Compromising Positions

by Beverly Bird

  It was why he had not tried to sate himself with her. Pure instinct, but strong.

  No, she wouldn’t tell him, he saw now. Especially not if Wendell had allowed the bastard to walk off scot-free. Why? Why in the hell would Wendell have done that?

  What was it John Gunner had said at the wedding? Your uncle screwed her over. And Jesse knew, grimly and with a sick feeling, that the victims always felt that way when something went wrong. They blamed the system, the judge, the lawyer, whoever had been forced to let them down by virtue of their country’s own laws. But Gunner was a cop. He should have known better.

  So there had to be more to it.

  Date rape. He knew firsthand how often it came before the court, and he knew how the victims could be raked over the coals by the defense. He had handled only a few such cases in eight years, because the women nearly always backed off when their own reputations were torn to shreds.

  Angela hadn’t done that. Something moved hard in the area of his heart. She had made it all the way into court. She had dragged her courage around her and had gone to Wendell seeking justice, and for some reason she had been turned away.

  His stomach filled with an oily, hot feeling. “Oh, angel,” he said aloud.

  He wouldn’t call her. He would find her. She would probably be devastated when she saw the paper.

  But first he had to find his uncle.

  Chapter 12

  As a general rule, Angela preferred to have breakfast and read the paper at work. Hers was a business in which a lot of developments occurred at night She had learned over the years that if there was going to be a problem, it would invariably occur first thing in the morning.

  At six-thirty, she finished dressing, choosing a more somber blue today. The skirt was a series of clever patches of gray and indigo with a hint of mauve stitching. She topped it with a short-sleeved indigo sweater. The tension of last night lingered in her head like a bad hangover. She knew in her heart that if anything else happened today, not even a clown suit would help.

  She wrapped a bagel and stuck it into her purse, then grabbed her medical bag and the newspaper on her way out the door. Instinctively, out of habit, she carefully inspected the cabdriver who pulled over for her before she actually got into his car. Once it might have been Charlie, and for some reason those memories seemed fresher than ever now.

  She found the article on his candidacy on the first page of the city section as she thumbed through the paper on the drive to work. Her blood rushed. Her fingers and toes went icy and numb. She wondered wildly if she was going to pass out.

  “Pull over,” she told the driver, her voice a croak. He looked back at her in the mirror. “Pull over!” she shouted.

  She thought she was going to be sick, but she wasn’t. She got out on legs that wobbled and leaned heavily against a mailbox, struggling to breathe evenly. After a few minutes, she felt somewhat less light-headed, but her heart still thrummed.

  He was running against Jesse. Charlie Price was running for district attorney. He was crazy, twisted, abominably cruel, but she was one of the few people in the world who knew that. And he was a Price, and somehow he had passed his bar exam and now he was going to run for elected office.

  She had wondered for fifteen years if something like this would ever happen. Like the Hadleys, many of the Prices were involved in politics. Even while she had been in Virginia, she’d subscribed to the Philadelphia newspapers. Just to know. Just to be sure. Outside of his representing an ACLU case now and again, or attending some social gala, she had rarely seen his name in print.

  Suddenly, now, she understood Jesse’s father’s innuendos last night. She’d been so tense then that they’d scarcely registered.

  “No, no,” she whispered aloud. “This is so wrong.”

  He couldn’t possibly win, she thought frantically. Could he? Against Jesse? No, God, no. The only thing more powerful than a Price was a Hadley.

  Unless someone—unless she—destroyed Jesse’s good name.

  The realization stunned her. She clapped a hand over her mouth, afraid once again that she might be sick.

  “Lady?” the driver called out.

  She couldn’t answer.

  “You want I should just leave you?”

  “I...no. No, I’m coming.”

  Angela returned to the car, shaking. The man drove off again.

  Even now that the truth had occurred to her, it still seemed unbelievable. Then she thought again of all the things Charlie had done to her in the past. The taunts, the games, the cruel manipulation. The terror. The craziness. And his constant, unflagging belief that he could never be caught or punished. He had told her that so many times, laughing at her frustration, at her fear. She had known even then that he was psychotic, though no one believed her. But that was part of the definition of the term, wasn’t it? He was a man who gave a smiling face to society, championing victims’ rights and the constitution, appearing so utterly normal and admirable. Underneath all that, Charlie Price was a monster.

  The cab stopped in front of the morgue. Angela wasn’t aware of it.

  “This was where you wanted, right, lady?”

  She looked dazedly out the window at the building. “Yes.” She pushed money at him and got out.

  The morgue was deserted except for one night watchman. “Hey, Doc,” he called out. “Nothing happening here. We only had three come in last night.”

  “Well, it’s a new moon,” she answered vacantly. And it really was true that loonies came out of the woodwork and wreaked havoc on a full moon.

  Except Charlie Price. He had done it whenever he pleased. No one had believed her then. No one would believe her now.

  “Dr. Byerly? Are you all right?”

  She stopped walking. The night watchman had followed her into her office. Somehow she had come to stand behind her desk without even realizing it.

  “I’m fine,” she managed to reply.

  “You don’t look fine. You know, there’s flu going around.”

  “I know. It’s not that.”

  Lisette’s body. Suddenly, she had an overpowering, inexplicable need to make sure it was still in the refrigerator. She tore past the startled man, into the hall again.

  Anything could have happened last night. Anything. If this was all Charlie’s doing, he was capable of any abomination at all.

  She used both hands and all her weight to haul back on the door to the huge walk-in. She moved frantically among the gurneys, checking name tags. As usual, they had a full house. There were too many bodies and not enough drawers. She found Chauncy, but wasn’t satisfied. She opened the bag to make sure the correct face was inside.

  It was Lisette’s. Angela started to breathe again, then she noticed that there was a note tied around the woman’s neck. Angela swayed.

  She worked it free. Her fingers fumbled and trembled. Her eyes burned with unshed tears of frustration. She took the small piece of paper out into the hallway to read it where the light was better, blinking furiously.

  Keep your mouth shut. Next time it could be you.

  Angela moaned.

  “Doc, you’re really worrying me.”

  She spun around to find the night watchman still following her. “Who was here last night, Leo?”

  “Here? Nobody.”

  “For God’s sake, you just said we had three cases come in!” she cried.

  “Well, yeah. But nobody other than that. I mean, nobody who shouldn’t have been here.”

  “Did you come on at midnight?”

  “Yeah.”

  Think. “Where are the three? Who exactly came in?”

  He pulled open the refrigerator again. “Right there. On the left side.”

  Angela stumbled back into the coldness. She checked all three new bags. There was nothing outlandish or peculiar about any of them.

  “Okay,” she breathed. “Okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “I need the paperwork.”

  “Sure
thing. It’s all on my desk.”

  She followed him woodenly to the back of the building. His desk was sensibly located near the unloading bays. No one used the front door at night.

  Had Charlie come in that way? No, she reasoned. Impossible. That door would have been locked for the night. The alarm would have gone off.

  I will fight back this time, damn you. I will fight until my last breath. I’m not twenty-one anymore. I’m not a kid on a scholarship anymore. And maybe, just maybe, I might have a stand-by-my-side pal in the D.A.

  Angela froze in midstride. That, she realized, was exactly what Charlie was afraid of. It was why things were escalating so suddenly, so wildly. He’d made a big jump from the forged release form to murder. Because that release form had started her and Jesse working together.

  He wanted to discredit Jesse, of course. He was trying to throw a pall of public suspicion over him even if it was never substantiated. But more than anything else, Charlie feared her position now. He was afraid she was going to talk about what he had done to her. That was why he was trying to discredit her. Again. Just like before. So no one would believe her this time, either.

  Except this time, the stakes were obviously higher. This time, he needed to use more subterfuge and he was opening the floodgates to a million horrors.

  She had to find Jesse.

  She forced herself to move again, to collect the paperwork on the incoming cases. She took it all back to her desk and studied it closely. Everything matched what she had seen in the refrigerator. Angela sat back in her chair, shaking. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for. Think it out, she instructed herself again. She picked up the papers once more.

  In order for him to have put that note around Lisette Chauncy’s neck, Charlie had to have been here in the morgue. In order for him to have been here in the morgue, he would have to have dropped off one of these bodies. Which one? Did it matter?

  Yes, she thought, yes. At this point, everything mattered.

  She stood up, feeling stronger, more determined, and went back to Leo’s desk. “Who dropped these people off?” she asked, careful to keep her voice even this time.

  “The cops brought the accident case in. Ed Thackery caught the gang-fight thing. And Nelson Thomas brought in the old lady.”

  Nelson was another of her deputies. Okay. That meant that Charlie had probably been masquerading as one of the cops. That was terrifying. It reminded her that Charlie Price was capable of any audacity.

  Angela groaned and went back to her office. Jesse would believe her. Surely he would. Dear God, he has to. This wouldn’t be like before.

  She sat down again at her desk and found that she was not only praying for someone to help her stop Charlie Price this time. She was praying that Jesse really was the kind of man she was beginning to think he was and that he would stand by her.

  She realized, incredibly, that both prayers were of equal importance. She was going to put her trust in him now. All of it.

  “He’s not in,” Jesse’s secretary said.

  “It’s after nine o’clock!” Angela cried. And this was her third call.

  “I can’t help that,” the woman snapped. “He’s not here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I told you before. I don’t know.”

  “Isn’t he generally in by now?”

  The woman hesitated, and for the first time Angela heard concern in her voice. “Almost always.”

  Something was wrong. She felt it.

  She hung up slowly and wished desperately that she had that slip of paper Jesse had pushed into her sweatpants’ pocket last Sunday. She’d left it at home after putting his number into her speed-dial memory last night. Now she was sure something had happened to him and she had no way of finding out what.

  She picked up the phone again. She called Captain Kennery and could only pray that she was doing the right thing. But if Jesse was hurt, if he was lying injured somewhere, if Charlie had done something truly atrocious...

  If she was right, he had already killed once. He had murdered Lisette. If she was right and he had done something to Jesse, then he was out of control.

  “It’s Dr. Byerly,” she gasped when Kennery picked up. She thought she heard him groan.

  “Now what? A smoking gun?”

  She ignored that. “It’s Jesse Hadley.”

  Kennery paused. “What about him?”

  “I can’t find him,” she blurted, then, after another long moment, she added, “Are you still there?”

  “You want to tell me why that’s so alarming?”

  “Well, he’s...” Suddenly, she felt foolish. “He’s not in his office.”

  “He’s a very busy man. But something tells me you already know that.”

  “He hasn’t been in his office yet today. I don’t think that’s normal.”

  “And you think something’s happened to him.” It wasn’t a question.

  Angela let out a shaky breath. “Yes.”

  “Can you tell me how you’ve come to this conclusion?”

  Angela glanced at the newspaper again and closed her eyes. “I...no. It’s just a hunch.” Jesse might believe her. She did not think Kennery would.

  “Let’s try this. What exactly is it that you’d like me to do?”

  “I don’t know.” She thought frantically. “Can’t you call whatever district he lives in and have the officers check his house.”

  “I can do that,” Kennery said slowly.

  “Please.”

  “All right.”

  “Call me back. Please call me back as soon as you know anything.”

  Kennery grunted something noncommittal and hung up.

  Angela laced her fingers tightly together and waited. It was all she could do.

  It took the better part of an hour for Kennery to call her back. In the meantime, she paced her office. She called Jesse’s secretary three more times until the woman virtually hung up on her. Every once in a while, one of her deputies would peer into her office to watch her worriedly or to ask a question. She managed to give orders and point them all in appropriate directions, but beyond that she couldn’t think.

  Charlie.

  Jesse.

  When her extension rang, she lunged for it. “Dr. Byerly.”

  “It’s Roger Kennery.” The man sounded very, very tired.

  “What happened?” she breathed. “Did you find him?”

  “No.”

  “No?” Oh, dear God. What did that mean? She didn’t even know if it was good or bad. On one hand, it probably meant he wasn’t in any area hospital or involved in a police call. And he definitely wasn’t in her morgue. But where was he?

  She felt panicky, terrified. Not at the thought of fighting Charlie alone. At the thought of being alone again, without Jesse’s smiling eyes, his strength—even his arrogance and the charisma that hadn’t allowed her to push him away. The thought of losing him was suddenly staggering.

  When had she started caring so much?

  “Look, I need you to come over here, to my office, as soon as possible,” Kennery said a little angrily. “Something is obviously going on here, and I’m running out of patience. I want in on it.”

  Her heart stopped thundering and subsided to a dull roar. She began thinking with some coherency again. She shouldn’t have called him, she saw now. She had overreacted. Maybe. Probably. She felt like a fool.

  “No,” she began, “I’m swamped here. I need to—”

  “Dr. Byerly, you’re not hearing me. This isn’t a request. It’s time to start consolidating our forces here.” Kennery spoke as though he was ticking things off on his fingers. “We have a dead woman. We have a hair that was found between her fingers, which no one but you seems to have noticed. A copy of your autopsy report came in this morning, and it mentions this. And what do you know—it’s black. We have a tape of Jesse Hadley’s voice seemingly making a date with Lisette Chauncy. And then you trooped into my office yesterday and dropped a tape-splic
ing machine into my lap. You need a lawyer, Doctor.”

  “I am a lawyer!” she cried inanely.

  “Then I hope to God you know what and what not to say in my presence.” His voice changed, going tired again. “Look, Dr. Byerly, just come over here. Let’s see what we can do to straighten this out. And maybe this time someone can fill me in on what the hell is happening here—up to and including why you felt you had to call me and tell me that Mr. Hadley might be in trouble.”

  “Okay,” she whispered helplessly, “I’m on my way.”

  But when she hung up, she only slid bonelessly off the edge of her desk, where she had been sitting, and dropped into her chair. It was happening again. Charlie was doing it again. Changing things, twisting them, making a mockery of her. Controlling her life, discrediting her.

  Already, Kennery’s respect was merely a formality.

  This time, Charlie wouldn’t be content to simply walk away from a mistake looking blameless, she realized. This time, he would go one step further and see her behind bars.

  It was her worst nightmare come back to life. And she wondered where in the name of God she was going to find the strength to fight it all one more time.

  And then, like the answer to her prayers, Jesse entered her office.

  Chapter 13

  Her first impulse was to run to him. She needed him. She needed to touch him and see for herself that he was really all right. His arms would be protective and strong around her, and he would comfort her and reassure her and make this horror go away.

  But there was something different in his eyes. Angela clenched her fists and kept her distance, feeling sick.

  “Rough morning, huh?” he asked. “Are you okay?” Then he held out his arms to her.

  Angela hurried around her desk. They came together.

  “Easy,” he murmured.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder. She felt his hands at the small of her back. Then one coasted upward, kneading the rock-hard tension out of her shoulders. The other smoothed her hair back. She felt his warm breath at the top of her head. After a while, she stopped shaking.