by Sarah Lovett
My dearest Em,
I hope this letter finds you in excellent health. It is always an extreme delight to read the fine literature, such as the magazines, you send me. Sister Em, your thoughts are marked by a worldly outlook, an abundance of faith. I only pray that my science will put the world at your doorstep. One is impressed by the frenzied dance of organisms within their natural environment. If we increase our knowledge of biology, ecology, and Supreme Responsibility, we will discover the Glory and the Truth and the Perfection of God's Architecture. The Holy Spirit of science is at work, even as you sleep. This is my mission. I need not tell you when this happens. The New Mexican will carry the story.
Your devoted brother
The letter was dated December 20, and it was the most recent. Rosie skimmed through the others. There were nine total dating back through the last year. The message in every one was similar but the heat and passion of delivery intensified like a fever when the letters were arranged chronologically.
Rosie looked at the woman's worried, frowning face and said, "I'm very glad you brought these to my attention. Do you have any idea what his 'mission' might be?"
She shook her head solemnly.
"Can I keep these for now?"
Emma seemed to sink even deeper in the folds of her coat as she nodded. "I know . . ." She hesitated, reached toward the Styrofoam cup with its tepid contents, and then returned her hand to her lap. "My brother is a gentle man, Rosie. He would never do harm to anyone."
Rosie enjoyed the irony of the description. She glanced at the packet of letters, fingered the red twine that bound them, and returned her gaze to Emma.
"Why did you come?" Rosie asked softly.
Emma looked down at her handbag and swallowed as if her throat hurt. She couldn't bring herself to mention the $3,500—folded in brown paper—that had arrived in her mailbox. Her brother had told her it was from a friend, an Army debt finally repaid. Emma didn't believe him, but the money was so helpful. It would allow her to finally make a pilgrimage to India. For almost thirty years, she'd dreamt of visiting the erotic temples of India. She said, "Mildred Spoon always tells me what her son tells her."
Rosie raised her eyebrows searching her memory for clues. She had no idea who Mildred Spoon or her son were.
As if reading her thoughts, Emma added, "Joseph Spoon's mother. Well, they call him 'Greasy' Spoon, he works in the kitchen, I think. Mildred Spoon?"
"Ahhh." Rosie nodded with understanding.
"She's very old, older than me, and I visit her because she has no one else and I'm good with old people."
Comprehension was dawning, but Rosie kept her face neutral. "Yes," she said.
"Mrs. Spoon says that Greasy thirds—" She paused to look left and right as if some eavesdropper previously undetected might be hiding behind file cabinets or paintings. "He thinks my brother is doing some things that aren't healthy, and besides, Greasy says there's no more room." Emma rushed through the last sentence breathlessly.
"Room?"
"That's what she said he said." Emma stood with effort and her small white hand emerged from her coat sleeve to shake Rosie's hand. "I know you'll help him. You're a kind woman." As she left, Emma said, "I know you'll make everything okay."
Alone, Rosie sat back in her chair and touched the tips of her polished nails together. She shook her head; at first glance, Emma's brother made a very unlikely jackal, but his name had been highlighted in the files that Sylvia had given her at the gym. He was a Vietnam vet. He could easily have been a soldier at My Lai, maybe even a medic. He'd gotten a medical discharge for psychiatric reasons. Damn those Army records . . .
Acting on the tip from Bubba as well as advice from Colonel Gonzales, Rosie had placed a phone call to the Department of the Army at the Pentagon. Sorry, ma'am, but we can't even talk about this unless we have your request in writing. So Rosie had sent a letter Special Delivery. (Why not just send it by camel?) Sorry, ma'am, but there is no set roster of Charlie Company because companies aren't stable things—people come and go. So then, Rosie had talked to a friend who also happened to be a congressman, and he had called the Pentagon to make the request. They said, Fine, but it's going to take a few months.
It was Colonel Gonzales who had saved the day. He'd suggested she call an old buddy of his: the journalist who had written a book on the My Lai incident. The writer had agreed to copy the roster from his files and send it by Federal Express.
Rosie gnawed a fingernail. Even if she got confirmation on her man, she'd need proof. Bobby Jack Hall's missing arm had turned up tucked behind pipes in the wall of the warehouse. The penitentiary investigator was the only person who didn't think gang members had hidden it there.
She had the very queer feeling that the puzzle of the jackal was much more complex than she'd ever imagined. She grunted and tore off a sliver of red polished nail. Bubba had linked Jeff Anderson to the jackal; and now, Matt had seen C.O. Anderson visiting Duke Watson.
She picked up the phone and called the shift commander. He told her that Jeff Anderson was due at work at 3:00 P.M.
Rosie said, "No, don't give him a message. I'll find him myself this afternoon."
There was something else on Rosie's mind: her brief exchange with Sylvia. She knew her friend was under horrible emotional stress; she'd probably been in shock this morning. Rosie blamed herself for not forcing Sylvia to see a doctor immediately. For the last hour, she'd been unable to reach her by phone.
She had other reasons to be worried; nothing relieved the sense that she wasn't getting all the information she needed from Warden Cozy. Doubtless there was some smooth political maneuver going on that had everything to do with suppressed information.
MATT EXAMINED THE water-stained pattern on the lime-green hospital walls for the umpteenth time. A jazz quartet had taken a gig in his brain and the drummer was on a roll. At intervals, the pain forced him to shut everything down, hold his breath, and wait until he could exist again. But little by little, the periods without pain were becoming longer.
He tasted blood in his mouth and lifted a tentative hand to his nose. All he could feel was misshapen mush. Numb. Not familiar. He sighed. Broken for the third time.
They'd given him drugs, at first just codeine. The I.V. currently dripped Valium into one vein. Through the haze of chemicals, he should be drifting into never-never land.
But he couldn't relax. Between Coltrane jazz riffs, something tugged his brain for attention. The knowledge that Sylvia was in danger made his skin crawl. He had to do something. He'd asked to see her, but they wouldn't let him have visitors until tomorrow. St. Vincent's was more like a prison than a hospital.
Matt raised his head and took several deep breaths before the knife pains in his neck convinced him to ease himself back on the pillow. But it was a beginning.
He tried again a few minutes later. This time, he made it all the way to his elbows.
RAPHAEL'S SILVER CLOUD was deserted except for the bartender and two young women playing a video game. Sylvia was sure they were both too young to be in the bar. She wondered once again why Belle Nash, Lily's sister, had selected this spot for their meeting. Thirty miles south of Santa Fe, the roadside bar was a watering hole for road crews, motorists with car trouble, and thirsty refugees from nearby—and dry—Pueblo land.
Roughly two hours ago, Sylvia had decided she had nothing to lose from a phone call to Belle Nash. Nash had answered after two rings. When Sylvia identified herself and said, "I have some things to ask you about your sister's death," Belle Nash had simply named the place and time for a meeting.
The video game bleeped, and bells and zingers went off while the girls exclaimed loudly. The large round clock showed 2:13 and Sylvia began to think that Belle Nash had never had any intention of meeting her.
The bartender swirled his rag within inches of Sylvia's orange juice. She lifted the glass and he nodded.
"Noisy," he said, raising his eyebrows in the general direction of the girls.
As Sylvia followed his cue, a woman walked through the door. She stopped a moment to adjust her eyes to dim light, and then she walked slowly in Sylvia's direction. It was Belle Nash.
"Didn't recognize me, eh?" Nash slid onto the stool next to Sylvia and snorted. "When you came to see Duke, that wasn't one of my better days."
"What can I get you?" The bartender let his eyes linger on the cleavage visible above Belle's low-cut sweater.
"Double bourbon, neat," Belle Nash said.
"You want another OJ?" the bartender asked Sylvia.
"Fine." Sylvia tried to guess the other woman's age. She must be close to fifty, and she had good genes. Her bones were finely chiseled, and her skin was firm and bronzed.
Belle Nash pulled a long cigarette from her purse, lit it, and inhaled. She screwed up her eyes against the acrid smoke and squinted at Sylvia. "After you came to the house, I got curious about you."
Nash waved her cigarette up and down in the direction of Sylvia's body. "You don't look like any of the shrinks I've seen—the short men in suits. You've got tits."
Belle grabbed the glass of golden brown liquid the bartender had just delivered. The red polish on her fingernails was chipped. After she swallowed half the drink, she shot Sylvia a look and said, "You called me, remember?"
"Yes." Sylvia took a sip of her orange juice and let the silence lengthen. When she looked up, Belle Nash was watching her. Sylvia tried a wry smile and said, "Could I bum a cigarette?"
Belle Nash kept her eyes on Sylvia for another ten seconds and then she nodded. She pulled a Benson & Hedges Gold from her purse and flicked the pack twice. A single cigarette nosed its way out. Sylvia took it and drew in smoke when Belle Nash held up her lighter.
Sylvia's voice was soft and husky from smoke. "What was Lily like? I've tried to imagine her . . ."
Belle's sharp features seemed to darken for an instant but her suspicion was quickly replaced by other, more powerful emotions: sadness, affection, yearning.
"She was very special. When we were young, I always thought she was a princess or some exotic species of flower. It seemed like we weren't related. For my parents, she was their daughter, I was—" Belle shook her head and took a long drag on her cigarette. She looked directly at Sylvia for a moment. "Let's just say I wasn't the perfect daughter and Lily was."
Sylvia tapped her cigarette against the tin ashtray the bartender had set on the bar. She let herself absorb the other woman's words. An image came to her of two young girls playing in a field near an old cottonwood. The younger girl sat on a wooden plank and with her hands she gripped the thick ropes that anchored her to the tree as she flew. She was pale, dark-haired, and delicate. She had a liquid laugh.
The older girl stood behind the swing and pushed her sister higher and higher. She was sturdy with tawny skin and golden hair, and she was firmly rooted on the ground. With each arc of the swing, the younger girl screamed and the sound of her voice was a blend of delicious fear and wild abandon.
Sylvia didn't know where the image had come from, and she let it dissipate. Belle Nash was eyeing her curiously.
"You've seen Lily's picture?" Belle asked.
Sylvia nodded. "On the mantel."
Belle took another breath and inhaled smoke and oxygen. "She was beautiful wasn't she? Why do you want to know about her?"
Sylvia rested her chin on her hand and considered her response. She was treading into a gray area as far as psychologist/client confidentiality issues were concerned; but the truth seemed like her only option. "I evaluated her son."
"Luke is dead."
"I still have questions."
Belle Nash smiled at her cigarette. "You have a way of not telling the truth, Doc." She took another drag on the cigarette and her skin blanched around her lips. "You withhold . . . isn't that what shrinks call it? Withholding?"
Sylvia placed both palms flat on the bar. "Lucas invaded my life . . . from the first moment I met him, he wanted something from me." She looked at Belle. "The day before he died, he asked to see me. We met briefly."
"What did he want?" Belle asked.
Sylvia shrugged. "I think he wanted my help . . . he wanted to solve a puzzle." She set her smoldering cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. "Something about his past. It had to do with his mother's death."
Belle signaled the bartender for another round. Her eyes settled on the myriad signs hung over the bar; nonsense slogans and silly rhymes that made sense when you were drunk. She tapped her finger against the glossy wood of the bar top.
The bartender set a fresh bourbon in front of her. He didn't touch her first drink; there was still a quarter inch of liquid in the bottom.
"It was a happy marriage at first." Belle drank, then continued. "They were in love. Duke gave her security, someone to depend on, he made the decisions for her. Lily gave him social connections. Believe it or not, our family was prominent. We had money in those days."
Sylvia remembered her cigarette burning in the ashtray. It was down to a half inch of tobacco and then filter. She took a tentative drag.
"Later on, the marriage soured; he had some affairs, and she . . ." Belle attempted to smile and failed. Her eyelashes quivered suddenly. She stopped their motion with her fingertips. "In her own way, Lily loved her husband. But when Luke was born, she worshipped him. Luke was her firstborn, and the moment she laid eyes on him, he owned her soul. So then Duke spent more time with other women, and Lily turned bitter. It got so she was stoned all the time . . . vodka, then Valium, then more vodka . . . more pills. It was bad for Duke's political career and bad for his family. Sometimes Duke took the kids away from the house so they wouldn't see her like that."
"Is that what happened the night of her death?"
Belle frowned. "They were at the housekeeper's."
Not true, Sylvia thought. According to Ramona, only Billy had spent the night. She didn't want to interrupt Belle's narrative. "And Duke?"
"He was in Denver." Belle Nash stayed still as a tree.
The noise level in the bar increased when a group of construction workers entered and found a table close to the door.
Sylvia said, "I know that's not how it was, Belle."
Nash didn't put up a fight. She set her glass down and took a tired breath. "He was in Albuquerque with another woman that night."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm the other woman." After several moments, Belle continued in a soft voice. "I loved my sister, but I didn't understand her. She let people take her life from her and she wouldn't fight back."
The jukebox blared suddenly and Tammy Wynette sang "Stand By Your Man." Belle Nash mouthed the words, her face twisted with irony.
Sylvia's eyes burned and she closed them for a moment. She said, "You were always the other woman, weren't you?"
"Yes. I loved him." For an instant, she looked ashamed. "He was such a bastard in so many ways . . . Duke demanded perfection. He was strict with the boys like they were in the Army instead of just kids. And he got meaner because of Luke's fits." Belle sighed. "Luke's temper was awful. He'd scream at Lily—he always took his anger out on her. He turned beet red . . . she used to lock him out of her room."
"How old was he?"
"Four, five, six. It seemed like he had them every few weeks."
"What about Billy? Healthy?"
Belle smiled suddenly. "Billy-bo was always healthy."
Sylvia stared at the melting ice in her glass.
Belle shook a second cigarette from her pack and stabbed it against the bar. On impact, the cigarette collapsed in the middle, tobacco scattering from the paper wound. Nash crumpled the cigarette pack in her fist. "I'm here because of Queeny. She's my daughter."
Sylvia found that she wasn't surprised. Unconsciously, she'd made the connection between mother and daughter.
Belle's hands trembled around the glass. "I've seen them destroyed . . . first Lily, now Luke, and Billy in his own way. The evil must come from Duke . . . where e
lse could it come from?" A dry sob escaped her throat "I'm afraid for my girl. But I'm not strong enough to stop him."
She looked at Sylvia and her large eyes implored. "You work with darkness, don't you? You work with evil people, so you know. Eventually, they destroy everything they touch."
SYLVIA WASN'T READY to face anyone so she drove to her office and parked under a street lamp. She'd called the hospital from a pay phone, but the switchboard cut her off twice. It was 5:30 and the streets were dark. She let the engine idle, warmed her fingers in front of the heater vents, and then locked up the Volvo. Tall cottonwoods ribbed the sky, and the gravel beneath her feet was crusted with ice. The two-story adobe building looked frayed around the edges. Frost gleamed from the wrought-iron gate that opened into the courtyard. Sylvia walked quickly, moving under two antique lanterns and past an old wagon, a relic of the Santa Fe Trail. She climbed the stairs to her office two at a time, and held her coat tight at the throat. The open hallway felt more frigid than the air directly outside. She heard faint laughter from the courtyard below, then nothing.
She was still thinking about the disturbing meeting with Belle Nash.
Sylvia reached her office and slid her key into the lock just as she heard a faint whisper. She turned back to the hall and found herself staring at Lucas Watson.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SYLVIA TURNED TO run, but he caught her by the arm and forced her backward. She fell and slid along the floor of the hall. Her head struck the porcelain drinking fountain. There was no pain, but she couldn't get her muscles to move, to propel her body out of his range. He stood over her, scowling down through a shadowy haze. She wanted to tell him she'd known all along that he'd come back for her. A rush of nausea sickened her and she choked on vomit. Her muscles jerked into motion, she scooted forward to gain traction so she could stand. She was halfway up when she felt a sharp pain in her thigh. He kicked her again before she twisted and grabbed for his ankle. The impact of her body forced him sideways and he stumbled, cursing.