Trick of the Mind

by J. S. Chapman

  She made her way upstairs. Her purse was tumbled on the floor next to the dresser. Everything was there: credit cards, cell phone, keys, some cash, her driver’s license, the digital camera. Except for the camera’s empty card slot, Joel had preserved the contents as a reminder of his crazy wife.

  A quick look in a zippered pocket uncovered the digital SD card, the one she had swapped out for the other one Joel removed from the camera. Even then, she had the presence of mind to look ahead and not leave obvious evidence behind, evidence he could steal like a thief in the night and later claim that her memory was faulty at best and deranged at worst.

  The cell phone was dead. She found a spare charger, connected it, and called Joel’s cell. Hearing his voicemail greeting made her skin crawl. It was like hearing the voice of a dead man. She disconnected without leaving a message.

  The grandmother clock chimed nine o’clock.

  She packed a few things, enough to get by, and went downstairs with the expectation of leaving everything behind.

  A breath brushed past her cheek, causing her to look toward the bookcase.

  Photo albums were the kind of keepsakes people grabbed in emergencies. Material things meant nothing in disasters. Memories were all that counted. The intangibles of a life. The proof of existence. She grabbed two of the volumes, leaving the third behind, and set them beside the backpack.

  About to make her exit, she ran her eyes over floors and walls, taking in fixtures and furnishings with a last nostalgic look, the way people do after the moving van has been loaded. Under conditions such as those, the house would have been barren, and therefore unfamiliar, making it easy to go. Leaving the house as it had always been was to abandon all hope. Worse, it was leaving something undone.

  When she first heard the small voice, it echoed like a distant reminder.

  “What?” she answered, and cranked her head toward the source. It had come from upstairs. From the bedroom.

  The clock chimed a quarter past. A car drove by, sweeping leaves over the roadbed. She shivered. And then it came to her what was absent. The skipped heartbeat. The halted breath. The unsaid word.

  The stairs banged with her excitement. The voice spoke to her again, tickling her ear with suggestive words and telling her where to look. Her sights zeroed in on the highboy. Hidden beneath underwear, athletic straps, and socks lay a snapshot of her and Joel when he wore studious black frames and she was ten pounds lighter. Other hiding places relinquished extra memories of redemption, purposely planted like treasures. A vacation in Bermuda. Dinner with her parents. The wedding of friends.

  Joel’s message was clear. His sole guilt was in loving her too much.

  She sat on the floor and scraped fingernails along her scalp, making the short locks stand on end. After everything, she needed something solid to hold in her hand and say, There ... that’s when it began. She had been so sure of finding ... what? Proof of his cunning. Substantiation that it wasn’t in her mind, but in his. Verification that she wasn’t nuts, but he was. Evidence that paranoid schizophrenia was a convenient device to put her out of the picture, unlike the snapshots scattered across her lap.

  One by one, she ripped the photos in two, separating her likeness from his until the fragments lay in a heap of glossy rubbish. Theirs had been a marriage of two lives lived as one, but never united in love, merely locked in a struggle for ascendancy.

  The whispers returned. She listened and stretched out a hesitant hand. In the bottommost drawer lay seasonal clothes—running shorts, sweat suits, sweaters—along with a photograph of their first Christmas in the bungalow. As she urged the four-by-six out, her hand brushed objects taped to the underside of the drawer above. Two items by the feel of it. Kendra fumbled to free them from their hiding place. After slipping the matching rings onto her index finger, she lifted her hand to the window light.

  Two circles of white gold joined by a blinding marquise diamond sparkled in the sunshine.

  Instantly she bounded to her feet and grabbed the phone off the nightstand. The speed dial went straight through to Joel’s office. He answered this time, reciting his name with professional boredom. She had the element of surprise. He reacted as expected, even if seconds later. Muted silence at her end was followed by amplified silence on his. He was taking in the ID popping up on his phone’s LCD display ... and their name as it appeared in the white pages ... Swain, J & K.

  He said a faltering, “Kendra?”

  She cradled the phone with the lightest of clicks.

  Chapter 39

  THE INSTANT THE blonde stepped into the Michigan Avenue mall, she had a destination in mind.

  Her Louis Vuitton coat—black to match her disposition—flattered a classic figure in outstanding shape. To the casual observer, it was clear she worked out daily to maintain the slim waist, shapely legs, and yogic purity. The voluminous hair was expertly coiffed, not a strand out of place. Her armor—applied in equal weights of gold and diamonds—dripped from multiple appendages. Men took notice of women like that, sometimes from the spiked heels up but more often from the neck down. Thousands of dollars went into the Barbie doll perfection, but everything was a sham, bought and paid for with an American Express card.

  The escalator delivered her to the mezzanine level, where she purchased kiosk espresso and meandered among pushcart vendors selling everything from flowers to pierced earrings. The position provided her with an eagle’s-nest view of shoppers entering and exiting from multiple atrium doors. She was meeting someone, most likely a man, though the imminent rendezvous didn’t stop her from admiring other smartly dressed gentlemen.

  The beverage required twenty minutes to drain. Interspersed between sips of ennui, she checked for text messages. Plainly, her date had stood her up. She gave him five more minutes before taking the down escalator and making her way out of the mall.

  She didn’t have far to walk. Synthesized from polish and gloss, the skyscraper on Superior Street stood a short distance from the Magnificent Mile. As she neared the entrance, someone called out her name. “Juliana!”

  A woman dressed in an ankle-length trench coat caught up with her, waving gaily as if the best of friends. Not recognizing her, Juliana aimed a sideways gaze on the punk-rock Gothic creature wearing dark lipstick and white powder, and smoking a cigarette. Her first instinct was to break away, but surmising there was safety in numbers, she faced the stranger and studied her. Except for the shag hairdo and blonde highlights, the woman looked familiar. Once she worked it out, alarm clouded her normally insipid face.

  “Yes, I know,” Kendra said. “You were expecting Joel. Sorry to say, he’s been detained.”

  “His secretary ...”

  “Was me.” After crushing out the cigarette beneath the heel of her boot, she gazed past Mrs. Santana’s round-eyed glare. “I wanted to speak to you. In a place where we couldn’t be overheard. But seeing that mall security had you in their radar ....”

  The widow blanched. “Joel said he’d take care of that.” Wind whipped around them, portending the bone-chilling winter to come. The flaps of Kendra’s coat parted, revealing her pregnancy. Juliana’s eyes became transfixed.

  “He can’t,” Kendra said. “Only I can. And would, for the right price.”

  Juliana’s eyes flashed with attentiveness. Her curiosity was piqued. The incident of the shoplifting arrest—so public and so humiliating—put a target on her back and her mug shots on the internet. Every security camera in every hoity-toity store up and down Michigan Avenue had her MO, down to her predilection for espresso. “What price?”

  “Do you want to talk out here? Or shall we go inside?” Plunging frigid hands into the pockets of her coat, Kendra motioned toward the condominium building.

  The widow shifted her eyesight and considered the odds of being accosted by a madwoman out here on the street or somewhere more private, where it wouldn’t get into the papers or on the local news. She held up her perfectly manicured hands and curled them. “My nails a
re sharp.”

  “So are the heels of your shoes. I carry the scar to prove it.”

  Joined at the hip, the two entered the building, laughing like old friends. The security guard tipped his hat in Mrs. Santana’s direction and threw a welcoming smile toward her companion. When the women stepped onto the private penthouse elevator, cattiness entered with claws.

  Kendra said, “You changed your hair.”

  “Joel encouraged me.”

  “He’s very good at that.”

  On the seventieth floor, Juliana unlocked the door to the penthouse and keyed a series of numbers into the security box. “You’ll want to get the hell out. I just tripped the alarm.”

  “There’s time.”

  “You’re very stubborn.”

  “Clear in my mind. I can leave now, if you prefer.”

  “You have ten minutes.” She led the way inside.

  Palatial, well appointed, and bedecked in Italian marble, Brazilian cherrywood, and English crystal, the condominium represented high living at its most passionless extreme. “Nice,” Kendra said. “It’s definitely you.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “It wasn’t meant as a compliment.”

  A bank of picture windows offered a commanding vista of the city skyline. Comfortable seating was a stride away, but neither woman took advantage of the amenities. Daggers fell between them.

  “Your hair ... it’s not a wig.”

  Kendra ran fingers through the cropped locks and shook out the swirls. “Like it? It’s grown out.”

  “The perfect disguise. The color and everything. You could have been standing in front of me, and I wouldn’t have recognized you.”

  “I was standing in front of you ... when you pocketed those earrings.”

  The half-crescent lines at the corners of her mouth puckered and her right cheek ticced. She extracted the earrings from her coat pocket and flung them at her rival. Kendra stepped aside. The jewelry landed on the coffee table with a tinkle. “You’ll have to recommend your hairdresser.”

  “Joel.” When shock registered on Mrs. Santana’s face, Kendra went on. “He used a carving knife. Crude but effective.”

  “Liar. Joel told me everything. When he was able to talk.”

  Kendra approached the wall of glass. Beyond the reflections of herself and the widow, she recognized the jutting curve demarcating the city limits. Though invisible from this distance, the Queen Anne sat one mile north of that line. Emily would be out in the garden, her back bent over weeds and her sombrero flapping in the gusts.

  “He’s marked for life, as if you care.”

  Kendra wheeled around. “Joel slit his own throat.”

  “Getting the knife away from you.”

  “He put it in my hand and made me an accomplice to his suicide attempt, but I’m not going to argue about it. You would have had to be there to appreciate the melodrama in all its tawdry detail.” She stepped away from the window. The widow backed off by an equal distance. “You’re probably wondering why I wanted to see you. It’s to warn you about Joel. Since he’s your accountant as well as your lawyer, I’m sure he’s been handling all your business affairs. Bills, bank accounts, real estate holdings, stocks, bonds, IRS audits.”

  “My cunt.”

  “You have no idea what your late husband’s estate is worth, do you? You only knew how to marry into it.”

  “Bitch ...”

  “I assume Joel provides you with consolidated financial statements.”

  She smiled. “Every month.”

  “Printed on the firm’s stationery. Everything recapped in an easy-to-read format.”

  “He has my full trust.”

  “It’s the oldest shell game in existence, Mrs. Santana. But don’t blame yourself. Better men ... and women ... have been duped in exactly the same way. Me, for instance.”

  Her complexion became sallow, as if she was about to be sick. Kendra’s words were starting to have an impact.

  “It’s not my place to advise you, but I’m going to anyway. Joel is in some serious financial shit.”

  “He told me about your wacko family.”

  “I have nothing to hide. My mother is a schizophrenic and my brother hanged himself in the family garage. He was eighteen. A freshman in college. Everything ahead of him, including madness.”

  Hammering her heels on the floor, the widow strutted to the front door.

  Kendra held her ground and raised her voice across the distance. “Joel sees my father’s estate as the only legitimate way to get out from under his legal and financial burdens, provided he can put me away for good. It’s taken a long time for me to face the facts. I would have chosen insanity rather than believe him capable of betraying me ... in so many fucking ways.”

  Her deeper meaning wasn’t lost on the widow. She glanced at her watch. “Your time is up, Mrs. Swain.”

  Kendra closed the gap and pitched her voice low. “But until Joel can get his hands on my father’s assets, he’ll continue dipping into yours.”

  The widow sneered. “You think I don’t know. I gave him carte blanche. He has a free hand. With me and my money.”

  “Then he screwed you in the worst way possible, and I’m not speaking of sex.”

  “You’re even sicker than I thought.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I suspect you’re not the first client he’s stolen from. Or the last.”

  “Jesus, you’d do anything to get back at him.”

  “Don’t take my word for it. Get in touch with your bankers, Mrs. Santana. As soon as possible. Today. Call it an educated guess, but he took you for more than a few thousand dollars. That’s why he gave you my credit cards, isn’t it? To pay you back for your generosity. But just between you and me, you’ve been had.”

  The widow lifted her chin. “Your husband professed his undying love to me. Would you like to see the token of that love? No? I’ll show you.”

  She strolled into a back room, tracked down the objectified proof of her lover’s fidelity, and returned, modeling a string of precious gems around her throat. The choker sparkled like fire and ice.

  Kendra said, “His undying love, did you say?”

  Juliana Santana might have been used to the good life. She might have been a social barracuda. She might have had a knack for flattering her newest male companion, enough for him to shower her with rubies and diamonds. But unlike vintage wine, she wasn’t improving with age. Lines already appeared on her alluring face. With each month’s depletion of viable ova, her sex appeal was marching into decline. This was her last chance to live a life of profligacy, to validate her self-worth as a woman, to prove she hadn’t lost her desirability. “Now do you understand?”

  Kendra mumbled a passage remembered from long ago. “Who can find a virtuous woman?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The full verse goes, Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.”

  The widow hadn’t bluffed. On her way out of the building, Kendra passed a phalanx of police rushing past the security guard.

  When her cell phone rang, Kendra was hiking through the heart of the financial district. She answered but didn’t say a word. Audible breathing huffed over the speaker. In the background, hollow footsteps echoed against a concrete floor. At last, she said, “Hello, Joel.”

  “You’re very clever, Kendra.”

  “That’s why you married me. Or was there another reason?”

  A keyless entry system beeped. “I called 9-1-1.”

  “I thought you would have been home and gone by now.”

  A car door opened. “You caught me at an awkward moment.”

  “With your balls exposed?”

  “Jesus.” Leather muffled his voice. The car door slammed, shutting out the reverberations of a public garage. “When did you get such a filthy mouth?”

  “The first time your cock filled it. Do you think the police will find it odd that the burglar has a fetish for women’s ling
erie?”

  The engine roared when he let out the clutch. “No one gives a shit about an escaped mental patient.”

  “How’s your throat? You’ve been favoring the right side, where the knife went in. Isn’t the Percodan working?”

  Quiet filled the connection before he said, “You’ve been watching me.” It was a question as well as a statement of fact.

  “I found the wedding rings.”

  “And you don’t remember putting them there, do you? Poor dear ....”

  “Were you going to pawn them once the marriage was finally over?”

  “It’ll never be over.” His voice embodied silent rage.

  “Or did you intend to give them to your next bride?”

  “You forget ... what God hath joined and all the rest.”

  “Who’s the lucky girl to be? Juliana Santana? Since you already gave her my necklace, matrimony must be on the agenda.”

  The phone went dead again. Eventually he found his voice. “Doctor Silverstein didn’t help you a bit.”

  “She gave me loads of insight.”

  “That you really are sick?”

  “No. That you are.” She powered off the phone and slipped it into her purse. Crossing against the light, she followed a brunette into a popular bistro.

  Familiar with the layout, the brown-haired girl wended her way into the adjoining tavern in back. The lighting was dialed down, inviting dark encounters and shadier deals. She sidestepped several booths placed in shadowed corners and sidled up to the horseshoe bar. Climbing onto a stool, she signaled the bartender. Without consulting a menu, she ordered a Pilsen beer and a turkey wrap. She settled back and used the wait to man-watch.

  She took note of out-of-town businessmen, well-heeled bankers, and corporate CEOs, but eventually focused on three thirty-something guys seated on the other side of the bar. On the make for adventurous women and on the take for anything else that might come along, they were exhibitionists of a different sort than flashers, yet still dangerous. Basking in their imagined stares, she unzipped her jacket, allowing the flaps to emphasize her breasts. Then she crossed her legs, letting the short skirt expose well-defined calves, which they couldn’t see but might very well envision given her come-hither glance. Finally, she thumb-flicked the sharp ends of her sculpted fingernails, a metaphor for sex.