Self-Defense

by Jonathan Kellerman

  When I got to the station, the nurse said, “Dr. Delaware . . . yes, here it is. Lucretia’s in 14, that’s back there on the left side.” She was very young and had yellow cornrowed hair studded with tiny blue ribbons, and beautiful teeth.

  I retraced my steps. Before I got to 14, the door to 18 opened and a small, sweet-faced woman around fifty looked out at me. She wore a pink dress, pearls, and pink pumps. The back wall of her room was covered with family photos, and the aroma of chocolate chip cookies poured out.

  “Have a nice day,” she said, smiling.

  I smiled back, trying not to look at the bandages around her wrists.

  Her door closed and I knocked on Lucy’s.

  “Come in.”

  The room was eight by eight, painted that same brownish-white, with a bed, a fake-wood nightstand, a tiny doorless closet, and a desk and chair that looked child-sized. The TV was mounted high on the wall, the remote control bolted to the nightstand. Next to it was a stack of paperbacks. The top one was entitled Grievous Sin.

  No bathroom. A single immovable window, embedded with metal mesh, offered a view of the parking lot and the supermarket that was the hospital’s neighbor.

  Lucy sat on the bed, on top of the covers, dressed in jeans and a white button-down shirt. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbow, her hair was pinned up, and her feet were bare. An open magazine rested in her lap. She could have been a college girl relaxing in a dorm room.

  “Hi.” She put the magazine aside. Good Homemaking. The cover promised “Holiday Snacks Your Family Will Love You For.”

  “How’s it going?” I said, sitting in the chair.

  “I’ll be glad to get out of here.”

  “They treating you okay?”

  “Fine, but it’s still prison.”

  “I spoke to Dr. Embrey. She seems nice.”

  “Nice enough.” Flat voice.

  I waited.

  “Nothing against her,” she said, “but I’m not going to have anything to do with her when I get out.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because she’s too young. How much experience could she have?”

  “Did she do or say something to weaken your confidence?”

  “No, she’s smart enough. It’s just her age. And the fact that she’s the one who’s keeping me in—a jailor’s a jailor. Once I’m out, I’m finished with this place and anyone associated with it. Do you think that’s foolish?”

  “I think you need someone to talk to.”

  “What about you?”

  I smiled and touched the gray at my temple. “So I’m old enough for you.”

  “You’re experienced, Dr. Delaware. And we’ve already got a relationship, why start from scratch?”

  I nodded.

  “You don’t agree,” she said.

  “I’ll never abandon you, Lucy.”

  “But you think I should see Embrey.” Her voice had tightened.

  “I think ultimately you make the choice. I don’t want you to feel abandoned, but I also don’t want to sabotage Dr. Embrey. She seems very capable, and she’s interested in you.”

  “She’s a kid.”

  I said nothing.

  She scooted to the edge of the bed and sat there, legs dangling, toes brushing the carpet. “So that’s it for my therapy with you.”

  “I’ll always be here for you and I’ll help you any way I can, Lucy. I just want you to do what’s best for you.”

  She looked away.

  “Who knows, maybe I don’t even need a therapist.” She turned back to me sharply. “Do you really think I tried to kill myself?”

  “It looks that way, Lucy.”

  A painful smile flickered. “Well, at least you’re honest. And at least you call me Lucy. They call me Lucretia. He gave me that name. After Lucretia Borgia—he hates women. Jo’s full name was Jocasta. How’s that for Oedipal?”

  “What about your brothers?”

  “No, the boys’ names are okay. He let the boys be named by their mothers. He was only out to ruin the girls.”

  “Ruin, how?”

  “Rotten names, for one. How can I have confidence in this place when they don’t even respect me enough to call me what I want? I keep telling them Lucy, but each time a new nurse comes on shift, all they do is read the chart. Lucretia this, Lucretia that. “How are you, Lucretia?’ ”

  She got up and looked out the window.

  “I didn’t put my head in that oven,” she said. “I have no idea how I ended up there, but I didn’t do it. Not sleepwalking or any other way.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I just know. Not that I’d ever tell Embrey that. She’d think I’m crazy.”

  “She doesn’t,” I said. “And neither do I. But I do think you might have done it while sleepwalking. It’s unusual but not impossible.”

  “Maybe for someone else, but not me.”

  She turned around. She’d cried, and moisture streaked her cheeks.

  “I know it sounds bizarre and paranoid, but someone’s trying to kill me. I told Embrey I changed my mind about that because I didn’t want her to lock me up forever. But there’s something you should know about. Can I tell you in confidence, without your telling her?”

  “That puts me in a bind, Lucy.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I understand. I don’t want to do that to you. But either way, she won’t know. Not until I get out of here.”

  We didn’t speak. She dried her eyes and smiled.

  “Thanks for coming. Thanks for doing what you think is right. . . . I didn’t put my head in that oven. Why would I do that? I want to live.”

  She dried her cheeks. “Those phone calls. I thought they were nothing—maybe they were nothing. But I am . . . going to tell you, even though you’ll probably think I’m nuts and I’ll get locked up till who-knows-when.”

  She began to cry.

  I put my hand on her shoulder and it made her cry harder. When she stopped, she said, “I so don’t want to be locked up. I cherish my independence.”

  “I won’t do anything to lock you up, if you promise not to hurt yourself.”

  “That’s easy. I don’t want to hurt myself. I promise, Dr. Delaware—I swear.”

  She sat quietly for several moments. “One time—right after I started seeing you—I came home and found some of my stuff moved.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Clothes . . . underwear. I’m no neat freak, but I do have places for everything. And my panties and bras had been moved—reversed in the drawer—as if someone had taken them out and put them back, folded a way I never fold them. And one pair of panties was missing.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone about this?”

  “I don’t know. It only happened once, and I thought maybe I was imagining it. I’d just done a load of laundry the day before; I figured it was possible I’d left the panties in the machine and maybe I had put my stuff back differently—absentminded. I mean, I’m not the kind of person to imagine the worst. But now I realize someone must have been in my place.”

  She grabbed my arm. “Maybe that’s why I started having the dream again. Because I felt threatened. I don’t know; sometimes I think I am imagining everything. But I’m not crazy.”

  I patted her shoulder and she let go of my arm.

  “Did Ken really save me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He seems nice.”

  “Another thing I’m worried about is, where’s Puck? Embrey’s giving me some story about his calling her from New Mexico, but that makes no sense.”

  “He called Ken from there, too.”

  She took hold of my arm again, harder. “Then why hasn’t he called me?”

  I was silent.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” she said.

  “He told both Dr. Embrey and Ken that he was on some kind of business trip. He had a dinner date with Ken a couple of nights ago but didn’t show up. T
hat’s how Ken came to save you. He was looking for Puck at your place because Puck told him you were close.”

  “We are. . . . Puck never told me about any dinner date.”

  “It was a trial balloon the two of them had worked out, to see how they’d get along. If they did, they were going to get you involved.”

  “Protecting me? Typical.” She stood up and yanked her hair loose. “Puck’s always trying to protect me, even though—so why hasn’t he called?”

  “Even though what?”

  Hesitation. “Even though he’s not the toughest guy in the world himself.”

  “What does he do for a living?”

  Another pause. “Different things, over the years.”

  She turned around, brown eyes hot. “Right now, he’s not doing anything. He has three years of college with a major in history. Try to find something decent with that. Well, I’m sure he’ll be back soon and we’ll straighten it out. I’ve got lots of things to straighten out. Thank God I’m getting out soon.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  I left the hospital parking lot and got onto the freeway. I agreed with Embrey: Lucy really believed she hadn’t tried to kill herself.

  Had the walk to the oven occurred during sleepwalking?

  Not impossible, I supposed. For some people, slumber could be a shadow life. Some sleepwalkers denied walking; lots of snorers claimed they were silent. I’d seen patients experience shrieking night terrors only to wake up the next morning claiming they’d had sweet dreams. The man who’d tried to strangle his wife in his sleep refused to believe it until confronted by videotape.

  And Lucy did have a history of fractured sleep.

  So maybe it all boiled down to a physiological quirk.

  But what of her newly expressed belief that someone had stolen her underwear?

  The hang-up calls . . . delusional thinking?

  Embrey had found no psychosis or major personality disorder, and neither had I.

  Both of us wanting to believe the best?

  Even Milo had put aside his cop cynicism and gotten more involved with her than anyone he’d met on the job before.

  I remembered his guilt as he aired his doubts about her credibility.

  My quick response that she was needy, rather than manipulative.

  I thought about the way she’d just gotten me to promise not to collude in locking her up.

  My gut was telling me she was sincere, but was that worth as much as I wanted to believe?

  Should I have tried to convince her to stick with Embrey?

  Maybe Embrey could handle that on her own.

  “Who knows, maybe I don’t even need a therapist.”

  Had I let that go by too easily?

  Should haves, could haves. . . .

  Tomorrow night she’d sleep in her own bed.

  I hoped I hadn’t made a terrible call.

  I hoped freedom wouldn’t kill her.

  Milo phoned the next day, just after noon, and I recounted my visit to Woodbridge and Lucy’s feelings about Wendy Embrey.

  “What’s Embrey like?”

  “Personable, bright, motivated.”

  “But she ain’t you.”

  “I’m not sure Lucy’ll want me either. Last night she made noises about dropping out of therapy completely. A moment later, she’s telling me she’s scared someone’s out to get her.”

  I told him about the underwear.

  “All of a sudden, she remembers this?”

  “She passed it off as absentmindedness, same way she dismissed the phone calls as technical problems. Like I said, she’s not one to play victim. Has a hard time being dependent. She talks about her brother, Peter, as being her sole protector, but he’s not exactly coming through. Out of town on urgent business, even though he hasn’t worked for years. And he took the time to phone Ken and Embrey but not Lucy.”

  “Avoiding her?”

  “Looks like it. Lucy insists they’re close, but he’s an odd one. I met him once when he came with her to a session. Refused to come in and sat in the car the whole time. Kind of withdrawn.”

  “Withdrawn as in schizo?”

  “It was only a brief encounter and I didn’t pick up anything bizarre—more like intensely shy. He was protective enough to shield her from meeting Ken right away, but when I asked Lucy what he did for a living she got very defensive and started making excuses for his being unemployed. As if she’s used to protecting him. Now that she’s in crisis, his failing to come through for her could be traumatic. Another abandonment’s the last thing she needs.”

  “Should I visit her?”

  “Embrey suggested you take a low profile for now, and I agree.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You don’t volunteer, but if she approaches you, don’t turn her away.”

  “When’s she getting out?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “All right, you’re the doctors. . . . Anyway, what I was calling about is I talked to Malibu Sheriffs and they faxed me—if you’re still interested in the dream.”

  “One way or the other, it’s relevant to Lucy’s mental state.”

  “Well, nothing juicy. No homicides or attempted homicides of females in the entire beach area from June to November of that year. And of the eight rapes they’ve got, seven were up in Oxnard, no victim matches to the long-haired girl. Two of them were probable domestics—middle-aged women—two were little kids, and the other three were Mexican bar scenes with hookers, all charges dropped. The eighth one was Malibu, but nowhere near Topanga. Ranch up in Decker Canyon, some cowboys getting drunk and assaulting a lady horse groom.”

  “Did the lady have long hair?”

  “The lady was fifty-five, two hundred pounds and gray-haired. No Topanga missing females, either, during that time span. They did send me paper on four missing persons cases in the area that never got closed, but once again they were all north, Oxnard and Malibu. Given the flavor of the times—flower children hitchhiking—four doesn’t seem like a lot.”

  “Do any of the four match the girl in the dream?”

  “I didn’t really study them, Alex. Hold on, let me pull them out. . . . Number one is Jessica Martina Gallegos, Oxnard. Sixteen years old, high school sophomore, black hair, brown eyes, five one, hundred and fifty—doesn’t sound long and leggy to me—last seen waiting for a bus at ten P.M. in front of the Teatro Carnival on Oxnard Boulevard. The pictures came through the fax pretty grainy, but I can see enough to tell you she doesn’t have long flowing hair. Short and curly and light with dark roots.

  “Number two, Iris Mae Jenrette, thirty-two, five-four, one-ten, blond and green, last seen at the Beachrider Motel, Point Dume. . . . Apparently this one was out from Idaho on a honeymoon, had a fight with hubby, took the car, and split, didn’t come home. . . . Long hair, but it’s ultra-platinum and teased. Want the other two?”

  “Why not.”

  “Karen Denise Best, nineteen, five-seven, one-seventeen, blond and blue. . . . Waitress at The Sand Dollar Restaurant in Paradise Cove, last seen working the dinner shift . . . reported missing by parents from New Bedford, Mass.; they didn’t get their weekly phone call. . . .

  And number four, Christine no-middle-name Faylen, also nineteen, five-five, one-twenty, brown and brown, freshman at Colorado State . . . another tourist, traveling with two friends, staying at a rented place in Venice. Says here she went for a Coke on the beach at Zuma and didn’t return to her buddies. Both of those have long straight hair, but only Faylen’s is dark.”

  “Five-five, one-twenty,” I said. “Slender. She could be leggy. And the circumstances are interesting. Going for a drink in broad daylight and not coming back?”

  “And what? She ends up in Topanga, ten, fifteen miles away, at a party? For all we know, she showed up the next day and the friends never bothered to let the sheriff know. Missing persons cases are like that. And no red flags on any of these. My vote is Lucy never witnessed any crime, Alex. Either she saw peopl
e having sex, and misconstrued it, or Daddy and/or Scumbag Trafficant did something to her. Or the whole thing’s total fantasy.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “But?”

  “But what?”

  “There’s a “but’ in your voice.”

  “Would you mind if I did a little follow-up?”

  “What kind of follow-up?”

  “Calling the families of the four missing girls. Especially Faylen.”

  “Why, Alex?”

  “To eliminate as many variables as possible for whoever ends up doing therapy with Lucy. For Lucy herself. She’s sounding more and more confused. The clearer the information we have, the more likely we are to get close to the truth.”

  “What if no one ends up doing therapy with Lucy? You said she wanted to drop out.”

  “Then I wasted a few phone calls. Let’s say she ends up on your doorstep. Wouldn’t you want to know as much as possible if she starts convincing herself she witnessed a murder?”

  “Guess so. . . . Okay, here’re the numbers, I hope for your sake all of them did show up. Twenty-one years of grief ain’t a pleasant thing to dig up.”

  I’d copied down:

  Jessica Gallegos. Last Seen: 7/2. Parents, M/M Ernesto Gallegos.

  Iris Jenrette. 7/29. Husband, James Jenrette.

  Karen Best. 8/14. Parents, M/M Sherrell Best.

  Christine Faylen. 8/21. Shelley Anne Daniels, Lisa Joanne Constantino. Parents, M/M David Faylen.

  I sat for a long time trying to figure out how to cushion the shock of each call.

  Then I punched buttons.

  The Gallegos home number was now Our Lady of Mercy Thrift Shop. The Ventura/Oxnard directory listed a couple of dozen Gallegoses, none of them Ernesto or Jessica. The high school student would be close to forty now, maybe married, maybe with kids of her own. . . .

  I turned to the next number. Iris Jenrette. Boise. A woman answered.

  “Is James Jenrette there?”

  “He’s at work. Who’s this?”

  “I’m calling about some information he requested on homeowner’s insurance.”

  “He never mentioned anything about that. We’re already insured up the hilt.”