Daddy Darkest

by Ellery Kane

  Just like that, she missed her exit. So she kept driving. 580 West, 101 South, CA-1 South, Panoramic Highway, past the stone wall with the sign, Muir Woods National Monument. By then, she knew exactly where she was going, even if she wouldn’t admit it to herself. She pulled off the road into the narrow ditch and listened to her heart beat as fierce and frenetic as it had at sixteen when she marked this place forever. It was nearly dark and darker here, where the trees grew taller than any she’d ever seen. Ancient and wise, they were the only witnesses. She walked three hundred paces into the forest—she’d counted many times—to the spot where the redwood’s roots tangled themselves like lovers. Nestled there among the ferns was a single stone she’d carried herself. She knelt down and laid her hand to rest on it. It felt cold to the touch.

  October 21, 1996

  Clare acted all business, waving Cullen into her office. Get your shit together, Keely. And that’s exactly what she planned to do. That morning, she selected the most matronly outfit in her closet. A black turtleneck and loose black trousers. Flats. No makeup and a tight ponytail. Whatever Cullen thought, he better unthink it. Now.

  “Good morning, Mr. Cullen.” Not a hint of emotion, exactly as she intended. Her practice in the mirror paid off. “Have a seat.”

  He responded with an aw-shucks grin. “Morning, Doc.”

  “I need to talk to you about something important. It’s called transference.” She paused to let the word settle. Inexplicably, Cullen seemed ready for this. “Our relationship is like a mirror. The way you relate to me as your therapist might be similar to the ways you relate to other people, other women in your life. It’s totally normal for clients to develop feelings—”

  “Erotic transference, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  Cullen buried his head between his hands, then peeked through his fingers at her. “Man, I feel like a jackass. You must think I’m a total nutcase.”

  “No, of course not. This happens all the time.”

  An ironic laugh escaped his mouth. “I’ll bet. So I’m just one of the many loons to fall for you.”

  “It’s not like that. I’m hoping we can talk about what you’re experiencing. The feelings you’re having. Last week, you said you wanted to watch out for me. Maybe our relationship, me, reminds you of something . . . or someone.”

  He nodded. “Emily. You remind me of her.” A shiver—part excitement, part fear—tickled the fine blonde hair on the back of Clare’s neck.

  “How so?”

  Cullen licked his lips. It seemed more nervous than seductive. But Clare felt seduced. Sexualizing him again, she wrote in her notebook. “May I speak frankly?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  “I find you extremely attractive. I’m sure you already know you’re stunning. Outwardly, that is. But, you get me. You understand me like no one ever has. And that makes me want you.”

  Clare blushed. Her body revolted her, the way it responded to him. To men. The way it betrayed her. “Did Emily understand you?”

  “Yes and no.”

  Clare was on the verge of the why, and she knew it. She treaded carefully, lightly, so not to spook him. “Tell me more.”

  “I thought Emily loved me. She understood certain things about me. She knew every button and how to push them—but she used that against me. That’s not love. And she thought I would let her get away with it. That’s what she didn’t understand. I couldn’t.”

  “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “So you killed her?” She said it perfectly, without a hint of judgment.

  Cullen’s gaze met hers, and he didn’t look away. “There are worse things than murder, Dr. Keely.” The blueness of his normally slate-gray eyes unnerved her. They seemed unreal, painted like marbles. All seeing. All knowing. Though there was no way he could know. Not that. No one did. Not her mother—as if. Not Lizzie. Not Neal. Or her therapist. Not even the priest her mother made her confess to every single Easter Sunday.

  “Worse?” she wondered aloud. “What could be worse than that?”

  Cullen spoke without pause. “Betrayal. Humiliation. Dishonesty. Degradation.”

  “Hmm . . . ” She pretended to mull it over, but there was no uncertainty. He was right. Worse things? Absolutely. She could think of one, and she did. All the time. Mr. Taylor rubbing his hand against her pink panties, finding his way inside. You like this, don’t you? Don’t you, Clarie? Her answer: I guess so. Because she didn’t, but she did. And that was worse, far worse, than murder.

  October 22, 1996

  Clare paged through Dumas’ file again. Searching for something. Anything that would explain how he’d ended up here. No prior criminal history, serving twenty-five to life. She prodded. She coaxed. She channeled Sigmund Freud—tell me about your dreams. Then Carl Rogers—what would you like to talk about today? Dumas was like a brick wall. Whatever secrets he kept were as closely guarded as her own. As much as she could respect that, she was determined to tear down that wall, brick by stubborn brick. And she would start today.

  On 11/23/95, Officer Machado responded to Bellingham Jewels in the 900 block of Raven Avenue in San Francisco at 2 p.m., after receiving a 911 call with a report of shots fired inside. Distal Security Company also contacted police, after the store’s silent alarm system was triggered. Upon arrival at the scene, Officer Machado made contact with suspect James Dumas. He stood outside the store with his hands raised. A Glock 9mm handgun was located on the sidewalk in front of him.

  Store personnel reported Mr. Dumas and an unidentified accomplice entered the establishment shortly before 2 p.m. Both were armed and wore masks. Mr. Dumas, later identified on the store’s surveillance cameras, ordered the two customers present to lie down on the floor. He then approached the cashier, Jennifer Stewart, and demanded she place all their cash inside several large envelopes he provided. As Ms. Stewart retrieved the cash, store patron Thomas Aikens entered the front door. The unidentified accomplice fired a shot striking Mr. Aikens in his chest. The accomplice fled the scene on foot and has not been apprehended as of this report.

  Mr. Aikens was transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead later that evening. Mr. Dumas invoked his fifth-amendment rights and was placed under arrest and transported to the Alameda County Jail, where he was charged with first-degree robbery and murder.

  Dumas’ accomplice was never caught, and he refused to talk to police about his motives. But one of the witnesses described the accomplice’s voice as high-pitched and feminine, when a cry of surprise escaped from beneath the mask after the gun discharged. Clare had a theory—the woman in the photo, his wife, fired an accidental shot. Unconfirmed, of course, and Dumas seemed dead set on keeping it that way.

  He knocked on the door. The privacy glass warped his face, but she knew him by his tall, thin silhouette.

  “Come in.”

  He ducked his head under the frame and arranged himself in the chair opposite Clare. Electric green eyes brightened his dreary face, but he couldn’t hide those dark circles. It seemed he hadn’t been sleeping again. “Hiya, Doc.”

  “How have you been?” she asked. “You look a little tired.”

  “My cellie keeps me up with his snoring. If it wasn’t for him, I’d sleep like a baby.” His sarcasm was evident in the twist of his mouth.

  “I’ll bet. So what’s on your mind today?” The non-directive approach usually got her nowhere, but nowhere was as far as she’d gotten with anything else. Like last week, when she’d asked him to pretend his father sat in an empty chair in front of him.

  What would he say to you? He laughed at her. Would he be sitting in it playing poker? Yes. Sitting in it talking to me like you’re doing? Never.

  “There is something I’d like to share since you’re such a kind audience.” Clare felt hopeful. Maybe she had finally cracked her hardboiled egg.

  “My wife came up for a family visit this weekend. First one in a
couple months. She told me she’s pregnant.” Clare raised her eyebrows. “Before you start thinking anything squirrely, it’s mine. Guess it happened last time she visited.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  He shrugged. “Good. And not so good. Kinda like most things in here, it’s bittersweet.”

  “You told me you already have a son, right?”

  “Yep. He’s two. I suppose he’ll be the man of the house now, what with me gone and all.”

  “What does your wife think about your being in prison? About your crime?” It was the closest she’d come to revealing her theory.

  “We don’t talk about it. I don’t talk about it.” He folded his arms across his chest, and they sat in stony silence. Clare refused to speak first. Be comfortable with silence, Fitzpatrick had told her. One of his few useful pointers. She was relieved when Dumas’ face softened. “But she’s excited for the baby. She thinks it’s a girl.”

  Suddenly, Neal’s voice was in her head, co-opting Lizzie’s nickname—Clare-Bear, you’d be a great mom. You want to have kids, right? Two or three at least? She had to keep talking to force him out. “How can she tell the gender already?”

  Dumas’ wide grin made it painfully obvious. It was the first time he’d smiled since he walked in the office. “Cravings for ice cream, apparently.”

  “What else makes you smile, Mr. Dumas?”

  “That’s a funny question.”

  “Well, I’m a funny gal.”

  “Alright. I’ll bite. Do you have a quarter?”

  Clare dug inside her pocket and produced a coin. “As long as I get it back.” Money was contraband here. Like a lot of other ordinary things. Blue jeans, aerosol cans, cameras. Fitzpatrick had given her a list.

  Dumas nodded, accepting the coin. “I’m going to use my magical powers of telekinesis to move your quarter from one hand to the other.” He deposited it in his closed right fist and waved his hands in the air. Clare laughed. “Now, where is the coin, Dr. Keely?” She pointed to his right. Nothing. He uncurled his left fist, where the quarter rested on his palm. “It’s magic.”

  “Impressive. So magic makes you smile?”

  “It used to. Growing up, the other boys worshipped Willie Mays, Muhammad Ali. You know who I idolized? Harry Houdini.” He chuckled to himself. “But then I learned a little sleight of hand, and I realized something. Once you know the trick, it’s not magic anymore. It becomes mundane, ordinary. Life is like that too. The more you know, the more you see—and then there’s a lot less magic to hold on to.” Clare felt his words like a lit match to her chest. “I don’t reckon you’ve been around the block enough to know what I mean.”

  She shrugged. “Is that why you won’t open up? You don’t think I’m old enough to understand what you’re going through?”

  “It’s not a matter of old enough. I just can’t imagine you’ve walked through the kind of fire most of us screw-ups have.”

  If you only knew. I’m a world-class screw-up, Clare thought. “Well, you can’t judge a book by its cover. Or a therapist.”

  He spun the quarter on the table and watched it turn until it lay flat in front of her. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  After Dumas left, Clare ate an early lunch at her desk. A tuna-salad sandwich she’d packed from home. It was easier than avoiding Fitzpatrick at the snack shop, just inside the gates. He always sat at her table. Between bird bites of a chef salad, he’d attempt small talk while the other new hires watched with obvious contempt. It was more than she could bear. Besides, she was better at being alone. That’s the line she gave Neal when he proposed to her last summer, slipping that ruby ring on her finger—the one she was fairly certain was a real ruby despite the lie she’d told to make herself feel better. The band was engraved with their initials. Neal down on one knee, with those puppy-dog eyes, she’d almost said yes. But he wanted the white-picket fence. The happily ever after. And Clare had no doubt that part of herself, if it ever existed at all, lay buried under a rock in Muir Woods. Let’s just see what happens. Maybe you’ll change your mind. Neal, ever the optimist.

  She penned Dumas’ notes—the usual mumbo jumbo—and paged through the files for her afternoon clients, when the telephone rang. Fitzpatrick. Clare knew without answering it. He was the only one who ever called, and the shrill sound made her nerves hum.

  “Hello, this is Dr. Keely.”

  “Could I see you in my office, please? Right away.”

  She couldn’t disguise her dread. “Coming.”

  Fitzpatrick sat at his desk, piles of paperwork on either side. The piles were a permanent fixture. Never smaller nor larger than the last time she’d sat across from him. Clare wondered if he arranged them there to make himself seem busy. He gestured to the chair without smiling. Clare knew something bad was coming.

  “Dr. Keely, we have a situation.” It sounded as if he’d been waiting his whole life to say that. He probably practices too, Clare thought, disgusted they might have something in common. “Lieutenant Bonner advised me of some graffiti bearing your name.” As Clare tried to steady her breathing, he pushed a photograph toward her. “This was discovered yesterday evening in Mr. Cullen’s cell after he returned from the yard. The Lieutenant suspects the EME is responsible. We thought you should know.”

  Clare didn’t want to look, but she had to. Like the first time Mr. Taylor unzipped his pants. I’ll show you what a man looks like, baby. I’ll teach you what a man needs. It was three days after her fourteenth birthday. He’d been working up to it—the big reveal—for a while. Mostly touching her, kissing her sometimes, bringing her silly little presents. Grooming, that’s what her therapist called it. Her shame was all-consuming, the fire she walked through. The inferno. Mr. Dumas had no clue.

  She held the photograph up to her face to show Fitzpatrick she wasn’t afraid. A rudimentary drawing scratched into the wall with something sharp. Two stick figures, labeled. One with round circles for breasts. That was her, apparently. Dr. Clare Whore. Next to her, Cullen. Punk Bitch Clive. Above them, in large capital letters, DIE.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it’s hard to look at.”

  “Why do they think it was the EME?”

  Fitzpatrick seemed surprised at her question. “Cullen hasn’t told you . . . in your sessions?” Clare remembered Cullen’s hand on her forearm, his reassurances. But she didn’t answer. She already felt supremely stupid. “He’s had a beef with the EME for some time. They tried to pressure him to join the AB.”

  “AB?”

  “Aryan Brotherhood. The white supremacist gang that has an alliance with the EME. They should’ve covered that in your training.”

  “I remember now. But what does that have to do with me?” Her bewilderment, a deliberate fabrication. The vile note from last week had met its end in her garbage disposal.

  Fitzpatrick smiled without showing his teeth, the way he always did before he planned to say something inappropriate. “Good question. I was going to ask you that. It seems they believe Mr. Cullen is fond of you. Perhaps in a romantic way, a sexual way.”

  “A sexual way? What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Dr. Keely, you can’t deny this drawing is overtly sexual.” He tapped his finger on the crudely drawn breasts. “Now, I’m not saying you’ve done anything wrong, but perhaps we should reassign Mr. Cullen to another clinician. A male.”

  “I shouldn’t be penalized for the way an inmate depicts me in a drawing. And neither should Mr. Cullen. He’s making real progress. You’re welcome to take a look at my session notes if you’d like.”

  “I already have.” Clare had the thought again. If only I could blow your brains out. It hit her like a wave, disoriented her. She wondered if Neal had been right that this kind of work would change her. They’re sick men, he’d said. Monsters. And now she was thinking like one of them. “I found nothing of concern,” Fitzpatrick admitted.

  “Then . . . ” Screw off. That’s what she wanted to say. “I�
��m not sure what else I can do. But I’ll address this with Cullen in our next session.”

  “Very well.” Clare was partway out the door when Fitzpatrick called her back. “I know these incidents can be overwhelming, especially for a young therapist. If you ever want to grab dinner to talk off the record, my offer still stands. It’s my treat.”

  “I’ll let you know,” Clare called out, glad Fitzpatrick couldn’t see her face. Inside the safety of her office, she locked the door behind her and opened her notebook. She flipped to yesterday’s date, where she’d written:

  Sexualizing him again. Maybe he reminds me of R. T.??? But I feel safe with him, pulled to tell him things about me, to show him I understand him.

  She scrounged through her desk until she found a fat black marker, then obliterated the lines. It felt necessary to make them disappear even though she’d already decided. From now on, Fitzpatrick’s sanitized session notes would be the only record Clare kept.

  10

  LA HIJA DE PUTA

  “Cullen?” There I went again, parroting Levi. “Why would Cutthroat Cullen be after me?” The sheer ridiculousness of his suggestion brought me back to my senses. I walked over to the dresser, where I’d left my wallet, and plucked out Officer Guthrey’s card.

  “I already told you,” Levi said, haphazardly stuffing his things inside his backpack. “But you don’t believe me.”

  “Don’t say this is about my mother. That lady, Clare Keely, I looked her up. She is not my mom. No way. And where are you going? We have to call the police and tell them about Marco and Ginny.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “The not-on-administrative-leave police.”