by Woods, T E
“Dr. Corriger?” A female voice called from the reception area. “Hello?”
Lydia pushed away from her desk and crossed her office.
Savannah Samuels smiled and looked past Lydia’s shoulder. “Are you with someone? I know I don’t have an appointment.”
Lydia surveyed her unexpected visitor. Savannah’s jet black hair was shorter. She wore chinos and a soft grey flannel shirt. Suede moccasins. Far more comfortable than the picture of calculated chic she presented last time, but still the kind of beauty who inspires poets.
“You nearly missed me. What can I do for you, Savannah?”
The lovely woman fixed Lydia with pleading eyes. “You remember me. That’s nice.” Savannah hunched her shoulders and clenched her flawless face in supplication. “Could you maybe see me? Now, I mean?”
Lydia looked at her wristwatch.
“I know it’s late. Please. I’ll pay extra.”
Lydia raised her right eyebrow.
“That’s right. I forgot. I’m sorry.” Savannah offered a weak smile. “I’ll pay your published fee and not a penny more.”
Lydia glanced at her watch, remembered the traffic, and ushered her in. She settled into a chair and watched Savannah mill about her office, looking at framed diplomas before moving on to inspect titles on her shelf. She ran her finger across a row of books. “You can tell a lot about a person by how they decorate,” she said.
“It’s been, what?” Lydia scanned her memory bank. “Six weeks? Maybe seven? What brings you back?”
“For instance, you don’t have any photographs. Not on your shelves. Not on your walls.”
“Savannah, you didn’t come here to critique my decorating. Tell me what’s going on.” Lydia reached for her notebook but recalled Savannah’s request for no session notes.
“No photo of you shaking hands with an academic legend. No pictures of a smiling hubby or kids. Not even a dog.” Savannah’s blue eyes teased. “How very un-trophy of you, Dr. Corriger.”
“Savannah, you may talk about lots of things but you may not waste my time.” Lydia’s tone was gentle but unyielding.
“Not even one picture from the past?” Savannah whispered. “A childhood friend? Maybe someone special?”
“Have a seat, please.”
Savannah stood still. Lydia watched her in silence. Finally, she sat down, rigid and straight-backed, across from her therapist.
“Where should we start?” Savannah placed her canvas tote next to her feet and put her hands on clenched knees. Her right leg bobbed. A manic metronome beating the tempo of unrestrained anxiety.
“You’re afraid of something. Do you know what it is?” Lydia snuggled further down into her overstuffed chair. Model the opposite pose of a nervous patient, she reminded herself. Calm and steady.
Tears filled Savannah’s eyes. She reached for the tissue box on the table between the two women. “Of course I know. Did you think I’d be blissfully ignorant of my demons?”
“Demons, are they?” Lydia focused on her patient. “Tell me about them.”
Savannah wiped her eyes and pulled herself taller.
“You told me at our last visit you already trusted me.” Lydia let a few more moments pass in silence. “Does that still hold?” Voice steady and non-judgmental.
Savannah whispered. “It does. Thanks for seeing me. I know it’s late.”
“Then let’s make this time productive.” Lydia needed to press. Keep her patient focused. “I believe you were worried about something in you being broken. Am I right?”
Savannah was silent for several long moments. “I hurt people, Dr. Corriger. It didn’t used to bother me. Now it does.” Savannah reached for another tissue and held it in her clenched right hand.
“How do you hurt people?” Keep the probing neutral and focused. Use the patient’s own words. Build intimacy by creating the illusion they’re talking to themselves.
Savannah blinked a tear away and stared into middle space. “Do the details matter?”
“I think they do. There’s lots of ways we can hurt people,” Lydia said. “Intentional or accidental. Emotional. Physical. Sexual. Financial. Consistently or at random.” She watched her patient. “What ways do you think you hurt people, Savannah?”
The beautiful woman continued her numb gaze into nothingness. “I’ve hurt people every way you can conceive. Let’s leave it at that.”
Lydia recognized self-loathing. Normalizing was the next step, but she needed specifics. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
Savannah kept her eyes away from Lydia. “What’s the worst thing you can imagine? Think of that. Assume I’ve done it.”
Time for the challenge. Offer an absurd option. Lead the patient to realize their sins aren’t anywhere near as corrupt as they assume. “I’d say killing someone is as bad as it gets. Raping someone. Torturing someone.”
Savannah’s eyes were a blue Alaskan glacier; cold and unyielding. “Come on, Dr. Corriger. With what you know about me you can do better than that.” She tossed her tissue into the wastebasket a few feet away.
Lydia wondered what Savannah fantasized she knew. “Let’s switch gears. Maybe something less heated. What have you been up to since our last appointment? Seven weeks is a long time.”
Savannah focused her attention on the seam of her trousers. She traced its line with her fingernail. “I’ve been out of town.”
“Work or pleasure?”
Savannah slowly brought her head up. “I thought we were headed for less heated waters, Dr. Corriger.” When Lydia didn’t respond Savannah’s face softened. “I’m sorry. That sounded confrontational.”
“I’m not sure confrontational is the word. Maybe defensive,” Lydia said. “Tell me why such a routine question scares you.”
“It’s not that the question scares me. I’m not used to talking about myself.”
“You said at our last meeting you’d tell me lies but everything would be true. Are you wondering whether to be honest with me? Wondering if I’ve earned your confidence enough to be trusted with a minor detail like where you’ve been?”
Savannah smiled. “You remembered that? You’re really good.”
“Good enough to know you’re dodging the question. Let’s try again. What took you travelling for seven weeks?”
Savannah’s smile disappeared. Lydia could almost hear the decision process her beautiful and terrified patient was calculating. “Business,” she finally answered. “You could say it was a business trip.”
“Ah. Where did you go?”
A shorter hesitation this time. “Out of the country. Someplace warm. I needed a break.”
Lydia decided not to press for destination details. “What is it you do for a living? I don’t believe you ever mentioned it.”
Savannah concentrated on the tissue she was shredding. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try me.” Vague encouragement. No pressure. Keep the patient undefended and talking.
“You could call me a freelancer and be accurate enough.” Savannah gathered the shreds of paper and wadded them into a ball. She glanced to the wastebasket, leaned back, and scored another two-point toss.
“What type?”
“Whatever needs doing.” Savannah’s voice had a clipped air of finality. She reached for her tote and stood. “Thanks for taking the time to see me. You’ve saved me again.” She pulled two hundred dollar bills from her hip pocket. “I looked up your webpage. I take it this is a follow-up session?”
“I’d code it as that,” Lydia answered as she stood. “But follow-up’s are typically forty-five minutes. We’ve barely taken half that time.”
Savannah placed the bills on the coffee table. “I’m well aware I’m cutting the session short. You should be paid for your services. I know I expect to be.” She pulled her tote over her shoulder and headed for the office door.
“Would you like another appointment? We could schedule something for next week.”
&nbs
p; Savannah pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and stared at her moccasins. “I’d like that very much, Dr. Corriger. I’ll try to last longer.” Her voice was choked with tears. “Maybe next Wednesday?”
Lydia scanned her calendar. “Looks like I’m open at nine o’clock and again at six.”
“Can we say six? Last appointment of the day?”
“Six o’clock it is.” Lydia wrote her in. “And yes, it will be my last for the day. Are you okay to drive home?”
Savannah nodded her lovely head. “I’m much tougher than I look.”
Lydia arrived home just before seven. She poured herself the single glass of merlot she allowed herself every other day and walked out to her deck. She took a sip before tossing corn cobs to the squirrels and re-filling the bird feeders. Dusk was well underway. She felt a small stab of melancholy for the shortening days. She spent too much time in darkness. Lydia settled into a lawn chair and took in the mountains, the islands, and the water. She listened to the screech of the hawks and the call of the seagulls. She breathed in the scent of salt and pine until the last bird sounded and the majesty of her perfect world slipped into darkness.
Chapter Nine
Mort Grant tossed the sandpaper to the floor, brushed the sawdust off his hands and reached for the ringing phone.
“Hey, Dad. It’s me. Good time?”
“Good as any.” Mort held the cordless receiver in one hand and cleared a stool of old magazines with another. “I’m down in the shop. Thought I’d get back to those dollhouses I promised the girls. How are they? How are you?”
A soft chuckle came through the line. “They’re fine. They’re six years old, how do you think I’m doing?”
Mort matched his son’s laugh. “Twins. Double the fun.”
“Double the something. Hayden has decided she’s tired of dressing like Hadley and Hadley won’t leave the house if she can’t mirror what Hayden’s wearing. Imagine the hilarity in the morning.” Robbie’s voice softened. “Down in the shop, huh? About time you got back to your hobbies.”
Mort hated the calendar of recovery people expected. Did his son really think that lathes and saws could erase the pain of waking up every morning without Edie?
“How are things out in Denver? You running that paper yet?”
“Not yet, Dad. Crime beat keeps me busy enough. I’m working on a national story, though. That’s always good for the career. It’s why I’m calling. What’s the use of having a homicide detective for a dad if you can’t hit him up for help?”
Mort grimaced to the empty basement. “Homicide? I thought you were doing that white collar shit.”
“I am. I’m working the Gordon Halloway story. You know it?”
“Asshole with the Ponzi scheme? Ended up dead before the trial even started?”
“That’s the one. I’m working the local angle. Colorado investors who lost their shorts to that bozo. But I keep hearing your voice in my head.”
“Yeah? What’s my voice saying? Anything about bringing the girls out for a visit?”
“You’re coming here for Thanksgiving, remember? No. It’s about Halloway. Bastard makes like he’s available to the authorities. Assisting with their investigation. When the heat turns up and it looks like his house of cards is about to collapse, Halloway takes a powder. Winds up in Costa Rica, dead in some sicko sex game.”
“I read the papers, Robbie. Even articles you don’t write.” Mort wanted to get the dollhouses sanded and primed before supper. “What’s this got to do with me?”
“I keep remembering what you’d say every time you were putting a case together. About how there’s no such thing as coincidence. Dad, Halloway was in his mid-fifties. Fit as a fiddle. He was also a control freak. I don’t get him letting some bimbo tie him up.”
“People can get pretty kinky in the bedroom. You don’t wanna know what I’ve seen.”
“No one can find the girl, Dad. She checked in two days after Halloway lands in Costa Rica. Bellman says he’d never seen her before but swore she was a pro. I’ve tried to track her down. None of the locals know her.”
“You thinking she was there for a reason?” Mort forgot about the dollhouses.
“A lot of people lost everything they had investing with that shithead. Some deaths, even. If there was a chance Halloway could escape justice?” Robbie sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s nothing. The feds aren’t looking into it. But something’s nagging at me.”
“Well, if it was a hit you’re up the creek.”
“Why’s that?”
“A hired gun’s a detective’s worse nightmare. Takes our two aces out of the game.”
“What do you mean?” Robbie sounded disappointed.
“No personal connection to the victim and no motive other than a payday. You’ll never find the shooter, Son. If you’re right, you gotta start with who might have a motive to hire him. Or her.”
Robbie sighed. “That’s a cast of thousands, Dad.”
“Then maybe things are exactly as they seem. Maybe the sex killed him and the hooker got scared and bolted. Don’t go looking for trouble. No matter how juicy the story might be.” Mort knew his son would ignore his advice. “Tell Claire I send my love and kiss those kids for me.”
“Will do, Dad. I’ll call you next week. Sooner if I come up with anything.”
Mort hung up the phone and picked up a tack rag. He was cleaning the roof of the house meant for Hadley’s dolls when he flashed on a similar design he built for Allie a quarter century earlier. He threw the rag to the floor, climbed the stairs to his empty kitchen, and poured himself three fingers of Scotch.
Chapter Ten
The Fixer parked in the lot of a busy Korean grocery and walked five blocks to a storage facility next to an abandoned railroad line. She dressed as the character the manager knew well, knowing she would be recorded on various cameras standing as false promise of security in the high crime neighborhood. She was Maria Petard, a late-middle-aged woman who’d experienced more hard times than easy. Steel gray streaks shot through shoulder length hair the color of dirty dishwater. Forty pounds overweight. Brown eyes. Elastic waist faux-denim polyester pants and a dirty sweatshirt that urged people to Ask Me About My Grandkids. Navy blue canvas duffle thrown over stooped shoulders.
She entered the grounds and shuffled her worn-out red sneakers across sand and weeds. Walked in the office flashing a weary smile just big enough to reveal one gold incisor to the man behind the desk.
“Hey, Maria.” Rocky was sixty-three but looked a decade older. He bought the rundown storage facility nine years ago with the few bucks left after paying off gambling debts and two ex-wives. Thirty-eight years playing Frankie Valle in a Four Seasons cover band at state fairs, Indian Casinos, school basements, and worse left him with just enough for forty sheet metal garages barely meeting code behind a rusting chain link fence. He met Maria when she came in to empty out the back of a Chevy station wagon held together with bondo and duct tape. Said she’d been evicted by her son-of-a-bitch boyfriend and needed to store her stuff until he calmed down enough to let her explain why she drank his last Budweiser. That was six years ago. “That time again, huh?”
Maria set her bag down and dug into the front pocket of her pants. She pulled out four wrinkled twenties and handed them over. Rocky counted out three dollars and sixteen cents change into her filthy hands. Maria paid month-to-month. Always in cash. Never wanted a receipt. Rocky slipped the four twenties into his pocket and figured what the tax man didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
“Need help with anything?” he asked.
Maria threw the duffle back over her shoulder. “I’m good. Just looking to change out some thing’s all.” She headed toward her unit. “See ya next month, Rock.”
“I’ll be here, Maria.” He watched her walk out before turning back to his racing form, chuckling to himself about the way some people waste their lives.
The Fixer used her keys on unit 29. She maneuvered around b
oxes of books and towels, sidestepped an old mattress standing on end, and made her way to a cheap pine locker nearly hidden beneath stacks of blankets and record albums. She cleared access to the chest and knelt to unzip her bag.
She pulled out the tools of her last job. The passport of Anna Galleta Salada, recently stamped with a tourist visa to Costa Rica. Green contacts. Strawberry blonde wig. She returned them to the chest, closed the lid, and replaced the camouflage of blankets and albums. She made her way around a portable television and stacked laundry baskets to a cardboard jewelry box. She opened it and a two-inch plastic ballerina popped up, twirling in front of a cracked mirror to the strains of “Someday My Prince Will Come”. She shuffled through the contents of the cheap jewelry box, hoping for inspiration for her next character. She found it in less than two minutes. It went into the bag and Maria Petard was ready to leave.
The Fixer never strayed from the rules she set for herself six years ago. No more than one job per country per year. Never less than two months between assignments. Only when it was clear that justice couldn’t or wouldn’t be served would she consider a case. Her jobs rarely raised a coroner’s inquest, and never a police investigation. The Fixer was invisible.
Her new assignment culled a caution call deep within her. Costa Rica was just six weeks ago. The details of Gordon Halloway’s erotic demise and tales of an elusive hooker kept the media circus fueled for days. But the public’s appetite for fresher, fleshier, and bloodier stories from the human coliseum soon demanded another outrage. Gordon’s death was pushed off the front page by the story of a teenaged blonde kidnapped from a New Orleans mall where she’d gone to have her bikini line waxed. When her body was found in a Biloxi trailer park four days later the satisfied masses shook their collective heads in smug sorrow for nearly a week before turning their prurient peering to the tale of a single mother in Madison, Wisconsin who’d drowned her young daughters to save them from the devil’s claws.
It wasn’t the violation of her timeline that concerned The Fixer. It was the location. The prospect wanted to meet at an address less than eighty miles from The Fixer’s home.