by T. E. Woods
“She did,” Robbie said. “Said maybe you’re getting over the fact your son married an immigrant.”
Robbie’s dreams of being a trench-coated foreign correspondent climbing the ranks to CNN’s Paris Bureau Chief were thwarted when a semester abroad left him too homesick for an expatriot’s life. So he begged the lovely woman he’d fallen in love with to follow him home.
“Hey, only way a mope like you gets a good looking French woman is she’s looking for a green card. Count your lucky stars.” Mort smiled at the mention of his beloved daughter-in-law. “What’s new with you? That Halloway story shaping up? I want to see you with a Pulitzer before I’m drooling in the home.”
“That’s why I’m calling. Mind if I poke around in that detective head of yours?”
Mort pulled out a stool and took a seat at the breakfast counter. “You still leaning toward something more nefarious than a romp-in-the-sack turned ugly?”
Robbie blew out a long sigh. “Every bone in my body tells me it was a hit, Dad. I’ve learned Halloway loved hired help. I’ve spoken to a few of his favorites. They tell me he wasn’t into anything kinky. Wham, bam, get-off-me, ma’am. That was his style. And there’s still no lead on that hooker. A city that small, all the pros know each other. No one knew her. I’ve tried to track her down from her registration. Name’s Anna Galleta Salada. Credit card’s legit. Opened six years ago and only used once: to book her room where Halloway died. Paid in full with a wire transfer from a numbered account in the Caymans. Hasn’t been used since.”
Mort shifted his weight. “I don’t know many hookers with offshore accounts. You pull the original credit application? Gotta be a job or phone number. Social security.”
“I thought I’d be one step ahead of you.” Mort could hear his son smile all the way from Denver. “I owe someone big time, but, yeah. I got a look at the original application. Connects with a P.O. Box in Ohio. Secured with a five thousand dollar escrow account. No need to verify employment. Social security number matches up with someone named Sela O’Brian.”
“And since you’re not telling me that Sela O’Brian turned out to be Anna What’s-her-name, my hunch is Sela’s dead.” Mort reached for the pen and paper Edie always kept on the counter by the phone.
Robbie was quiet for a moment. “Died sixteen years ago. Charleston, South Carolina. Drowned at her seventeenth birthday party. How the hell did you know that?”
“Easiest way to get a phony birth certificate is to request it in the name of someone who won’t find out. Dead people are your best bet. Get the birth certificate, you have easy access to a social. Simplest form of identity theft. Comb the obituary archive for a name and you’re off to the races.” Mort tapped the pen to the tablet. “You’re looking for someone in her early to mid-thirties. Age of the social should match up close enough to pass eye inspection. What was the hooker’s name again?”
“Anna Galleta Salada. S-A-L-A-D-A.” Robbie sounded excited. “You think I’m on to something, Dad?”
“Two and two usually add up to four, Robbie.” Mort took another sip of coffee. “Let me see what I can find out on my end, huh? I got some digging I need to do on another front, might as well go for a two-fer.”
“I appreciate it.” Robbie’s voice softened. “Everything else okay?”
“Everything’s fine. You worried about me or something?”
“You’re my dad,” Robbie said. “It’s my job to worry about you. I’ll give your love to the girls. Tell ‘em Papa’s whipping those dollhouses into shape.”
Mort said goodbye, hung up the phone, and wondered what Allie worried about.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Nancy Tessler had been an attending physician at Black Hills’ ICU for nine years and knew how to recap a patient’s situation in five sentences or less. Once Lydia introduced herself as a psychologist with admitting privileges, the seasoned veteran got right to the point.
“Still unconscious. Still intubated. Pulse and blood pressure erratic. Reflexes intact but sluggish. Body temperature relatively stabilized. We’ll know more when she wakes up.”
Lydia searched her face for any sign of encouragement. “When do you anticipate that will be?”
“No way of telling.” Dr. Tessler’s shifted from her clinical voice. “I heard she hung herself on your porch.”
Lydia nodded.
“Tough break. Go see her. Couldn’t hurt. Might help. I’ll call you if there’s any change.”
Lydia thanked her, left her contact information, and headed toward Bay 13.
She was surprised to see someone sitting beside Savannah’s bed. A rumpled man with thinning brown hair rested his head against Savannah’s leg while he caressed her hand. Lydia heard him cooing her name, urging her to wake up. Savannah was pale and small on a high bed surrounded by blinking and beeping monitors. Her delicate beauty graced the starched white pillowcase despite the waxy stillness of her face and the garish bruise across her neck. Lydia tapped on the open glass door and the man snapped his head in her direction. His middle-aged face was blotched and puffy. He wiped his tears with both hands and stared at her.
She stepped closer to the bed. “I’m Dr. Corriger.”
The man shoved his chair back and strained himself upright. Lydia imagined he’d been locked in that uncomfortable position for hours. He wiped both hands on his slacks before extending his right one.
“I’m Jerry Childress, Dr. Corriger.” His voice was weak. He cleared his throat and gained volume. “Savannah speaks highly of you. Thanks for coming.”
Lydia shook his hand. “You know me?”
“From Savannah.” His voice weakened. “She said she was counting on you to fix her.” He dropped his head. It was several seconds before he composed himself enough to continue. “I only wish you could have.”
“I’m so sorry to meet you under these circumstances, Mr. Childress.” Lydia nodded toward Savannah. “How is she?”
He lowered his eyes before turning toward the bed. “No change. I try to tell myself she’s just sleeping.” He reached for Savannah’s hand, pulled his chair back, and resumed his vigil.
Lydia stepped to the bottom of the bed and placed a hand on Savannah’s blanketed foot. “How do you know Savannah, Mr. Childress?”
He sat up and directed his red-rimmed eyes toward Lydia, never letting go of Savannah’s unresponsive hand. “I’m her fiance, Dr. Corriger.” He blinked several times and turned back toward Savannah. “At least that’s how I think of myself. I’ve asked her, no, begged her, to marry me dozens of times. She hasn’t said ‘yes’ yet, but she hasn’t turned me down, either.”
Lydia’s brows shot up. Savannah never mentioned a boyfriend, let alone a fiance. She always described men in distant and disparaging terms. “How long have you been together?”
Childress looked at her and Lydia felt an unease she couldn’t explain. He was not unattractive, but his demeanor suggested he was accustomed to blending in with the crowd. Lydia got the impression he was a man familiar with the power of anonymity. His nose was finely chiseled but his cheeks were soft and fleshy. His eyes were a nondescript brown. His complexion bore the ashy pale of someone who seldom saw daylight. “Since August. Not long, I know.” He smiled and a spark of gentility flickered. He squeezed Savannah’s hand. “I’ve waited my entire life for someone to love. I can’t lose her.”
Lydia pulled a small chair away from the wall and sat. “How did you two meet?”
He wiped another tear away. “I know what you’re thinking, Doctor.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “You’re wondering how a guy like me gets a woman like her.” Childress smiled again. “I appreciate your curiosity. But we are in love. It may not have started out that way, but it’s true.”
“How did it start out, Mr. Childress?”
He stroked Savannah’s limp hand. “You know how Savannah makes her living, don’t you?” He bit his lower lip. “ Made her living. She’s left that line of work.�
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Lydia weighed her response. She had only Childress’ word he was who he said he was. “You met her through work?”
He looked outside the room to see who might overhear, scooted his chair closer to Lydia, and lowered his voice. “You know people hired her for special projects. Well, I was one of those.” He cast a loving glance back to the disturbingly still form in the bed. “I was her last assignment. This thing has gotten completely out of hand.”
“How so, Mr. Childress?” Lydia wanted to keep him talking. She needed to learn more about Savannah, her work, and what drove her to hang herself.
“If you’re not going to call me Jerry you might as well get it correct.” He sat close enough for Lydia to see his perfectly straight teeth. “It’s Dr. Childress. I’m with the university. Interim Chair of Neuroscience.”
Lydia willed her breath to remain steady. She hoped Childress missed her blink of surprise.
“I imagine you and Savannah talked about Fred Bastian.” he said.
“If Savannah has told you I’m her psychologist, Dr. Childress, and I’m not saying I am, then you must know I can’t say a word about what we may or may not have discussed.”
He gave her another timid smile. “I can see why Savannah is impressed with you. But I can assure you, we have no secrets from one another.”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss.” Lydia leaned back and crossed her legs. “But I can listen to whatever you’d like to tell me.”
Childress nodded his understanding. “You’ve heard of Fred Bastian, certainly?”
Lydia held her voice low. “I’ve read the news accounts of his recent death.” She watched him, hoping to catch a reaction to her mention of Bastian’s demise.
His bloodshot eyes narrowed. “He was a bastard, Dr. Corriger. A lot of people are glad he’s gone.” Childress looked past Lydia’s shoulder, again assuring their conversation wasn’t overheard. “Name a corruption and Bastian was involved.”
“I’ve read about his research. Something about emotions.”
“Yes,” he said. “His research is quite brilliant. But don’t for a moment assume he was seeking answers to benefit humanity. Bastian’s work existed for one reason only: to propel the fame of Fred Bastian. Every move he made was calculated to bring him a step closer to that Stockholm stage.”
“No offense,” she said. “But it’s long been my impression that having an overblown ego is a basic job requirement for success at Bastian’s level.”
Childress shook his head. “There’s overblown and there’s dangerous. Bastian was a tyrant. He ran the department as his personal fiefdom. I’ve seen him take great glee in destroying careers of ethical and dedicated researchers. One carefully worded comment to the right ear at a conference cocktail party and young scientists looking for their first faculty job are suddenly unable to land an interview. A single phone call to one of his cronies at NIH could assure that someone’s grant application is rejected before reaching review.”
Lydia needed to hear more. “Couldn’t that be said of chairmen at any number of universities?”
She watched his tear-stained face turn cold. “Not like Bastian. His abuse of office knew no bounds. Grant money funneled into his personal accounts. Staff fired on a whim. Even…” Childress dropped his head.
“Even what?”
Childress paled. “Neuroscience was a particularly difficult department for women, Dr. Corriger. Secretaries, junior faculty, graduate students. Bastian viewed sexual access as one of the perks of his position.”
“But wasn’t he chairman for years?”
Childress nodded. “Nineteen to be exact. That’s unheard of in academia. Typically someone serves four or five years before moving on to a higher administrative post.”
“Why’d he stay?”
“No respectable department would have him. Besides, Bastian never applied to any higher position. He liked his power. Pure and simple.” Lydia could almost hear his teeth grinding. “Over the years Bastian built the perfect staff of sycophants and stooges. Insecure fools too frightened to do anything but lick his boots.” He looked Lydia square in the eye. “The faculty votes biannually for chairman. Ballots go out named and numbered. Bastian reviews the votes as they come in. Anyone not turning in a ballot is reminded by his hatchet man to make their selection. Anyone supporting a candidate other than Bastian is targeted. A reason for termination is always found before the next election.”
Childress pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his nose. “As a result, the university president got a 100 % endorsement to keep Bastian as chairman. President Thornton would hold him up as a shining example of how to cultivate and maintain faculty loyalty.”
Lydia let Childress’ comments sink in. They were consistent with what Wally had told her about Bastian’s love of obedience and adoration. She wondered if Childress knew about the secret lab Bastian kept off-campus or his butchering of Ortoo.
“In all these years, no one tried to stop him?”
“In the beginning, certainly.” Childress hung his head again. “But Bastian’s hatchet man was charged with keeping the faculty in line. Methods didn’t matter. If complaining professors could be co-opted with sabbatical or research funding, Bastian got it for them. If that didn’t work, well, let’s just say the environment would become hostile enough that they’d either transfer or be fired. Within a few years he had the faculty he wanted. A group of weak-willed children terrified of upsetting daddy.”
“I’m sorry.” Lydia crossed her arms and leaned back. “I can’t see a bunch of Ph. D.’s allowing this.”
He raised his head to look at her. “That may be because you don’t understand how effective Bastian’s hatchet man was.”
“And you do?”
Childress turned to look at Savannah, motionless on the bed. Lydia watched his face soften as he stared at the woman he clearly adored; the whirr of the respirator and the bleeps of the heart monitor the only sound. In time he turned his tear-stained face back to Lydia.
“I’m sorry to say…”. He cleared his throat and gained volume. “I’m sorry to say I do. I was Bastian’s man. It was my job to make sure he could do whatever the hell he pleased.” He hung his head and whispered. “And I was frightfully good at my job.”
Lydia felt a pang of pity that instantly morphed into disgust. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the soft academician cry so hard his shoulders shook.
“Now he’s dead,” she said. “And you’re Interim Chairman. New boss same as the old boss?”
Childress snapped his head up. “No.” He looked over at Savannah. “Not now. Not with her. I want to be a man she can be proud of.”
“You still haven’t told me Savannah’s connection to all this. How you two met”
He sighed and struggled to stand beside his beloved. “It’s a tale I hoped would have a happy ending.” He stroked Savannah’s cheek and spoke to the comatose patient. “We were on our way, weren’t we, girl?” He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “For a while Bastian and I thought we had the faculty right where we needed them. Rubber stamps to anything he proposed. Turning their collective blind eye to whatever sin he committed.” He brushed a raven lock from Savannah’s ghostly brow. “Bastian’s abuse worsened with each acquiescence. Eventually a group of three faculty members found their courage and banded together. Bastian couldn’t be voted out until the next biennial vote, of course, but they devised a plan to render him powerless. It was their hope President Thornton would then investigate. They wanted to rescue the department.” He smoothed a hand over the hospital blankets. “And my sweet Savannah was the key to the entire coup d’etat.”
“I’m listening.” Lydia forced herself to remember it was the adult Savannah he was talking about. The innocent little Greta she’d rescued all those years ago was gone.
“The group needed to approach the rest of the faculty.” He stared down at his own hands. “They knew I was their roadblock. I monitored gossip. I watched who was having
coffee with whom. Who attended whose child’s baptism or bar mitzvah. My misguided loyalty to Bastian was legendary. They knew if they came to me I’d have had the three of them castrated on the spot. Somehow they learned about Savannah’s special services.”
Lydia was learning more about Savannah than she’d ever shared during appointments. If there was any hope of helping her, and saving herself, she needed to hear more. “What services did she offer?”
His attention was on Savannah as he spoke. “She, shall we say, distracted me. It was all orchestrated, of course, but to me it seemed the romantic miracle I’d always prayed would happen. I have no illusions, Dr. Corriger. I’m a plain man with the physique of a lazy academic. Sex was a solitary act. Intimate connection with a woman something I could only fantasize about.” He chuckled. “Maybe that’s why I was so horrible to others.”
Lydia ignored Childress’ self-pity. She needed more about Savannah’s involvement with the Bastian affair and if that involvement extended to shooting Wally Buchner before stabbing a note into his chest. She needed to know if Savannah could lead her to the voice behind the synthesizer who now threatened her existence.
“How did it begin?” she asked.
He traced a finger down Savannah’s motionless face, careful not to disturb the breathing tube lodged in her neck. “She was seated next to me at a faculty recital. Tchaikovsky’s First. Is there a more romantic concerto in the world?” He closed his eyes, lost in the memory. “I noticed her, of course. She was dressed in the subtlest of beige. Her black hair gleaming in contrast. Her skin glowing.” He tossed an anxious glance toward Lydia before returning his attention to his fallen angel. “I tried to concentrate on the music. Would I sound too much like a school boy to say I spent most of the recital pretending she was my date?” He shook his head clear. “I even looked around the room to see who might see me seated next to such a goddess.”
Childress sat again in the chair next to the bed. “Too soon applause signaled both the recital and my fantasy were over. I stole one last glance her way. A pearl of a tear slid down her cheek. She sat there as others gathered their things to leave. I sat with her. The room emptied and still we sat. Two strangers. Together. Sharing something. Savannah said not one word.