Married to a Stranger

by MacDonald, Patricia

  “You did all that?” she asked.

  “Sure. I said I would.”

  “Thanks.” Emma gazed at him. In the morning light she wondered why she had been so angry at him last night. His lie about the interview might have been…unnecessary, but it wasn’t some sort of unforgivable deception.

  “So, why don’t I give him a call?” David said. “Tell him we need him here by one o’clock this afternoon. Then I can go pick up my mother and get her situated without having to worry.”

  “Actually, you know what,” Emma said. “Don’t bother calling this guy. I think maybe I’ll go into work today. I have my group this afternoon, and I’d like to meet with them. By the time my group’s over, you’ll probably be done taking Helen home, and you can come and get me. I’ll go see your mom when she’s settled back in her own house.”

  “You have to have the security guard at work with you,” he said. “Just in case.”

  “All right. Just in case.”

  JOAN ATKINS stood on the front porch of the brick-front duplex where Lizette Slocum lived and pounded on the door for the tenth time. Lizette’s mailbox, which was attached to the wall beside the door, was stuffed full of mail. A short, pleasant-looking woman wearing a johnny-collared sweatshirt embroidered with hummingbirds stepped out onto the adjacent porch. “There hasn’t been a peep over there in the last few days,” the woman offered.

  “Do you know Miss Slocum?” Joan asked.

  The woman shook her head. “She only moved in a few months ago. My husband and I say hello when we see her, but that’s about it.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” Joan asked.

  The woman frowned. “I saw her on Monday morning, leaving here.”

  “Do you normally see her every day?” Joan asked.

  “No, not every day,” said the woman. “But you do hear a person, coming and going.”

  “Who’s the landlord here?” Joan asked.

  “His name is Jarvis. I’ll get his number. I’ve got it inside,” said the woman. She disappeared into her own house just as Trey Marbery came hurrying up the sidewalk to the foot of the porch steps.

  “What is it?” said Joan.

  “I heard it on the two-way radio. A couple of our officers just located her car. It’s parked at the bus station.”

  Joan stepped away from Lizette’s front door and leaned against the porch. “The bus station? So maybe that’s why we can’t find her. Maybe Miss Slocum took a bus trip. We better see if anyone there can remember selling her a ticket.”

  The woman in the hummingbird sweatshirt emerged from her house with a slip of paper. “This is the landlord’s number,” she said.

  “Thanks,” said Joan, taking the piece of paper. “He may have to come over here and let us in. Does he live far away?”

  “He lives the next town over,” said the woman.

  “When you saw Miss Slocum on Monday, did she mention she might be leaving town?”

  The woman shook her head. “She didn’t mention anything. We just waved.”

  “She didn’t ask you to take in her mail for her or anything?”

  “No. Do you think she went away on a trip?”

  “I hope so,” said Joan.

  EMMA was seated in the circle of chairs for her group session when Sarita Ruiz led in a new patient named Rachel, who was missing both her eyebrows and her eyelashes. Emma greeted the girl kindly and told her to take a seat. She felt her energy for work coming back to her, her desire to root out the psychic pain that caused a pretty girl to look in the mirror and pluck every hair and eyelash from her face.

  The group consisted of six that day—four boys and two girls. One of the boys was Kieran, who slumped in his chair and refused to meet her gaze. She began the group by deflecting questions about her injuries and turned the talk firmly back to their lives. “I’d like to hear about the future that each of you imagines for yourself. The dreams you have that you tell yourself will never come true. But still, you secretly hope for them. Finish this thought. In five years I’d like to be…”

  The group members avoided one another’s gaze, all too timid to put their dreams out where they could be publicly trashed. “What about you, Kieran?” Emma asked. “For example, I know that you are a song-writer and a guitar player of considerable skill. When you watch MTV, do you ever imagine a music video of yourself?”

  Kieran did not look up or reply.

  Emma leaned forward and spoke to them earnestly. “I’m not trying to set anybody up here for ridicule. I think you all know that’s not what this group is about. Each and every one of you has shown, in some very tangible way, that you feel hopeless about the future. I’m asking you to imagine yourself in a future that excites you.”

  “I’ll be dead,” said Kieran dully.

  Emma turned to Kieran. God, that tattoo is revolting, Emma thought, trying not to stare at the third eye. “That’s what you imagine?” she said. “What about your music? No one will ever hear it,” Emma said.

  “Yes, they will,” Kieran insisted. “They’ll play my music everywhere and they’ll say, ‘Love kills. Sex kills. He was trying to tell us.’”

  One of the boys snickered, and the other kids in the group stared at Kieran as if he had landed in their midst in a flying saucer.

  “Why do you say that, Kieran?” Emma asked.

  Kieran looked at her as if she were dense. “Sex is the ultimate drug,” he said. “Everybody knows it, but nobody wants to talk about it.”

  Emma looked around the group. “Anyone want to comment on that?” she asked.

  Then the eyelash-less Rachel meekly raised her hand.

  “Rachel?” Emma said.

  “Sometimes I think about becoming an aromatherapist.”

  The boys all started sniffing the air. And we’re off, Emma thought.

  ONCE THE SESSION WAS OVER Emma turned down the corridor to Burke’s office. Geraldine was not at her desk, and the door to Burke’s office was open. “Burke,” Emma called out.

  There was no answer. Emma went up to the door and looked inside, hoping to see him there, lost in thought, or listening to someone on the telephone, but the room was empty. The bare branches of a silver birch snapped against the long panes of the bay window behind his desk. There was no overcoat on the coatrack. The banker’s lamp on his desk was not lit. Burke, where are you? she thought. For a moment she had a terrible thought. Burke had been with her at Lyle Devlin’s house. There was no answer at Burke’s house last night. He hadn’t called them back. What if Devlin attacked Burke before he came after Emma, and she shot him in the knee? What if Burke was lying injured somewhere, or worse?

  She saw Geraldine Clemens carrying a coffee mug into the reception area.

  “Geraldine,” she said, coming out of Burke’s office.

  “Oh my Lord, you startled me.”

  “Is Burke here today?”

  “No. He called this morning and said he wouldn’t be in. Said he was involved in some kind of urgent business.”

  “Oh, I see. Good,” said Emma, relieved. “As long as you talked to him.”

  “Any message for him?” Geraldine asked.

  Emma shook her head and walked out into the hall. Kieran was clomping by, chains and buckles jangling, his car keys jingling in his hand.

  “Glad you came today, Kieran,” she said.

  Kieran stoppped and looked at Emma, tongue-tied again. “Uh, yeah,” he said.

  Emma fell into step with him on the way to the front door.

  “You leaving, Dr. Webster?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Emma. “I’m still taking it a little bit easy.”

  “You need a lift?” he asked, reddening slightly.

  “You drove?” she asked, surprised. Most of the kids at the center had lost their licenses due to drug or alcohol problems.

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “I got my own car.”

  “Well thanks, Kieran, but my husband’s coming for me.”

  Kieran shrug
ged. “Okay.”

  “Don’t speed,” she said.

  “Can’t. The cops pull me over every time they see me as it is.”

  Emma glanced at the magenta hair and the third eye. I’ll bet they do, she thought.

  “Have a good weekend, Kieran.” Stay safe, she thought.

  26

  AUDIE OSMUND gazed in disgust from the plastic Baggies full of illegal prescription drugs on his desk to the clean-cut, neatly dressed, handcuffed young man seated in front of Audie’s beat-up, army green metal desk.

  “Farley, you should be ashamed of yourself. You, a teacher. Selling this poison to your own students.” Audie shook his head.

  “I wasn’t—” Bob Farley began to protest.

  “Don’t bother,” Audie said. “Just don’t bother. We caught you red-handed, my friend. That little girl you sold these pills to at the school dance, where you were supposed to be a chaperone, is my sergeant’s niece. We’ve had our eye on you for months. We’ve just been biding our time, waiting for you to approach her.”

  “It’s entrapment. When my lawyer gets here—” Farley announced.

  “It’s not entrapment when you approached her,” said Audie. “You are going away for this, and the parents around here will breathe a lot easier because of it.”

  “Those kids’ll find another source,” Farley said.

  Audie shook his head. “It must be sad to have so little self-respect. Gene,” Audie bellowed to his sergeant. “Come get this scum. I can’t stand to look at him.”

  Tall, muscular Gene Revere, neat in his khaki uniform, came into Audie’s office and nudged Farley to his feet. “Come on, you…”

  As Farley stood up, Gene said to Audie, “That woman’s here to see you. The one who saw the husband out at the Zamskys’ cabin?”

  Audie sat up straighter. “Mrs. Tuttle?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Send her in,”

  Gene dragged the drug pusher to his feet and began to haul him out of Audie’s office. “Go on in, miss,” he said.

  Donna Tuttle, her black hair spiky, wearing a brown Henley shirt, which showed off her very fine figure, beneath a camouflage jacket, edged past the scowling, preppy-looking teacher and into the chief’s tiny office. “Chief Osmund, my son gave me your message. I was going to call you, but then I figured I would just come on in and see you when I got back,” she explained.

  “Mrs. Tuttle. So good of you to come in. You sit right down there. I want to show you this picture. How’s your memory today?”

  “Sharp as a tack,” she said, nodding her head.

  “Be right back,” Audie muttered. He went out into the main room of the tiny station house and rummaged on Gene Revere’s desk for the manila folder they had prepared for Donna Tuttle’s visit. He found it without much difficulty. The file held six photos. One of them was a photo of David Webster. The others were mug shots of men somewhat similar in appearance. None of them was as square-jawed, or generally good-looking, as David Webster, but they all had longish dark hair and no glasses or facial hair. That was the best Audie could do.

  Audie carried the folder back into his office and leaned over his desk on the side where Mrs. Tuttle was seated. He blocked her view as he removed the six photos from the folder and set them out in two rows of three on his desk, facing her. Then he stepped back so she could see them. “Now,” he said. “I want you to look at these photos and tell me which one of them was the man you spoke to at the Zamskys’ cabin that day. The day you told me about.”

  Donna Tuttle nodded solemnly, a citizen ready to do her part for truth and justice. She stood up and leaned over the desk, frowning as she picked up each of the photos and muttering to herself. Audie saw her pick up the photo of David Webster and stare at it. Audie tried not to give away any inkling of his own feelings.

  Donna tilted the photo back and forth, and then looked at Audie. “He’s a looker, isn’t he?” she said. “Looks like a movie star.”

  Audie leaned forward. “Is that the man you saw at the house that day?” he asked.

  Donna sighed and chuckled. “Oh yeah. You don’t forget a face like that.” She set the photo back down, glanced once again at the rogues gallery, and then shook her head. “And by the way, you know what? I was thinking about it. You asked me if he was alone out there and I said I didn’t see anybody.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, for some reason it bothered me. Like I hadn’t exactly told the truth about it. But then I remembered. I didn’t see another person. But I did see a bra and a pair of woman’s panties on the porch railing. Like they’d been washed out and hung out there to dry.”

  Audie exhaled and sat back heavily in his chair.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Mrs. Tuttle asked.

  “No,” said Audie. “You did fine.”

  “If there’s any other way I can help, Chief, I’d be happy to—”

  “Chief,” called out Gene Revere.

  Audie stood up. “What is it, Sergeant?”

  “Some kind of attack out on Chapel Hill Road. We better get out there pronto.”

  “Mrs. Tuttle, I have to go,” said Audie.

  Donna Tuttle tried to reply, but before she could, Audie had grabbed his jacket and cap and was out the door.

  DAVID LED Emma out of the front steps of the Wrightsman Youth Center and closed the door behind them.

  He reached out a hand to help her down the steps.

  Emma stopped short and watched as Kieran Foster roared off in his late-model PT Cruiser, thinking about what he had said at the group. That he planned to be dead in five years. How did his life get to be so hopeless? Of course, it could just be teenaged gothic romanticism. For these kids, sex, love, and death made for a potent brew. Still, among her patients, any talk of death had to be taken seriously.

  “What’s the matter?” David said.

  Emma shook her head. “One of my kids.”

  David frowned. “Come on. Let’s get in the car,” he said. He took her by the arm and led her toward the car. “The only kid I’m worried about is the one you’re carrying in your belly there.” He helped her into the passenger seat and then went around and got into the driver’s side.

  “How did it go with your mother?” she asked as he pulled out into the road.

  David shrugged. “I got her home,” he said. “She thinks I’m my brother, Phil.”

  “Really?” Emma asked. “A little confused?”

  “More than a little. Birdie was already pouring rum into her coffee when I left.”

  “Into your mother’s coffee?” Emma exclaimed.

  “No, her own. Although it might not hurt. My mother’s heart needs a jump start.”

  “What did the doctor say?”

  “He said this is a temporary respite.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry.”

  David shrugged. “Maybe a heart will come along.”

  Emma glanced at him as he drove. She knew it had to bother him that his mother mistook him for his brother, even as he was trying to care for her. And he had to be worried about her failing health, even though he rarely talked about it. In one way, she admired his stoic attitude. But Helen was the only parent he had ever really known. The prospect of her imminent death had to be frightening. Emma presumed that he was afraid, and that he kept his fears hidden. But now, she wondered. Was it more deception on his part? He admitted last night that he had trouble with the truth. Would she ever really know how he felt?

  He glanced over at her. “What?” he asked.

  Emma shook her head. “Shall we go over there now so I can visit her?”

  “You know what?” he said. “She was sleeping when I left. It would be better if we went later. And I am starving. How about we go out for a late lunch? I read about this little inn a few miles out of town that serves all afternoon. Let’s give ourselves a break. Try to enjoy the afternoon. What do you say?”

  Suddenly, Emma realized that she too was ravenous. “That sounds good
.”

  IT HAD NOT BEEN DIFFICULT to locate and interview the ticket sellers who were on duty at the Clarenceville bus station on Monday afternoon. It was exactly the same crew that was working on this Thursday afternoon. Earlier, Trey and Joan had entered Lizette Slocum’s apartment with the aid of Jarvis, the landlord, who arrived after a half an hour’s wait, and ascertained that Lizette had not written anything about a trip in her daybook or on her wall calendar. Because the nurse’s agency did not have a photo of Lizette, they were looking for one in her apartment. They picked up a photo off Lizette’s desk of a smiling Lizette and an older woman whom she resembled. The woman with the hummingbird sweatshirt told them that the photo looked recent. They took it with them to the bus station.

  As one clerk after another asserted that they did not remember selling a bus ticket to Lizette Slocum, Joan got on the phone and asked the manager of the Toyota dealership to come down to the bus station and bring his skeleton keys for the year and model of Lizette’s car. Eager to cooperate with the police, the manager said he would be there shortly. Now Joan stood looking out at the brown Toyota in the parking lot as she waited for the results of Trey’s last interview. He was meeting with the bus station supervisor, who had retrieved the week’s worth of surveillance tapes and was going through the tapes of Monday afternoon to see if Lizette Slocum appeared anywhere on them. The side door to the bus station opened, and a dark-haired man with a mustache came in wearing a tie and sports jacket. “I’m looking for Lieutenant Atkins?” he said.

  Joan walked over to him. “Are you Mr. Vetri?”

  “I am,” he said.

  “I’m Lieutenant Atkins.” She shook hands with the salesman. “You brought the keys?”

  “Got ’em right here,” said Vetri cheerfully, patting his jacket pocket.

  Just then, Trey Marbery emerged from the supervisor’s office. Joan looked at him questioningly.