“It has eight thousand square feet,” said Bill. “That’s including the third floor, which has dormers and slanting walls. Servants rooms, the Realtor said. I thought we might use them for storing the files.”
“S’nice.” She turned another page.
“The house has seven fireplaces and oak paneling from a French chateau.”
“Mmm.”
“Cost close to half a million dollars. Of course it would cost twice that to build it from scratch. At least.”
“Uh-huh.” She reached for a supermarket tabloid.
“And it has an elevator run by a trained gorilla.”
“Fine.”
“The governor will be running a shoeshine stand in the marble foyer.”
No reply.
Bill raised his voice by two notches: “Okay, Powell, I’m wasting my breath. You’re not listening.”
The silence that followed this remark finally caught A. P. Hill’s attention. She lowered the paper and looked at him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. The trip to Richmond. Pretty high-powered case, you know. Cousin Stinky recommended me.” She frowned at the thought of the attorney general of the Commonwealth of Virginia, known as “Stinky” only to his closest relatives.
For the first time that morning, Bill was able to see her face. She had rumpled hair, dark circles under her eyes, and no lipstick. He wondered if she had slept at all the night before. If so, it must have been in those clothes. The case she was working on must have been more difficult than she expected, he thought, although A. P. Hill did tend to take things too much to heart. She plowed into criminal cases as if losing one would mean that she would have to go to prison instead of her client. Obviously this was not a good time to add to her worries.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t mean to bother you. I can see you’re busy. I just want to clarify something. You did say that I could handle the business of buying a house, right? On my own?”
He could see her attention drifting back to the newspaper. “Sure, Bill,” she murmured. “I trust you. It’s just a house, and it’s your money. If we don’t like it as an office, we call another Realtor.”
“I may have some papers to sign this afternoon. Shall I go ahead and use my judgment? You haven’t seen it yet, I realize, but I think it’s important to close the deal as soon as possible.”
“Whatever.”
“The deal may go through rather quickly. The owner is a corporation and they’re handling the financing themselves.”
A. P. Hill turned another page. “Mmm.”
Elizabeth MacPherson settled comfortably in the big leather chair in the office of the consulting psychiatrist, trying not to focus on her own troubles. Eventually, of course, she would have to talk about Cameron—that’s what she was here for, after all. But not yet. The tissue box was within reach, she noted, but this was her first session with this doctor, and she felt reluctant to unburden herself without any preliminaries. She felt that to begin the counseling session with tears and a litany of sorrow might come perilously close to whining, a form of self-indulgence strictly forbidden by her Scots Calvinist forebears. To play for time, she cast about for a more neutral topic to discuss. “What is Asperger’s syndrome?” she asked.
The doctor looked down at his notes and then back at her with a puzzled frown. “You don’t have it.”
Elizabeth smiled. Dr. Freya would have said, Why do you ask? Then she would have wanted to explore the implications of Elizabeth’s curiosity, wringing out every nuance, like a terrier worrying a rag. But Dr. Freya wasn’t due to visit today, so Elizabeth was having a settling-in session with one of the staff physicians, Dr. Thomas Dunkenburger, whom Elizabeth was already thinking of as “kindly old Dr. Dunkenburger.” Through her haze of grief and self-absorption, Elizabeth perceived him as a soft-spoken, elderly man with mild blue eyes and a gentle smile. She found his presence comforting. He doesn’t take up much psychic space, she thought. He leaves you enough room to air your thoughts.
“Asperger’s? I just wondered about it,” she told him, thinking of yesterday’s visit from Emma O. “I have a doctorate in anthropology, you know.” She blushed at her attempt to establish parity with her therapist. “Well, forensic anthropology, actually,” she admitted.
Dr. Dunkenburger nodded. “It’s on your record. I hope we won’t be needing your services while you’re here. You wanted to know about Asperger’s?”
“Somebody here mentioned the term, and I’d never heard of it.”
The psychiatrist permitted himself a tight smile. “I’ll bet you’ve seen it, though. It’s actually classified as high-functioning autism—that is, it’s a mild form of the disorder. Asperger’s people don’t live entirely in their own little world, but they’re not quite at ease in this one, either. They’re people who don’t quite fit into the mainstream, and don’t see why they should try. Asperger’s types have their own pet subjects, and they tend to lecture others about their obsessions without making eye contact or pausing for comments from the other person.”
He paused, but Elizabeth did not reply, because she was busy making lists of people who fit the description. Cousin Charles …
Dr. Dunkenburger went on. “They say whatever they’re thinking, with little regard for tact or courtesy. And they don’t seem to be able to empathize with other people, or to gauge other people’s reaction to themselves.”
Elizabeth considered this. “Like the people at a science fiction convention?”
Dr. Dunkenburger nodded. “Well, if you needed to observe some people with Asperger’s, that might be the quickest way to find some. I’ve often thought that the three Lone Gunmen characters on The X-Files were typical Asperger’s cases.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “Oh, you watch The X-Files?”
“For professional reasons, certainly. That and Star Trek and Babylon 5. Futuristic television programs are a useful common ground with certain patients. If paranoids love spy thrillers, then autistic types belong in the constituency of science fiction.” He paused. “Of course, the programs can be pretty interesting in themselves.”
Elizabeth just looked at him, eyebrows raised.
Dr. Dunkenburger laughed. “Okay! Not everybody who’s interested in science fiction has Asperger’s.”
“How do you treat it?”
“Well, you don’t, for the most part. Asperger’s people function in society well enough. They might be research scientists, or engineers, or computer specialists, and they are often highly intelligent. They just do their thing. Perhaps they don’t have many friends … they have a tendency to show off their knowledge. They are the sort of people who read novels in order to find mistakes, which they can point out to the author to show how clever they are.”
“I’ll bet that makes them popular.”
He smiled again. “Granted, their people skills are minimal. You’ll seldom find one in a college fraternity or in a people-oriented job like politics or car sales, but they contribute to society in many valuable ways. Inventors … research scientists … It would be a dull old world if everyone were baseline normal.”
“Fat chance of that.”
He sighed. “Well, I’d be unemployed then, wouldn’t I? As I said, though, you don’t happen to have the disorder, so let’s talk about something that does pertain to you. Your chart says that you are here for depression, but there is a recommendation that you stay here for a month. Hmmm.” He frowned at the folder. “Now, usually with depressed patients, we stabilize them, prescribe medication, and send them home.…”
“Well,” said Elizabeth. “About the medication … I may have mentioned to Dr. Freya that if she gave me a prescription for tranquilizers, I’d take them home and eat them like popcorn.…”
“Ah,” Dr. Dunkenburger nodded. “References to suicide. Then you will be with us for a while. Have you settled in to the routine around here?”
“I suppose so,” said Elizabeth. “Except for the blood tests and the mornin
g medication ritual, it’s a little like being back in college. Interesting people who are not entirely sane.” This remark suddenly reminded Elizabeth of her family. “May I have visitors?” she asked.
“If you like. You cannot leave the campus, as we like to call it, but there is a reception room where people may come and visit with you, if the idea appeals to you. You are here for situational depression. Would you like to talk about it?”
“Well …” Elizabeth kept her voice carefully neutral. She didn’t want to dwell on Cameron—not yet. Best to keep to an impersonal recital of the facts. “My husband is …” She hesitated for an instant over the word. Verb tenses were no longer something that she took for granted. Is? Too naive? Was? Too pessimistic? “… a marine biologist. One day he went off into the North Sea in his boat to study seal migration, and he was never heard from again.”
Dr. Dunkenburger nodded sympathetically. “Presumed dead.”
Elizabeth winced. “Well, not by me,” she said. “Not at first. When he first went missing, I presumed everything but. Engine trouble on the boat. Caught in the Gulf Stream and drifted to Iceland. Eloped with Norwegian sex goddess. Eloped with a seal. I had a million theories, not excluding amnesia and flying saucers. All these scenarios ended with Cameron coming home.” She sighed. “But …”
“But he didn’t.”
“No.”
“It has been more than a few weeks now, I take it?”
Elizabeth nodded miserably. “Nearly two months. The searches turned up nothing.”
“And now you have to get on with your life.”
“Or find a life to get on with.” Elizabeth heard her voice quaver. She held her breath until the urge to cry went away.
Dr. Dunkenburger tapped his pencil on his notepad. “Under the circumstances, I think it would do you good to have visitors,” he said. “You need to be taken out of yourself every now and then. Have you been assigned a roommate yet?”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“Well, you might do with some companionship there, too. I’ll see what I can arrange.”
“Too bad Pierce Brosnan isn’t crazy,” said Elizabeth.
Dr. Dunkenburger regarded her thoughtfully. “Don’t feel that you have to be charming,” he said. “Putting up a brave front for your therapist is a waste of money, surely. We’re here to help you deal with the pain. Besides, the world won’t throw you overboard if you feel sorry for yourself every now and again. You’re here to get better, not to practice a stiff upper lip.”
Elizabeth nodded tearfully. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s second nature.”
“Of course it is. We were all taught that it is good manners to mask one’s pain. But remember: You have to hurt to heal.”
At an interstate exit somewhere near Memphis, P. J. Purdue was sprawled across one twin bed in the Star-Lite Motel, studying a grainy photo of herself in a supermarket tabloid. The headline read PMS OUTLAWS STRIKE AGAIN! Purdue scowled at the unflattering shot. “This picture makes my jaw look puffy,” she announced. She struck a pose. “Carla, look! Don’t you think I look puffy?”
Carla Larkin set down the bottle of silver nail polish and leaned over to examine the photo. “I think it’s the angle,” she said after a few moments’ scrutiny. “You look fine.”
Purdue shrugged. She had never been particularly interested in her looks because the emphasis in her family had been on brains, but somehow being with Carla had made her more aware of her appearance. Not that she could compete with Carla, who was beautiful; Purdue just wished that her own image in the mirror would stop looking so reproachful.
Carla had that fine-boned perfection that either you were born with or you did without. She ate all she wanted of whatever junk food was available and never gained an ounce, and she moved with a natural grace that suggested a privileged upbringing and years of training in ballet—neither of which she’d had. It was Purdue, the judge’s granddaughter with the expensive private education, who looked like a peasant. Purdue sometimes marveled over the irony of it without any rancor whatsoever. How could you begrudge anything of Carla Larkin?
The day they had met—Purdue stepping in as her court-appointed lawyer—Carla’s beauty had shone through even the drab prison uniform, the seldom-washed hair, and the scrubbed face of a woman no longer allowed to keep makeup. She looked like a captive princess. In similar circumstances Purdue would have looked like a potato with frizzy hair. No stranger on earth would have been moved to help her. But Carla was different. She touched the world but lightly, wherever she was.
Purdue sighed as she looked at the unflattering news photo. Maybe if she let her hair grow longer her neck wouldn’t look so short.
Carla was smiling. “It’s just a bad picture, hon. Don’t worry about it. Hey, you still look good enough to make the lounge lizards lust after you.”
“Oh, them.” P. J. Purdue scowled at the thought of their string of victims. “I don’t take that personally. Anybody under forty and breathing is the girl of their dreams. After three drinks, they’d still be interested even if I did look like this.” She tapped the offending photo.
“Well,” said Carla. “Mug shots are like driver’s license pictures. They don’t care if you’re ready or not. Just point and shoot.” She giggled. “Sort of like my ex-husband.”
P. J. nodded. “Anyway, we don’t want the photos to look too much like us. That would make us too easy to spot.”
“So would a T-shirt that says PMS OUTLAW, but I want one anyway.”
“No, you don’t. You’ve been in prison already, and drawing attention to ourselves would be a sure way to get you sent back there. Have you forgotten what it was like?”
“I’m trying to.” Carla Larkin shrugged. “At first I thought you could survive it with a positive attitude,” she said. “When I first went in, I pretended that I was in the air force. We had to wear uniforms, get up at a certain time, eat together in the mess hall, do our assigned jobs. I just made believe that I was Private Larkin, USAF, doing a hitch in the service.…”
“Yeah, twenty years’ worth. You could have made general by then.”
“Well,” said Carla, “You could have made attorney general if you hadn’t broken me out of there.”
“Maybe, but I never was one for playing it safe,” said Purdue. “And it seemed like such a waste to keep you cooped up in there until you got old.”
“Old comes fast in prison.” Carla shivered. “They get like sheep, the institutionalized ones. Like canaries who think the cage is their home.”
Purdue nodded. “And unlike some of my old acquaintances, who are probably pillars of respectability by now, I thought that our present course of action might be more fun than what I was doing before. Lawyers get institutionalized, too, I think. Anyhow, I still think of myself as practicing law. Enforcing it, anyway.”
“How do you figure that?”
Purdue grinned. “When we take those guys’ wallets, we’re just collecting the fines for adultery and fornication. Just collecting the fines.”
Carla Larkin looked at her watch. “Happy hour,” she announced. “Let’s go and collect the wages of sin.”
“Yes,” said Purdue. Her eyes sparkled. “But this time let’s try a change of venue.”
“We’ve passed all the restaurants on this road,” said Edith, looking through the rear window back at a hamburger joint receding into the distance. Then she looked meaningfully at her wristwatch. “And my lunch hour is over in fifty-one minutes.”
“I thought we could pick up fast food on our way back,” said Bill. “I want to show you something.”
They were speeding along a two-lane blacktop road that had slowly changed from suburban-commercial to rural-agricultural. It was the same route that Bill had traveled yesterday with Holly Milton, but this time Bill was the tour guide.
“Lawyers!” grumbled Edith. “With lawyers, you can never assume. At precisely eleven fifty-eight A.M. you said to me: ‘It’s lunchtime, Edith. Let’s go out
.’ And I leapt to a foolish conclusion. Call me crazy, but I took that statement as an implied oral contract, offering me a moderately priced midday meal at your expense, but no-ooo.”
Bill did not take his eyes off the road. “I’ll feed you, I swear!” he said. “At least … I’m not sure how much cash I actually brought with me. I may have to borrow some.…”
Edith sighed. “Let’s go to the Gingerbread House then. They’ll take your check. They know you of old. Now what is so all-fired important that I have to postpone lunch to see it?”
Bill hesitated. “I think it’s better if I show you rather than tell you. Besides, there’s something else I wanted to ask you about—out of the office. What’s wrong with Powell today. Do you know?”
Edith shrugged. She hadn’t been told not to tell Bill anything about the PMS Outlaws, but A. P. Hill was a deep one. Any explanations had better come from her and not through an intermediary. Before Powell Hill left for Richmond, she had left instructions with Edith that if Purdue called again, she should be given the number of Powell’s cell phone and the switchboard of her hotel. “A. P. Hill is always worried about something,” Edith hedged. “She broods. Sometimes I think the calcium in Tums is all that’s keeping her alive.”
Bill nodded. Had he not been so concerned about his cavalier expenditure of his entire savings—some half a million dollars—he might have pursued the matter further, but just now his own troubles were uppermost in his mind. “That’s why I brought you out here really,” he told Edith. “Sort of a second opinion. If you think she won’t like it …”
The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel Page 5