Unsound (A Lei Crime Companion Novel)

by Neal, Toby

  “I did my homework after dinner, thinking he was going to be home late, and that wasn’t good—usually he’d go out drinking, or as I later read, stalking his prey—and he’d come home boozed up with that need to start something with Mom. But he’d been better lately. It didn’t always end that way, so I was hopeful. Now I know that’s intermittent reinforcement—when something doesn’t always happen a certain way. You get hopeful something might be different.”

  I waited, hoping he wouldn’t get to thinking about hope and what an infection it could be. Hoping he’d tell the story and that it would give him some relief—and at the same time, wishing I didn’t have to hear it. I knew how it ended. I’d been a witness at the trial.

  “So I did my homework. Mom helped me with the math. I could tell she was worried and nervous—she kept looking at the clock and cleaning everything even though it was perfect, because how she kept the house was something he’d pick on, or if she didn’t look pretty enough. Mom was always pretty.”

  I sighed, remembering his mother’s picture. She’d been an old-fashioned kind of beautiful, with a sweet oval face, olive skin, and curly black hair. She’d been average height, with a nice slim figure. She wasn’t the “type” he’d disappeared—they were chubby, dyed blondes. No one, including me, had been able to figure out what he had against chubby dyed blondes, and Hank Gardo had never said.

  “She made me take my shower and go to bed early. I was in bed, listening to music, and hoping it would be okay when he got home. But it wasn’t. It started like it always did, with some accusation and her trying to appease him—and it escalated. I heard them running around and her trying not to scream because she didn’t like to scare me. And I put my pillow over my head and shut my eyes. I fell asleep.”

  “You’re still mad at yourself. You wish you hadn’t shut it out. You wish you’d done something.” I named his unspoken guilt.

  “Yes.” He breathed a long sigh of relief to be so understood. Firelight caught the tears falling off his chin. This was the gift of witnessing his story. It was all I could give him. “When I woke up, it was over. He’d gone, and he’d left her there.”

  I remembered the crime scene photos. I wished I didn’t.

  “I came out. She was in the kitchen, on her back. He’d beaten her so much that I couldn’t recognize her face. She didn’t get up, and she didn’t move.”

  “It’s a terrible thing that happened to you both.”

  “I called nine-one-one, and I didn’t touch her because I watched CSI even though I wasn’t supposed to, and I knew not to touch her.”

  “You were smart and brave. You did everything right.” I knew I was talking to a kid right now, a traumatized child evident in the high pitch and rapid cadence of his deep voice.

  “I sat in the doorway. I prayed they would get my dad, that they would shoot him dead. When the cops came, they asked if I’d touched anything, and I said no.”

  “You did all you could. Smart and brave boy.”

  “I just sat there in the doorway and looked at the kitchen. There was a broken pane with blood on it in the glass dish cabinet. I thought he must have thrown her into it. The dinner she’d made him was all over the floor. It was meat loaf, mashed potato, and green beans, and the meat loaf was stuck on the wall above the sink. The plate had broken all over where he threw it and she had mashed potato in her hair.”

  “You noticed a lot of details and you remember them clearly even though you were in shock.”

  “Was I in shock? I thought I must be like him, because I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t cry. I just looked around and tried to remember everything so I could help with the case.”

  “You were—what? Twelve? You lived in a world where you’d always been braced for this. You couldn’t afford to feel anything, and you did the best you could to help your mother.”

  “I like that better than what I’ve been thinking about myself.” Russell Pruitt darted me another swift glance, and I reached over and set my hand on his shoulder. It was the first time I’d voluntarily touched him. “A social worker came. She took me to a foster family. They were nice, but I didn’t talk. I couldn’t talk to anyone but the cops. They finally had me talk to the police psychologist.”

  “Someone like me.”

  “I guess.”

  “You didn’t want to trust anyone. You didn’t want to care or attach to anyone. It’s a natural response to the kind of trauma you’d been through.”

  “Yes.” He looked at me, a quick glance. “You understand.”

  “I do.”

  “The prosecuting attorney got a psychologist in to work with me, get me ready for the trial—because they’d picked him up that very morning. He’d just gone to his favorite bar, in his dirty shirt and with bloody fists, and waited for them to come get him.”

  “He’d gone too far. He knew there was nowhere to run.”

  “I guess so.” Russell Pruitt turned his enormous hands over. Gilded by firelight, they almost looked graceful. He turned them back and forth. “I started growing during the trial.”

  “And you explained what happened to yourself as internalizing his distortion.”

  “Right. But now I’m wondering.”

  “That’s what this trip has been about. Discovering what is you and what is him.”

  Russell Pruitt nodded. I took my hand off his shoulder and put it in my lap, feeling a bone-deep sadness as I did so. Still, objectivity was good practice, and in this situation, really hard to come by. Russell Pruitt had worked his gigantic, brokenhearted magic on me, and I cared about him now. It was no good denying it. I needed to stay alive so I could help us both.

  “Your turn,” Russell Pruitt said.

  I shook my head. “No. It’s not about me. It’s about you.”

  He took his glasses off, wiped them on his T-shirt. His dark brown eyes were normal sized, long-lashed. I imagined his mother’s eyes had been much like his, since Hank Gardo had had gray eyes. “It’s not just about me. You came on this journey to settle some things for yourself, to figure some things out—to get sober. I interrupted all that, and I want you to get what you came here for.”

  “It sounds like you’ve decided to let me live,” I said carefully, repeating the suggestion I’d given him earlier.

  He put the glasses back on. “I want to. But I can’t figure a way out of the situation we’re in. So how about we not deal with that tonight, and you tell me your story.”

  I sighed, settled back against the bumpy stone wall, tucking my feet under me as best I could.

  “Telling my story seems irrelevant when tomorrow I might die. I just don’t see a point. Makes it hard for me to do anything but worry about self-preservation. This is why coercion of any kind is counterproductive to therapy.”

  Russell Pruitt considered this, rubbing his chin with the tips of his fingers. “I honestly don’t want to kill you. But how can I let you live?”

  “We have several options. Why don’t we talk about them and then you can think about them tonight?” I held my breath, hoping he’d go along.

  In the meantime, maybe Bruce will find us, Constance said.

  “Okay. I’m interested in what you’ve come up with.” Pruitt moved a log farther into the fire.

  “Good. Okay, the first, and easiest, is that I don’t say anything to anybody about what has happened here. We hike out and go our separate ways.”

  “Provided I accept your promise that you won’t tell.”

  “True. Second, we walk out together and you turn yourself in. I help you get the proper support for your health. That’s my favorite option.”

  “I’d have to be willing to submit to the system, and that’s a big if. Watching my dad’s trial and being a foster kid didn’t exactly encourage me to throw myself into the arms of blind justice.”

  “Okay. Third, you can tie me up and leave me in the cabin. Escape, take all my money, et cetera, and make a run for it.”

  “This scenario has possibilities,
but you have too many connections. I think law enforcement would be trying very hard to find anyone who’d laid a hand on their psychologist. I’d have to start a whole new life, and I like the life I have going on.”

  The Pres-to-Logs were burning down. Russell Pruitt got up and piled on the ones I’d brought, and the paper-covered tepee flared up again. I noticed the inks flamed different colors: green, red, and blue.

  “Well, that brings up one last point I want you to think about. If you kill me, they’re going to be much more on your case, and you’ve left a ton of trace in both cabins, all over my things. If you kill me, don’t you think the stakes will be that much higher for your capture? And how will you be able to resume your old life? The statute of limitations runs out on terroristic threatening and kidnapping, which is the most you’ll face now—but there’s no statute of limitations for murder.”

  Russell Pruitt rubbed his hands together. They made a dry, whisking noise that raised the hairs on my arms, and I wondered if I’d gone too far toward popping his bubble of denial. I decided to switch gears. “I’ve been wondering about the shoe.”

  Chapter 18

  “The shoe?” He slanted a dark eye at me. He really did have some lovely long eyelashes. I swear I could see Ruth Gardo looking out of her son’s eyes. Maybe Ruth’s spirit would win over Hank’s—a fanciful notion.

  “The shoe. Cream-colored pump, size eight, mud all over it.”

  “Oh, that.” Russell Pruitt smiled. “I thought that would get to you. It’s Angie Pinheiro’s. Poor girl had to be a bridesmaid again a few weeks ago. I didn’t think she’d miss it.”

  “Angie.” I covered my mouth with my hand. “She’s always had such bad luck.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. Struck by lightning? Broke her back horseback riding? Finally gets married, and he’s a bigamist and a gambler?” Russell Pruitt shook his big shaggy head. “She’s cute though. I thought of asking her out, being her fourth strike of bad luck.”

  “Thanks for not asking her out. She’d go, you know. She has no sense of personal safety.”

  “So you don’t think I’m safe.”

  “Not really, no. Weren’t we just discussing whether or not you were going to kill me?” Incredibly, we looked at each other and laughed. I smacked my knee. “You and Angie. What a pair, damn!”

  “Hey,” Pruitt said. “You should take this more seriously.”

  “Why? Taking it seriously just makes me sad about things I can’t change. I love Angie. I care about her, and I feel bad for her. Thinking of you breaking into her closet and stealing her dirty bridesmaid shoe—it’s just so sad, Russell Pruitt, that it’s funny.” I laughed some more, and there was definitely an edge of hysteria in my voice.

  Russell Pruitt shifted. “You still haven’t told your story.”

  “I still don’t see the point.”

  “You could work some personal issues out. I could help you figure out what’s next for you.”

  “Hard to care when I don’t know if I’ll live past tomorrow.”

  “Okay, I promise I won’t kill you tomorrow. Does that help?”

  “Weird, but it kind of does.” I extended my hands to the fire. Unlike Russell Pruitt’s, my fingers were almost transparent, the skin pale and waxy. With the fire behind them, I could see the glowing red outlines of my slender bones. “Okay. I’ll talk about something you might be able to help me with. You see, my husband ran off with a woman.”

  “I know.”

  “Yes, you do. Anyway, Chris is at school, and Richard is gone, and frankly, I don’t want him back. One thing I discovered recently is that I hadn’t loved him for a long time. I’d just been in the habit of thinking I did. Well, I kept the house to hold on to something of the life I had before, and now it’s not feeling good. It just reminds me of what I’ve lost.” I twisted my fingers together, feeling the loss of my wedding band. I’d taken it off six months ago, and my finger still felt funny. “It’s part of why I drink. To fill the house with sound, to not feel so alone. I think, as part of my sobriety, I need to move.”

  “Sounds like you do.”

  “Yeah. I’ve always wanted to live by the ocean, but it was too expensive. Well, it’s not too expensive to get an oceanfront condo for one, just a little studio.”

  “Good idea.”

  “So that’s why I think this talk is a waste of time. It assumes I’ve got a future to figure out. And anyway, Hector wouldn’t like it.”

  “He’d get used to it.”

  “You know about Hector?”

  “I know everything about you.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, not everything.” Russell Pruitt stood, dusted his pants. “I have been studying you for a while, though.”

  “God. I am so boring.” The floor of the cavern felt cold and gritty to my bare feet as I got up. “I can’t imagine how that was any fun.”

  Russell Pruitt looked around for something to bank the fire and ended up dropping rocks on it. Sparks flew up in swirls as we withdrew to the entrance of the cave. “I’m kind of glad the surveillance stage is over. It was hard to stay mad at you once I saw what your life was like.”

  “Great. That’s just grand.” I followed him, walking tentatively, out into the star-spangled vault that was the crater, the air breathlessly cold. He shone the flash on the rocky trail, and we made a slow progress to the cabin after a pit stop at the outhouse. Once there, he locked us in.

  We brushed our teeth in companionable silence, and I washed my sore, dirty feet with a rag from the sink and put my socks back on. He turned off the lamp after I was back in my sleeping bag, and sheltering darkness surrounded us.

  “Good night, Dr. Wilson.”

  “Call me Caprice.”

  “Good night, Caprice. That’s such a funny name for a psychologist.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “What’s the story behind it?”

  I wriggled a bit in my sleeping bag. The dark of the cabin seemed to invite secrets, and he knew so many anyway. “My mom was fanciful. I had a twin. Her name was Constance.”

  “Constance and Caprice. A twin?”

  “Yes. She died when we were fourteen.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Pruitt sounded irritated.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t turn that up. It was quite the drama at the time.” I kept my voice light.

  “I was focusing on the more recent past. Cute names.”

  “It might have been cute, but I always thought it was more ironic. A misnomer. I was the steady, dependable one, and Constance the impulsive one. She ran out in the road and was hit by a car.” Old pain, like that of a phantom limb, stole my breath. “I still miss her. She shouldn’t have died.”

  “That’s heavy,” Russell Pruitt said. We fell silent.

  He’d promised me another day, and maybe Bruce would come. I had to live so Constance, my mirror image, my identical set of DNA, could live too. I eventually drifted into dreams, and Constance was with me, laughing and running.

  She was always laughing and running in my dreams.

  Chapter 19

  I woke up to Russell Pruitt’s giant hand smothering me. My eyes flew open to see his bulk beside me, a shadow like a mountain, and the hand was heavy as a side of beef, cutting off all air. I clawed at his wrist, and he moved the hand down so my nostrils were clear. Squatted down beside my bed, he held a finger up to his lips so my bulging eyes could see he meant me to be quiet. Outside the cabin, I heard voices.

  “Do you think anyone’s in there?” A loud woman’s voice.

  “Don’t know. It looks locked up.” I heard the voices moving around outside, discussing whether they had time to boil water and refill their water bottles. I pictured them, these unknown and cheerfully loud hikers, sitting at the picnic table, taking pictures of the nene, haggling over the granola bar—having no idea of the tense situation in the nearby cabin.

  “Let’s not boil water. We’re supposed to be in Kapala`oa Cabin, and since we got down her
e so early, I’d like to make it there before it gets too hot,” the male hiker said.

  Russell Pruitt’s hand covered most of my face. With a movement a few centimeters to the right, he’d be able to smother me with so little effort it made my heart flutter, an overworked hummingbird. I longed to remind him he’d promised me another day, but his head was turned toward the door as he knelt beside my bunk.

  So I lay there and endured my helplessness until the hikers finished their snack and we heard their voices fade.

  “They’re gone.” Pruitt took his hand away from my face.

  I batted at it reflexively as I sat up. “That was a very scary way to wake up.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what you would do.”

  “We’re right where we were before. There’s no useful process without trust.” I swung my legs to the side, sat up, and went to the kitchen sink. I splashed the very cold clear water on my hands and face. There were tears on my cheeks, and I hadn’t even felt them falling. I stopped myself from mindlessly gulping the untreated water and picked up one of the water bottles, drinking half of it down.

  “Not true. We have a day together and we haven’t decided what we’re doing. I got up early and found a trail back behind the cabin. I thought we could go explore a little bit, stretch our legs.”

  “Okay. Whatever you want—you’re the boss.” I felt listless and exhausted after the surge of panic and remembered I was still having withdrawals. I went back to the bunk, lay down.

  “I’ll fix some breakfast; then we’ll go.” He busied himself in the kitchen.

  I didn’t answer. I was thinking about Constance. I was all we both had left. I’d always had everything inside me that Constance did. Everything, including the steely resolve to have her way. And I could feel how powerfully she wanted two things—for me to live and for me to get sober.

  I became a psychologist to understand better what it had all been about. Her. Me. Her death. What it did to our family. This was my story—the story I saw no point in telling Russell Pruitt, who was stirring oatmeal on the stove.