Vultures at Twilight

by Charles Atkins

  ‘How do you know he’s innocent?’

  ‘I know him too well. If that had been going on I would have known.’

  ‘OK, let me play devil’s advocate. I’ve been involved in a lot of child-abuse cases, and the last person to know, or to suspect, is the person closest to the perpetrator. Often the wife or mother . . .’

  I met her dark-eyed gaze. She so reminded me of my oldest, Barbara, a tough-as-nails casting agent, brutally direct and honest. She’d say it was part of the job, I think it went the other way, it was part of her and the job fit like a glove.

  ‘Was this something recent?’ she continued. ‘Or in the past?’

  ‘Past.’

  ‘And now someone’s made an accusation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have they filed a complaint?’

  ‘No, and they won’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ Gently prodding.

  ‘Mattie, I really would like to confide in you, but I haven’t thought this through and it’s not like you’re a disinterested party.’

  ‘Lil, if a crime has been committed, and a child has been hurt, someone needs to know about it. Because the thing about child abuse is if the accusations are true, perpetrators repeat. So you may not be talking about one child, but many.’

  I watched as the waitress returned with our sandwiches. She had been one of Bradley’s patients when she’d been a little girl; they all had. I’m sure she’d played with the toys and read the picture books we had always kept in the kiddies’ corner of the waiting room.

  ‘Tell me about that,’ I said. ‘If someone were molesting children, how do you know? I mean, if you don’t catch someone . . . where’s the evidence? You have the child’s word, but children can lie. And now you have all these people saying they were molested as children, but didn’t remember it for years. Can that really happen?’

  ‘Repressed memories. It’s controversial. A few years back people took repressed memories at face value; now there’s a lot more skepticism. Basically, you need some form of corroborative evidence to make a charge stick.’

  ‘But if something took place fifteen or twenty years ago, that seems hard.’

  ‘Almost impossible, unless evidence was taken, in which case you can run DNA and either confirm or rule out . . . Someone has made an accusation against your husband?’

  I couldn’t look at her. I had been deliberately dropping hints. She had picked them up and made the logical connections. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have they asked for money?’

  ‘No,’ I said, surprised at the question. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just thinking through the options. If they haven’t gone to the police and they haven’t asked for money . . . Do they have a therapist putting them up to it?’

  ‘No.’ I’d gone too far to not tell her the whole thing. Granted we had promised Tolliver to keep the journals to ourselves, but this hit too close and my allegiance to my husband and my family took precedence. ‘The person is dead,’ I said. ‘She was a local girl who killed herself many years back.’

  ‘So who made the accusation?’

  ‘She kept diaries.’

  ‘Who had the diaries?’

  I paused, knowing that I had hit the point of no return.

  She waited out my silence.

  I stabbed my fork into a small hill of coleslaw. What business did I have going through Wendy Conroy’s journals anyway? ‘I’m torn,’ I admitted. ‘I was reading them as a favor, and now . . .’

  ‘I can be discreet, Lil. But if there’s a chance that they have some bearing on these cases, you have to tell me.’

  ‘The diaries are Wendy Conroy’s.’

  She let the name sink in. ‘Philip Conroy’s sister?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why would he have given them to you?’

  ‘He didn’t. It was Tolliver.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Why would Tolliver want you to see them?’

  ‘He said that he couldn’t bear to look at them. Apparently, Philip had read them and become depressed. Tolliver didn’t think he could handle whatever was in them.’

  ‘So that’s what it was,’ she said, coming to some conclusion that I couldn’t follow. ‘I’m going to need to get them, Lil.’

  ‘I figured. Let me talk to Tolliver before you take them.’ I didn’t relish the thought of telling Tolliver that I had broken his confidence. Or worse, I was so frightened of having the journals scrutinized in the light of day. ‘Mattie, there are things in those notebooks that could ruin my husband’s reputation. There’s no way he can defend himself.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said. ‘But things come out in murder investigations that no one wants to see.’

  I pushed my untouched sandwich to the edge of the table. I had no appetite, and there was a weight in my chest that made it hard to breathe. ‘What am I going to tell my daughters?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Not yet. Trust me. I’ll be as careful as I can.’

  I wanted to believe her, to believe that the life I had lived for more than thirty years with Bradley had not been a lie. The room felt warm and close. ‘I need air,’ I said, getting to my feet. My head felt too light. I should have eaten something. The tightness in my chest worsening, like someone pressing in.

  ‘Lil?’ Mattie got up and put her hand on my shoulder. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I muttered, loosening the collar of my dress. My skin felt hot, my tongue thick; I was sweating. ‘It’s so warm.’

  ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  I tried to oblige, but – ‘Oh my’ – like a fist squeezing my ribs. The pain . . . I grabbed on to her but my balance was off and my slippers lost their grip on the waxed linoleum.

  Mattie caught me and eased me to the floor. A crowd gathered.

  ‘Someone dial nine one one,’ Mattie barked, further loosening my dress.

  I stared up into the waitress’ cornflower blue eyes – only, they weren’t hers, they were Wendy’s. And as I lost consciousness, she smiled.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I lay in Cardiac Care, watching the glittery drip of the intravenous. To my left, hidden by a privacy curtain and partial darkness, my roommate snored. Occasionally, her monitor chirped as she shifted, but other than that, it was quiet.

  I desperately wanted to get up, but had been cautioned with all manner of life-threatening complications that if I moved, disaster could follow. My groin throbbed where they had snaked the catheter into my femoral artery up through my aorta and finally into the blood vessels that surrounded my heart.

  ‘You were lucky, Mrs Campbell,’ Dr Green, my doom-and-gloom cardiologist had said as he’d showed me the images of the clogged vessel. ‘It looks like it’s been building up plaque for a while and then it had a spasm.’

  I wondered what Bradley would have said. These advances in medicine were the things that had excited and renewed him. I pictured him beside me, explaining the tiny balloon that had been inflated to clear an opening in the clogged artery. He’d tell me what everything was for; the fluid that dripped into my arm, the glowing red numbers on the monitor above my head.

  An aide in pink floral scrubs appeared in the lit door. She smiled and squeaked in on rubber-soled shoes. ‘Trouble sleeping?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I whispered, not wanting to wake the woman by the window.

  ‘I could have the nurse bring you a pill,’ she offered as she checked the bandage on the inside of my leg, as she and her earlier counterpart had done every half hour since the procedure and the removal of the catheter afterwards.

  ‘No, that’s fine. I’m just thinking.’

  ‘Well, if you need anything,’ she said, rearranging my covers, ‘just ring.’

  I thanked her, and stared up at the darkened ceiling. That I could have died wasn’t my major concern. There were too many other things. Obviously, the conversation with Mattie lay heavy on my mind, or, more accurately, my heart. My doctors would probably disagree, but I think the plaque would h
ave been fine and dandy if I hadn’t been so . . . heartbroken. While I never knew Philip Conroy, other than by sight, I understood why his sister’s journals had depressed him. They’d almost killed me.

  I wondered if Mattie had retrieved them yet. She had stayed with me up until I went into the cardiac catheterization lab. Ada had greeted me in the recovery suite, putting on a good face, but clearly distraught. She’d stayed until they’d kicked her out at the end of visiting hours. She’d argued that she was family, but they’d adamantly refused to let her stay.

  ‘You’re going to be OK, Lil,’ she had told me. ‘The doctor said it was a little one. You’re going to be fine.’

  I wished I could have put her mind at ease. She’d been next to me when my girls had called, first Christina and then Barbara. They’d both insisted on flying out; they’d be here in the morning. And while I loved my daughters, there was something about their coming that made me jumpy. Perhaps it was Christina’s ‘We can talk about things’ that had me worrying. What sort of things needed to be discussed? I’d had a minor heart attack and according to the doctor there was no appreciable damage to the muscle.

  I could imagine my children’s conversation, certain that they would have been discussing things behind my back: ‘What will we do about mother?’

  For God’s sake, I’m only fifty-nine! I don’t want them to see me like this.

  ‘It’s nothing serious,’ I had told them. ‘Really no reason to fly out. I’m fine.’

  To which Barbara had shot back, ‘The nurse said you had a heart attack.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I’d repeated, miffed that she had gone behind my back; wasn’t that a breach of confidentiality?

  ‘I’ll be there in the morning.’

  My concern wasn’t for me alone; I was afraid of what they would find when they came. I looked at the phone and then at the clock; two a.m. Clearly too early to call Ada, but I needed to know the journals were out of my house. I didn’t want my daughters knowing about the murders or the accusation against their father. I wanted them to continue with twice a year visits and once a week phone calls. The status quo was fine, and people were messing with it. I felt the fabric of my existence being shredded. People in Grenville – my town – weren’t supposed to get murdered or accuse my husband of being a pedophile. And you, Lil. I stared at the tiny dots in the ceiling tiles and thought of Ada. You’re in love with your best friend, and you must never let her know. There were too many things happening at once and something had to give; apparently, I was it.

  ‘OK,’ I whispered into the darkened room. ‘Pull yourself together.’ The sound of my voice – strong and clear – like a balm on my worried spirits. ‘You can’t do anything this very minute, but in the morning . . .’ I closed my eyes, nothing to be done, go to sleep. And amidst the drip-drip of my intravenous and the ding-ding of my neighbor’s pump, I drifted.

  I dreamed. It started in a wooded glade. A shaft of light pierced the forest canopy, dappled reflections skittered across a bubbling brook. In the water, my reflection, but there was too much movement and my face lost form. Birdsong surrounded me and I felt a need to follow the stream. It leads somewhere. There’s something you need to see, Lil, follow the water.

  The earth grew soft underfoot. I looked down as my shoes sank into oozing mud. Why did I wear pumps? The slimy wetness ruining the hand-stitched Italian soles. Done is done, I thought, and I followed the stream as it gathered volume and speed.

  Sinking deeper with each step, my ankles slick with the strange mud. I thought about turning back, but thick storm clouds were gathering over the once idyllic glade. And again: there’s something you need to see. Follow the stream.

  The water swelled, and a wind whipped whitecaps. Is this going to town? Where is this? Something so familiar. The road leads you to town. You don’t know where the water goes. I looked around as my feet sank deeper. I wondered if it was quicksand and, with a great sucking noise, I pulled myself out; but lost my shoes.

  A crack of lightening lit the sky. For an instant I saw clearly, and realized that the mud, which covered my legs, was a dark viscous red, like clotted blood.

  I held my breath and counted the seconds, waiting for the thunder. Why am I here? I wanted to be home.

  The stream widened, threatening to break over its banks. In horror, I watched as it rose, its dark surface bubbled. I edged back into the shadowy woods, bare feet on the slick forest floor. Behind me, I heard the heavy fluid as it crested over the bank crushing twig and leaf as it advanced. I tried to outrun it. I plunged into the forest; my eyes struggled against the dark.

  Finally, blocked by brambles, I turned to face the oncoming flood.

  Like a tsunami, the dark fluid crested, and then, as though held by the hand of God, it hung suspended in front of me. As I stared at it, I saw pieces of jewelry floating in its depths, and it smelled like garbage cans left in the sun. ‘You have to go into it, Lil,’ I told myself. ‘You can’t run.’ And I walked into the wall of blood.

  There was a sensation of weightlessness. Am I drowning? But my lungs were full of air and before long I bobbed to the surface. My eyes blinked on to the familiar surroundings of the Pilgrim’s Progress golf course. I wasn’t lost; I was in the eleventh hole water trap. I swam toward the shore and got out. I smoothed down my clothes and smiled at the strollers on the walking path. No one seemed to think it odd that I’d gone fully dressed into the pond, or that I was covered in blood.

  In the distance, Ada was holding a ringing phone. ‘It’s for you,’ she called out. ‘I told them you’d be right there.’

  ‘Pick it up,’ I yelled back, wondering why she hadn’t answered it. The ring grew louder, more insistent.

  I woke. The phone rang again. I pulled myself up by the railing on the side of the bed, the pain in my groin less sharp. My eyes struggled to focus in the darkened room. It must be morning, catching the filtered light as it seeped past my roommate’s privacy curtain. Contorting my wrist back and trying not to upset the intravenous, I picked up.

  ‘Hello?’ I said, and listened to the silence that stretched over the line. ‘Hello?’ I heard the faintest trace of breath. ‘Who is this?’ It must be a wrong number, I thought, and was about to hang up, when a muffled male voice spoke.

  ‘You’re next,’ he said, and it clicked dead.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Mattie Perez stared at a copy of the crumpled page of Wendy Conroy’s journal. Seated behind a battered wood desk in a windowless office Hank had commandeered for her, she now had some idea as to why Tolliver Jacobs had been so cagey. ‘We were having problems,’ he had said, before calling his attorney. This was not what she’d expected.

  She reread Wendy’s poem. Poor Lil, she thought, her earlier conversation with Ada Strauss at the hospital having filled her in on the details.

  ‘Lil’s convinced Wendy was talking about her husband,’ Ada had said.

  ‘Aren’t there other doctors in town?’ Mattie had asked.

  ‘Lil said there weren’t, at least not then. And . . . he was Wendy Conroy’s doctor.’

  ‘Did you know Bradley?’

  ‘Yes, the kind of man who’d drop whatever he was doing to help. A very kind person, and completely ethical. This makes no sense. And I told her that. The girl was clearly out of her mind. If she was talking about Bradley it had to be a fantasy, not something that actually happened.’

  Mattie studied the poem; it had been torn off along its bottom edge. There had been more to it, almost as if someone had gotten to a particularly offensive part and ripped it out. And why was this one on top of the stack and in such poor condition?

  In the next room she heard Kevin Simpson at the copier, going through the other journals, making duplicates and bagging the originals as evidence. At least she had found something he could do without getting in her way. Granted, he had to be reminded to wear gloves and he had no idea how to correctly process and label the evidence. It wasn’t her job to show him, but if the evide
nce got screwed up, it would be her neck on the chopping block. Sergeant Ted MacDonald was already furious with her, screaming at her on the phone – ‘I don’t have these kind of resources! You think this is the only case in Connecticut?’ – when she’d insisted he authorize search teams and dogs to go after the still missing Sal Rinaldo and Pete Jeffries. The final straw, and what she knew she’d end up paying for, was the email she’d sent clearly stating what she needed and copying his immediate supervisor and both the commanders of field and administrative operations. His response – also copied – had been a curt two-line answer finally authorizing a single search team.

  She looked across her desk at the bulletin board she’d assembled. On index cards she had placed the names of the victims and beneath each of these were rows of yellow post-it notes with potential motives and leads.

  Wendy’s poem added a twist, one that might have nothing to do with the murders. Still, the timing of its discovery with Philip’s murder made it too hot. And the torn edge needed explanation. Where was the missing piece? Who took it? Philip? Tolliver?

  Tolliver was hiding things; she could feel it. Ada had said that he had wanted her and Lil to take the journals and read them. But what if he had already looked through them and taken out a bit here and there?

  Nothing added up and she kept coming back to the poem. She stared at a picture of the dead girl, perched on a rock and smiling at the camera. Next to that was the news clipping from the local paper.

  Local Woman Found Dead at Silver Glen Hospital

  The body of Wendy Conroy (28) was discovered early yesterday morning on the grounds of Silver Glen Hospital. The young woman had apparently drowned in an ornamental pond. Miss Conroy had been a resident at Silver Glen, a private psychiatric facility, for five years.

  Doctor Gerard Helmut, the medical director for Silver Glen, stated, ‘This is a great tragedy. Miss Conroy has been a vital member of our community and she will be greatly missed.’ Doctor Helmut offered his condolences to the family and stated that a memorial service would be held at Silver Glen for staff and residents.