The Delilah Complex

by MJ Rose

  At the other end of the phone, I heard the detective take a breath. Suddenly, I was picturing his face, close up, the way it had looked the one night we’d spent together, months before. How could a man I had not talked to for months cause my hand—the one holding the phone—to tremble? He was just a police detective from New Orleans. Except he played exquisite jazz on the piano, cooked like a five-star chef, made love like some crazy kind of dream come true, and intuited more about me than I wanted anyone to know.

  “How are you?” Noah asked.

  The sound of his voice reminded me of his fingers stroking my face. Of his arms holding me. How his lips felt. I stopped the deluge of impressions and forced myself to talk. “I’m okay. Overworked.”

  “If you are admitting it, even a little bit, it must be extreme.”

  I laughed. Had we only known each other for a few weeks? Stop thinking, I said to myself silently. Find out what he wants, then get off the phone. “So, how can I help you, Noah?” I asked, cringing. Why when I spoke to him did I always wind up sounding like I was flirting?

  I was impatient for him to state his reason for calling so I could get rid of him as fast as possible. I was instantly exhausted.

  “I was wondering if you have some time to meet up with me. Either at my office, yours, or if you happen to be as hungry as I am, for dinner.”

  “I meant to call you back,” I blurted out, not realizing it was a non sequitur.

  “No, you didn’t,” he said.

  I couldn’t argue and so I said nothing.

  “Morgan?”

  “Yes?”

  “Where are you? Let’s grab some dinner.”

  I’d stopped walking and was leaning against the red stone wall of St. James Church. The night sky had turned from electric cobalt-blue to a blue-black velvet, and I had the feeling that if Noah kept talking, I’d keep standing there until stars came out and not even notice that any time had passed.

  “I’m here.” No, that didn’t make sense. “I’m on the street, actually, Seventy-first. I just left the office.” Not good, I thought. I didn’t sound like I was in control.

  “So, where can you meet me? I need to talk to you. I need to ask you in what way you are involved with Timothy Wheaton’s death.”

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty minutes later the maître d’ showed me to a round table for two in the back corner of Nicola’s, an Italian restaurant that had been a staple for people who lived on the Upper East Side for the past thirty years. I’d had dinner there with my father and Krista at least once a month since I was a child. It was a noisy, friendly, unpretentious restaurant decorated with the autographed book jackets, album covers and photographs of their better-known patrons.

  I’d suggested it because it was the least romantic restaurant I could think of in the minute I had on the phone.

  Noah had somehow gotten there first and, equally amazing, considering the size of the crowd waiting at the bar, secured one of the few quiet tables. It occurred to me not to ask him how he’d done it—I didn’t want to appear impressed.

  As I took the last steps to the table, he looked up from a stack of papers he was reading. His eyes locked on mine. And held. It was a look that went right through me the way a blast of heat does on a winter night.

  The waiter pulled out my seat.

  “It’s awfully nice to see you,” Noah said in that slow drawl that made each word sound much more exotic than it was. I could see that he’d ordered a bottle of red wine because a glass, already poured, was waiting for me.

  “You, too.” I could hear how clipped my own voice sounded. As cold as that winter night. He either ignored it or didn’t notice.

  “Have some wine.” He gestured to the glass. “Have some garlic bread.” He held out the basket. “I bet you didn’t eat today. Except for maybe a container of yogurt. Or half a bagel.”

  I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he was right.

  “How’s Dulcie doing? How’s the play?” he asked. “It must be opening soon.”

  I sipped the wine. Then drank again before answering. “It’s opening in January. And she’s working hard. Too hard, as far as I’m concerned, but she loves it. They’re going to Boston in two weeks for a preview.”

  “Is she as nervous about it as you are?”

  I’d met him in June and seen him only a half-dozen times, most of them professionally as he tracked down a serial killer, and yet he knew exactly how I was feeling. I hated that about him.

  Part of my job with my patients was to keep my emotions in check—not to let anyone guess what my reaction was to what they were saying—and I was good enough at it that not even my ex-husband, whom I’d been with for sixteen years, could figure out what was going on behind the unremarkable expressions I kept plastered on my face.

  But Noah knew.

  “She is scared. But excited, too. It’s an enormous role. She’s in all but two scenes. She has three solos and six more numbers that she performs with other members of the cast.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what I want to happen. If she does well I’m afraid she’s going to want to stick with it, and I hate the idea of the theater—or worse, film—eating up her childhood.” I took another sip of the wine, which was so smooth it felt like velvet in my mouth. “And I’m equally afraid that if she doesn’t do well it will hurt her terribly. She’s at such a vulnerable age. Not yet grown up, but not really a little girl anymore.”

  He listened intently, reading my face, my expressions— paying attention to what I was saying and what I wasn’t. That’s what he did. He listened to me. It was how he’d seduced me, by asking me questions no one had ever asked me: about how I felt listening to patients all day long, about what it was like taking in all their pain and confusion and processing it. And for a while, I had luxuriated in his questions. Talked and talked. Frantically. Wildly. Like a butterfly that had been caught in a net for hours and then suddenly let go.

  Afterward, I knew if I ever allowed myself to see him again, I wouldn’t be able to hold back anything, and that was such a disquieting, foreign feeling.

  It was like getting a box of rich, dark chocolate truffles, and rather than putting them away and having one every once in a while, savoring them, I had thrown the whole box away, because I didn’t trust myself to go slowly. And I had not regretted it.

  Or so I thought. Until tonight in Nicola’s.

  We looked like all the other couples around us. Men and women who’d had separate days, coming together at night to go over what had happened to them and figure out how to deal with it.

  Except we weren’t a couple.

  He was a detective in New York’s elite Special Victims Unit who wanted information from me. I was a sex therapist who was not at liberty to discuss anything that transpired in my office.

  What made the conversation even more complicated was that I didn’t even know what I had to keep silent about.

  The waiter arrived and Noah ordered shrimp scampi, a side order of linguini and escarole with garlic and olive oil—all without taking his eyes off me. When my turn came, I ordered veal piccata. As soon we were alone again, Noah opened his briefcase, pulled out a fax and handed it to me without saying anything.

  It was a news story. One and a half pages long. I read the headline.

  Picture of Death

  And then I read the subhead.

  Missing New Yorker Timothy Wheaton Feared Second Victim

  The byline credited Betsy Young—the reporter who had called me earlier that evening.

  I looked up. “What is this?”

  “It’s a story the Times is running tomorrow.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “I’ll explain all that after you read it.”

  Yesterday afternoon, the New York Times received a package that included three photographs of bestselling author Les Wheaton’s son, Timothy Wheaton, senior vice president at the MLM advertising agency. Wheaton, thirty-nine, was reported missing over th
e weekend when Linda Ravitch, his wife, said he failed to come home after a business meeting.

  I reached for the wine. Took a sip. Looked up from the paper, found Noah’s eyes, then continued reading the article, which went on to explain that the police had examined the photographs and were withholding comment at the present time. Wheaton’s body, like Philip Maur’s, had not been found.

  Detective Noah Jordain of New York’s SVU said that the department is investigating the case as a related incident and is currently speaking to several suspects.

  “Is that true? You have suspects?” I asked, interrupting my reading.

  Noah shook his head sadly. His strong jaw was set in defiance. I’d seen him look like that during the worst days of the Magdalene Murders. “We don’t have any idea what’s going on.” He motioned to the paper. The next paragraph caught me by surprise, despite my expectation that it would be there.

  Dr. Morgan Snow, a sex therapist who works at the Butterfield Institute and who was instrumental in solving the recent Magdalene Murders, said that there are signals in photographs the paper has chosen not to run that these might be crimes of a sexual nature. In one, an unseen photographer shot directly between the victim’s legs. There is black-and-blue bruising on the victim’s wrists, ankles and testicles. This, said Dr. Snow, strongly suggests a sexual component to the crimes.

  “Black-and-blue discoloration often indicates S & M. Restraints can heighten both the sense of control and submission in sex play,” said Snow.

  I turned to the next page of the fax. There was no copy. I was staring at a grainy photograph, about three inches square, of the soles of a man’s feet. It was almost identical to the photo of Philip Maur’s feet that had previously appeared in the paper.

  The difference was that instead of the number 1 on each sole, now it was the number 2.

  I put the papers down. Noah reached across the table, took them and put them back in the folder that looked as if it was filled with other photographs, and even in a restaurant with hundreds of food smells wafting in the air, I identified the specific sharp scents of the chemical emulsions used in photography.

  “Now can you understand why I wanted to talk to you? You’re quoted. You’ve talked to the reporter who is covering this story. Why?”

  “She called me.”

  “And you saw her.”

  “No.”

  He didn’t say anything, but his neon-blue eyes flashed at me.

  “What is going on?” I asked him. “Why am I here? Because I talked to a reporter?”

  He took a drink, then broke off a piece of garlic bread and chomped on it. Noah loved food, loved to eat it, to cook it, and to plan on what to have and where to have it. In the brief time I’d known him, he’d once taken the contents of my pathetically unstocked refrigerator and prepared a meal that was as good as anything I’d ever had in a restaurant.

  “I’m going to tell you what we know and after that ask you a few questions. I trust you’ll answer them.” His drawl made each word sound musical, even those that were brutal, ugly or demanding.

  “To the best of my ability.”

  “Okay. In the past two weeks Betsy Young, the reporter you talked to, has received two unmarked packages. The first contained photos of Philip Maur’s body. The second contained photos of Timothy Wheaton’s body. In both cases, the family or friends of the victims contacted us with missing-persons reports a few days before Young received the photos. Everything we have past those missing-persons reports, we’ve gotten from Young. And that stinks.”

  “Why do you think the killer is sending a reporter evidence of his crimes instead of you?”

  Before he could answer, the waiter arrived with our food and Noah stopped talking until all the plates were placed on the table. I could smell the buttery garlic sauce and the scent of the sea.

  Picking up his fork, he speared one of his shrimp but, before he put it in his mouth, stopped to ask, “Aren’t you going to eat? It’s hot, Morgan.” He motioned to my plate.

  I’d been waiting to hear what he was going to tell me about the murders, but I picked up my knife and fork, cut a piece of the veal and put it in my mouth. It was delicious and so tender I barely needed the knife. While I chewed, I watched Noah. The way he ate reminded me suddenly of the way he’d made love to me that one time. He’d devoted himself to the experience. He’d relished it. Remembering it so vividly, I shuddered, and hoped Noah hadn’t noticed.

  “Because the killer wants to make sure, without a doubt, without any possibility, that the news of these killings appears in the newspaper. What do you think?”

  “I think that’s a logical conclusion,” I said, forcing myself to concentrate.

  “How is your veal?”

  “Delicious.”

  “Good. So are the shrimp. Do you want one?” Without waiting for my answer, he speared a pink curl and held it out to me. I tried to take the fork but he didn’t let go of it: he wanted to feed me. I could have resisted but instead pulled the offering off with my teeth. The garlic and butter delighted my tastebuds.

  “Morgan, what other reasons do you think, from a psychological point of view, that the kidnapper could have for sending the shots to Young?”

  “He could have an attitude about the police and could be punishing you. Wanting to embarrass you.”

  He nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Not that comes to me this second. Can I see the photographs you have in that folder? Are all the other shots there?”

  “Not all of them, no.”

  “Can I see what you have?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t answer that but instead asked, “Morgan, what do you know about Timothy Wheaton?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why are you quoted in the article?”

  “I told you. The reporter called me.”

  “Why you? Out of every therapist in New York City, why you?”

  “Because of you.”

  His eyebrows arched.

  “She said she called me because you were handling this case and you’d handled the Magdalene Murders and I’d been involved in them, so it made sense to her to call me on this.”

  “Did you believe her?”

  He was looking at me. Eyes holding mine again. More questions in them than he was asking out loud.

  “I didn’t have any reason not to.”

  While we ate and drank we continued speculating about why else Betsy Young might have called me and why someone would reveal his crimes to the paper instead of to the police. It occurred to me that Noah suspected Betsy Young of committing the crimes, but when I asked him about that, he danced around the question without really answering it directly.

  “I don’t think a woman’s behind this.”

  “Because women traditionally are not serial killers?”

  “Women commit crimes of passion, sure, but cold-blooded, planned-out, multiple killings like this? No, that’s usually men’s work.”

  After we were finished, we both ordered espresso. The waiter was walking away when Noah called him back and added one zabaglione to the order.

  When it arrived, he made me taste it, feeding me the strawberries drenched with the thick, sweet sauce from his spoon. I tried to ignore the intimate way he once again offered me the food. And I tried not to pay attention to the way he was looking at my lips as I took the sugary concoction, or the pressure as he pulled the spoon out of my mouth.

  He would have let anyone taste his dessert, I told myself. It was not an invitation. Not a suggestion of anything.

  Except I knew it was. And that frightened me because Noah was stronger than I was. And his strengths made me realize my own weaknesses. I didn’t want to be reminded of them. Not by him. Or by anyone.

  Twenty-Three

  Out on the street, the wind swirling around us, pushing us toward each other, I dreaded how we were going to say good-night.

  “Is Dulcie home?”

/>   Surprised by Noah’s directness, even though I shouldn’t have been, I shook my head before I could stop myself.

  “So you don’t have to go right home?”

  “No, but I should. I have an early patient.”

  “Too early for you to come to the station and look at the photographs that we asked the Times to withhold?”

  Then his mouth moved, the corners going up, and his eyes twinkled in the light of the street lamp and he smiled. All-knowing and seductive. A laughing smile without any sound. He’d got me. And he knew it. He’d probably done it on purpose. Teased me into thinking he was asking one thing but offering something else entirely. Was he getting me back for not returning his calls last July?

  Torn between wanting very much to see the photographs and being embarrassed, I took a deep breath and inhaled the crisp night air. In it, I smelled something familiar. But what?

  And then I knew, it was Noah’s cologne: rosemary and mint.

  Looking away from him so he couldn’t read what I was thinking or feeling, I told him yes, I’d like to see the pictures.

  It could have been 10:00 a.m. instead of 10:00 p.m. at the station. We walked through the busy lobby and crowded halls, up the stairs, down the hall, around a corner and into the office Noah shared with Mark Perez.

  The room was unexceptional. Institutional, well-used furniture, windows that needed to be washed, scratchedup tables, worn wood floors. But despite the drab anonymity, the room crackled with the detectives’ energy. A row of jade plants and ivy in colorful pots sat on the windowsill—green and healthy looking, though I couldn’t imagine much sun made it through those windows. There was a Mardi Gras mask hanging from the silver lamp on Jordain’s desk.

  But the focus of the office was the south wall. It was covered with photographs, notes, maps and reports: a collage of images and papers, some sections enlarged so much they were just patches of color, mosaics without meaning.