” Casey mused, “I’d head for some country that doesn’t have an extradiction treaty with us.”

  “Let’s cross that river when we get to it.” Sinclair glanced at his desk clock. “Time to get it in gear, Casey. We’ve got a ball-buster of a day in front of us.”

  Casey stood up, punched my arm. “You heard the man, Danny. Now beat it.” Playful, but not.