Pink Balloons and Other Deadly Things (Mystery Series - Book One)

by Nancy Tesler

  I am inching across a swaying rope bridge, struggling to make it over a dark chasm to something-—a shimmering opalescent bubble on the other side. Clutching the hemp rails, I move, step by driven step, past the halfway mark. My foot slips on the wet wooden slats, catches for a terrifying instant between them. I see the strands begin to fray, drop to my knees, crawl the final distance, and grab the ribbon dangling from the bubble as the bridge crashes into the watery abyss below. And I am lifted high into the air, floating over the water, safe at last. I look up—-and in the bubble is Dot’s dead face, and then it is Erica’s, her elongated emerald earrings swaying in the wind, knocking against each other, swaying, knocking, knocking, bursting the bubble...

  KNOCKING. I FORCED MY EYES to open, brought back to the present by loud rapping on the door. I was shaken beyond anything I’d ever experienced in brainwave training, by the strength of my abreaction and the knowledge that, until I faced my fears, I would be haunted by those images for the rest of my life. With a sense of relief, I tore the sensors off, took a couple of minutes to collect myself, and buzzed Vickie in.

  All dolled up in a frilly dress that made her look like the heroine of a gothic romance, she opened the door and peered at me from around the door frame.

  “Hi,” I greeted her, making a gargantuan effort to cover my perturbation. “Come on in.”

  She didn't answer, just stood there posing against the frame fussing with the flowing chiffon scarf at her neck.

  Well, I thought, good sign. She’s in a modeling mode already.

  Looking past her, I saw Ruth-Ann come quietly up the stairs and take a seat in the waiting room.

  What was she doing here? And then I remembered I’d forgotten to call her and tell her we weren’t having Group this morning. I was about to get up, apologize and send her home when Vickie’s expression caught my attention.

  She was staring at me as though I’d suddenly metamorphosed into a creature from another planet.

  Self-consciously, I smoothed my wrinkled blouse, wondering if my face showed the effects of the frightening visualization.

  “Sit down, Vickie,” I said, indicating the recliner. “We’ll talk while I hook you up.”

  “How old’re you?” she asked in her breathy voice.

  “What?”

  “I’ll bet you’re at least thirty-five.”

  Great. Nothing I like better than starting my day with an abreaction followed by a discussion about a subject on which I’m becoming increasingly sensitive.

  “Does my age have anything to do with why it was so important for you to see me today?”

  “No. I just wondered.”

  “Good.” I got up and reached for the prep gel. “Start relaxing and tell me about the interview.”

  “I guess you must've been very pretty when you were young.”

  Okay, so some of us look better with makeup. “Thanks,” I said wryly. “Now we’ve got that out of the way, can we---”

  “I’m a lot sexier, though.”

  I sighed. It was going to be a difficult session. “You want to tell me what this is about?”

  “Why do you use the name Carlin?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your name’s Burnham.”

  I managed a smile. “Carlin's my maiden name. I use it professionally because my degrees were earned when that was still my name.” I indicated the framed diplomas hung behind my desk. “See?”

  Her gaze wandered to the wall. “I only just found out about it.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? I’m the same person.” I switched on the tape recorder. “We still don’t have any air conditioning. I know it’s hot but you have a lot you want to work on, so why don’t we---”

  “I don't think I’ll be staying.”

  “What?”

  “I won’t be staying long,” she repeated without budging from the doorway.

  “You left a message saying you had to prepare for the interview with the Revlon rep.”

  She licked her lips. “That was just to get you here.”

  I blew. I couldn’t help it. I was so uptight and so hot, my professionalism went flying out those useless windows. “Vickie, I’ve had a really difficult week, and I’m not in the mood for games. I came in especially on a holiday. I feel like I’ve been boiled in lava, and you come in here acting like---”

  I stopped as all the saliva in my mouth dried up. Because Vickie’s nervous fidgeting had tugged her scarf loose and as I watched, it fluttered to the carpet like a wounded multicolored bird.

  And I saw it-—the antique gold pocket watch chain circling her delicate neck, its diamond and ruby clasp capturing the light from my lamp, the stones glittering and sparkling at the cleft in her throat like a hideous cluster of blood and tears.

  The next thing I knew I was looking down the barrel of a gun.

  “I’m really sorry,” she whispered. “I like you, I really do, but you’re Dickie’s wife, so I have to send you off in a pink balloon just like the others.”

  A pink balloon. The visualization I’d given her!

  Vickie and Dickie, Dickie and Vickie. The names boomeranged noisily off the walls inside my skull. Dickie was Rich! It wasn’t that Rich had made one bad deal too many. He’d had one affair too many! And I was going to die because of it. Here in this hot hellhole of an office, wearing no makeup and my ratty old pea-green pantsuit, my life was coming to an end!

  “Funny it’s working out this way,” she said pleasantly. “‘Cause, you know, it all went down because of you.”

  Perspiration trickled down my face. Here I was in a real life-threatening situation; time for the adrenaline to start pumping, time for my fight or flight response to kick in! I cast desperately around for a weapon. I thought about the letter opener I keep in my top drawer, but there was no way I could get to it. My eyes lit on the impedance meter. It had weight. If I could just inch my hand toward it while keeping Vickie talking...

  I forced my tongue to unstick from my palate. “What do you mean?” I croaked.

  “You’re the one told me to take charge of my life. You said I could make things happen instead of always letting them happen to me.” She smiled brightly. “So I did.”

  I was afraid I knew the answer, but stalling for time, I asked anyway. “What things?”

  “Remember when we did that exercise where you told me to put all the people who’d ever hurt me in a big pink balloon and send them floating away over the mountains?”

  “It was a guided imagery exercise! You were only supposed to do it figuratively—-you know, in your imagination—-to help you deal with getting them out of your life.”

  “I know, but I thought how much better if I could get rid of them for real.” She giggled. “So I sort of-—you could say, stuck a pin in the balloon.” She made it sound as if she were a naughty girl who had played an innocuous prank.

  My hand crept toward the meter. “You didn’t even know Erica and Dot. How could they have---”

  “Dickie was going to marry Erica. And Dot wanted him. She found the pictures he took of me, and she called me up. She invited me to her apartment, but I went earlier than she said. I surprised her in the bathtub. She wouldn’t give them to me. I had to find them myself.”

  “But why did you have to—-why did you---”

  “She guessed about Erica. She was going to turn me in so she could have Dickie. She had pictures of him all over her walls, you know,” she went on conversationally, “like he was hers. He wasn’t hers, he was mine and I didn’t like her having all those pictures, so I tore them up.”

  “Vickie,” I pleaded, as the Sharpie scrawl flashed, “I’ve never hurt you. I don’t deserve to be sent off in a pink balloon.”

  “I know,” she said, lowering the gun. “This makes me really sad. But Dickie wants you back. Only ‘cause of the children probably, because I’m much younger and prettier than you.”

  “No! He doesn’t--—” I started to protest.

  “I sa
w him go in your house. He wants his children.” The gun came up again, pointing straight at my heart. “But you won’t be lonely for long. ‘Cause after we’re married, I’ll send the children to you.”

  My heart stopped beating. Then cold rage replaced terror. No way was I going to let my children, my beautiful Allie and my sweet Mattie, die at the hands of this psycho!

  My fingers crept the final millimeters and closed over the cold metal box. I glanced up, measuring the distance I’d have to throw it to knock the gun out of Vickie's hand.

  And then I thought of Ruth-Ann. From her chair she could see only Vickie’s back, so I knew she was unaware of what was happening.

  How could I communicate the danger? If I yelled at Vickie to drop the gun, she might shoot me and Ruth-Ann.

  “What kind of car do you drive?” I asked loudly, my voice trembling.

  “A Camry. Why?”

  “One of those Japanese cars,” Sue had said. “A foreign job, black,” from the man with the rock.

  “Because when you threw that rock at my car yesterday, a man saw you, and he described your car. It’s black, isn’t it?”

  The gun wavered.

  “He also got the license plate number,” I went on, “so the police know who you are. They know you killed Erica and Dot.”

  Ruth-Ann was on her feet now. I sent her a silent screaming appeal. Call 911, Ruth-Ann! Get out of here and call 911!

  But my mental telepathy mechanism was on the blink. She didn’t get my message. I saw her reach into her bag and pull something out.

  Oh, please, let it be a gun, I prayed, though I couldn’t picture Ruth-Ann carrying a gun.

  A sly smile played over Vickie’s face. “You’re just saying that to scare me.”

  I continued talking loudly so she wouldn’t hear Ruth-Ann. “Have I ever lied to you?”

  I flinched as the gun bobbled in her hand. “No.”

  “I’m your therapist. You need me. I can make the police understand that you-—you’re-—confused.”

  Wrong approach. I heard the safety catch click off. “I’m not confused!”

  “You’re confused about Rich-—Dickie. He doesn’t want me. He only came over last night to talk about visitation rights because we're getting divorced.”

  Then I saw what Ruth-Ann held in her hand. Her car keys. Car keys? What the hell did she think she was going to do with---

  And then things happened fast. Ruth-Ann’s hand came around in front of Vickie's face, spraying something. I ducked as Vickie screamed, clawing at her eyes. The gun went off, but I seemed to be alive, so I threw the meter with all my might straight at her. And missed! The gun was waving around wildly. I dashed around my desk, grabbed her flailing arm, smashed her hand against the desk, shaking the gun free. I heard it bounce off the wall and saw Ruth-Ann kick it away. Blinded, howling, thrashing violently, Vickie fell to the floor. Her long arms reached out, found my leg, pulled me down on top of her, her graceful body infused with the strength of a wildcat. I felt her teeth sink into my arm, my cry of pain cut short as her legs wrapped around me like a boa constrictor, squeezing the breath out of me. Then Ruth-Ann was pulling them off, and I heard Vickie give a yelp as, from out of my tearing eyes, I saw Ruth-Ann plop her plump little body down on Vickie’s legs, pinning them firmly to the floor.

  As sweet air filled my lungs, a blind hot fury took hold of me. My hands were on Vickie’s throat, and I think I was banging her head on the floor, and then two strong hands were prying my hands loose, and Ted’s arms were lifting me, pinning me to him and I could feel the comforting roughness of his jacket against my face, and his voice was murmuring softly, calmly, “Stop, Carrie! Let her go. Stop. It’s over. You did it. You got her. It’s over.”

  EPILOGUE

  Wednesday June 2

  “I LIKE YOU. I REALLY DO. But you’re Dickie’s wife, so I have to send you off in a pink balloon just like the others...”

  VICKIE’S CHILDISH VOICE invaded the room as I stood by my desk and played and replayed the tape. I couldn’t believe she had taken my innocent suggestion about a harmless way to deal with her destructive feelings and turned it into something deadly.

  I rewound the tape, hit the play button.

  “...you're Dickie's wife, so I have to send you off in a pink balloon just like the others.”

  I sank into my chair, buried my face in my hands. “How could I have missed how sick she is?” I moaned aloud.

  “You want to blame someone, Carrie, blame her father or her psychiatrist. Or better yet, blame your husband.” Ted materialized in the doorway. He walked into the room and hit the stop switch.

  “I should have seen it,” I whispered.

  “No one saw how crazed with jealousy she was. You stopped the slaughter.”

  Strange how just the sound of his voice made me feel better.

  “How’d you know to come?”

  “Your husband finally gave me Vickie Thorenson’s name. She was the girl at Haji’s. He’d been trying to keep her out of it. Embarrassed, I suppose, to have it get out he’d been fooling around with a teenager.”

  Funny how that part of it hadn’t struck me. Vickie would have been celebrating her first birthday the year Rich and I celebrated our wedding.

  “One of my very efficient detectives remembered seeing it on your patient roster,” Ted continued. “Coupled with your messages and a message from Meg about the attack on you and telling me you were alone in your office---” He touched the bandage on my arm. “I thought I'd better move my ass.”

  “Thank God for Ruth-Ann. If she hadn’t shown up and had that pepper gas in her bag...” I shuddered.

  “Pepper spray’s illegal in New York, you know.” Ted’s voice was solemn. “Might have to arrest her.”

  My eyes flew to his face. “Oh, right, just like a cop! I could've been killed!”

  He was laughing. “Just kidding. They changed the law. But I’d’ve been lenient.”

  “Big of you.”

  “Who would’ve thought that shy, ultra-religious little girl would be packing Mace?” he mused.

  I knew why. Ruth-Ann had been raped. “People like us--we have to fight back, she’d said. “Tell them never again.”

  “She told me she loves you. You’d saved her life, and she would’ve done anything for you.”

  “She almost gave her life for me.” It was a sobering thought.

  He reached out and touched my cheek. “You must give a lot of love, to inspire that.”

  “Funny. For so much of the past year and a half, I’ve been filled with a very different emotion,” I said softly. “I hated Erica. You don’t know how often I imagined killing her myself.”

  “The green-eyed monster’s inside all of us. Difference between us and the Vickies of the world is we keep our monsters caged.” His hand rested lightly on my hair. “Let’s get out of here. Feel like some lunch?”

  I rose and gave him a shaky smile. “Okay.”

  “How about dinner Saturday night?”

  We walked to the door, and I flipped off the light, closing the door behind us. “You asking me out on a date?”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “Haji’s?”

  “That’s for people still looking.” He pulled me to him. “I know a terrific little restaurant right here in Piermont—-soft music, dim lights, great food. Kind of place couples go.”

  Something stirred inside me then, a warmth, a letting go, something I hadn't felt in a very, very long time. I tried to identify the emotion, and slowly, it came to me. I think it was what I used to call—-feeling happy.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from

  Nancy Tesler’s next

  Carrie Carlin Mystery

  SHARKS, JELLYFISH

  AND OTHER DEADLY THINGS

  CHRISTMAS USED TO BE my favorite time of the year. Technically, it’s not even my holiday, but I’ve always been a sucker for all that fah-la-la-ing and tinsel and good will toward men stuff. That is until two years ago w
hen my ex, Rich “Casanova” Burnham, chose Christmas Eve to fly the family coop. For the usual--a younger woman. Originality isn’t one of Rich’s strong suits. Neither is timing. Or cherishing unto death. Considering, though, that a couple of his cherished girlfriends ended up under water and subsequently underground, I guess I’m lucky to have fallen out of favor.

  Anyway, since then I’ve had a tough time staving off a sense of impending doom as the holidays approach. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when on this Christmas Eve, the malevolent winds of Christmas-past swept across my horizon.

  The day had started out normally, innocuously. No ominous dreams had shattered my sleep the previous night; no ghostly apparitions hovered on the periphery of my consciousness. I’d roused Allie and Matt at seven and over breakfast shared in their excited chatter about the upcoming ski trip with their father. Then I’d seen them off on the bus for the annual middle-school sight-seeing trip into New York City, which this year included the Christmas Show at Radio City Music Hall. I was feeling upbeat about having made a tough-love decision to cut my favorite patient loose, despite my certainty that her initial reaction would be mild to severe panic. She outdid my expectations.

  “I’ll have a relapse!” she wailed. “I’ll blow up like one of those Macy’s parade balloons.”

  I refused to back down. “Ruth-Ann,” I said unsympathetically, “the whole point of what we’ve been doing is so you can apply the techniques you’ve learned here to your life.”

  The limpid eyes filled. “But I have so much further to go.”

  “Oh, honey, look in the mirror.”

  “Vanity’s against my religion,” she said quite seriously, then giggled through her tears at my rolled eyes. Her mid-calf-length skirt and high-collared navy blue blouse, required attire in her Orthodox Jewish circles, could only partially camouflage the voluptuous form they draped.

  When Ruth-Ann first came to my office, she weighed a hundred and sixty-five pounds. At least fifty of it had settled in one amorphous blob above her waist, resulting in the almost total disappearance of any distinguishable features, such as eyes, nose, and a mouth. Over the past several months I’d watched in awe and delight as a soulful-eyed butterfly emerged from the cocoon. The shedding of all that blubber was accomplished through biofeedback brainwave training, which allowed me to pinpoint the source of her eating disorder. To Ruth-Ann, I’m a miracle worker, a female Moses. It’s a flattering comparison, but I can’t take that much credit.