Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis

by P. T. Dilloway

  There was no way she could tell him about her nights, which invariably involved putting a dozen people in the hospital. Dr. Richman had promised complete confidentiality, but there were only a handful of people who knew about her secret life and she preferred to keep it that way.

  “Do you ever think about Jimmy anymore?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think the way Jimmy violated you contributed to your lack of interest in dating?”

  For the first time in the session she permitted herself to smile. Sometimes Dr. Richman could be pretty sharp. “I hadn’t thought about that before. Maybe.”

  “How do you feel about men?”

  “Some are very nice. Some aren’t. Jimmy wasn’t.”

  “What about your father? Was he nice?”

  She closed her eyes. The enduring image of her father was him at the breakfast table, dressed in his shirt and tie for work. He lowered the newspaper as she skipped up to the table. “Hey, kiddo,” he said and held out his arms. “Give your old man a kiss.”

  “He was very nice.”

  “How often did he raise his voice to you?”

  “Twice, I think.”

  “Did he ever hit you?”

  “Just once.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  She smiled again. Her father had given her two light taps on the backside when she was seven for using a curse word. When he turned her back around, his face looked far more distraught than she felt. “I felt ashamed to disappoint him.”

  “His approval was important to you?”

  She thought back to how she’d run to the front door when he came home to show him the latest A+ she earned or to tell him about the book she’d read. “Yes.”

  “What about your mother’s approval?”

  She remembered Mom waiting after school to pick up her and Becky. The moment she sat down on her booster seat and put on her seatbelt, she’d start to tell Mom about what she’d learned at school. Mom would always nod along while she drove and say, “That’s great, baby” or “How interesting” or “Oh really?” With someone else that might have been an act, but Mom would always remember; she would fill in anything she didn’t mention to Daddy when he came home. “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t follow in either of their footsteps.”

  “My fingers were too clumsy to play the cello.”

  “Do you think your mother was disappointed by that?”

  She shrugged. When she was six she’d spent most of the summer trying to learn the violin, but it never sounded as beautiful as the tapes she had of Mom’s cello performances; it sounded more like someone strangling a cat. This was the first time she’d failed at something and she hadn’t taken that well; she’d thrown the violin to the floor and screamed. Mom had come into the room and given her a hug. “It’s all right, baby. You can’t be good at everything.”

  “Probably a little.”

  “Your father was a CPA. Did you ever consider that path?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I loved science.” She thought of when she was three and her parents had taken her to the Plaine Museum. The janitor, whom she would come to know as Percival Graves, the former Scarlet Knight, lifted the rope so she could touch the tusk of Alex the mastodon. That event had transformed her life and from then on she’d never seriously considered being anything other than a scientist.

  “Why do you love science?”

  “I like finding answers and understanding the world better.” She turned her head slightly so she could see him in his identical white chair, dressed in a contrasting black shirt and pants, like a priest, except without the white collar. The horned-rim glasses he wore were another affectation like the koi pond and incense she found bothersome. If their situations were reversed, she would have asked him about the glasses and the pencil mustache. “Why do you love psychology?”

  “Touché,” he said. “Did your parents support your interest in science?”

  She turned back to face the Plaine Museum. Her parents had taken her there dozens of times. While other kids wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese or an amusement park for their birthdays, she would always ask to go to the museum. Her parents never complained about this or tried to interest her in anything more “normal.” It had been their support of her interest in science that had taken them to the planetarium that night, after which they were killed by two men fleeing from a bank robbery. “Yes,” she said simply.

  The doctor must not have noticed anything in her voice as he didn’t write down any notes. “How are things at the museum?”

  “Fine.”

  “Do you feel stressed at all?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Do you ever feel like lashing out?”

  She smiled to herself again; Dr. Richman never could stay away from that area for long. “No.”

  The doctor shuffled some papers, which was always a sign they were near the end of the session. “Do you know what tomorrow is?”

  “Thursday.”

  “Your sense of humor seems to be improving.” Dr. Richman cleared his throat. “Tomorrow Louise would have been two years old. Do you realize that?”

  “Of course I do,” she said. She managed to keep her voice even.

  “Are you planning to do anything?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Are you going to light a candle or take flowers to her grave or anything like that?” Though these suggestions were innocent enough, she knew the doctor was fishing for a sign she might plan to go on a homicidal rampage.

  “I’ll go visit her, like I always do.”

  “How often do you visit her?”

  “When I can.” After she’d been released from the hospital, she had gone to Louise’s grave in Rampart Gardens Cemetery every day. After the first year, when she began to work in Westfield, she cut back to four or five times a week. Now she was down to two or three times a week, something she felt a little guilty about. Things were simply too busy with both of her jobs; she promised she would make it up to Louise later.

  “What do you do when you go there?”

  “I talk to her.”

  “Do you think she can hear you?”

  She could have lied at this point easily enough and said as a scientist she knew Louise was dead, unable to hear anything. But she didn’t believe that. She had died twice already and knew there was more than simply being put in the ground as worm food. “I know she can.”

  “Does she talk back to you?”

  “No.”

  “How long do you spend talking to her each visit? On average.”

  “A couple of hours.”

  “What do you talk about?”

  “Whatever’s going on.”

  “Do you talk to your parents?”

  “No.” She did go to their graves once a year to put flowers on their graves, but she never said anything more than, “I’m sorry.” There never seemed like anything more she could say to them.

  “But you talk to Louise.”

  “Yes.” She resisted the urge to sigh with annoyance. “I want to feel close to her.”

  “And going to her grave does that?”

  “For a little while.”

  Dr. Richman closed his notebook. “I’m afraid we’re out of time for today. I might have some extra time tomorrow if you’d like to talk.”

  “No, I’ll be fine.” She stood up and then as she always did, she turned the chair back around for the next patient. As he always did, Dr. Richman stood up to shake her hand again.

  “I’ll see you next week. If you feel the urge to talk before then, my door is always open.”

  “I know. Thank you.”

  Only once she was in the elevator did Dr. Emma Earl allow herself to sag against the wall; she felt as always she’d been worked over by a couple of Don Vendetta’s thugs. In this case it was her mind being worked over, the secrets and idiosyncrasies being pried out of her and exposed to the light
of day. At least with the don’s goons she could wear her armor for protection.

  As the elevator came to a stop to let more people on, she straightened to slip into her other, far less tangible suit of armor.

  ***

  It had taken an entire session almost a year ago to explain to Dr. Richman she needed the first appointment of the day. The doctor seemed to think her need to get in first was tied to her workaholic nature. The good doctor had never tried to navigate the highways at three o’clock. Even on her motorcycle and taking liberties with traffic laws it took her an hour to get from Executive Plaza to Westfield. After a thorough analysis of Emma’s work habits, Dr. Richman finally approved her request.

  The trips to Westfield became necessary about that time when she received a very unexpected phone call. The last person Emma expected to hear from eight months removed from her stay in the psych ward was the director of the Plaine Museum, who hadn’t spoken to her since she had fired Emma nearly five years earlier after she was wrongly accused of the Heartbreaker Killings. The only communication she received from the director was the standard letter to thank her for her membership in the Friends of the Museum program.

  Emma was on summer vacation from Rampart State University, looking over her syllabus for the upcoming year, when the director’s secretary called. “The director would like to speak to you about a very important matter,” the secretary said. She wouldn’t elaborate on what; she merely offered Emma the chance to set up an appointment.

  Another person might have still held a grudge over her dismissal, but she understood the director’s reasons, even if she didn’t approve of them. So she had gone to the meeting. When she was younger, Emma had always found the director’s presence intimidating, the way she leaned forward, tented her fingers, and glared at you as if you were a naughty child. At twenty-seven, having given birth to and lost a child, Emma found herself no longer intimidated.

  As usual the director came right to the point. “Tomorrow in the Times there will be an article about the director of our Westfield branch being arrested for mismanagement of museum funds. This opens up a very unique opportunity for you, Dr. Earl.”

  “Don’t you have an assistant director?”

  The director leaned back in her chair; her smile had a reptilian quality to it. “In consulting with the accounting department, I think the Westfield branch would be best served by a complete housekeeping.”

  “I’m honored you thought of me, ma’am, but I was only assistant director here for a short time. There has to be someone more qualified.”

  “Let’s not beat around the bush here, Dr. Earl. There’s no doubt you would have already been running the Westfield branch if not for that unpleasantness a few years ago.”

  Emma leaned forward now to give the director her own steely glare. “If I can be blunt, ma’am, you fired me because of a crime I didn’t commit. What makes you think I would want to work for you again?”

  The director looked down at her planner. “Membership number 52903. Earl, Emma Jane, PhD. That’s you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I still like to visit the museum. I have friends who work here. It doesn’t mean I want to work here.”

  “You’d rather make thirty-five thousand a year at Rampart State?”

  “I like teaching.”

  The director continued to smile as she sighed theatrically. “Very well, Dr. Earl. I apologize for letting you go. I should have stood by you then. Does that make you happy?”

  “I still don’t know why you need me.”

  “Because given the mismanagement that has plagued the Westfield branch, I need someone capable, but more importantly, someone honest.”

  “And someone released from a psych ward eight months ago. I don’t suppose that’s going to get you very good press,” Emma said.

  “That was far less publicized and I think most people can understand a grieving mother temporarily losing control. You haven’t had any relapses since then, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Well then. Shall we discuss the benefits package?”

  In the end Emma had agreed to the job, but mentally kicked herself for being so predictable. The director had known that while she enjoyed being a teacher, Emma’s first love would always be the Plaine Museum. With a job at the museum’s new suburban branch, she put herself in line to eventually take over the original museum. And the salary and benefits were much better than Rampart State could offer.

  Dr. Maxwell, the man who had saved her from becoming destitute when he offered her a job at Rampart State, didn’t have any problem with her quitting to work at the museum. “We both knew this was only temporary,” he said. “We were lucky to have someone so talented even for a little while.”

  “I hope I’m not putting you out.”

  “Nonsense. We’ll find someone to take your workload, though I doubt he or she will really be a replacement.” They had shook hands and then Emma cleaned out her tiny office.

  Emma found a message from Megan Putnam on her BlackBerry as she parked her bike in the museum’s garage. Megan needed a ride to Aggie’s house tonight for Renee’s birthday party. “Let me check with Becky,” Emma texted back. She didn’t want to carry someone as fragile as Megan on her motorcycle.

  She nearly dropped the BlackBerry when she saw Becky in front of the museum. The Westfield branch—officially known as the Plaine Museum North Branch—didn’t have the Greek-inspired façade with its columns and steps, just a flat sidewalk that led up to an ordinary rectangle of blue-tinted glass that would have looked at home in any industrial park in the suburbs. Emma tucked the BlackBerry back into her purse and said, “I was thinking about you.”

  “Something good, I hope,” Becky said.

  “Megan needs a ride for tonight. I thought it might be better if you picked her up.”

  “Maybe,” Becky said, something ominous in her voice. “I actually came here to talk to you about that.”

  “Oh. I see. Let’s go up to my office then.” Emma led Becky inside. She waved to the security guards and the ticket takers, to signal them that Becky was with her. She threaded her way past a tour group of third graders from Tate Elementary in Auburn Fields. She hoped to sneak by unnoticed, but the guide waved to her.

  “Kids, this is Dr. Earl, the director of the museum.”

  “Hi kids,” Emma said. “Are you all having fun?” There was a halfhearted response to this. By the end of the tour she hoped they would be far more excited.

  As always, she couldn’t resist pointing to the centerpiece of the main gallery, a life-size, robotic version of Alex the mastodon. “Does anyone know what that is?”

  “A woolly mammoth,” one boy said. “Like in Ice Age.”

  “That’s almost true, but we actually call them mastodons.” As she always did, she turned to the mastodon. “Alex, say hello to the nice boys and girls.” The mastodon raised its head and trunk and then let out a roar that sent a few of the more timid children reeling while others shouted their approval.

  She put a hand on the tour guide’s shoulder and then said, “I’m going to leave you in Nancy’s capable hands now. You kids ask her anything you want.” She gave the third graders a wink before she hurried off to the elevator, where Becky waited for her.

  “You get a kick out of that, don’t you?” Becky said.

  “It is kind of fun. Worth every penny.” The robotic mastodon had been one of her early initiatives, as well as a directive that all tour guides should be friendly and—above all—knowledgeable about every exhibit in the museum. She had personally drilled the guides until she was sure they were ready. The best ones she offered extra money and benefits in order to retain them.

  The Plaine Museum North didn’t have the research labs of the original museum, so that the administration office was on the third floor. Emma passed by the various cubicles; she stopped every so often to wish her employees a good morning.

  As befitted her station as the one in charge, her office was in the
corner. In front of the door with her name on it was the desk for her secretary, Leslie Mills. Leslie had been Emma’s secretary at the original Plaine Museum when she headed the geology department and during her brief tenure as assistant director. Though Leslie was about forty years older, some people mistook them for sisters since Emma’s hair had gone white after Louise’s death.

  “Messages are waiting on your desk, Dr. Earl,” Leslie said.

  “Thanks. Ms. Beech and I have a little business to discuss first.” Emma opened the door to her office and then turned back to Leslie. “Could you make sure Dr. Rossini has those cost projections on my desk by this afternoon?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Becky waited until the door closed to say, “Look at you, the powerbroker. To think you couldn’t go to the bathroom by yourself twenty years ago.”

  “That was one time and only because it was dark and smelled like something died in there.” Emma sat behind her desk and leaned back in her chair a little. The good thing about the glass building was the amount of light it let in, which gave the room a pleasant glow on sunny days.

  An ominous shadow fell over the room from a passing cloud; Becky’s expression darkened in time with this. “I wanted to talk to you about the party tonight.”

  “What about it? Did you change your mind about the stroller?” For half a Saturday they had looked at various strollers to buy for Renee. Aggie and Akako had a carriage, but Renee was quickly outgrowing it and Aggie’s was two hundred years old, without the modern conveniences like a cup holder and storage for a diaper bag and toys. The one they’d picked out was adjustable as well so Akako and Aggie could keep it until Renee no longer needed a stroller.

  “No, the stroller’s fine. I wanted to make sure you really wanted to go tonight.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want to go?”

  “It’s that going to a one-year-old’s birthday party on the eve of—you know what—might not be the best idea.”