by Jaye Maiman
Ginny cleared her throat loudly. Standing akimbo, in a tough-girl stance, she asked, “Sis, you want me to come back later?”
K.T. made a poor attempt at a smile and said, “If you don’t mind. We need a little time.” She stretched a palm toward her sister. I moved aside.
“Not at all,” Ginny said. “Lurlene called earlier. Should I tell her it’s okay to come by?”
K.T. glanced at me over her sister’s shoulder. The thought of being trapped in a room with Ginny and K.T.’s best friend made my blood curdle. The image of rabid wolves descending on a lame doe flashed before me.
“Tell her I’ll call tomorrow,” K.T. said quietly. “Now, get some rest. And Gin, thanks for always being there.” They stared at each other so intensely I felt embarrassed. Sibling relationships like theirs scare me. In my family, emotions are like crystal baubles you store on high shelves in curio cabinets, behind firmly latched doors, in rooms rarely frequented. Dare to touch them and they may shatter in your hand. In contrast, the Bellflowers flopped around in their emotions like hogs in good, ripe mud. The intimacy between them unnerved me. I moved away.
“Don’t be too hard on Robin, despite what I said last night,” K.T. murmured in an embarrassed tone she appeared to think I couldn’t hear. “The tango takes two partners, remember? And believe me, sis, I’ve taken my share of missteps.”
Ginny shot me a warning look over her shoulder, then muttered something back to her sister. They hugged tightly and a second later Ginny left the room. Nothing left to distract K.T. and me from each other. My skin sizzled. What now?
“Can you move this pillow?” K.T. asked, squirming into a sitting position.
I took the assignment gladly. Now that we were alone, I felt reluctant to make eye contact with K.T. The room felt unbearably hot. I opened another button on my denim shirt and rolled up my sleeves.
“Sit down, Robin.”
I noticed that she was pointing to the chair and not patting the bed. K.T. wanted to have a serious talk. The urge to run tingled through me.
She cleared her throat, prelude to words I was sure I didn’t want to hear.
“Hon,” I said in a preemptive strike, “maybe this isn’t the time for us to talk—”
K.T. widened her suddenly stony eyes. The warning in them did the trick. I leaned back in the chair, crossed my arms over my chest and braced myself for what was to come.
She puckered her lips, gazing at me with eyes that once again grew moist. After gulping hard, she finally asked, “Are you relieved?” Her skin flushed as the question escaped her lips. “I need to hear the truth. Are you relieved?”
Her words ripped through me like a bull’s horns shredding a matador’s cape. I’d expected her to nail me for not being by her side, for being too involved in my work, for ignoring her, for causing her so much stress and worry. But not this. Was I relieved? My chest tightened abruptly.
I started to utter something, but K.T. waved her index finger at me. “Think first, Robin.”
“K.T., I know what this baby meant—”
“That’s not what I’m asking you. I know you care about me, and I know you hurt for me. But what I want to know is, are you relieved?”
“I don’t understand. What difference would it make?”
A sad smirk flickered over her face. “Sometimes you really are clueless,” she said. “Just answer the question.”
I rubbed my face hard. Was I relieved she’d lost the baby? From the beginning, I’d been a reluctant bystander. I’d fallen in love with K.T. way before she started trying to get pregnant. The relationship derailed before even the option of parenting had had time to surface between us. By the time a second chance at building a life with K.T. came along, the pregnancy was already underway, the terms I’d have to accept in order to have her back in my life. In truth, I hadn’t thought much about the baby, about how it would change our lives, our relationship. We both agreed that K.T. had decided to travel the motherhood road solo. The full extent of my role in her life and eventually in the baby’s life still had not been defined. And I liked it that way. What the hell did I know about parenting? I’d been raised in a house of silent recrimination, resentment and mourning. Taking care of myself had been challenge enough. For me, assuming the care and feeding of a lover was the emotional equivalent of scaling Mount Everest. Add in a child and you might as well ask me to man the first mission to Jupiter.
Our hands met. What did I feel about the miscarriage? I leaned forward, rested my cheek on her belly. It already felt less firm, the rush of blood I’d grown accustomed to feeling there seemed less pronounced. K.T. moved one hand to the back of my head, brushing my hair away from my face in long, slow motions. Over the last three months, I’d watched K.T’s breasts swell and ripen in preparation for the baby. I’d seen the little tadpole embryo appear, ghost-like, on the sonogram, squinted in amazement at the almost imperceptible flicker of a seven-week-old pulse and last month heard for the first time the rhythmic swoosh of the baby’s heartbeat in Dr. Wolf’s office. All the time, I’d thought, this is K.T.’s baby. K.T.’s going to be a mother. K.T.’s carrying new life inside her body.
All at once, I began sobbing, clinging to K.T. as the realization hit me. I was anything but relieved. Somehow, without knowing it, I’d become attached to the pregnancy. Attached to the child K.T. had been carrying. “I’m sorry, K.T.,” I managed to mutter between blowing my nose and sobbing. “I should’ve been there for you. Not just last night.”
“It’s okay, hon.” She reached over, snatched a tissue from the night table and dabbed my nose. “We both made mistakes.” Her smile was small. “Yours were bigger, of course.”
We both jumped at the tap of knuckles on the door. Lunch was being served by a tall woman wearing a name tag that read, Peg Bernstein. The odor of steamed chicken and carrots wafted toward us. K.T. grimaced and waved away the cart. The thick-waisted orderly said, “Don’t worry, you’re not on the list,” and moved around the curtain. “Hello, Mrs. Glazier, you awake enough to take some food?”
K.T. and I stared at the curtain.
“My husband didn’t show again.” The voice was young and hoarse. “Bastard treated me like shit the whole pregnancy, drank himself sick with his friends, and then doesn’t even show up to see how I’m doing.”
“Tough going, hon. Let’s move that tray closer.” The orderly sounded as if she regretted her friendly overture.
“It’s his fault, you know. That’s what the doctor said. All the goddamn crying and stress he caused me did this. Why the fuck else would I miscarry after five months, huh?”
“Can’t answer that one. Take care, now.” Peg Bernstein and her lunch cart rattled by us without a second glance.
A new alarm sounded inside my head. “Do they know why this happened?” I asked in a whisper, suddenly hyper-conscious of our lack of privacy.
She shook her head. “No, not yet.” Her tone was equally muted. “They have to run some tests. Dr. Wolf said most times, when these things happen, it’s nature’s—” There was a sudden intake of breath and then her voice broke. After a moment, she said, “I hate fucking statistics.” K.T.’s hands fluttered to her belly. I caught her fingers in mine and kissed them, fearing she’d been about to stroke her stomach the way she had been all these months. “Maybe there’s something wrong with me,” she said. “After all, I’m thirty-seven. Do you know how fast my fertility is dropping?”
I rubbed her knuckles. “Maybe it’s my fault. I put you through hell these last few days. I never should’ve taken on that investigation. If I hadn’t—”
“You’re not responsible, Robin.”
“How do we know that? You were crazy with worry Monday night because of me.”
“Worry doesn’t cause miscarriages.”
I glanced meaningfully at the curtain. K.T. mouthed the word, “No,” and drew loco-circles by her temples.
My mind replayed the last few days. “Do you think I did something wrong when we mad
e love? Was I, you know—”
“Ah, Robin, this is not helping.” She squeezed my hand. “If we’re looking for something to blame, let’s blame my eggs, or my hormones, or the placement of the placenta. Right now, I just need to know you’re not leaving me.”
“Oh, God, K.T.,” I said, “of course I’m not. This time you’re stuck with me.”
“What a nice threat.” She flashed a half-smile, which collapsed instantly. “I wanted this baby so much.”
“I know.”
“It hurts,” she whispered, as she drew her knees up to her chest. “I can’t believe how much it hurts.”
The time for words had gone. I crawled into bed beside her and rocked her until we both fell asleep.
Around four o’clock, they came to take K.T. into surgery. I could feel my chest tighten as I watched them wheel her into the elevator. Just before the doors closed, she fingered the sign language motion for “I love you.” Strange how some moments crystallize in your memory, sparking through you like a lightning bolt, striking the darkest corners of your heart and mind whenever you dare to approach them. At that instant, I knew that I’d never loved anyone the way I love K.T., that I’d never felt as much fear and vulnerability. An inexplicable fury erupted in my gut, boiled through me like lava, made my skin flush, my belly knot.
I strode back into K.T.’s room, exited, returned. I stared at her empty bed for what seemed like hours, then I beat the pillows with my fists, tucked in the sheets with abrupt karate chops, folded the blanket into a tight, tight square. Clearly, nurse-maid puttering would not quiet the odd tingling in my scalp. Something had disturbed me deeply, something I couldn’t yet name. My mind kept skipping back to Thomas Ryan, the guilt and shame he must’ve felt when his drinking and carousing finally drove Mary out of his life. The anguish he must’ve suffered when the medical examiner flipped back the sheet to display her bloodied, mangled corpse.
Not a random murder, but a murder of passion, of punishment.
Ogou Feray. Ezili.
Click.
I bolted for the phone. Jill answered almost immediately.
“I need you to check something out,” I said.
“How’s K.T.?” Her tone held a reprimand I didn’t deserve.
“She’s in surgery…and, for the record, I am not abandoning her.”
A pause. “Sorry. Go ahead.”
I told her what I’d just realized and went over the phone calls I needed her to make. She didn’t argue. “Do you want me to fill in Ryan?”
“Leave Ryan out of it for now.”
“Understood. How about Sweeney? Ryan said Sweeney would check in with me at least twice a day. I expect his call in the next half-hour.”
I hesitated. With all his incompetence, Sweeney still had an edge on me. His police connections and his first-hand knowledge of the other criminal investigations couldn’t be discounted. “Quid pro quo,” I muttered out loud.
“What?”
“Yeah, tell him what we have. But make sure you find out what he knows first. If he clams up, cut him off. Right now, I think there’s a part of Sweeney that’s more interested in one-upping me than in finding the killer.”
“He sounds like a sweetheart. Can’t wait.” Her sigh was exaggerated. “I have some other info you might find interesting.”
“Go ahead.”
“Tony called up the cop who’d found Galonardi. Clyde Peltier. Guess where he was born?”
Her pronunciation gave away the answer. “New Orleans.”
“Close enough. Saint Peter’s Parish. Back in ’eighty-eight, Clyde was so green you could draw sap from him. That’s a direct quote, by the way. Galonardi was his first homicide. According to Tony, the kid puked the instant he saw her. He didn’t even have time to stop and aim, he did it right there, on the body. Must’ve pissed off the Chief of D’s. Anyway, it turns out Clyde thought of voodoo the instant he saw that jar with the bull’s testicles inside, but the other boys in blue chalked it off. He said one cop told him he’d better clear the swamp out of his brain if he wanted to have a career in N.Y.C. He decided to chomp down on what the vets on the force were feeding him and keep his trap tight…that’s another direct quote. Apparently Clyde Peltier likes his language colorful. Tony seemed to think he was straight up, but a little edgy about revisiting the investigation. Could be he was holding back.” I heard her click away at the keyboard. “That’s it. Tony said to give you his home number so you could follow up.”
I pulled out a pen and scratch paper. “Did Tony ask him about Chamelle?”
Jill read off the digits, then said, “I don’t think so. I got the impression it was a quick call.” She started to add something, then stopped herself. I had a feeling she’d been about to comment on my partner’s health. It was a topic that filled us both with dread. After a moment, she clucked her tongue and asked, “Do you suppose this can explain the gap in the murders? Maybe the killer learned that Clyde had picked up on the voodoo angle and decided he’d pushed his luck a little too far.”
“Two problems with that, Jill.” I lowered my voice as Mrs. Glazier, the other occupant in the room, shuffled into the bathroom. “One, how’d he find out what Clyde suspected when he mentioned it to so few people and it never became part of the official investigation? And two, the suspicions of a pissant rookie hardly seems enough to scare off a brutal serial killer who’d already gotten away with three murders.”
“Maybe you’re right about that, but consider this: Fitzhugh Chamelle has been able to get the inside scoop on every one of these homicides.”
The toilet flushed. I cupped my hand around the mouthpiece. “Have you had any luck in locating him?”
“Yes and no,” Jill said.
The bathroom door squeaked. Mrs. Glazier took one glance at me and said, “Shit…I got better things to worry about than your conversations.” She palmed a pack of cigarettes in her robe, turned on her heel and headed down the hall.
I love New York.
“Fitzhugh Chamelle is a pseudonym,” Jill explained. “That’s why you didn’t find records for him. I asked John to call Dreyer Carr for me, plus a few of his newspaper buddies, and I’ll hand it to that husband of mine, he came through in less than two hours. And to think I married him for his looks.” She chuckled to herself. “Chamelle’s real name is Fitzhugh Crock. John and I discussed the appropriateness of that surname for a news reporter.” She waited for me to add a quip, but I wasn’t in the mood. In a no-nonsense tone, she continued. “Chamelle’s a freelance criminal writer with a pretty solid reputation. He has a regular stint with the Times-Picayune, contributes frequently to the San Francisco Examiner, and has had occasional bylines in most of the major dailies.”
My eyebrows drew together. “John found this out with one call?”
“Two, plus the mining I did online.”
“Any idea how long he’s been connected to the Examiner?”
“No, but John’s friend seemed to imply that Chamelle’s an old-timer. I did get a physical description.”
The sound of a guerney in the hallway made me jump. I said, “Hold on,” and bolted to the door. The occupant of the adjoining room had returned. No sign of K.T., though. I checked my watch and picked up the phone from where I’d tossed it on the bed. “Sorry about that,” I said, suddenly conscious of my racing pulse.
“No problem,” Jill replied. She ran down the description of Chamelle. Point for point, he sounded identical to the man I’d seen tracking K.T. on Monday morning.
“What else do I have?” she mused to herself. “Okay, he’s unmarried. No criminal record, no unusual financial situations. I checked myself. He owns a house in Metairie. I’ve called down there, but so far all I’ve gotten is his machine. You may want to try it yourself.”
I didn’t like the questions uncurling in my head. As Jill read off his phone number, I started to wonder why Sweeney’s contacts on the New Orleans police force hadn’t been able to dig up anything concrete on Chamelle. Unless t
hey had and Sweeney was holding back on me. Maybe he wasn’t as incompetent as I thought. Maybe he just didn’t want me to get too far ahead of him. Fire ignited in my belly. The stakes were too great for such petty ego games, but if Sweeney wanted a fight, I’d give him one.
I told Jill to have Sweeney call me at the hospital, then I hung up and dialed Chamelle. The voice on the answering machine sounded all-American, the practiced, accent-free intonation of a network newscaster. My message was brusque, provocative: “I have some critical information concerning the eggshell murders…your specialty, I assume. It’s time we talk.” I left my name and office number. If Chamelle was on the up and up, his instincts as a reporter would compel him to call as soon as possible. If, on the other hand, he was a homicidal lunatic, my phone message was bound to flush him out. Either way, I’d just raised the ante. The question remained, who’d fold first?
I scrambled toward my briefcase to retrieve my laptop. I didn’t have much time to spare before K.T. would be back. The phone wire was embedded in the base, with the hook-up jammed behind the bed. It took me a few minutes to maneuver, but I finally managed to hook up the laptop’s modem. In a few seconds more, I was ready to surf. Chamelle was a prolific writer. In my first search, I pulled up 272 entries with his name highlighted. Evan Alexander had done an extraordinary job of extracting the newspaper files related to the so-called eggshell murders. But I was more interested in what Chamelle had written years before Mary Ryan’s death. I narrowed the search parameters and watched the little hourglass blink with rising anxiety. If my hunch was wrong, I’d be back at square one.
“No matches” flashed on screen.
I changed the date and waited again. Again the search failed. My stomach juices boiled. One more try, I thought. This time I altered the name and crossed my fingers. An instant later, I got three hits. Fitzhugh Chamelle had begun his writing career under his real name, Crock. The first article I downloaded was a loosely written but insightful story about a series of sexual assaults aimed at “self-proclaimed” feminists. All of the attacks had taken place on university campuses in or near San Francisco. At the end, I found a short biographical note.